For many who grew up in the 90s and early 2000s, the sound of a parent yelling from upstairs to stop playing video games and go outside and enjoy the beautiful summer day was probably a fairly common occurrence. It was often times met with a "One more level!" Others tried a bolder strategy of not moving or making a sound when the call inevitably came downstairs, hoping their parent had movement based T-rex vision and would soon realize their mistake and move on. It usually didn't work (meaning it never worked) and soon enough it was time to shut off the game console and head out into the real world. But today, thanks to the ubiquity of smart phones and some fancy augmented reality technology, not only are playing video games and spending time outside no longer mutually exclusive, one actually encourages the other.

Imagine if you could predict people's behaviour. Even if just for simple tasks like texting (and adding emojis, a brand new only-beta feature) to your chat. Well, now come back to reality as Swiftkey is already doing it. SwiftKey learns from previous SMS messages and output predictions based on currently input text and what it has learned giving you word suggestions following your writing style. Swiftkey has been funded in 2008 and bought by Microsoft earlier this year.

Brain function is made possible by an interconnected structure of neurons, glia and microvessels relying on exchange of information with one another as well as with the extracellular compartment. This communication engenders the phenomenon of the mind, frequently referred to as the mental trilogy: cognition (thinking), emotion (assigning value to stimuli), and motivation (setting and achieving goals) (1). In order to accomplish these tasks the brain utilizes over 100 billion cells and 600 km of microvessels (2) embedded in an extracellular matrix (ECM) of proteins, polysaccharides and interstitial fluid (ISF) (3). As we are getting well into the 21st century, it has become clearer that the mind is the product of the brain, just as the body movement is the product of the musculoskeletal system. With the same token, it is clearer and clearer that psychiatric disorders are disruptions of cellular or molecular communication in brain networks.

Artificial intelligence is a branch of computer science that deals with making the computers or a robot controlled by a computer, or software think intelligently just like humans. The term was first coined by John McCarthy in 1956 at the MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. According to him, AI is "the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs". The field of AI draws upon computer science, psychology, mathematics, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy and artificial psychology. The major goal of AI is creating expert intelligent systems which can learn, explain and advice the users and implementing human intelligence in the machines.

Now, the video game has a scientific connection. Microsoft has made Project Malmo available for programmers on GitHub via an open-source license. This platform uses the world of Minecraft to test advancements in artificial intelligence research. Before this move, the system was only used in private viewing by computer scientists. "We're trying to put out the tools that will allow people to make progress on those really, really hard research questions," Katja Hofmann said, the leader of Project Malmo and a researcher in Microsoft's research lab in Cambridge, UK.

Currently, creative engineers are forced to build geometry in CAD systems to assess the viability of design ideas. In the future, their time will be better spent analyzing and constructing the problem statement, so computers can generate new geometric options and help engineers iterate faster. As a result, the scope of problems will increase, creating new challenges and opportunities. An example is SpaceX, which successfully landed two rockets on a boat this year (after five failed attempts). What if, at the beginning of the process, the engineers had fed project parameters into a generative-design tool?

Artificial intelligence is usually associated with futuristic sci-fi movies and the rise of the machines against humanity. What many people don't realise is that it's commonplace today, and something you've probably not noticed has become a critical part of your life. The intelligence Facebook uses to make friends suggestions or how Google photos recognises faces and places are both examples of AI, and machine learning, in action. AI is also being used in organisations worldwide to augment and assist human employees to do their jobs better and smarter. In South Africa, Stellenbosch-based CLEVVA has developed an AI platform that enables companies to rapidly and easily deploy Virtual Advisors across every aspect of their businesses.

The media interest surrounding deep learning has grown exponentially in the last few years. But what does it actually mean, and how will it change business and society? Deep learning is a subset of machine learning that refers to mapping artificial neural networks to recreate some of the same processes that the human brain performs, and using algorithms with speech, images and text, to recognise, identify and understand patterns in the data. Although this sounds simple, it involves complex processes and functions - but once trained, the application of deep learning algorithms could be world changing. For instance, a machine that learns like a human, but can rapidly process thousands of images and recognise patterns, is already showing promise for applying deep learning to medical imaging.

Monday 18th July 2016, Whitley: Sir Ben Ainslie has hailed Land Rover's artificial intelligence (AI) as a'game changer' ahead of the British America's Cup team's home event in Portsmouth (22-24 July). Land Rover, Title and Exclusive Innovation Partner to Land Rover BAR, is applying its big data processing power and machine learning expertise to help co-engineer the fastest boat in America's Cup history and bring the world's oldest sporting trophy to the UK for the first time. Land Rover engineers, embedded into the team for over a year, are using artificial intelligence to explore and find patterns in sailing performance data to help'make the boat go faster'. When testing, the sailing team receives over 16 GB of uncompressed data per day from sensors on the boat - the equivalent of filling an iPhone's memory. The ability to process and make sense of this volume of data is unprecedented in sailing.

Major landmarks around the world are Lighting It Up Blue on April 1 and 2 to raise awareness about Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) for World Autism Awareness Day at Forte Sangallo on April 02, 2016 in Nettuno, Italy. In recent months, artificial intelligence (AI) has been making its presence known in different fields of sciences. In fact, AI is deemed as a valuable asset in precision medicine. But now, a team of researchers is exploring the possibilities if machine learning could play a vital part in autism screening, diagnostics and intervention. Before delving deeper into the latest research on the importance of artificial intelligence in autism screening and diagnostics, let's first define the two most relevant subjects on the study - autism and machine learning. According to Autism Speaks, autism refers to the "general term used for group of complex disorders of brain development," which are marked by social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication difficulties, as well as repetitive behaviors.