MUNICH ― U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Saturday called out China as America's main adversary and warned allies that letting the Chinese firm Huawei build its next-generation, or 5G, network risks their security cooperation and information sharing arrangements with the U.S. "Reliance on Chinese 5G vendors, for example, could render our partners' critical systems vulnerable to disruption, manipulation and espionage," Esper said in a speech at the high-level Munich Security Conference. "It could also jeopardize our communication and intelligence sharing capabilities, and by extension, our alliances." Adopting Huawei's equipment on allies' 5G networks, Esper said, "could inject serious risk into our defense cooperation." It was a tough statement partially at odds with other U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who offered assurances last week that U.S.-U.K. intelligence sharing remained strong despite Britain's decision to include Huawei in some parts of its nascent 5G network. A day earlier, the White House's point person for international telecommunications policy, Robert Blair, told reporters: "There will be no erosion in our overall intelligence sharing."

Deloitte today launched its Middle East inaugural Experience Analytics event in Dubai at Dubai Studio City. Experience Analytics is a globally recognised Deloitte event and has previously taken place in London, Amsterdam and Berlin. The theme is'Me, Myself, and AI' and brings together a combination of technology showcases and practical sessions that explore a number of topics across Analytics and Artificial Intelligence. It is not about people vs. machines but about how human collaboration and decision-making can be enhanced through the use of machines – this has been coined by Deloitte as the "Age of With". "We believe that we are entering an important phase for society in the Age of With, and in order to make a true impact that matters, we understand how important it is to collaborate and leverage our relationships with our alliances and eco-system partners to build the best solutions for our clients. Some of our global alliance partners for the event are Google, SAP, Informatica and Cloudera," said Rajeev Lalwani, Deloitte's Leader for Strategy, Analytics and M&A in the Middle East.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and related technologies are playing an increasingly important role in our society. To this end Leiden University has started a new, university wide initiative to enable collaboration on the use of AI. By building on and expanding the already existing expertise of AI the project intends to advance science and improve the quality of our life. All the disciplines of the University of Leiden are involved: Archeology, Humanities, Social Sciences, Law, Public Administration, Sciences, and also the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC), to collaborate and appoint new staff with joint interests. Leiden University has earmarked dedicated funding for the appointment of full professors, assistant professors, a post-doc and support staff to facilitate the expansion of AI related research at all its departments.

The European Union is backing away from its plan to introduce a temporary ban on facial recognition technology -- instead delegating decisions on the software to its member states. In a previous draft of a paper on AI, the European Commission had proposed introducing a five-year moratorium on the technology. But in a new draft seen by the Financial Times, that suggestion has been dropped. "The early draft floated the idea of a full ban, which is very popular among civil rights campaigners worried about abuse," a person with direct knowledge of the discussions told the FT. "But the security community is against the ban because they think it's a good tool."

When it comes to our health, especially in matters of life and death, the promise of artificial intelligence (AI) to improve outcomes is very intriguing. While there is still much to overcome to achieve AI-dependent health care, most notably data privacy concerns and fears of mismanaged care due to machine error and lack of human oversight, there is sufficient potential that governments, tech companies, and healthcare providers are willing to invest and test out AI-powered tools and solutions. Here are five of the AI advances in healthcare that appear to have the most potential. With an estimated value of $40 billion to healthcare, robots can analyze data from pre-op medical records to guide a surgeon's instrument during surgery, which can lead to a 21% reduction in a patient's hospital stay. Robot-assisted surgery is considered "minimally invasive" so patients won't need to heal from large incisions.

We take it for granted that we're supposed to act ethically and, usually, that seems pretty simple. Don't lie, cheat or steal, don't hurt anybody on purpose and act with good intentions. In some professions, like law or medicine, the issues are somewhat more complex and practitioners are trained to make good decisions. Yet ethics in the more classical sense isn't so much about doing what you know is right, but thinking seriously about what the right thing is. Unlike the classic "ten commandments" type of morality, there are many situations that arise in which determining the right action to take is far from obvious.

The European Patent Office recently turned down an application for a patent that described a food container. This was not because the invention was not novel or useful, but because it was created by artificial intelligence. By law, inventors need to be actual people. This isn't the first invention by AI – machines have produced innovations ranging from scientific papers and books to new materials and music. That said, being creative is clearly one of the most remarkable human traits.

New Zealand Police has recruited an unusual new officer to the force: an AI cop called Ella. Ella is a life-like virtual assistant that uses real-time animation to emulate face-to-face interaction in an empathetic way. Its first day of work will be next Monday, when Ella will be stationed in the lobby of the force's national headquarters in Wellington. Its chief duties there will be welcoming visitors to the building, telling staff that they've arrived, and directing them to collect their passes. It can also talk to visitors about certain issues, such as the force's non-emergency number and police vetting procedures. After three months on the job, Ella's future on the force will be evaluated.

Gen. Qassem Soleimani was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq, the Tehran-backed Lebanese organization Hezbollah urgently met with Iraqi militia leaders, seeking to unite them in the face of a huge void left by their powerful mentor's death, two sources with knowledge of the meetings said. The meetings were meant to coordinate the political efforts of Iraq's often-fractious militias, which lost not only Soleimani but also Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a unifying Iraqi paramilitary commander, in the Jan. 3 attack at Baghdad airport, the sources said. While offering few details, two additional sources in a pro-Iran regional alliance confirmed that Hezbollah, which is sanctioned as a terrorist group by the United States, has stepped in to help fill the void left by Soleimani in guiding the militias. All sources in this article spoke on condition of anonymity to address sensitive political activities rarely addressed in public. Officials with the governments of Iraq and Iran did not respond to requests for comment, nor did a spokesperson for the militia groups.

As the Indian government plans modernisation of railways, the government's plans for the future of technology interactions within railways include internet of things (IoT), big data and artificial intelligence. Speaking at an industry summit in Bhubaneswar, RailTel chairman and managing director Puneet Chawla said the Indian Railways will rely heavily on technology as it focusses on the satisfaction of employees and passengers as well as in train operations to ensure safety, punctuality and line capacity. Chawla said that RailTel was the fifth-largest telecom infrastructure provider in the country and listed examples such as "video walls, WiFi, CCTVs, e-office and computer-based signalling used in railway operations". He said the future of technological engagement with railways could include "IoT platforms, big data and artificial intelligence". The modernisation of Indian railways was part of BJP's 2019 manifesto for Lok Sabha elections.