In the wake of the George Floyd tragedy and so many other appalling cases like it, there is a growing question if a solution lies with robot police powered by artificial intelligence (AI.) In theory, AI cops could reduce biased and discriminatory practices and improve access to justice. Pop culture is filled with heroes like this such as Robocop and CHAPPiE. However, reality maybe a little stranger than fiction in this case as there are already some robots already in action for law enforcement. Let's start with Robo-Guard, which works in the South Korean prison system.

It's easy to forget about your HVAC system--until it stops working and you find yourself baking in the summer heat or freezing in the winter cold. And the last thing you want to do is put yourself at the mercy of an HVAC repair company on the first searing-hot or icy-cold day of the season. SmartAC.com is launching out of stealth mode today with a sensor-and-machine-learning platform that it says will monitor the health of your entire HVAC system, and warn you of potential breakdowns before they happen. The company says it has enough confidence in its tech that it will offer a customer one year of free service in the event of an unpredicted breakdown. The heart of the system is a suite of three sensors that link to a central hub that connects in turn to your Wi-Fi network.

If you remember being online in the late 1990s, then you recall when playing a video in those pre-YouTube days. Cut to today, and Real, which has been relatively quiet over the last decade, is back with what it says is its latest video viewing innovation: a facial recognition tool that can identity well-known people who appear in a video. This time around, the tool is via an extension for the Chrome browser, and a new updated media player, Real 20/20. The extension is available for Windows and Apple computers, but the player is Windows only. The extension, "StarSearch by Real," identifies celebrities streaming on YouTube and Netflix.

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Beeb, the BBC's voice assistant, has been released to early adopters for testing on Windows computers. The voice assistant, which uses Microsoft technology, is in the beta phase - a period when not all features are present or working properly. Its synthesised digital voice is based on that of a UK voice actor with a northern England accent. And the team behind Beeb have been "working hard" to ensure it can understand other regional accents. When a user downloads the beta version, they will be asked what accent they have - so their voice can be used to train the assistant too. Back in August, we first announced #Beeb, the new voice assistant from the BBC.

Cindy Bethel was 6 when her babysitter's neighbor started molesting her. Worried what else would happen if she told her parents, she confided in her stuffed panda instead. Sometimes she acted out the abuse with Barbie and Ken dolls. A few years later, the same teen neighbor raped her on a woodpile outside his house. She didn't tell anyone about the assault until long after she moved away from her Ohio hometown.

Last year the BBC announced it was working on its own voice assistant, called "Beeb," designed to help customers take advantage of voice assistant technology regardless of their accent. Existing assistants still have issues understanding accents, and nowhere is this truer than Britain, which has a broad range of accents despite its small geographic size. Now, Beeb is going into beta on PC. The early version of the software will be available to UK-based members of Microsoft's Windows Insider program (download the app from the Microsoft Store here). Microsoft is actually playing a pivotal role in the development of Beeb, with its Azure AI services being used by the BBC to build the infrastructure behind the platform.

As technologies like single-cell genomic sequencing, enhanced biomedical imaging, and medical "internet of things" devices proliferate, key discoveries about human health are increasingly found within vast troves of complex life science and health data. But drawing meaningful conclusions from that data is a difficult problem that can involve piecing together different data types and manipulating huge data sets in response to varying scientific inquiries. The problem is as much about computer science as it is about other areas of science. That's where Paradigm4 comes in. The company, founded by Marilyn Matz SM '80 and Turing Award winner and MIT Professor Michael Stonebraker, helps pharmaceutical companies, research institutes, and biotech companies turn data into insights.

As the development of autonomous cars continues, the challenges around how data from those vehicles is managed needs to be addressed, according to Dell Technologies' Florian Baumann. There's a lot of buzz around the development of autonomous cars, from discussions about the software that goes into them to the time it will take to have fully autonomous vehicles on the road. However, an area less commonly discussed in relation to autonomous vehicles is the data involved in autonomous cars. The sheer amount of data storage they require highlights questions around how that data will be safely managed, held and transferred when self-driving cars start appearing on our roads. Florian Baumann is the global CTO for automotive and AI in Dell Technologies.

Banks and insurance firms are planning to increase their artificial intelligence-related investment into technology by 2025, according to research from The Economist Intelligence Unit. The report, commissioned by AI-analytics and search firm ThoughtSpot, surveyed 200 business executives and c-suite leaders at investment banks, retail banks and insurance companies in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. It found that while a large majority (86 per cent) of respondents had a strong degree of confidence in the benefits of AI to shape the future of financial institutions, more than half of respondents said the technology was not yet in use in the business' processes and offerings, with just 15 per cent saying the technology is used extensively across the organisation. However, despite relatively low levels of implementation, the research found that many institutions are beginning to invest in AI over the next five years, with 27 per cent saying it will spur new products and services, a quarter believing it will open up new markets or industries and the same amount saying it is paving the way for innovation in their industry. Looking to the future, 29 per cent of respondents expect between 51 per cent and 75 per cent of their workloads to be supported by AI technologies in five years' time, as processes become increasingly automated.