A doctor in India has performed a series of five percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) procedures on patients who were 20 miles away from him. The feat was pulled off using a precision vascular robot developed by Corindus. The results of the surgeries, which were successful, have just been published in EClinicalMedicine, a spin-off of medical journal The Lancet. The feat is an example of telemedicine, an emerging field that leverages advances in networking, robotics, mixed reality, and communications technologies to beam in medical experts to remote locations for everything from consultations to surgical procedures. Telemedicine, which could decentralize healthcare by distributing doctors into local communities virtually, could ease shortages of nurses and doctors and potentially cut healthcare costs.

There is currently keen interest amongst tech companies, investors, and research institutes in both artificial intelligence and blockchain technologies. The buzz has reached corporations and financial institutions looking to tailor these technologies for their own businesses in order to keep pace in our increasingly digitized economy.-- This excitement has implications for securing patent protection -- Canada and the United States (as well as many other countries) operate on a "first to file" basis.-- That means you will want to file a patent application before other inventors monopolize protection for the technology in your area, potentially curtailing your competitive business advantage. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued revised guidelines on what constitutes subject-matter that is eligible for patent protection (under 35 U.S.C. -- 101), effective January 7, 2019.

Incoming European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has pledged to present an EU approach to Artificial Intelligence (AI) within her first 100 days of taking office. However, the clock is already ticking and the EU needs to look at boosting the uptake and development of AI now while safeguarding citizens' rights, values and principles. This is an opportunity to not only build a framework for'Trustworthy AI', but also to take a leading role in AI to society's benefit. To do this, there are three points to keep in mind: working with the tools that we have, applying agile and inclusive policymaking, and boosting investment. To start, let's not fall into the trap of limiting or overregulating the market.

Images of seven people were passed on by local police for use in a facial recognition system at King's Cross in London in an agreement that was struck in secret, the details of which were made public for the first time today. A police report, published by the deputy London mayor Sophie Linden on Friday, showed that the scheme ran for two years from 2016 without any apparent central oversight from either the Metropolitan police or the office of the mayor, Sadiq Khan. Writing to London assembly members, Linden said she "wanted to pass on the [Metropolitan police service's] apology" for failing to previously disclose that the scheme existed and announced that similar local image sharing agreements were now banned. There had been "no other examples of images having been shared with private companies for facial recognition purposes" by the Met, Linden said, according to "the best of its knowledge and record-keeping". The surveillance scheme – controversial because it involved tracking individuals without their consent – was originally agreed between borough police in Camden and the owner of the 27-hectare King's Cross site in 2016.

Insider threats are one of the most significant cybersecurity risks to banks today. These threats are becoming more frequent, more difficult to detect, and more complicated to prevent. PwC's 2018 Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey reveals that people inside the organization commit 52% of all frauds. Information security breaches originating within a bank can include employees mishandling user credentials and account data, lack of system controls, responding to phishing emails, or regulatory violations. Ignoring any internal security breach poses as much risk as an external threat such as hacking, especially in a highly regulated industry like banking.

All of us - not only scientists, industrialists and generals-should ask ourselves what can we do now to improve the chances of reaping the benefits of future AI and avoiding the risks. This is the most important conversation of our time, and Tegmark's thought-provoking book will help you join it (Prof. Stephen Hawking) This is a rich and visionary book and everyone should read it. The transformational consequences of AI may soon be upon us -but will they be utopian or catastrophic? The jury is out, but this enlightening, lively and accessible book by a distinguished scientist helps us to assess the odds.

Microsoft has reached a deal with pharmaceutical giant Novartis that aims to bring the power of artificial intelligence to drug discovery. "AI is perhaps the most transformational technology of our time, and healthcare is perhaps AI's most pressing application," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a video announcing the partnership. The five-year deal will establish an "AI innovation lab" at Novartis and create co-working centers at Novartis' offices in Switzerland and Dublin, and at the Microsoft Research Lab in Cambridge, England. The idea is to arm Novartis' employees with the AI and cloud computing firepower needed to discover next-generation medicines. Tech rivals Google and Amazon are also vying to convince researchers and drugmakers to use their AI and cloud platforms to solve complicated scientific problems.

Elite independent schools are currently in talks with a technology company exploring a new artificial intelligence programme that could replace GCSEs. Yet while a digital alternative to the GCSE that some schools view as "increasingly dry" might sound promising, how feasible would it really be? Mike Buchanan, executive director of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference, has spoken of how this could create a far more "personalised" style of learning, with computer programmes constructing a digitised profile of each pupil's skills. And arguably, the historic reason for GCSEs no longer exists, given that most students do not leave school at 16. So the idea of a bespoke digital learning platform is attractive, and according to one source in the private school sector, senior figures at Ofsted are interested. Rather than studying a raft of GCSEs, pupils would learn from an online programme alongside their usual class teaching.

UK-based SenSat has raised a $10 million Series A round to further develop its AI mapping technology with an eye on digitising new markets and promoting sustainability at the same time. The round was led by Tencent, with participation from Sistema Venture Capital. The primary (or initial) market for SenSat's Mapp product is infrastructure, one of the least digitised sectors in the global economy. Inefficiencies in infrastructure not only hinder social function and economic growth, but also contribute to waste and environmental damage. Harry Atkinson, co-founder and Chief Data Officer of SenSat explained: "Infrastructure is the only sector to have had a 0% net productivity increase since the 1960s, with a history of inefficiencies in doing business, contributing to a staggering 61% of total UK waste. The result is an estimated $5.2 trillion direct economic loss per year. Knowing this, we see a huge opportunity in allowing computers and AI to analyse the real world in order to help us grow more sustainably."

The graph represents a network of 2,109 Twitter users whose tweets in the requested range contained "#FinServ", or who were replied to or mentioned in those tweets. The network was obtained from the NodeXL Graph Server on Sunday, 18 August 2019 at 11:32 UTC. The requested start date was Sunday, 18 August 2019 at 00:01 UTC and the maximum number of days (going backward) was 14. The maximum number of tweets collected was 5,000. The tweets in the network were tweeted over the 8-day, 13-hour, 30-minute period from Friday, 09 August 2019 at 10:25 UTC to Saturday, 17 August 2019 at 23:56 UTC.