Machine learning algorithms abound in biodiversity research, but sometimes without the proper attribution or oversight. In an effort to raise the academic bar, Google says it will release an AI workflow for institutions, developed in collaboration with Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), iNaturalist, and Visipedia. Researchers at the tech giant say the workflow will support data aggregation and collaboration across teams while ensuring corpora follow standardized licensing terms, use compatible file formats, and provide fair and sufficient data coverage for the task at hand. "The promise of machine learning for species identification is coming to fruition, revealing its transformative potential in biodiversity research," wrote visiting faculty Serge Belongie and Google Research engineering director Hartwig Adam in a blog post published to coincide with the Biodiversity Next conference in Leiden, Netherlands. "International workshops … feature competitions to develop top performing classification algorithms for everything from wildlife camera trap images to pressed flower specimens on herbarium sheets. The encouraging results that have emerged from these competitions inspired us to expand the availability of biodiversity datasets and ML models from workshop-scale to global-scale."

Key point: These World War II drones were only effective in highly-specialized circumstances. On April 18, Moscow announced that it would feature its Uran-9 robot-tanks in its military parade celebrating the seventy-third anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany. The compact Uran-9 bristles with a 30mm cannon and anti-tank missiles--and it is of course, unmanned. The defense ministry also periodically insists that it will develop an unmanned version of its new T-14 Armata main battle tank. Curiously, Moscow has been developing robot-tanks for nearly ninety years.

This photo has been used for illustrative purpose. Of all the million things Artificial Intelligence has made easy for us, here's one more feather to the cap. With the help of Artificial Intelligence, we can now get fashion advice and outfit suggestions, to look more stylish and chic. People usually turn to friends, peers or flip through fashion magazines to know what best suits their personality and style, but with the new development by researchers, Artificial Intelligence can now scan through a photo of an outfit and give fashion inputs to enhance the overall look. "It's also motivated by a practical idea: that we can work with a given outfit to make small changes so it's just a bit better," said Kristen Grauman, Professor from University of Texas at Austin.

Organised by Fira de Barcelona in partnership with the IIC (Industrial Internet Consortium), the IOTSWC will be held from 29th to 31st October in Gran Via venue in the framework of Barcelona Industry Week. It's the largest international event devoted to the industrial internet and, throughout its history, has complemented its offering with other converging technologies that are accelerating the digital transformation of sectors such as transport, manufacturing, healthcare, energy, utilities, construction, infrastructure, retail, and agriculture, among others. In addition, IOTSWC 2019 will have international and institutional pavilions. In this regard, the presence of stands from Greece, Austria, Germany, Spain, Romania, Sweden, France, Baviera, Catalonia and Barcelona has already been confirmed; these will contribute a large number of companies to the event, many of them SMEs and start-ups linked to the IoT ecosystem. A new feature of this year's fair will be a specific area called IoT Solutions.Font, which will provide visibility for start-ups with original and innovative IoT, Artificial Intelligence, and Blockchain based products and services that have already been tested in the market and with potential for internationalisation.

In part 1 of this article we discussed the industry trend of companies wanting to brand themselves as "AI first" and often positioning themselves as deep learning. We highlighted some of the problems building and deploying a deep learning solution presents and suggest that often other machine learning approaches could provide a solution in a simpler and more cost effective way. In this second part we want to outline our own experience building an AI application and reflect on why we chose not to utilise deep learning as the core technology used. At Aiqudo we have built a personal digital assistant for smart phones. Our goal is to understand what users are saying, figure out their intent and execute the correct action for them on their devices..

The role of a data scientist is often referred to as the sexiest job of the 21st century. Perhaps you were drawn toward the career because you love math, programming, and everything technical. But I'm willing to bet many of you were also interested in using data to make a real impact. At the end of a long day of tweaking data and building machine learning models, you're the ones who want to say, "Today I created something that will positively influence somebody's life." In other words, you want to see your work unfolding in the real world.

The second largest supermarket grocery chain in Canada is rolling out new technology. Using terminology like "enhance the shopping experience" and describing the technology Ahmed Beshry, co-founder of cart manufacturer Caper, said the carts will soon be able to recommend items and help consumers shop for specific recipes. Products can be paid for on the spot instead of waiting at the cashier checkout. Cameras will eventually be added so that customers won't even have to scan items themselves. A touchscreen displays items inside the cart and promotions for other products.

Over a year ago, OpenAI, the San Francisco–based for-profit AI research lab, announced that it had trained a robotic hand to manipulate a cube with remarkable dexterity. That might not sound earth-shattering. But in the AI world, it was impressive for two reasons. First, the hand had taught itself how to fidget with the cube using a reinforcement-learning algorithm, a technique modeled on the way animals learn. Second, all the training had been done in simulation, but it managed to successfully translate to the real world.

AI automation-Australian real estate companies lag their global counterparts in adopting productivity-boosting measures such as automation, saying the hurdles are greater and expressing more doubt that they will make a difference. While an estimated 50 per cent of all job tasks will be impacted by automation by 2030, Australian respondents to a global survey conducted this week said they were hiring fewer AI experts such as data scientists and less convinced it would benefit them than respondents from Europe, the Gulf States and the US. The sample space was limited – Australians accounted for just one-quarter of the 400 global respondents to an online poll conducted by consultancy EY and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Real Estate Innovation Lab – but the problem pointed to a lack of competitiveness, said Selena Scott, EY's global real estate and construction innovation leader. "Australian real estate companies are slightly behind their global counterparts when it comes to hiring AI and automation specialists," Ms Short said. "The fact that 23 per cent of Australian companies were unsure whether automation or AI would change their businesses is a worry."

Roger Bootle is not afraid to think and say unconventional things. He is that rare phenomenon: a professional economist who thinks that Brexit is a Good Idea. Indeed, he belongs to a group called Economists for Brexit, now renamed as Economists for Free Trade, which argues for a no-deal Brexit. Whatever you think of that, the economics consultancy that Bootle founded, Capital Economics, has been very successful financially, and in 2012 it was awarded the £250,000 Wolfson Economics Prize, the second most valuable economics prize in the world after the Nobel, for a proposal that EU member states who wanted to exit should default on a large part of their debts. A book on tech unemployment from such a high-profile economist is to be warmly welcomed.