Volvo has unveiled its first fully electric vehicle, and with it, an important commitment to decarbonization. The carmaker says it will bring out a new electric model every year and reduce production of traditional combustion vehicles and hybrids, so that by 2025, half of its sales will be electric, and the other half will be a decreasing number of plug-in hybrids, with their non-electric motors produced outside the company. The launch and mass marketing of Volkswagen's ID.3, the increased manufacturing capacity of market leader, Tesla, after opening a factory in China, and the efforts of other manufacturers to quickly electrify their catalog, leaves no doubt about where the motor industry is going: the transition to electric vehicles is no longer about when, but at what speed it takes place. If you were thinking of purchasing a new vehicle with an internal combustion engine, know that you are buying obsolete technology. A strike by GM workers over a production switch to electric vehicles, which will mean smaller workforces, says it all.

Researchers have uncovered a 1,500-year-old stucco mask of Maya ruler K'inich Janaab'Pakal. What differentiates this mask from others is it's seemingly made in the king's likeness. An eagle-eyed archaeologist has used a freely available online map to locate 27 Maya ceremonial sites in Mexico. Takeshi Inomata, a professor of archaeology at the University of Arizona, made the discovery using a LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) map he found online last year, according to the New York Times. LiDAR technology harnesses a laser to measure distances to the Earth's surface and can prove extremely valuable to study what is hidden in areas with thick vegetation.

How are experts looking at the same present and arriving at such different and contradictory futures? Here's a look at five scenarios, and the paths that getting there might take. As artificial intelligence becomes more powerful, a lot of current jobs are doomed to disappear. University of Oxford researchers in 2017 estimated that nearly half of all U.S. jobs were at risk from AI-powered automation. Other forecasts come up with different estimates, but by any measure, the number of lost jobs is potentially huge. Automation has already made manufacturing, mining, agriculture and many other industries much less labor-intensive. One study estimated that from 1993 to 2007, each industrial robot replaced 3.3 workers. With about 2.5 million robots in industry now and more than three million expected by 2020, the trend is expected to accelerate, and manufacturing could lose up to 20 million jobs by 2030, according to a study this year by Oxford Economics.

The last day of January 2019 was sunny, yet bitterly cold in Romford, east London. Shoppers scurrying from retailer to retailer wrapped themselves in winter coats, scarves and hats. The temperature never rose above three degrees Celsius. For police officers positioned next to an inconspicuous blue van, just metres from Romford's Overground station, one man stood out among the thin winter crowds. The man, wearing a beige jacket and blue cap, had pulled his jacket over his face as he moved in the direction of the police officers.

When Apple CEO Tim Cook introduced the iPhone X, he claimed it would "set the path for technology for the next decade." While it is too early to tell, the neural engine used for face recognition was the first of its kind. Today deep neural networks are a reality, and neuromorphic appears to be the only practical path to make continuing progress in AI. Facing data bandwidth constraints and ever-rising computational requirements, sensing and computing must reinvent themselves by mimicking neurobiological architectures, claimed a recently published report by Yole Développement (Lyon, France). In an interview with EE Times, Pierre Cambou, Principal Analyst for Imaging at Yole, explained that neuromorphic sensing and computing could solve most of AI's current issues while opening new application perspectives in the next decades.

As casual dining chains have declined in popularity, many have experimented with surveillance technology designed to maximize employee efficiency and performance. Earlier this week, one Outback Steakhouse franchise announced it would begin testing such a tool, a computer vision program called Presto Vision, at a single outpost in the Portland, Oregon area. Your Bloomin' Onion now comes with a side of Big Brother. According to Presto CEO Rajat Suri, Presto Vision takes advantage of preexisting surveillance cameras that many restaurants already have installed. The system uses machine learning to analyze footage of restaurant staff at work and interacting with guests.

Abu Dhabi has established a graduate level research-based artificial intelligence (AI) university. The first of its kind university, named the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) will give graduate students, businesses and governments the ability to stimulate the AI space with access to advanced AI systems across the world. HH Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces commented that the establishment "echoes the UAE's pioneering spirit, and paves the way towards a new era of innovation and technological advancement that benefits the UAE and the world". Pizza Hut is leveraging technology to enhance its customers' experience in APAC Experts have predicted that AI's contribution to the UAE's GDP will rise 14% by 2030 and could contribute nearly US$16tn (AED58.7tn) to the global economy. "As such, the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence is an open invitation from Abu Dhabi to the world to unleash AI's full potential. The University will bring the discipline of AI into the forefront, moulding and empowering creative pioneers who can lead us to a new AI-empowered era," commented Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, chairman of the MBZUAI board of trustees.

Our aim is to become the leading community of Artificial Intelligence professionals, academia and companies along with public players. We believe the future needs to be based on different skill-sets that have been traditionally acknowledged up until now and to be successful as a nation, organization and ultimately as an individual, new fundamental approaches will be essential. Therefore, we will also focus on supporting and co-creating the Norwegian AI start-up ecosystems for global growth focusing on success criteria such as knowledge & investments. Together we will build a thriving AI eco-system and put Norway on the AI map. We are continuously working towards beating inequality by encouraging diversity.

The field of Artificial Intelligence powered by Machine Learning and Deep Learning has gone through some phenomenal changes over the last decade. Starting off as just a pure academic and research-oriented domain, we have seen widespread industry adoption across diverse domains including retail, technology, healthcare, science and many more. More than often, the standard toolbox of machine learning, statistical or deep learning models remain the same. New models do come into existence like Capsule Networks, but industry adoption of the same usually takes several years. Hence, in the industry, the main focus of data science or machine learning is more'applied' rather than theoretical and effective application of these models on the right data to solve complex real-world problems is of paramount importance.

Artificial intelligence (AI), it's often categorized as'bleeding edge' technology, believed to be the catalyst for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, a roadmap for the future. Though in its infancy, AI's already showing signs of its potential; giving machines the ability to mimic and surpass human capabilities. China is among the world's leaders in artificial intelligence development and research. The government is giving incentives to research institutions to lead key projects in the development of next generation artificial intelligence technologies as part of its goal to close the AI gap with the US by 2030. China's AI Revolution takes a look at how artificial intelligence is being used to streamline shopping, secure sprawling cities, manage traffic, and even assist in diagnosing cancer.