On October 2019, sitting amidst the audience at the World AI Summit conference held in Amsterdam, I watched with excitement as the Secretary of State (Ministry of Economic Affairs), Mrs Mona Keijzer, took to the stage to announce the recent launch of the AI Coalition in the Netherlands, and consequently the Strategic AI Action Plan that resulted from the work of its 65 parties. Mrs Keijzer seemed quite optimistic in their ability to compete at the global level. This optimism is indeed justified by key ingredients that make it ready for embracing such a leap forward. For instance, the Netherlands is one of the most data-connected countries in the world, according to DHL research, and on top of this, the country has achieved a strong ecosystem of public-private partnerships (PPP), in addition to a leading European position in high quality research. A McKinsey Report on AI in Europe ranked the Netherlands above average when it comes to AI readiness, with top 25% scores for Automation, Digital Readiness and Innovation.

Along with Versace and Jean Paul Gaultier, artificial intelligence and Natural Language Processing will be important accessories on the 62nd Annual Grammys' red carpet. IBM will enhance the red carpet livestream with Grammy Insights with Watson this Sunday at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The team at IBM took over 18 million documents and data sources on this year's Grammy nominees and distilled them down to the most interesting nuggets about each of the artists to create a modern day version of the 90s' "Pop Up Video." When a musician is on the red carpet, that's when the artificial intelligence (AI) will kick in. Grammy Insights with Watson will use Watson Discovery, Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Speech to Text technologies to analyze the red carpet audio and video in real time to identify which artist is on the red carpet and the nature of the interview between the artist and the host.

The UK financial services (FS) industry is facing a number of challenges right now and could be said to be in a state of flux. The seemingly never-ending uncertainty over Brexit has been compounded by continued disruption in the market. New competitors and Big Tech brands are reinventing services and using the latest technology to steal market share away from traditional FS providers. Rising customer expectations are also putting pressure on banks and other FS firms to create simpler, more intuitive, and customised products and experiences. Those that fail to respond to these evolving needs risk losing customers, especially now that it's easier than ever for consumers to switch providers.

CORPORATE BOARDS are besotted with artificial intelligence. Worldwide spending on AI is expected to rise from $38bn this year to $98bn by 2023, estimates IDC, a research firm. So far, though, only one in five companies aware of the technology's potential has incorporated machine learning into its core business. One reason for the slow uptake is the dearth of quality data to teach algorithms to perform useful tasks. The most common form of AI, called "supervised learning", requires feeding software stacks of pre-tagged examples of, say, cat pictures until it can tell a feline image apart by itself.

Way back in May 2011, Eric Schmidt, who was then the executive chairman of Google, said that the rapid development of facial recognition technology had been one of the things that had surprised him most in a long career as a computer scientist. But its "surprising accuracy" was "very concerning". Questioned about this, he said that a database using facial recognition technology was unlikely to be a service that the company would create, but went on to say that "some company … is going to cross that line". As it happens, Dr Schmidt was being economical with the actualité, as the MP Alan Clark used to say. He must surely have known that a few months earlier Facebook had announced that it was using facial recognition in the US to suggest names while tagging photos.

Peter Diamandis is best known as the founder of the XPrize Foundation, which offers big cash prizes as an incentive for tech solutions to big problems. The entrepreneur and investor is also co-founder of the Singularity University, a Silicon Valley-based nonprofit offering education in futurology. His new book, The Future Is Faster Than You Think, argues that the already rapid pace of technological innovation is about to get a whole lot quicker. Do you think people are worried about where technology is going to take us? I can palpably feel how fast things are changing and that the rate of change is accelerating, and I have picked up a growing amount of fear coming from people who don't understand where the world is going.

In this image take from NASA video, astronauts Christina Koch, left, moves away as Jessica Meir, right, exits a hatch as they prepare to install batteries for the International Space Station's solar power grid during a space walk, Monday, Jan. 20. In this image take from NASA video, astronauts Christina Koch, left, moves away as Jessica Meir, right, exits a hatch as they prepare to install batteries for the International Space Station's solar power grid during a space walk, Monday, Jan. 20. Two astronauts aboard the International Space Station began their fourth and final space walk early Saturday to finish a series of repairs aimed at extending the functioning of a cosmic ray detector attached to the spacecraft. The planned six-and-a-half-hour foray outside the space capsule began shortly after 7:00 a.m. ET and was being shown in a live video feed from NASA.

After a school shooting in Parkland, Florida left 17 people dead, RealNetworks decided to make its facial recognition technology available for free to schools across the US and Canada. If school officials could detect strangers on their campuses, they might be able to stop shooters before they got to a classroom. Anxious to keep children safe from gun violence, thousands of schools reached out with interest in the technology. Dozens started using SAFR, RealNetworks' facial recognition technology. From working with schools, RealNetworks, the streaming media company, says it's learned an important lesson: Facial recognition isn't likely an effective tool for preventing shootings.

Automated farming equipment has perhaps never been a hotter topic than right now. Adding fuel to the fire, farm equipment giant John Deere had a big splash at last week's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, NV. Last year was a tough act to follow. In 2019, it exhibited its machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) enabled S-Series combine. This year, Deere brought out the big guns with its R4038 sprayer.

AI and Big Data in Cancer: From Innovation to Impact, a new conference from Elsevier, a global information and analytics business specializing in science and health, will bring together experts from all aspects of cancer research and the digital medicine value chain to understand how to translate artificial intelligence and data-driven innovations into new clinical care practices for patients. These leaders, including 2018 Nobel laureate for Medicine, Dr. James Allison, will share pragmatic insights on finding the right partners to move innovations successfully forward. "It is time to shift our conversation from'what-technology-can-do' to'what-medicine-needs' and to raise awareness of what else is necessary to translate an AI-enabled and data-driven innovation into a marketed product," said Dr. Lynda Chin, Conference Chair, Founder and CEO of Apricity Health and Professor at Dell Medical School at the University of Texas, USA. "Understanding what these hurdles are is the first step to overcoming them. "The aim of this conference is to bring innovators together with stakeholders, from patients, clinicians and developers to regulators, payers and investors, so they can network and identify collaborators who can help them accelerate the translation of their innovation into clinical practices," Dr. Chin said. "Insights from the program's 40 key opinion leaders will advance the emerging digital medicine industry, building bridges from computer to clinics," said Laura Colantoni, Vice President for Reference Content, Elsevier, and one of the main organizers for the conference. "We are particularly excited about establishing this conference as a venue for successful innovators, influential facilitators, regulators and payers, as well as investors to find, engage and collaborate with clinicians, researchers and patients to accelerate progress in this area.