Microsoft's annual developer conference, //build/, was held March 30th to April 1st in San Francisco. During the conference, we unveiled a new version of Microsoft Translator API that adds real-time speech translation capabilities to the existing text translation API. Powered by Microsoft's state-of-the-art artificial intelligence technologies, speech translation has been available in Skype or over…

A new method of assembling tyres that promises to improve quality and productivity while eliminating the risk of human error has been introduced within a Bridgestone Corporation plant in Japan. The tyre maker has announced the installation of the new Examation system at its flagship Hikone passenger car tyre production site. The tyre maker reports that Examation "combines Bridgestone's proprietary information and communication technologies with artificial intelligence." The proprietary technologies Bridgestone refers to have been developed in stages over the past two decades: Research into tyre production systems employing ICT and other cutting-edge technologies began at Bridgestone in the late 1990s with the aim of creating more functional tyres and improving quality. In 2002, the company developed the BIRD (Bridgestone Innovative and Rational Development) production system, which was the world's first system for realising complete automation in areas of production ranging from components processes to product inspection processes.

That's the number of miles, on average, that it takes a human driver to kill someone in the United States. It's also the number of miles Tesla's semi-autonomous'Autopilot' feature had racked up by May this year. Assuming Autopilot is rolled out to Tesla's mass-market Model 3 in 2017, that number will rapidly climb into the billions. Mercedes are deploying similar systems in their new E-class, while Google's fully driverless cars have racked up another 1.6 million miles and counting . As the miles grow, the odds shrink.

After a recent study that suggested automated essay graders are as effective as their human counterparts in judging essay exams, "roboreaders" are receiving a new wave of publicity surrounding their possible inclusion in assessments and classrooms. But while developers of the technology are happy to have the attention, they insist the high profile has more to do with timing of policy changes such as the push to common standards than with any dramatic evolution in the essay-grading tools themselves. "What's changed is the claims people are willing to make about it. "I think, over time, a mixture of technologies will make this really good not only for scoring essays," but also for other assignments, said Mr. Cohen, the director of AIR's assessment program. "But we really need to be clear about the limits of the applications we are using today so we can get there." The study, underwritten by the Menlo Park, Calif.-based William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, is driven by the push to improve assessments related to the shift to the Common Core State Standards in English/language arts and math, and is based on the examination of essays written specifically for assessments.

It's difficult to track where meteors go when showers are both relatively common and rain down loads of space rocks. However, France thinks it has the answer. It recently launched FRIPON, a meteor detection network. The system uses a country-wide camera system (currently 68, scaling up to 100) to track where meteors fly -- if two or more cameras spot something, scientists get an alert. Eventually, that camera data will help narrow down likely impact areas (as small as 1 kilometer, or 0.6 miles) and send thousands of volunteers out to recover meteorites.

Siri upstaged Cortana Monday morning, in a digital assistant battle that's just starting to heat up. Microsoft may have positioned Cortana as the future of digital assistants with its surprise LinkedIn purchase, but mere hours later, Apple's Siri showed off a few productivity tricks of her own that Microsoft is going to have trouble matching. As part of Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference, Apple executives showed off macOS Sierra, the next iteration of Apple's Mac operating system. An integrated Siri wil be one of its star features. "It's the same Siri on the Mac that we know and love, but now it can do so much more,' said Craig Federighi, senior vice president of software engineering, in describing the new Siri.

The threat of killer robots may sound a little far-fetched but this latest'harmful robot' suggests we may have taken a step closer to this dystopian reality. Roboticist Alexander Reben from the University of Berkeley, California, has created a bot called "The First Law" that is capable of pricking a finger, but is programmed to choose not to every time if it means avoiding being switched off. Ultimately, it can decide whether or not to inflict pain to serve its own interest. The robot is named after the first law in a set of rules devised by sci-fi author Isaac Asimov, which - quoted as being from the Handbook of Robotics, 2058 AD – states "a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm". Reben's research paper explains how the robot operates in relation to "reinforcement learning agents" and how they are unlikely to behave optimally all the time.

Applied #AI summits for Amsterdam's startups, bluechips academics to discuss the current state of the industry what's coming soon.

Two hospitals in Belgium have employed robots to welcome patients and visitors, in what is reportedly the first use of automata to greet people in a medical setting. The robot, named Pepper, was unveiled Monday at a hospital in the eastern city of Liege, where it will act as a receptionist, Agence France-Presse reports. The cartoon-featured humanoid robot, which costs about 30,000 euros ( 33,800), is also being introduced at another facility in Ostend -- in northwest Belgium -- where it will perform the extra function of guiding visitors to the hospital's appropriate departments. Pepper the robot is manufactured by Tokyo-based tech firm SoftBank and versions are assembled in France, where they have already been tested out in a few shopping malls. The robot, described by its makers as "kindly, endearing and surprising," has a tablet computer mounted on its chest.

Apple has announced that it is bringing its virtual assistant Siri to the next Mac operating system. It can be used to find information on its computers, carry out web searches and send messages to acquaintances. The move lets the firm catch up with Microsoft, which offers a similar facility - Cortana - on Windows 10. Apple also announced it would be opening up Siri on its iOS mobile operating system to third-party apps. The firm's software chief Craig Federighi said that meant iPhone and iPad users would soon be able to send Whatsapp messages or book Uber cars via voice commands.