In a 2016 address to propaganda cadres and state-run media personnel, Chinese President Xi Jinping expressed dreams of instilling a new international media order "wherever the readers are, wherever the viewers are; that is where propaganda reports must extend their tentacles." As Xinhua News, China's largest state-run news agency, equips itself with "Media Brain," an artificial intelligence (AI) newsroom to assist all stages of reporting, these "tentacles" of propaganda may extend faster. Bringing AI to newsrooms can improve accuracy, enhance data analysis, and increase efficiency. According to a video released by Xinhua in January, the AI newsroom will do everything "from finding leads to news gathering, editing, distribution, and, finally, feedback analysis." Last week, Xinhua announced an update to Media Brain called "MAGIC," which will use machine generated content (MGC) for "fast-speed news production" and can automatically generate a news video in as fast as 10 seconds.

China is currently testing unmanned, miniaturized assault boats that could be used by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to attack enemies at sea. Artificial intelligence technology that has traditionally been implemented in aerial drones will be used in the boats. "Once equipped with weapons, unmanned small combat vessels can attack the enemy in large numbers, similar to drones," said Li Jie, a Beijing-based naval expert. The prototypes, which resemble shark fins, were developed in a collaboration between a Guangdong-based tech company and the PLA. China isn't alone in developing unmanned vehicles, as the United States and other Western counties are working on creating "ant swarms" for operations on the ground, "drone swarms" for aerial operations and "shark swarms" for the sea.

I remember when Yves Béhar first showed me the August smart lock. It was years ago, before the product--which replaces the conventional combination of a metal key and mechanical tumbler with an authenticated mobile device and WiFi-connected electronic unit--was announced to the world. The designer dropped by my office at the Time & Life Building in Midtown Manhattan to give me a sneak peek. He demonstrated its utility by using his smartphone to digitally grant me access to his California beach house, right then and there. With a tap of his finger, he revoked it. Today I live a short walk from the Pacific Ocean and could actually take him up on the offer.

BEIJING – China's navy carried out drills in the South China Sea to simulate fending off an aerial attack, state media said on Friday, as China and the United States trade barbs over who is responsible for heightened tensions in the disputed waterways. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed concern during a visit to Beijing on Thursday over China's efforts to militarize the seas. His remarks came after a flurry of U.S. activity in the region, including reports last week that U.S. Air Force B-52 bombers had flown near disputed islands that drew a sharp rebuke from China. China's navy carried out a simulated missile attack in an unspecified area of the South China Sea using three target drones making flyovers of a ship formation at varying heights, the official army newspaper said. The drills were part of efforts by an also unspecified training base to prepare for real-life combat against aerial targets after China's leadership said some training failed to prepare troops effectively, the paper said.

The New York City subway is a miracle, especially at 3 a.m. on a Friday night. But the system is also falling apart, and it's going to cost billions to keep the old trains running: $19 billion, at least according to one estimate from city planners. The time has come to give up on the 19th-century idea of public transportation, and leap for the autonomous future. Right now, fully autonomous cars are rolling around Pittsburgh, the San Francisco Bay area, and parts of Michigan, shuttling people from here to there with minimal manual intervention. Instead of fixing the old trains, let's rip out the tracks and fill the tunnels with fleets of autonomous vehicles running on pavement.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington 1939 TCM Tue. 7 p.m. Mean Streets 1973 Cinemax Sun. 6 a.m. Batman Begins 2005 AMC Sun. Throw Momma From the Train 1987 EPIX Sun. Die Hard 1988 IFC Sun. I Know What You Did Last Summer 1997 Starz Tue. Gone in 60 Seconds 2000 CMT Wed. 8 p.m., Thur. Total Recall 1990 Encore Thur. 2 a.m. A Fish Called Wanda 1988 Encore Thur. 2 p.m., 9 p.m. The World Is Not Enough 1999 EPIX Sat. 4 p.m. Look Who's Talking 1989 OVA Sun. Die Hard With a Vengeance 1995 IFC Thur. Oil-platform workers, including an estranged couple, and a Navy SEAL make a startling deep-sea discovery. A clueless politician falls in love with a waitress whose erratic behavior is caused by a nail stuck in her head. After glimpsing his future, an ambitious politician battles the agents of Fate itself to be with the woman he loves. To help a friend, a suburban baby sitter drives into downtown Chicago with her two charges and a neighbor. Two teenage baby sitters and a group of children spend a wild night ...

Today's leading minds talk AI with host Byron Reese In this episode, Byron and David discuss AI, jobs, and human productivity. Today's leading minds talk AI with host Byron Reese Byron Reese: This is Voices in AI brought to you by GigaOm, I'm Byron Reese. Today our guest is David Barrett. He is both the founder and the CEO of Expensify. He started programming when he was 6 and has been at it as his primary activity ever since, except for a brief hiatus for world travel, some technical writing, a little project management, and then founding and running Expensify. Welcome to the show, David. David Barrett: It's great of you to have me, thank you. Let's talk about artificial intelligence, what do you think it is? How would you define it? I guess I would say that AI is best defined as a feature, not as a technology. It's the experience that the user has and sort of the experience of viewing of something as being intelligent, and how it's actually implemented behind the scenes. I think people spend way too much time and energy on [it], and forget sort of about the experience that the person actually has with it. So you're saying, if you interact with something and it seems intelligent, then that's artificial intelligence? That's sort of the whole basis of the Turing test, I think, is not based upon what is behind the curtain but rather what's experienced in front of the curtain. Okay, let me ask a different question then– and I'm not going to drag you through a bunch of semantics. But what is intelligence, then? I'll start out by saying it's a term that does not have a consensus definition, so it's kind of like you can't be wrong, no matter what you say. Yeah, I think the best one I've heard is something that sort of surprises you.

A few years ago, Quek Siu Rui huddled with the board of his Singapore start-up to consider whether to sell. Quek was only 26 and the US$100 million offer would have made him wealthy beyond his dreams. But he said no: He wanted to keep building the business. Quek's company, an app for selling used goods called Carousell, is now valued at about $500 million, according to a person familiar with the matter. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,'' Quek said in an interview. "We want to build an enduring company." Six-year-old Carousell operates in seven markets including Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia and is one of the region's most popular virtual flea markets. People use it to sell everything from second-hand cars and couches to game consoles and, as of this week, purple wigs. After raising US$85 million in a recent funding round, Carousell plans to build out its existing markets, which also include Indonesia, the Philippines and Taiwan, before expanding to more countries. It's part of a league of classified marketplaces, including Seattle-based OfferUp Inc and Japan's Mercari Inc that are aiming to challenge eBay and Craigslist. "Carousell started in a fresh market with a new product offering that was tailored for Southeast Asia,'' said Vinnie Lauria, founding partner at Singapore-based Golden Gate Ventures, a long-time Carousell backer.

When the 300-foot Maersk Launcher docked in San Diego early Monday morning, it unloaded a cargo of hardened black blobs scooped from the bottom of the sea. The blobs are not rocks, but naturally-occurring metallic nodules that could one day yield metal deposits of cobalt, manganese, and nickel--not to mention scarce rare earth minerals. As worldwide demand rises for electric vehicle batteries and wind turbines, along with next generation technologies and weapon systems, demand for these metals has taken off. And the seabed is a prime target for those mining operations. Of course, it's no small feat to bring these potato-sized nodules from the bottom of the remote Pacific Ocean, and then sail them to a processing plant where the metals can be extracted.

LONDON – For many U.S. allies, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis is the last of the Trump administration's so-called grown-ups in the room. So at Asia's main annual security forum he got a warm reception for his firm defense of the rules-based order the U.S. helped to build after World War II. Increasingly, though, Mattis' reassurance is not enough. The U.S. -- as much as China -- is seen as a threat to that system, undermining the very solutions the retired Marine Corps general offered to counter Beijing's rule breaking in the South China Sea. On Sunday, tiny Singapore, one of the United States' most like-minded partners in the region, drew a direct equivalence between the U.S. and China.