New York's bid to identify road-going terrorists with facial recognition isn't going very smoothly so far. The Wall Street Journal has obtained a Metropolitan Transportation Authority email showing that a 2018 technology test on New York City's Robert F. Kennedy Bridge not only failed, but failed spectacularly -- it couldn't detect a single face "within acceptable parameters." An MTA spokesperson said the pilot program would continue at RFK as well as other bridges and tunnels, but it's not an auspicious start. The problem may be inherent to the early state of facial recognition at these speeds. Oak Ridge National Laboratory achieved more than 80 percent accuracy in a study that spotted faces through windshields, but that was at low speed.

After enough teasing, IKEA saved the full reveal for Italy's premier design show, Salone del Mobile, unveiling not only the $99 SYMFONISK bookshelf with WiFi speaker but also what the furniture maker calls its "loudest table lamp ever" -- yep, an on-trend lamp ($179) that hides a substantial Sonos speaker inside. IKEA has form in combining or hiding technology into its products, like its wireless charging mats built into tables and, again, lamps. According to the company, these products have been well received, so it's going one step further and getting into smart-speaker territory. Rather than attempt to deliver a decent audio experience (and likely mess it up), it's collaborated with Sonos on both these WiFi speakers-in-disguise. The two companies say it's about a shared passion.

The history of AI is often told as the story of machines getting smarter over time. What's lost is the human element in the narrative, how intelligent machines are designed, trained, and powered by human minds and bodies. In this six-part series, we explore that human history of AI--how innovators, thinkers, workers, and sometimes hucksters have created algorithms that can replicate human thought and behavior (or at least appear to). While it can be exciting to be swept up by the idea of super-intelligent computers that have no need for human input, the true history of smart machines shows that our AI is only as good as we are. At 10:30pm on 29 October 1969, a graduate student at UCLA sent a two-letter message from an SDS Sigma 7 computer to another machine a few hundred miles away at the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park. The student had meant to send "LOGIN," but the packet switching network supporting the transmission of the message, the ARPANET, crashed before the whole message could be typed out.

Over more than a decade, self-driving vehicles have logged millions of miles on roadways across the globe. Despite all that driving, researchers say, the machines are still unable to replicate the sophisticated problem-solving and spontaneity human drivers employ each time they get behind the wheel. In their ambitious attempt to create an autonomous car service, companies like Waymo run their software through millions of potential scenarios, create three-dimensional maps using lasers, and outfit their vehicles powerful sensors like LIDAR that can cost more than the cars they guide. The goal is to prepare the vehicle for anything it might encounter before it touches the road, creating a system of rules that predetermine behavior. Now, an upstart British company called Wayve claims to have created a self-driving car using technology that almost sounds Stone Age compared to the competition.

A moon base could be constructed remotely. Japan's space agency wants to create a moon base with the help of robots that can work autonomously, with little human supervision. The project, which has racked up three years of research so far, is a collaboration between the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the construction company Kajima Corp., and three Japanese universities: Shibaura Institute of Technology, The University of Electro-Communications and Kyoto University. Recently, the collaboration did an experiment on automated construction at the Kajima Seisho Experiment Site in Odawara (central Japan). A 7-ton autonomous backhoe went through its paces at the site, going through procedures such as driving a specified distance and repeating routine operations, JAXA officials said in a statement.

Hera uses infrared to scan impact crater. Judging by the valuations of companies such as Waymo, Lyft and Uber, humanity is placing a big bet on self-driving cars as the future of transportation. But the future of humanity itself may rest on the hopes of self-driving spacecraft. The European Space Agency is currently developing a self-driving craft for its Hera planetary defense mission to the Didymos asteroid, which could happen as soon as 2023. "If you think self-driving cars are the future on Earth, then Hera is the pioneer of autonomy in deep space," Paolo Martino, lead systems engineer of ESA's proposed Hera mission, said in a statement.

Amid Apple's efforts to bolster its hardware and software with artificial intelligence (AI), an expert in the field has joined the tech company. Ian Goodfellow is now a director of machine learning in Apple's Special Projects Group, CNBC reported. Goodfellow is behind an AI approach called generative adversarial networks (GANs), in which a generative network and discriminative network help produce creative outputs through video and audio as well as text. GAN systems are also said to have been used for the creation of "deepfake" content. After earning his Ph.D. from the University of Montreal, Goodfellow worked at Google as well as OpenAI.

Less than one week after Google scrapped its AI ethics council, the European Union has set out its own guidelines for achieving "trustworthy" artificial intelligence. On Monday, the European Commission released a set of steps to maintain ethics in artificial intelligence, as companies and governments weigh both the benefits and risks of the far-reaching technology. "The ethical dimension of AI is not a luxury feature or an add-on," said Andrus Ansip, EU vice-president for the digital single market, in a press release Monday. "It is only with trust that our society can fully benefit from technologies." The EU defines artificial intelligence as systems that show "intelligent behavior," allowing them to analyze their environment and perform tasks with some degree of autonomy.

The Slovenian government has announced plans, with official backing from UNESCO, to set up Europe's first international artificial intelligence research center. The Department of Intelligent Systems at the Jožef Stefan Institute (JSI) in Ljubljana will convert into a center that focuses on the governance and policies surrounding artificial intelligence (AI). At an event celebrating the 70th anniversary of the institute, Slovenia's Prime Minister, Marjan Šarec, said: "All of this Slovenian know-how which has been applied for all these years, and all the knowledge that we possessed in the past and that we still possess today is undoubtedly a reason for us, or should I say you, to be proud," Slovenia has a history and dedication to the field of AI- having embraced it as far back as 1972 when research at the JSI and the University of Ljubljana first began. In the 90s, there was a continued expansion of Slovenian AI research, starting with'heuristic search' into areas like machine learning and qualitative reasoning. As a result, this period provoked an increase in the presence of Slovenian researchers and publications in academia.

This being a new report from the European Commission, it should come as no surprise that its "seven essentials for achieving trustworthy AI," and robotics are themselves only one of three über-steps. The other two steps include a "large-scale pilot with partners" and "building international consensus for human-centric AI" -- more on both later. The European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society Mariya Gabriel says the EU is taking "an important step towards ethical and secure AI. We now have a solid foundation based on EU values and following an extensive and constructive engagement from many stakeholders including businesses, academia and civil society." The seven essentials have been released as part of the European Commission's AI Strategy from 2018.