The New York Times reports that federal prosecutors are conducting a criminal investigation into Facebook's data deals with major electronics manufacturers. The newspaper says a grand jury in New York has subpoenaed information from at least two companies known for making smartphones and other devices, citing two unnamed people familiar with the request. It reports that both companies had data partnerships with Facebook that gave them access to the personal information of hundreds of millions of users. Facebook describes those data deals as innocuous efforts to help smartphone makers provide Facebook features to users before the social network had its own app. The Times reports that it is not clear when the inquiry began or exactly what it is focusing on.

How much gaming is too much gaming? This is the question Japan's pre-eminent addiction expert, Dr. Susumu Higuchi, is trying to answer as he treats people whose lives have been destroyed by video game addiction. Online gaming addiction has become the fastest-growing form of addiction in the 21st century, and it's the most vulnerable people -- children -- who mainly fall prey to its psychoactive effects, Higuchi says. As head of the Kurihama Medical and Addiction Center in Kanagawa Prefecture, which started the country's first program for internet addition in 2011, Higuchi is rolling up his sleeves to tackle a scourge that has eaten into the vitals of our society. "This isn't just about Japan, it's happening all over the world," Higuchi said in a recent interview.

A group of investors led by SoftBank Group Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp. is in talks to invest $1 billion or more into Uber Technologies Inc.'s self-driving vehicle unit, which would value the unit at $5 billion to $10 billion, said two people familiar with the talks. The investment would provide a cash injection for Uber's self-driving program, which is costing the money-losing startup hundreds of millions of dollars without generating revenue. It could also help underscore Uber's value as the ride-hailing firm prepares for a stock market debut in which its value could top $100 billion. Uber and SoftBank declined to comment. A Toyota spokesman said the automaker "constantly reviews and considers various options for investment" but does not have anything to announce.

Shah Alam, Malaysia – The attorney general is pushing ahead with the trial of Vietnamese Doan Thi Huong in the murder of Kim Jong Nam despite the unexpected decision this week to free her co-accused. The prosecution told the Shah Alam court on Thursday the attorney general had considered "all reasons" but 30-year-old Huong's trial for killing the half-brother of North Korea's leader would proceed. The prosecutor did not elaborate. Indonesian Siti Aisyah was freed on Monday after the prosecution suddenly withdrew the charge against her. She is now back in Indonesia.

WEDNESDAY, March 13, 2019 (HealthDay News) -- The term artificial intelligence (AI) might bring to mind robots or self-driving cars. But one group of researchers is using a type of AI to improve lung cancer screening. Screening is important for early diagnosis and improved survival odds, but the current lung cancer screening method has a 96 percent false positive rate. But in the new study, investigators were able to reduce false findings of lung cancer without missing any actual cases. A low-dose CT scan is the standard diagnostic test for people at high risk of lung cancer.

As an ontologist, I'm often asked about the distinctions between taxonomies and ontologies, and whether ontologies are replacing taxonomies. The second question is easy to answer: "No." Both taxonomies and ontologies serve vital, and often complementary, roles ... if they are used right. A taxonomy is, to put it simply, a categorization scheme. Most readers should be familiar with a few critical taxonomies such as the Linnaeus Taxonomy used to represent how animals are related to one another, and the Dewey Decimal System for libraries, which represents subject areas of interest.

It is not a news that India has an acute shortage of teachers at elementary, secondary and even at the higher levels of schools. According to the statistics given by the Human Resource & Development (HRD)Ministry of India in 2016, there is a shortage of 1 million teachers across the country. In case of Universities and Colleges, there is a chronic shortage of faculty and the problem of finding qualified people to fill this gap has become even more complicated. In such a scenario, how can India, a country which has the second largest population in the world would cope-up with the challenges of providing quality education to all. Several education experts are saying that our system needs a revolutionary technological intervention. An intervention that would make it more inclusive and accessible.

There is no simple answer if you want to introspect the role ultra-modern technologies are going to play in the coming future of businesses. Albeit the vigorous usage of AI has already alerted many industries, the picture is much more perplex than it seems like. The profit-centric syndrome of the business world has opened up the doors for state-of-art technologies like AI and RPA to step in and penetrate various units. If you are a business owner, you do understand that you will do whatever yields the maximum profit for your company, right? That's what AI is doing.

The newspaper says a grand jury in New York has subpoenaed information from at least two companies known for making smartphones and other devices, citing two unnamed people familiar with the request. It reports that both companies had data partnerships with Facebook that gave them access to the personal information of hundreds of millions of users.

The Amper app allows a user to pick a genre of music (rap, folk, rock) and a mood (happy, sad, driving) before spitting out a song. The user can then change the tempo, add instruments or switch them out until the result is satisfactory. Two songs created by Amper at SXSW -- using the public's choice of pop and hip hop as the genres and tender or sad for the mood -- clearly aren't likely to top the charts. But the pieces were pleasant enough to the ear and perfectly usable as background music to illustrate a video or a computer game. Such songs are described by Amper as "functional music" as opposed to "artistic music."