The PACE – Performance Against Customer Expectations – survey has been measuring SMB customer perspectives on banking providers and the impact of technology since 2017. On considering the latest 2019 findings as a whole, four key takeaways emerge: managing customer churn, building out trust, equipping and enabling people alongside technology, and focusing on the user experience. Over the next 18 months to 2 years, I also anticipate a fifth takeaway – embedding social impact by design, as consumers demand a commitment to financial inclusion from their core banking provider, alongside transparent metrics to measure its progress and open dialogue channels to contribute to its evolution. Indeed, SMBs may be small to medium size businesses in terms of employee numbers, but they are increasingly big, innovative and sophisticated business for the banks which serve them and help them to grow. How can you best consider your customers and evaluate their needs alongside the banking, technology and social trends that matter most?

As health-care providers plough millions into AI-powered machines, blockchain and other expensive innovative technologies to improve the future of medicine, there are concerns that health care costs could go up. "I think the technology is going to help us streamline the operations and reduce our operating costs," said Verma, pointing out that most costs these days are associated with manual work. "AI would help you to make it automated, so the future systems are going to help reduce your costs." In China, one of the largest health care markets in the world, Dai said AI can play an important role in improving efficiency for the hospitals. "I don't think AI is all the time adding to costs," he said. "In most cases, it saves the costs."

Enterprise firms across the globe are increasingly turning to AI-driven technologies to achieve key business goals. While potential benefits are significant, many firms underestimate the fundamental change necessary to successfully integrate AI into the enterprise. Successful adoption programs need to be developed to fit the particular needs of each organization--from its data strategy, project management, and product development to its engagement with the cloud, customers, and partners. This fall, the Laboratory for Innovation Science (LISH), HBS Digital Initiative, and the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) will kick off "AI in Enterprise," an invitation-only workshop series for selected executives to learn how to manage expectations and assimilate the knowledge and tools they need to implement a successful transition to AI in the enterprise. The first in the series will focus on AI in finance.

Dublin, 20th November 2019: Mastercard Labs, SAP, SoapBox Labs, INFANT Research were honoured at the AI Awards 2019 ceremony. The awards will also be further supported by the IDA Ireland, Alldus, ISG, McKesson, Mazars, Mason Hayes Curran, the ADAPT Centre and GeoDirectory. Founded in 2018, the AI Awards are part of AI Ireland, a Not for Profit Business which runs a number of community websites and monthly meetups supporting the area of Data Science, Machine learning and Artificial Intelligence in Ireland. SoapBox's plug and play API makes it easy for businesses to voice enable their products. Its near real time assessment capabilities ensure that the products it powers are more engaging, more useful, and more valuable to teachers, parents and the children themselves.

So far, 30 intersections have been equipped with cameras and sensors, mostly in the central business district. The city plans to expand that to 80 intersections in the next three months. The pilot project is part of Las Vegas's continuing smart city effort. In such projects, sensors are installed on streetlights, power grids, transit lines and other services to collect data that can be used to deliver services to people more quickly. Las Vegas has used the insights to change signal timing at certain times of day and to put up signage, such as wrong-way signs.

Everything you need to know about Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle and her new life as part of the British royal family. There's something about that "Markle sparkle" that has the world transfixed, seeing as Meghan Markle has now been named the world's "most powerful dresser" in a 2019 report from Lyst, a fashion search engine. It was a big year for the Duchess of Sussex, who stylishly seized the spotlight at dozens of public appearances and royal tours, and even when introducing the world to baby Archie -- and according to Lyst, shoppers took notice. There's something about that "Markle sparkle" that has the world transfixed, as Meghan Markle has been named the world's most powerful dresser of 2019. According to Lyst's annual Year in Fashion roundup, each of the Duchess' numerous fashion statements sparked a 216-percent average increase in search for similar items.

A synthetic skin could help add the sensation of touch to prosthetic hands or give video games a more realistic feel. The skin comes as a battery-free patch that can be stuck onto any part of the body. To create the sensation of touch, the patch vibrates and gently pushes the skin surface. An internal magnet and copper coil allow it to be powered wirelessly, while the cloth covering can be coloured to match the user's skin. The synthetic skin was created by John Rogers at Northwestern University in Illinois and his colleagues.

Female fruit flies get a boost in their long-term memory after mating thanks to a molecule found in male fly semen. This molecule – called the sex peptide – binds to the sperm of male flies and is passed on to females, where it travels from the reproductive tract to the brain. It was already known that this molecule, which is unique to fruit flies, alters behaviour. After mating, it changes what females prefer to eat and makes them reject future mating partners, for example. It does this by acting on nerve cells, or neurons, located throughout the body.

Training software that emulates brain networks to identify dog breeds or sports equipment is by now old news. But getting such an AI network to learn a process on its own that is innate to early child development is truly novel. In a paper published Wednesday in Science Advances, a neural network distinguished between different quantities of things, even though it was never taught what a number is. The neural net reprised a cognitive skill innate to human babies, monkeys and crows, among others. Without any training, it suddenly could tell the difference between larger and smaller amounts--a skill called numerosity, or number sense.

This is a global problem, yet one of the most striking examples is the case of Japan. From 800 until 1900 CE, Japan used a writing system called Kuzushiji, which was removed from the curriculum in 1900 when the elementary school education was reformed. Currently, the overwhelming majority of Japanese speakers cannot read texts which are more than 150 years old. The volume of these texts -- comprised of over three million books in storage but only readable by a handful of specially-trained scholars -- is staggering. One library alone has digitized 20 million pages from such documents.