It's no mystery that big data presents a challenge to privacy. But perhaps more alarming is the emergence of technology that combines facial recognition and data analytics to create a powerful surveillance tool. It's a disturbing development that combines the most worrisome aspects of algorithmic and big data technology with the chilling and dangerous threats inherent in facial recognition. A Chicago tech company is advertising its "predictive video" to anticipate behavior "based on the emotional state and personality style of any person in a video." In Russia, the app FindFace gives users "the power to identify total strangers on the street," according to The Atlantic. Google's new chat app Allo has a "smart reply" feature that apparently analyzes photos from contacts and offers suggested responses to them .

Artificial intelligence is a rapidly evolving process on the verge of revising many industries, including healthcare. According to a report by Frost & Sullivan the AI market in healthcare will hit 6 billion by 2021, having been at 600 million, just two years ago. Cognitive solutions such as IBM's Watson system can assess enormous amounts of patient data, provide guidance and decision support, and improve clinical workflow. "The goal is to support the physician, not replace him or her" said Anil Jain, vice president of IBM's Watson Health and an internist and medical informatics specialist at the Cleveland Clinic. The IBM "Redefining Boundaries" study divulges that healthcare executives believe that this technology will require them to reassess most aspects of the business in the next few years.

"The future is here," or so stated Adrian Flux Insurance Services, an insurance broker out of Norfolk, England, that announced it will issue policies for self-driving cars. "Unlike every insurance policy that you've ever held in the past, driverless car insurance needs to cover you against a whole host of modern problems, not just your typical bumps and scrapes," the company stated in a news release. The U.K. allows the extensive testing of fully autonomous vehicles on public roads, as do the states of California, Florida, Michigan, Nevada, Texas and the District of Columbia in the U.S. New vehicles are increasingly coming with advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), which can take control of the vehicle to ensure it stops before hitting an object or maintains speed and distance between other vehicles. Google's self-driving pod car has no steering wheel. California is considering regulations that would require a human driver behind every autonomous vehicle's steering wheel.

Today everybody expects a regulation comes out and that's what it is forever. That will not work,

Recently a drone filmed a pair of whales feeding for perhaps the first time. Bryde's whales (named after the Norwegian merchant who built the first whaling stations in South Africa) reach a maximum length of over 54 feet. That's humongous, and should make it easy to observe them. The vastness of the ocean disagrees, and happily hides the whales in their vast tropical water range. Until recently, Bryde's whales had rarely been observed feeding in the wild.

There's a store causing a disruption tucked beside The High Line in New York City. STORY works on a far different model from your average shop: it's part magazine, part press release and part trade show. The space, employees and name don't change, but instead all of the merchandise flips over every two or so months for the newest story, like a new issue of a magazine. From this week until July 24th, STORY is showcasing its "Disrupt" story, inspired by Mr. Robot, the Golden Globe-winning hacker drama from USA Network, which returns for its second season on July 13 at 10 p.m. ET. Disrupt is far more than just a Mr. Robot-themed merchandise booth.

Apple's keynote will take place the first day of WWDC, June 13. This coming Monday, June 13 will bring Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference, held in San Francisco, California. The keynote, where a bulk of new software announcements that consumers care about are made, will start at 1 p.m. ET, or 10 a.m. PT where the conference is held. The conference breaks off into smaller sessions after the keynote, where developers get to find out new features they're being given and hoops they'll have to jump through to continue developing for iOS.

A self-driving John Deere tractor rumbles through Ian Pigott's 2,000-acre farm every week or so to spray fertilizer, guided by satellite imagery and each plot's harvesting history. The 11-ton behemoth, loaded with so many screens it looks like an airplane cockpit, relays the nutrient information to the farmer's computer system. With weather forecasts and data on pesticide use, soil readings, and plant tissue tests pulled by various pieces of software, Pigott can keep tabs on the farm down to the square meter in real time without ever leaving his carpeted office. "This is becoming more standard," says Pigott, who grows a rotation of wheat, oilseed, oats, and barley on his farm in the rolling Hertfordshire countryside an hour north of London. German chemical company Bayer cited the growth in such digitally assisted farming as a key reason for its 62 billion bid for Monsanto, which has become a leading provider of analytics used by growers.

Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple's annual event for people who write apps for its platforms, kicks off with a keynote presentation on Monday, June 13. WWDC is a software-focused event aimed at developers, which doesn't exclude possible hardware announcements. Here's everything we think Apple will announce at WWDC and, please, do feel free to post your own observations and predictions in comments. The tenth major release of Apple's mobile operating system should improve upon the feature set introduced in iOS 9 and iOS 8 while continuing to refine its look and feel, which received a major makeover with the release of iOS 7 three years ago. The changes should begin with bringing Siri intelligence to third-party apps and continue with refinements like an iCloud Voicemail feature that should transcribe voicemails, an improved Apple Music with a more intuitive interface, the officially-sanctioned way to hide, or even delete unwanted stock apps, new 3D Touch shortcuts, a person-to-person payments via iMessage, iMessage for Android, a Skitch-like editing feature in Photos and more.

To hold its own against digital assistants from Google, Microsoft and Amazon, Siri needs an IQ boost. Last month, Google took the stage in Mountain View, California, to show off improvements to its digital voice assistant. Its signature ability is to have a conversation with it like you would a normal person. You can ask "Google Assistant" what's on your schedule and then have it text the person you're meeting to say you'll be late. Google remembers your first question, so you don't have to start over with a new command.