In the past few years, advanced industrial companies have made solid progress in improving productivity along the manufacturing value chain. In the US, for instance, the productivity of industrial workers has increased by 47 percent over the past 20 years. But the traditional levers that have driven these gains, such as lean operations, Six Sigma, and total quality management, are starting to run out of steam, and the incremental benefits they deliver are declining. As a result, leading companies are now looking to disruptive technologies for their next horizon of performance improvement. Many are starting to experiment with technologies such as machine-to-machine digital connectivity (the Industrial Internet of Things, or IIoT), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, advanced automation, robotics, and additive manufacturing.

The fountain of eternal youth could come in technological form thanks to $100 million investment in a life sciences company. Juvenescence is working with drug developers and AI experts to create treatments and technologies to treat age-related diseases and to increase human longevity. The firm, set up by London City of London entrepreneur Michael Spencer, announced a total investment of $10 million from its founders. A further $10 million each will come from four cornerstone investors, including Grok Ventures, Mike Cannon-Brookes and Mr Spencer's private investment company. This brings the total to $165 Million that Juvenescence has raised in 18 months.

It is often said that old dogs cannot learn new tricks. But even very old people can keep up with people in their twenties, if they just practise enough. Pensioners can struggle to multi-task, whether picking up the telephone and writing down a message, or remembering a shopping list, because older brains process information more slowly. But in a brain-training game which uses multi-tasking, they did just as well as younger people after practising. The research, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, tracked almost 200,000 people on the brain-training game.

LOS ANGELES – Sony Corp. agreed to buy Insomniac Games Inc., the studio behind last year's hit "Marvel's Spider-Man," as part of a push to stay competitive by acquiring independent game studios. The studio, based in Burbank, California, and Durham, North Carolina, was founded 25 years ago by current Chief Executive Officer Ted Price. It has a long history of making games for Sony, including Ratchet & Clank, a sci-fi shooting game, and the Spider-Man title, which has sold over 13.2 million copies. Sony's PlayStation remains the top-selling gaming console worldwide. Tech giants Apple Inc., Facebook Inc. and Google also have stated their intention of getting deeper into the business.

For the first time, scientists have detected a black hole devouring a neutron star, according to a report released Monday. "About 900 million years ago, this black hole ate a very dense star, known as a neutron star, like Pac-man – possibly snuffing out the star instantly," said Susan Scott, a scientist with the Australian National University, in a statement. Neutron stars are small yet incredibly dense stellar objects and are the collapsed remains of imploded stars. Black holes are also collapsed stars with gravity so strong that even light cannot escape their grasp. Scientists earlier this year captured the first-ever photo of a black hole.

Allied Market Research recently published a report, titled, "Artificial Intelligence Chip Market by Chip Type (GPU, ASIC, FPGA, CPU, and others), Application (Natural Language Processing (NLP), Robotic, Computer Vision, Network Security, and Others), Technology (System-on-Chip, System-in-Package, Multi-chip Module, and Others), Processing Type (Edge and Cloud), and Industry Vertical (Media & Advertising, BFSI, IT & Telecom, Retail, Healthcare, Automotive & Transportation, and Others): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2019-2025". According to the report, the global AI chip market was pegged at $6.64 billion in 2018 and is projected to attain $91.18 billion by 2025, registering a colossal CAGR of 45.2% during the forecast period. Rise in demand for smart homes & smart cities, surge in investments in AI startups, and advent of quantum computing have boosted the growth of the global AI chip market. However, dearth of skilled workforce hampers the market growth. On the contrary, rapid adoption of AI chips in the emerging countries and development of smart robots are expected to create numerous opportunities in the near future.

Researchers have figured out how to use deep learning to speed up the analysis of gas chromatographic data. Because this type of analysis is used in many parts of society, the new method will have a major impact on quality, efficiency and cost when examining various data -- from blood tests, to the fermentation of cheese. Gas chromatography is a method of analysis that most people have experienced at one time or another without necessarily knowing it. For example, gas chromatography can be used to reveal food fraud, find out where a particular batch of cocaine was produced or monitor a fermentation of cheese. "The new interpretive method of gas chromatographic analysis can make this type of analysis accessible to many more, which means that better and cheaper decisions can be made in a number of areas in society," says Professor Rasmus Bro, Department of Food Science at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH FOOD), who is one of the researchers behind the new interpretive method.

Over the past several years, commercial use of biometric data has become increasingly prevalent. In response, several states have adopted biometric data privacy legislation. Consequently, companies that rely on biometric data face new regulatory risks, in addition to increased legal exposure to individual and class action lawsuits. In fact, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently affirmed certification of a class action alleging Facebook's face-scanning practices violate Illinois' biometric privacy law, finding that the class alleged sufficiently concrete injuries based on Facebook's alleged use of facial recognition technology without users' consent to establish standing. Insurance policies currently available on the market, including cyber insurance policies, may not adequately cover these risks.

In this article, I'm going to tell you about automating corporate strategies using artificial intelligence, and look at some recent progress in automatically generating strategies in the face of uncertainty. Every day, progress in artificial intelligence is addressing tasks currently performed only by humans, and it's worthwhile to take a short-term view of what this all means to your company. Games like chess have been tackled by artificial intelligence with amazing results, but there was this big gap between those games - where everything about the game state and consequences is known before making a decision - and the reality of life where, like poker, there is only a little bit of information available to the decision-makers, and the quality and quantity of information used to make decisions varies wildly. We humans face this situation of high uncertainty every time we cross the street or eat a hamburger, but it doesn't seem to bother us. Until recently, computers have had a lot of trouble dealing with games that give the decision-maker incomplete information about the state of the game.

The United States Geological Survey confirmed with the Center for Data Innovation over email on July 22, 2019, that "1-meter DEMs are available or in progress for 45% of the country."