On Monday, Facebook announced a new policy to ban artificial intelligence-generated "deepfakes" as well as videos "edited or synthesized … in ways that aren't apparent to an average person." In theory that sounds like a welcome effort to curb disinformation. But the new policy won't, for example, cover subtly edited videos like last year's slowed down viral Nancy Pelosi clip. And politicians and their ads remain off limits to Facebook's third-party fact checkers. A company spokesman told me Tuesday that if Facebook determines a politician has shared manipulated media in an ad, Facebook will remove it.

LAS VEGAS – At the start of CES week, Intel focused more on a holistic approach to data gathered from new technologies -- along with 5G, artificial intelligence and edge computing -- without going deep into any new vehicle programs. But on Monday, CEO Bob Swan and other executives presented Intel's vision for "innovation through intelligence," which includes the company's approach to transportation. Joined by the executives, Swan outlined computing-enabled intelligence, which pushes Intel's role in automotive, to the media. The chipmaker and technology company has largely claimed its stake in autonomous vehicle technology in recent years. Intel has especially done so through its subsidiary Mobileye, which it acquired in 2017.

With technology evolving at a fast pace, we have come a long way from the basic computers to presently using artificial intelligence in modern human warfare. In the current scenario of the world, it wouldn't be wrong to say that the country with the best technology intelligence and machines will be the strongest during the war. The era hasn't yet reached up till the dystopian future involving robocops, hammer drones or the Terminator. Instead, AI is being used to acquire better insights and make better decisions. Although we definitely cannot disregard the fact that artificial intelligence can be more dangerous than nuclear warheads, as once stated by Elon Musk.

Iranians fired 15 ballistic missiles at U.S.-based forces in Iraq; Benjamin Hall reports from Amman, Jordan. Iranian missile attacks on two joint U.S.-Iraqi military bases Wednesday morning didn't kill or injure any Americans, according to initial reports – and that appears to have been a deliberate move by Iran to avoid a retaliatory strike by U.S. forces. Iran had to strike back at the U.S. in some way after an American drone attack ordered by President Trump killed Iranian terrorist Gen. Qassem Soleimani and other terrorists Friday morning in Iraq. But the leaders of the Iranian regime are smart enough to know that if they had killed Americans in their retaliatory attack, Trump would have responded with deadly force. This could have sparked a rapidly escalating series of strikes and counterstrikes as each side hit back at the other and could have eventually led to a costly war that would have hurt Iran far more than the U.S. Iran called on the U.S. not to retaliate after the Islamic Republic launched as many as 15 ballistic missiles at the bases where U.S. troops were stationed – a clear indication that Iran wants to avoid further military conflict with the far more powerful American forces.

Americans should be on heightened alert for cyberattacks after Iran fired more than a dozen missiles at two military bases in Iraq where U.S. troops are stationed late Tuesday, security researchers say. Iran could target private businesses and government infrastructure to avenge last week's killing of its top military commander as tensions between Tehran and Washington reach one of their highest points since the 1979 Iranian revolution. "I am not predicting it will happen, but if it happens, I won't be surprised," said Steven Bellovin, a computer science professor at Columbia University School of Engineering. A cyber conflict has been silently raging for years. In retaliation for the U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad last week, Iran could target the power and electricity you use, the smart devices you carry or your bank account, security experts say.

Shiller's CAPE ratio is a popular and useful metric for measuring whether stock prices are overvalued or undervalued relative to earnings. Recently, Vanguard analysts Haifeng Wang, Harshdeep Singh Ahluwalia, Roger A. Aliaga-Díaz, and Joseph H. Davis have written a very interesting paper on forecasting equity returns using Shiller's CAPE and machine learning: "The Best of Both Worlds: Forecasting US Equity Market Returns using a Hybrid Machine Learning – Time Series Approach". First, what is the Shiller CAPE ratio? 1 If we do a simple regression of Shiller's CAPE ratio against future 10-year returns, we observe a very strong relationship. Here we see a historical chart of actual 10-year annualized stock returns vs. those predicted by Shiller's CAPE. Using the Shiller regression, the current CAPE of about 30 suggests near-zero real return over the next 10 years.

Shiller's CAPE ratio is a popular and useful metric for measuring whether stock prices are overvalued or undervalued relative to earnings. Recently, Vanguard analysts Haifeng Wang, Harshdeep Singh Ahluwalia, Roger A. Aliaga-Díaz, and Joseph H. Davis have written a very interesting paper on forecasting equity returns using Shiller's CAPE and machine learning: "The Best of Both Worlds: Forecasting US Equity Market Returns using a Hybrid Machine Learning – Time Series Approach". First, what is the Shiller CAPE ratio? 1 If we do a simple regression of Shiller's CAPE ratio against future 10-year returns, we observe a very strong relationship. Here we see a historical chart of actual 10-year annualized stock returns vs. those predicted by Shiller's CAPE. Using the Shiller regression, the current CAPE of about 30 suggests near-zero real return over the next 10 years.

Breast cancer affects way too many of us. In the US, one in eight women will develop it in their lifetimes. But encouraging new research shows that artificial intelligence can help with early detection. An AI system developed by Google Health, Google-owned DeepMind, and several medical centers is so good at detecting breast cancer that it can outperform actual doctors, according to a paper published this week in the journal Nature. The AI analyzes mammograms -- the X-rays commonly used to check for breast cancer -- to determine whether the disease is present. Researchers found that the AI system reduced false positives by 5.7 percent for US women -- a significant improvement, when you consider how distressing it would be to be told you have cancer when you actually do not.

Throughout the past year, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and other forms of technology within the financial services industry has continued apace. This will increase further as it dovetails with enriched natural language processing (NLP) through 2020 and into the coming decade and lead to more personalisation of services. Indeed, as noted in Crowdfund Insider, the European Union is to invest €100 million in artificial intelligence and blockchain start-ups next year, to boost the EU-wide innovation ecosystem. Globally, the Fintech revolution offers solutions to all manner of issues, and as we see in so many sectors, algorithms and AI can locate data and highlight trends. In doing so, such technologies operate automatically – and therefore can carry out functions much quicker than by human effort – and at a reduced financial cost as technology mitigates the need for large data-crunching teams.

It's difficult to make predictions, especially about the future. But one fairly safe prediction is that data will continue eating the world in 2020 and the coming decade. The most important tech trend since the 1990s will no doubt accentuate its presence in our lives, for better or for worse. At the beginning of the last decade, IDC estimated that 1.2 zettabytes (1.2 trillion gigabytes) of new data were created in 2010, up from 0.8 zettabytes the year before. The amount of the newly created data in 2020 was predicted to grow 44X to reach 35 zettabytes (35 trillion gigabytes).