Alongside the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), IBM announced in March that it would help coordinate an effort to provide hundreds of petaflops of compute to scientists researching the coronavirus. As part of the newly launched COVID-19 High Performance Computing (HPC) Consortium, IBM pledged to assist in evaluating proposals and to provide access to resources for projects that "make the most immediate impact." Much work remains, but some of the Consortium's most prominent members -- among them Microsoft, Intel, and Nvidia -- claim that progress is being made. Powerful computers allow researchers to undertake high volumes of calculations in epidemiology, bioinformatics, and molecular modeling, many of which would take months on traditional computing platforms (or years if done by hand). Moreover, because the computers are available in the cloud, they enable teams to collaborate from anywhere in the world. Insights generated by the experiments can help advance our understanding of key aspects of COVID-19, such as viral-human interaction, viral structure and function, small molecule design, drug repurposing, and patient trajectory and outcomes.

In this episode, we hear from Luca Colasanto, Senior Robotic Scientist at Realtime Robotics, about real-time robot motion planning in dynamic and complex environments with human-robot collaboration. Realtime Robotics focuses on accelerating conventional motion planning through optimization of algorithms and hardware to allow safe use of robotic tools in work areas with humans. Luca spoke to our interviewer Kate about Realtime Robotic's fast motion planning technology, including key aspects, such as perception, algorithms and custom hardware. Luca Colasanto is a Sr. Scientist at Realtime Robotics focusing on AI-based grasping and multi-robot optimization. Luca completed his PhD in Humanoid Robotics at Italian Institute of Technology, focusing on control systems for bipedal walking machines and compliant actuators.

Zoom has said it will give all users of its video calling platform end-to-end encryption, starting with a beta test next month. The company wrote in a blog post that free and paid users will have access to the feature. Recently, Zoom had been criticised for its lack of end-to-end encryption. Zoom then announced it would roll out the feature – but only to people with paying accounts. CEO Eric Yuan had said that the decision was so Zoom could allow law enforcement access to its calls.

Google Chrome has been used to transmit spyware, as 32 million downloads of extensions to the browser carried malicious add-ons according to researchers at Awake Security. The researchers alerted Google, who removed over 70 pieces of software from its official Chrome Web Store. Most of the free extensions purported to warn users about questionable websites or convert files from one format to another. Instead, they siphoned off browsing history and data that provided credentials for access to internal business tools. It is the widest-reaching Chrome store campaign to date, according to Awake Security's chief scientist Gary Colomb.

Apple is about to hold its biggest software event of the year, revealing software updates for every one of its platforms and products. But, this year, the headlines may not be about software at all, but instead a major change in its Macs that could be one of the biggest decisions ever in the history of its laptops and desktops. The event also comes amid questions and frustration from developers and regulators, who argue that the company's App Store has been behaving unfairly. Here is everything that we expect to happen on Monday, when Tim Cook and his colleagues take the stage for the opening keynote of the week. This year, they will be doing so virtually, for the first time ever.

The vibrant evolutionary patterns made by earthquake swarms are incompatible with standard, effectively two-dimensional (2D) models for general fault architecture. We infer that fluids are naturally injected into the fault zone from below and diffuse through strike-parallel channels while triggering earthquakes. A permeability barrier initially limits up-dip swarm migration but ultimately is circumvented. This enables fluid migration within a shallower section of the fault with fundamentally different mechanical properties. Our observations provide high-resolution constraints on the processes by which swarms initiate, grow, and arrest.

When creating a website, it is an essential objective of developers to make it appealing. They undergo a few systems, including drawing idea sketches, building models, and experimenting with the website before pushing it live. These procedures don't occur parenthetically. Developers spend many months on constructing a beautiful and responsive website. Be that as it may, the development in technologies is making things more manageable for them.

Barely a week of the COVID crisis goes by without a government or major health organization launching a chatbot to help in the information and business recovery effort. For the immediate future, bots will play a key role in public health awareness, and at the personal level in health checks and as mental health companions, with health bots estimated to be worth $700 million by 2025. Chatbots got a big lift in IT and business circles during the early weeks of the COVID crisis. They helped provide a worrying public with honest information and answering their questions at volumes that no call centre could manage, launching in days not weeks, and proving that most bots can happily work without AI bells and whistles to deliver key benefits. Now we are, hopefully, past the peak of the virus, the need for bots is maintaining a solid pace.

GlobalData research has found the top artificial intelligence (AI) influencers based on their performance and engagement online. Using research from GlobalData's Influencer platform, Verdict has named ten of the most influential people in artificial intelligence on Twitter during May 2020. Ronald van Loon is a recognised thought leader in technologies including AI, big data, IoT, machine learning, deep learning, 5G, predictive analytics, cloud, edge and data science. He currently serves as principal analyst and CEO of the Intelligent World, an influencer network that connects experts, businesses, and influencers to new audiences, helping them collaborate, create and share diverse content. Loon is of the opinion that AI has progressed at a furious pace over the past few years, and though it has usurped large chunks of the big data, the technology is nowhere near human intelligence.

A machine-learning model shows promise in predicting cancer prognosis and survival by analyzing histopathology slides, according to a new study published June 17 in PLOS ONE by Ellery Wulczyn and David F. Steiner from Google Health, California, and colleagues. Funding: This study was funded by Google LLC. All authors contributed to this work while employed at or performing work at Google. Google did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of each author is articulated in the'author contributions' section.