An engineer working for Japanese carmaker Nissan has built a robot to help farmers reduce the use of herbicides and pesticides on their rice crops. The compact robot, called Aigamo, is designed to mimic the natural use of ducks that paddle around in flooded paddy fields. Ducks have been used as natural weed repellents for centuries to tear them up and feed on insects, with their manure even acting as an additional fertiliser. As it glides through the water, two mechanisms on the bottom muddy the water to prevent weeds from getting enough sunlight to grow. The technique was used in the late 20th century with live ducks, called'aigamo,' which would paddle the water with the same results and eat any insects they found along the way.

A futuristic 3D-printed house that lets guests'experience Mars on Earth' will soon offer you the chance to experience what an interplanetary vacation of the future may be like, its creators say. Nestled in the woods of upstate New York along the Hudson River, Tera will be hired out to holiday-makers hoping to experience what sustainable life could be like on Mars. 'Tera' is the brainchild of AI SpaceFactory, a New York City design agency that was awarded $500,000 (£386,000) earlier this year for winning NASA'S 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge with its previous'Marsha' habitat. Each stay will be used to fund the mission of the firm behind its design, which hopes to research and develop the renewable and sustainable technologies of the future. This technology will be used both here on Earth and, they say, will be one day form the basis of a sustainable colony on the red planet.

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held talks Monday with the Saudi king and crown prince about countering the military threat from Iran by building a broad, global coalition that includes Asian and European countries. Pompeo is likely to face a tough sell in Europe and Asia, particularly from those nations still committed to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran that President Donald Trump repudiated last year. With tensions running high in the region after Iran shot down a U.S. surveillance drone on June 20 and Trump said he aborted a retaliatory strike, Iran's naval commander warned that his forces won't hesitate to down more U.S. drones that violate its airspace. The U.S. has been building up its military presence in the Persian Gulf. The U.S. announced additional sanctions Monday on Iran aimed at pressuring the Iranian leadership into talks.

An estimated 7 million drones will be flying in the skies by 2020; Claudia Cowan reports on the new technology being developed to keep airports safe. But some people either don't care or use drones to intentionally disrupt airport operations. Last December, drone sightings at London's Gatwick Airport forced a three-day shutdown, and canceled flights left thousands of stranded passengers scrambling. No one has been arrested in the case, and this past April, investigators said it could have been an inside job. In recent months, suspected or confirmed drone activity has grounded flights in Dubai, New Zealand, Israel, and at Newark Airport in New Jersey.

Microsoft was one of the earliest companies to begin discussing and advocating for an ethical perspective on artificial intelligence. The issue began to take off at the company in 2016, when CEO Satya Nadella spoke at a developer conference about how the company viewed some of the ethical issues around AI, and later that year published an article about these issues. Nadella's primary focus was on Microsoft's orientation toward using AI to augment human capabilities and building trust into intelligent products. The next year, Microsoft's R&D head Eric Horvitz partnered with Microsoft's president and chief legal officer Brad Smith to form Aether, a cross-functional committee addressing AI and ethics in engineering and research. With these foundations laid, in 2018, Microsoft established a full-time position in AI policy and ethics.

From flying vehicles to smart buildings, this year's IoTSWC will bring the best industrial internet solutions to Barcelona. The Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) is the leading organization promoting Industry 4.0 in the US. During the last five years, together with Fira Barcelona, it has been organizing the IoT Solutions World Congress (IoTSWC), the leading conference of industrial IoT. Dr. Richard Soley is the Executive Director of the Industrial Internet Consortium and is responsible for the vision and direction of the organization. In addition to this role, Dr. Soley is Chairman and CEO of the Object Management Group (OMG) – an international, nonprofit computer industry standards consortium -- and Executive Director of the Cloud Standards Customer Council – an end-user advocacy group.

Three years ago, if you told me that one day I would use python to analyze AI policy and make Guido van Rossum chuckle, I would think you are crazy. Three years later at PyCon 2019 in Cleveland, that's exactly what happened. I was by no means a tech person. I was trained as an economist (read: stats nerd), but somehow for the past three years I've been writing analysis on deep-tech fields including AI and 5G. What I hope to achieve with this post is not #humblebrag (ok, maybe a little happy dance) but to share with you all the struggles I had and am still experiencing on a daily basis and to reassure a fellow researcher somewhere feeling that he/she is faking it all the time, you are not alone.

"Improve CX" is more than a buzzword at TTEC. It's an entire experience – and we live and breathe it. Join us at CCW, and learn how to design next-gen employee experiences (EX) that deliver memorable customer experiences (CX). Discover how to make CX easier, more personal, and completely seamless with our latest high-tech, user-friendly solutions including: AI Bots, AI Enhanced Training, Journey Orchestration, Omnichannel Platform.

If you want a glimpse of the future, spend a minute with Joey Hasty – because he's got it in the palm of his hand. "Come here, take a look," he says, pulling a phone out of his pocket. With a few brisk finger taps, the affable associate vice president of innovation and transformation at Royal Caribbean, 45, calls up on his phone the image of the brightly lit, wood-paneled office where he's holding court, and marks a spot on the screen. "This is Richard Fain, our CEO; I'm going to just place Richard right in front of us," he explains. Within a heartbeat, a new person fills the visual reproduction of the room – this one, holding a 3D model of a massive ship.

Paris, March 26, 2019 – A new study from the Capgemini Research Institute has found that just 10% of major automotive companies are implementing artificial intelligence[1] (AI) projects at scale, with many falling short of an opportunity that could increase operating profit by up to 16%. The research also shows that fewer automotive companies are implementing AI than was the case in 2017, despite the cost, quality and productivity advantages, many report it delivering. The "Accelerating Automotive's AI Transformation: How driving AI enterprise-wide can turbo-charge organizational value" study surveyed 500 executives from large automotive companies in eight countries, building on comparable study from 2017, to establish recent trends in AI investment and deployment. Scaling of AI has seen a slow growth: Since 2017, the number of automotive companies that have successfully scaled AI implementation has increased only marginally (from 7% to 10%). However, more significant was the increase in companies not using AI at all (from 26% to 39%).