The data leak known as the "Panama Papers" is likely to have many compliance officers revisiting their respective organizations' exposure to relationships with third parties that utilize offshore entities. Given the breadth, depth and complexity of the potential implications surrounding the leak, as well as other similar existing regulatory enforcement trends, it is critical that organizations consider a risk-based, tailored approach to proactively assess compliance risks to which they may be subject.

A number of people talk about metadata. Some actually practice what they preach. When it comes to resources needed to apply/associate/embed metadata to digital assets (audio, video, text, graphics, photos) in a consistent manner, too many fall short. We consistently hear about issues with budgets and headcount, while what is really lacking is a clear business case with a total cost of ownership per year. This must include continual executive support (year over year) to operate a successful and sustainable Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution with the necessary people, processes, technology and information (metadata).

Global consulting firm Accenture has released a report looking at the potential benefits of autonomous vehicles in Australia and what connected industries may be affected by the advent of self-driving.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos says when it comes to technology, "We're on the edge of the golden era." Bezos offered a glimpse of his vision of the future during an interview Tuesday at the Code Conference in Southern California. Of artificial intelligence, Bezos says, "It's probably hard to overstate how big of an impact it's going to have on society over the next 20 years." Bezos says Amazon has 1,000 people working on its Alexa platform, which powers the company's popular voice-controlled Echo device. Bezos also owns The Washington Post and touched on other matters during his talk.

Last month, the Washington Post reported on a surprising new job in Silicon Valley: bot-writer. "Increasingly, there are poets, comedians, fiction writers, and other artistic types charged with engineering the personalities for a fast-growing crop of artificial intelligence tools," the Post's Elizabeth Dwoskin wrote. These personalities, Dwoskin reported, will soon be joined by more specialized bots developed by other companies, among them Sophie and Molly, "nurse avatars" that talk to patients about their medical conditions. There's even a "guru avatar" in development, designed to teach meditation. These products are exciting and futuristic--just a decade ago, the possibility of conversing with a computer program seemed like science fiction.

Alphabet's Boston Dynamics has produced some of the coolest (and scariest) robotics advances in recent years, and now may soon be looking for a new home. According to Nikkei Asian Review, Toyota is in "final talks" to acquire two robotics divisions from Google-parent Alphabet, Boston Dynamics and Schaft, a company created by two former Tokyo University professors. Both divisions were acquired by Google in 2013. The move will allow Toyota to strengthen its artificial intelligence division, the Toyota Research Institute, that the automaker created in January. The institute currently has offices in Palo Alto, Calif., and Cambridge, Mass., not far from Boston Dynamics main headquarters in Waltham.

The Washington Post has spoken to people within the bureau, who claim that the exemptions are necessary for it to work. Representatives say that the rules need to be tweaked, or else investigations would be compromised by people finding out they were on the database. It also pledges that its facial-recognition technology wouldn't be used for political purposes -- for instance to identify attendees at a presidential rally. One of the issues that the EFF wants to highlight is that the database, named NGI (Next Generation Identification), "disproportionately impacts people of color." It's been established that facial recognition technology struggles with non-white faces.

A shirt and cap that can diagnose epilepsy quickly and easily has been approved for use by European health services, including the UK's NHS. Epileptic seizures are the result of excessive electrical discharges in the brain. The World Health Organization estimates that over 50 million people worldwide have the condition, including 6 million in Europe, making it one of the world's most common serious neurological conditions. Brain implants and apps have been developed to warn of oncoming seizures. But to diagnose the condition, someone must typically have a seizure recorded by an EEG machine in a hospital – with sensors and wires attached to the scalp.

A UK-developed system capable of jamming signals to small drones is to be trialled by the US aviation authority. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is expanding efforts to source technology that can detect small, unmanned aerial vehicles near airports. Three British companies developed the Anti-UAV Defense System (Auds), due to be included in new trials. It works by jamming signals to drones, making them unresponsive. A thermal imaging camera allows the Auds operator to target the unwanted drone before signal jamming, via a high-powered radio signal, is activated.

Amazon has three big pillars: the retail marketplace, Amazon Prime, and Amazon Web Services. But there certainly would be room for a fourth pillar. It's possible that Amazon Studios, which is producing original video content for Prime Video, could be that fourth pillar, but it's also possible that the Alexa voice assistant, which is packaged inside of the Echo speaker, could end up being the fourth pillar, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos told Recode's Walt Mossberg today at Recode's Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. Google revealed its own Echo competitor earlier this month, and Apple is also working on an answer to the Echo. But Bezos does not seem to be worried about that.