Most fintech companies offer better interfaces for handling money (bank accounts, loans, payments, etc.), but quite a few startups are also offering a solution for a much older need than how to make money. Israel company I Know First, managed by CEO Yaron Golgher, is one of these. The company's main product is an algorithm that provides a forecast for three thousand different investment instruments, including shares, commodities, interest rates, foreign currency, exchange traded funds (ETFs), and global indices. "The algorithm rates all the investment instruments, and singles out investment opportunities in the capital market on a daily basis, according to the pricing anomaly it finds," Golgher says in a "Globes" interview. "Globes": What information do you use?

Google has today awarded €706,000 ($800,000) to the UK's Press Association to develop robot reporters that can crank out 30,000 articles a month for local newspapers and bloggers. The cash injection is part of the advertising goliath's €150m Digital News Initiative, a three-year program that allegedly supports European journalism through technology (or, rather, helps websites get more readers and thus shift more Google ads). Now in its third and final year, the fund will bankroll 107 projects in 27 countries to the tune of €22m ($25m) in 2017. The Press Association project – codenamed RADAR, or Reporters and Data and Robots – will be a collaborative effort with Urbs Media, a UK startup that specializes in automated data journalism. The Press Association is Blighty's equivalent of America's Associated Press – a roving newswire that feeds stories to publications.

Google and Facebook are household names around the world. Ya-Qin Zhang, president of China's leading search business, says Chinese companies can become worldwide Internet powerhouses too. One of the biggest fish in China's market of 730 million Internet users, Baidu is trying to open new revenue streams both domestically and abroad by investing heavily in artificial intelligence. The company employs more than 1,700 AI researchers, including some at a Silicon Valley research center opened in 2014, and was chosen by the Chinese government to run a new national lab intended to make the nation more competitive in machine learning. Zhang even predicts that the self-driving cars Baidu is developing might be in widespread public use before those introduced by U.S. competitors.

In a fascinating new book, the Financial Times's economics expert Tim Harford chooses his favourite inventions that changed our world -- and many of them will surprise you. Just imagine, for a moment, the end of civilisation. Perhaps it was swine flu or nuclear war, or maybe even killer robots. And now imagine that you -- lucky you -- are one of the few survivors. Surrounded by the wreckage of modernity, without access to the lifeblood of modern technology, where do you start again?

These days, you can find capable and confident robots driving, flying, swimming, diving, out in space, and even boring through ice. What we haven't seen a lot of are robots designed to dig underground. There have been a few self-burying robots that use digging to their advantage, but they're not designed for underground locomotion. This is slightly strange, to be honest, considering how many animals make their living by digging tunnels, and also considering how often we humans need to do useful things underground. The European Union is sponsoring a project to make underground robotics happen through the development of a "robotic system that will be able to drill, maneuver, localize, map and navigate in the underground space, and which will be equipped with tools for constructing horizontal and vertical networks of stable bores and pipelines."

A species of cuckoo appears to have learned how to use its beak to mimic the teeth chattering of wild pig-like animals called peccaries in order to ward off predators. The ground cuckoo, found in forests in Central and South America, often follow herds of peccaries to feed on the insects disturbed as they walk through leaf litter. Scientists have spotted that the birds use their beaks to sound like the teeth clacks the peccaries make to scare away large predatory cats. Last week, scientists found that parrots can use sticks to create drumming music in a similar way to humans. Wild palm cockatoos were filmed using sticks and seed pods to create rhythmic sounds as part of a complex mating ritual which also includes screeching, head bobbing and blushing, according to researchers.

For the AI competition, BBVA had more than a hundred entries from 26 different countries. Themes ranged from providing more personalised products and services, better risk management, offering customers greater insights into their transaction, personalised money management systems and real-time AI chatbots. Commenting on the winner, BBVA's Head of Open Talent Marisol Menéndez said: "The judges agreed unanimously on our winner, although it was a hard decision as all ten of our finalists have build exceptional products. "AI really has the potential to be a game-changer for the financial service sector, offering both customers, clients and business huge opportunities to deliver better, faster, more individual, more accurate and more insightful products and services – and that why at BBVA we wanted to run a competition based on this specific issue. "Change was selected because their solutions is really at the heart of what we are trying to do with technology as a bank – to use it to reduce people's stress and support them with their financial decisions making. "Being able to hold the final here at Money 2020 has been fantastic – not only has it given our finalists the chance to meet and share their ideas with potential customers and partners, but we've also help all of them get some valuable exposure for their business.

Scientists are using artificial intelligence (AI) to help predict which embryos will result in IVF success. In a new study, AI was found to be more accurate than embryologists at pinpointing which embryos had the potential to result in the birth of a healthy baby. Experts from Sao Paulo State University in Brazil have teamed up with Boston Place Clinic in London to develop the technology in collaboration with Dr Cristina Hickman, scientific adviser to the British Fertility Society. They believe the inexpensive technique has the potential to transform care for patients and help women achieve pregnancy sooner. During the process, AI was "trained" in what a good embryo looks like from a series of images.

We are extremely thrilled to have won two themes at India's largest Hackathon. Times Group hosted India's largest competition Code Gladiators in June 2017 which also entered Guinness World Records for World's largest Competition event. Apart from the traditional programming contests, this year they had 10 themes in the areas of IoT, Machine Learning, Big Data, Ecommerce, etc. Over 2,00,000 participants joined the contests and the overall finalists were invited for a 20 hour offline hackathon at Sheraton Grand, Bengaluru on 7-8th June 2017. I and my Kaggle Grandmaster friend Sudalai Rajkumar were finalist in the Machine Learning Competition.

Artificial intelligence could soon give doctors a helping hand with predicting which embryos will result in IVF success. An AI system has been'trained' to recognise what a good embryo looks like from a series of images. During testing, it was found to be more accurate than scientists and doctors at pinpointing which embryos had the potential to result in the birth of a healthy baby. During the process, AI was'trained' in what a good embryo looks like from a series of images. AI is able to recognise and quantify 24 image characteristics of embryos that are invisible to the human eye.