On a tower in the Brazilian rain forest, a sentinel scans the horizon for the first signs of fire. They don't blink or take breaks, and guided by artificial intelligence they can tell the difference between a dust cloud, an insect swarm and a plume of smoke that demands quick attention. In Brazil, the devices help keep mining giant Vale working, and protect trees for pulp and paper producer Suzano. The equipment includes optical and thermal cameras, as well as spectrometric systems that identify the chemical makeup of substances. By linking them to artificial intelligence, a small Portugal-based company working with IBM Corp. believes it can help tame the often unpredictable affects of climate change.

How often do you think you're touched by data science in some form or another? Finding your way to this article likely involved a whole bunch of data science (whooaa). To simplify things a bit, I'll explain what data science means to me. "Data Science is the art of applying scientific methods of analysis to any kind of data so that we can unlock important information." If we unpack that, all data science really means is to answer questions by using math and science to go through data that's too much for our brains to process.

How often do you think you're touched by data science in some form or another? Finding your way to this article likely involved a whole bunch of data science (whooaa). To simplify things a bit, I'll explain what data science means to me. "Data Science is the art of applying scientific methods of analysis to any kind of data so that we can unlock important information." If we unpack that, all data science really means is to answer questions by using math and science to go through data that's too much for our brains to process.

The new partnership will help marketing and sales teams maximize the ROI on their event marketing spend. With SummitSync's conference and trade show intelligence paired with automated lead engagement through Conversica's AI Assistants, brands will be able to drive higher quality sales meetings and convert more prospects to customers like never before. For event marketers, the joint solution automates many of the time-consuming tasks associated with event execution such as pre-booking meetings at events, coordinating on-site demos with salespeople and capturing follow-up requests for information. It frees event marketers to focus on delivering an outstanding end-to-end experience. "Conversica is an ideal partner for us because we serve a similar customer base and our combined technologies complement each other and increase the value we deliver," said Al Torres, president and co-founder at SummitSync.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has connected the Middle East to its global network with the launch of its Bahrain AWS region. The cloud supplier already has infrastructure in the region, but the launch of the Bahrain AWS region, with three datacentres, will connect to its global network. This will bring the Middle East region up to par with its other global AWS regions as the Middle East accelerates its digital transformation. Andy Jassy, CEO at AWS, said the cloud could unlock digital transformation in the Middle East. "Today, we are launching advanced and secure technology infrastructure that matches the scale of our other AWS regions around the world and are already seeing strong demand in the Middle East for AWS technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, data analytics, IoT [internet of things] and much more," he said.

The government's announcement of a £250 million investment into artificial intelligence (AI) is very exciting and will solve some of the healthcare systems most difficult challenges. Although the UK is making leeway in the battle against cancer, the breakthroughs are only significant if early disease detection is made sooner rather than later, helping the treatments work more efficiently. Early detection of various diseases is crucial, and in cases like ovarian cancer, a woman has no symptoms in the early stages. AI and genomics can possibly help detect this cancer early, which means treatments can start sooner and more lives can be saved. AI is already making practical improvements in the healthcare system.

The automotive industry isn't just being driven by people -- it's also driven by data, particularly as automobile manufacturers move toward autonomous, self-driving vehicles. Last year, Waymo cars drove 1.2 million miles in California. Meanwhile, Tesla, with its Autopilot program, is actively collecting data from hundreds of thousands of vehicles to predict how its cars might perform autonomously. So far the company has collected hundreds of millions of miles worth of data. What are these autonomous vehicle manufacturers doing with all of that data?

The'AI Apocalypse' might kill humanity before any actual robot uprising Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images You can think of artificial intelligence (AI) in the same way you think about cloud computing, if you think about either of them through an environmental lens: an enormous and growing source of carbon emissions, with the very real potential to choke out humans' ability to breathe clean air long before a sentient and ornery AI goes all Skynet on us. At the moment, data centers--the enormous rooms full of stacks and stacks of servers that juggle dank memes, fire tweets, your vitally important Google docs and all the other data that is stored somewhere other than on your phone and in your home computer--use about 2% of the world's electricity. SEE ALSO: Can Giant Snow-Blowing Cannons Save Earth From Climate Change? Of that, servers that run AI--processing all the data and making the decisions and computations that a machine mimicking a human brain must handle in order to achieve "deep learning"--use about 0.1% of the world's electricity, according to a recent MIT Technology Review article. The likelihood that figure will grow, it turns out, is quite good.

A paramedic gurney flies through the trauma bay carrying an unconscious elderly gentleman. He is already intubated and has a hive of doctors and nurses running alongside, placing intravenous lines and injecting medicine into his blood stream. He's suffered a serious head injury in a car accident. It was a cold winter afternoon in 2017, and the patient had been taken to a major regional hospital. When he arrived, the neurosurgeon on call had minutes to counsel the family on the man's prognosis, and together they needed to decide whether to operate; surgery could save the patient's life, but it could also commit him to a life dependent on a ventilator and a feeding tube, trapped in a coma or with limited brain function.

It is early July, almost 30C outside, but Mihkel Jäätma is thinking about Christmas. In a co-working space in Soho, the 39-year-old founder and CEO of Realeyes, an "emotion AI" startup which uses eye-tracking and facial expression to analyse mood, scrolls through a list of 20 festive ads from 2018. He settles on The Boy and the Piano, the offering from John Lewis that tells the life story of Elton John backwards, from megastardom to the gift of a piano from his parents as a child, accompanied by his timeless heartstring-puller Your Song. The ad was well received, but Jäätma is clearly unconvinced. He hits play, and the ad starts, but this time two lines – one grey (negative reactions), the other red (positive) – are traced across the action.