UK companies that are too slow to adopt artificial intelligence technology are at risk of losing 20% of their cash flow, according to McKinsey Global Institute. New figures released by consultancy firm's research arm claimed that the UK's economy could be boosted 22% by AI alone on the next decade, with fast-moving businesses potentially growing 120% if they invest in AI tools. It claimed the UK is "potentially more AI-ready compared with the global average", but could miss out on the opportunity if investment does not occur. "The United Kingdom has impressive pockets of innovation but is failing to scale to business more broadly," the report stated. Google's DeepMind AI division was cited at an example of these innovation pockets, with McKinsey suggested that companies can replicate by achieving growth through AI by offering it at scale, investing in talent and forging links between cutting-edge research and commercial success.

Cisco Live U.S. – Today, Cisco announces software innovations designed to make managing and securing networks easier. As today's businesses increasingly invest in digital technologies, IT teams are struggling under the amplified workload. To alleviate this burden and allow IT to focus on delivering innovation, Cisco is introducing new artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to allow IT teams to function at machine speed and scale through personalized network insights. As part of its broadened capabilities offering, Cisco is also unveiling innovations to more effectively manage users and applications across the entire enterprise network – from campus networks and wide-area networks, to data centers and the IoT edge. IT teams currently face a daunting challenge.

LAUSANNE: Since the earliest days of virtual chess and solitaire, video games have been a playing field for developing artificial intelligence (AI). Each victory of machine against human has helped make algorithms smarter and more efficient. But in order to tackle real world problems – such as automating complex tasks including driving and negotiation – these algorithms must navigate more complex environments than board games, and learn teamwork. Teaching AI how to work and interact with other players to succeed had been an insurmountable task – until now. In a new study, researchers detailed a way to train AI algorithms to reach human levels of performance in a popular 3D multiplayer game – a modified version of Quake III Arena in Capture the Flag mode.

Those hoping for a glimpse of Elder Scrolls VI or the highly anticipated sci-fi adventure Starfield were left disappointed at Bethesda's E3 conference in Los Angeles on Sunday. But the publisher did make a couple of intriguing announcements, with new games from Dishonored creator Arkane Lyon and from the studio of Resident Evil legend Shinji Mikami. There were also new trailers for shooters Doom Eternal (out on 22 November) and Wolfenstein Youngblood, both of which look to be carrying on the explosively gory and adrenaline-fuelled legacies of their forebears. A massive update for beleaguered multiplayer role-playing game Fallout 76 was also announced, adding a battle royale mode called Nuclear Winter and human characters for players to meet. Elsewhere, the hack'n'slash adventure Elder Scrolls Blades, recently released on smartphones, is coming to Nintendo Switch, and there's to be a free-to-play smartphone return for Id Software's old platforming hero, Commander Keen, out in the summer.

Artificial intelligence is putting new teeth on the old saw that cheaters never prosper. New companies and new research are applying the cutting edge technology in at least three different ways to combat cheating -- on homework, on the job hunt and even on one's diet. In California, a new company called Crosschq is using machine learning and data analytics to help employers with the job reference process. The technology is meant to help companies avoid bad hires and compare how job candidates present themselves with how their references see them. In Pennsylvania, Drexel University researchers are developing an app that can predict when dieters are likely to lapse on their eating regimen, based on the time of day, the user's emotions -- even the temperature of their skin and heart rate.

The view from space has forever changed our vision on our home planet, revealing its beauty while pointing at the same time to its inherent fragility. This new perspective from above contributed to the emergence of the concept of Sustainable Development (SD), by convincing many of the need to (better) manage our (rapidly depleting) resources in a sustainable manner that would "meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". Over the last decades, the principles of SD were progressively adopted by world leaders on the occasion of a series of Earth Summits. One of the key challenges to implement SD however lies in one's ability to measure it. As stated by Lord Kelvin, "if you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it". The challenge is further compounded by the inherent global nature of the problem, which calls for global data sets.

Today the UK government publishes'Using artificial intelligence in the public sector,' an initiative led by the Office for Artificial Intelligence (OAI) and the Government Digital Service (GDS), with The Alan Turing Institute's public policy programme contributing guidance on AI ethics and safety. The new guide states that several public sector organisations are already successfully using AI for tasks ranging from fraud detection to answering customer queries. It explains how the potential uses for AI in the public sector are significant, but must be balanced with ethical, fairness and safety considerations. These ethical and safety issues are laid out in full in a section of the guide titled'Understanding artificial intelligence ethics and safety' by Dr David Leslie, Ethics Fellow in the Turing's public policy programme. This groundbreaking work is the most comprehensive guidance on the topic of AI ethics and safety in the public sector to date.

The The Europas Awards for European Tech Startups is coming, and today it releases its final shortlist after an intense round of public voting and judges' delioberations. The awards will be held on 27 June 2019, in London, U.K. and TechCrunch is once more the exclusive media sponsor of the awards, alongside new "tech, culture & society" event creator The Pathfounder. The awards cover 20 categories, including new additions such as cover AgTech / FoodTech, SpaceTech, GovTech and Mobility Tech. Attendees, nominees and winners will get discounts to TechCrunch Disrupt in Berlin, later this year. The Europas Awards results are based on voting by expert judges and the industry itself.

INTERVIEW: Anand Prasad (pictured), chief information and security officer at Japanese startup operator Rakuten, reckons the full benefits of AI as a means of improving IT and network security will only be unlocked if people remain in the loop. He noted companies can't rely on AI to deliver 100 per cent of their security needs: while some issues can be detected using algorithms and machine learning, "after that you'll always need a human being at the end to have a 100 per cent secure system". Prasad reckons AI will never be perfect, so "there will always be a balance". The e-commerce giant's Rakuten Mobile unit plans to take on incumbent operators NTT Docomo, KDDI and SoftBank by launching a network in Japan in October. As an internet player, he said the company is using its IT experience to differentiate itself by taking a completely cloud-native approach, with plans to virtualise the radio network.

Artificial Intelligence is benefiting to various industries including healthcare, education and manufacturing. But what is Artificial intelligence (AI)? In Layman language, a simulator of human intelligence, which makes the decision after analyzing various data utilizing a collection of different intelligent technologies including machine and deep learning, analytics and computer vision. The fourth industrial revolution is employing AI to enhance its overall efficiency. The technology is not only helping to reduce manufacturing cost as well as it is improving productivity and quality. Manufacturing is a capital-intensive process, and once a plant is a set-up, replacing, removing or renovating is exorbitantly expensive. New machines improve performance; reduce redundancies, while improving overall quality metrics. AI is proving an alternative route to achieve all this and at extremely competitive price points. Instead of now replacing machines, manufacturers are adding AI/ML tools to pre-inspect raw materials identify defects, perform quality evaluations, and a lot more. Many AI solutions currently deployed use vision, which provides an opportunity to further add features like correct labelling, batch numbering, size/dimension mismatches, as well as other visual inspection elements.