An Israeli artificial intelligence startup with investments from a number of American companies including Microsoft has been linked to the biometric surveillance of Palestinians. AnyVision is an international tech company based in Israel that raised $78 million in June from an investment group including American tech giant Microsoft. One of their flagship products -- dubbed'Better Tomorrow' -- is a platform that leverages biometrics and facial recognition software to track objects and people on live video, including across independent camera feeds. NBC and Israeli news site Haaretz report that this technology is at the centre of a military surveillance operation focused in the West Bank at "at least 27 checkpoints", according to a statement from the Israeli Defence Forces from February. The aim of the operation is to "upgrade the crossings" and "deter terror attacks" using a network of 1,700 cameras featuring biometric and facial recognition capabilities.

Cruise passengers traveling out of Port Tampa Bay next spring could play a role in the testing of a new weapons detection system designed to improve safety in public places. Liberty Defense Holdings created HEXWAVE, which uses low-power, radar imaging and artificial intelligence to detect and identify weapons. The company has been developing the technology since 2018 and is ready to test it in 11 locations nationwide, CEO Bill Riker said. Similar to a metal detector, the system requires people to walk through portals one at a time as they are scanned. But unlike their more common counterpart, these scanners can detect both metal and non-metal items and use artificial intelligence to identify almost instantly what the item is and where it's located.

In the next five to ten years, your workplace will look fundamentally different. Thanks to technologies such as artificial intelligence, the internet of things and robotics work as we know it will drastically change. The future of work will come with great opportunities but also with plenty of challenges for organisations. It will require employees and management to adapt and work smarter. AI will augment your jobs, the Internet of Things will provide you with details insights and robotics will replace many jobs.

Next week, on-demand autonomous vehicles will begin operating on public roads in Irvine, California. Called BotRide, the pilot program comes from a partnership between Hyundai, Chinese vehicle company Pony.ai, BotRide will be covering a variety of residential, commercial and industrial destinations around Irvine including the UCI campus. The goal of the project is to study consumer behavior in an autonomous ride-sharing environment. As far as the vehicles go, BotRide will be using the 100% electric Hyundai Kona SUVs.

The ROSCon 2019 conference kicked off with a keynote from Selina Seah from Changi General Hospital and Morgan Quigley from Open Robotics. In their talk, they outlined the need for robotics and automation in hospitals. To support robotics, the Open Robotics foundation works actively to create tools to support multiple robotics platforms, fleets working together, and tools for QA and simulation. Currently, and in the future, there will be multiple challenges in healthcare: there is an aging population, a shrinking workforce due to this aging population, and a rising healthcare cost due to people expecting more of their healthcare. This makes the market for automation and assistance in elderly care potentially very large, as it is a skilled trade that requires a long training time (a nurse spends four years in school, and two years on the job, before considered skilled enough).

A trio of experts on a wide-ranging panel discussion with that title addressed that very question at Splunk's .conf19 Here's what they had to say about AI's current impact, its future potential and how to separate reality from the hype. Adam Cohn, vice president for worldwide government affairs at Splunk, asked panelists to start by describing the most promising applications for AI in key sectors over the next few years. Jinsook Han, digital and strategy lead for applied intelligence at Accenture, said one of the highest values of AI lies in its ability to improve relevance for stakeholders in different industries. "You want the brands and the companies to really know you," she said.

Simplilearn launched a postgraduate program in artificial intelligence and machine learning in partnership with Purdue University. The postgraduate program in artificial intelligence and machine learning will be offered in India. This collaboration offers learners a program curriculum with industry projects, covering in total over 450 learning hours and more than 25 projects. The program covers foundational to advanced skills on Machine Learning, NLP, Speech Recognition, Deep Learning, Computer Vision and Reinforcement Learning enabling professionals for one of the most exciting technology frontiers with in-depth theoretical understanding and practical hands-on experience. On completion of the program, learners will receive a Purdue University certificate and the graduates will be entitled to membership in the Purdue University Alumni Association, joining a global community of AI professionals.

Police Scotland has unveiled a new aerial drone system to help in searches for missing and vulnerable people. The remotely-piloted aircraft system (RPAS) can see things we can't to try to work out where people are. It uses advanced cameras and neural computer networks to spot someone it is looking for - from "a speck" up to 150 metres away. Its recognition software is compact enough to be run on a phone, with the technology learning as it goes. "The drone itself has very special sensors on it," said Insp Nicholas Whyte, of Police Scotland's air support unit.

Miguel Santiago, a senior at Baruch College in Manhattan, is graduating soon and already considering his next move -- maybe to a job at Goldman Sachs or somewhere else in banking. In at least six of his interviews, he's been questioned by a computer and not a live person. "They've basically replaced the first round with the HireVue," he said, referring to the video and artificial intelligence platform increasingly being used by employers for job interviews. When a candidate applies to a job at a company that uses HireVue, they are asked to go on to the platform, allow use of their webcam and respond to interview questions on video. The candidate's answers are recorded and then saved to the platform.

What's happening: China says it's rolling out the tech in Xinjiang, where Uighur Muslims are kept in mass detainment camps, and in subway stations and airports to "identify criminal suspects," per FT. "At present only a few schools and public security bureaus have products that include this type of technology," Zhen Wenzhuang told FT, adding that emotion recognition has "not been fully developed for commercial use" in China. Between the lines: Even if the tech doesn't track emotions as advertised, being watched or even thinking you're being watched can still have a psychological effect and encourage people to change their behavior, as seen in workplace polling. In the U.S., Microsoft claims that its Face API program can identify emotions like contempt, happiness and disgust. Amazon's Reokognition points out that when its API identifies someone's facial expression, it "is not a determination of the person's internal emotional state."