Affectiva, a startup developing "emotion recognition technology" that can read people's moods from their facial expressions captured in digital videos, raised 14 million in a Series D round of funding led by Fenox Venture Capital. According to co-founder Rana el Kaliouby, the Waltham, Mass.-based company wants its technology to become the de facto means of adding emotional intelligence and empathy to any interactive product, and the best way for organizations to attain unvarnished insights about customers, patients or constituents. She explained that Affectiva uses computer vision and deep learning technology to analyze facial expressions or non-verbal cues in visual content online, but not the language or conversations in a video. The company's technology ingests digital images--including video in chat applications, live-streamed or recorded videos, or even GIFs--through simple web cams typically. Its system first categorizes then maps the facial expressions to a number of emotional states, like happy, sad, nervous, interested or surprised.

They say that kids aren't born sexist or racist--hate is taught. Artificial intelligence is the same way, and humans are fabulous teachers. ProPublica reported, for example, that an algorithm used to to predict the likelihood of convicts committing future crime tends to tag black folks as higher risk than whites. Despite the oft-repeated claim that such data-driven approaches are more objective than past methods of determining the risk of recidivism or anything else, it's clear that our very human biases have rubbed off on our machines. Consider the case of Microsoft's simple Tay bot, which sucked up all the slurs and racist opinions that Twitter users threw at it and ended up spouting Nazi drivel.

Held at VodaWorld in Midrand, ITWeb's annual Security Summit provided a platform for both local and international industry experts and analysts to share their experiences and strategies to safeguard their organisation against a cyber-attack.

Google's self-driving cars may become a more familiary sight in the Detroit area as opens a new test center (Photo: Google) DETROIT -- Google may have hatched its self-driving cars in California's Silicon Valley, but it is returning to the traditional heart of the auto industry to develop it. John Krafcik, CEO of Google's Self-Driving Car Project, said Wednesday that the tech giant will open a 53,000-squaree-foot development center in the Detroit suburb of Novi. He made the announcement in a post on Google . Krafcik said the Novi development center will serve as a hub that Google will use to work with a number of partners in the automotive industry. Google has been working on self-driving cars for more than six years.

Google also announced a partnership earlier this month with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, which has a headquarters near Detroit. Google plans to outfit 100 Chrysler Pacifica minivans with self-driving technology as part of that collaboration.

A little-known extremist cleric was chosen Wednesday to be the new leader of the Afghan Taliban, just days after a U.S. drone strike killed his predecessor. But within hours of the Taliban's announcement that the group's council of leaders had unanimously selected Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, opposition to him emerged -- a sign that rifts within the insurgency could widen and possibly drive the Taliban further from peace talks with the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban called on all Muslims to support Akhundzada as a matter of religious obligation and declared three days of official mourning for Mullah Mohammed Akhtar Mansour, who was slain Saturday by a U.S. drone in Pakistan. The announcement came as a suicide bomber struck a minibus carrying court employees in Kabul, killing at least 11 people, an official said. The Taliban promptly claimed responsibility for the attack.

"Banks, financial services, insurance companies as well as global enterprises in other data-intensive industries are using cognitive automation to solve operational problems," said Alex Lyashok, COO of WorkFusion. "Gartner's report highlights the opportunity to use smart machines to transform existing business processes. Our product helps operations teams apply smart automation in an easy, non-disruptive way. Not only does WorkFusion help deliver as much as a 60% reduction in common back-office processes, but customers are also able to improve customer experience by reducing cycle times and improving the quality of customer interactions." WorkFusion is the leading smart process automation solution for enterprise operations.

I read Michele Hanson's article (G2, 24 May) with a wry smile, having spent time earlier modifying a friend's computer to prevent it updating to Windows 10, as the same thing had nearly happened to me last month. What happens is that Microsoft installs a Trojan horse update along with all the normal ones. To prevent this happening, you need to uninstall update number KB3035583 (go to control panel, Windows update, installed updates, then find the right update KB3035583 right click on it and click uninstall). You may want to stop Microsoft installing it again by switching off automatic updates (Windows update, change settings). I have heard many stories of people who have upgraded to Windows 10 and found numerous problems using their computer, including lost data.

You've made up your mind to become a data scientist. You've taken every data science MooC, you've eaten a lifetime of pizza at machine learning meetups, you even attended a data science "academy." Data Science is not knowledge to be acquired but rather a skill that can be learned and improved through practice. The number one qualification employers look for when hiring a data science candidate is previous experience. Startup.ML is launching a fellowship to give aspiring data scientists the chance to hone their skills by building real machine learning applications for startups and established data science teams.

FILE - In this Thursday, March 8, 2012, file photo, Clarium Capital President Peter Thiel speaks during his keynote speech at the StartOut LGBT Entrepreneurship Awards in San Francisco. Billionaire tech investor Thiel has been secretly funding Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker Media for publishing a sex tape, according to reports in Forbes and The New York Times. FILE - In this Monday, March 21, 2016, file photo, Hulk Hogan, whose given name is Terry Bollea, left, looks on in court moments after a jury returned its decision in St. Petersburg, Fla. Billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel has been secretly funding Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker Media for publishing a sex tape, according to reports in Forbes and The New York Times. Here's some biographical information on billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel, who has been secretly funding Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker Media, according to published reports: COMPANY CONNECTIONS: Thiel co-founded PayPal in 1998 and was its chairman and CEO. PayPal was sold to eBay in 2002 for 1.5 billion.