It was time to begin teaching my class. The children were in their seats, laptops turned on, ready to begin. I scanned the doorway, hoping for one more girl to arrive: there were nine boys in my class and just two girls. I was conducting free coding classes, but young girls were still reluctant to attend. As a 15-year-old computer enthusiast, I was baffled by this lack of interest.

Professor Yale Patt, the Ernest Cockrell, Jr. Centennial Chair in Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin has been named the 2016 recipient of the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science by the Franklin Institute. Patt is a renowned computer architect, whose research has resulted in transformational changes to the nature of high-performance microprocessors, including the first complex logic gate implemented on a single piece of silicon. He has received ACM's highest honors both in computer architecture (the 1996 Eckert-Mauchly Award) and in education (the 2000 Karl V. Karlstrom Award). He is a Fellow of the ACM and the IEEE and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Derek Chiou, an associate professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, conducted an extensive interview of Patt, covering his formative years to his Ph.D. in 1966, his career since then, and his views on a number of issues. Presented here are excerpts from that interview; the full interview is available via the link appearing on the last page of this interview. DEREK CHIOU: Let's start with the influences that helped shape you into who you are. I have often heard you comment on your actions as, "That's the way my mother raised me." YALE PATT: In my view my mother was the most incredible human being who ever lived. Born in Eastern Europe, with her parents' permission, at the age of 20, she came to America by herself. A poor immigrant, she met and married my father, also from a poor immigrant family, and they raised three children. We grew up in one of the poorer sections of Boston. Because of my mother's insistence, I was the first from that neighborhood to go to college. My brother was the second. My sister was the third. You have often said that as far as your professional life is concerned, she taught you three important lessons. Almost everyone in our neighborhood quit school when they turned 16 and went to work in the Converse Rubber factory, which was maybe 100 yards from our apartment. She would have none of it.

"Criminal was killed by robot" might soon become a standard police report. Just as an anonymous "police sniper," this robot gives the operator a chance to remain anonymous while pressing the red button to relay a kill command. The DOGO crawling traction tactical combat robot unveiled by Israeli General Robotics Ltd. was developed with counterterrorism in mind. The machine, operated remotely from a Panasonic touchpad, boasts 360-degree vision and audio intercom for conducting negotiations. It can be armed with non-lethal weapons, such as pepper spray and flashlight blinders, but it can also serve as an unemotional and lethal terminator.

Xero has global expansion plans for Xero Signals, its data service to help small business owners understand how they are faring compared to the larger market. "Signals will be rolled out globally, or where we have significant subscriber numbers which is Australia, UK and the US," says Anna Curzon, Xero's local managing director. "We have some initial data for the UK and we'll be rolling out Australia soon." With the use of big data and machine learning, SMBs can be alerted to economic trends in advance, she states. "The Xero platform is providing unique and real-time insights into the importance of small business in economies," she told the audience at a panel discussion on cross border e-commerce at the Tripartite Economic Summit in Auckland.

The BMW WELCOMES are back at BMW Welt with exciting topics for 2016. We are kicking off the BMW Welcomes 2016 season on April 21st at 7.45 pm(CET). Four international experts are examining the topic ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. Catalin Voss (Founder Sension; Research Scholar Stanford University School of Medicine) Dr. Nicholas Haber (Chief Scientific Officer Sension; Postdoctoral Research Fellow Stanford University School of Medicine) „Autism Glass Project: Can Artificial Intelligence Make Us More Empathetic?" Dr. Werner Huber (Manager Highly Automated Driving, BMW Group) "Human or Robot - who will control our future vehicle?"

Robin Hanson thinks the robot takeover, when it comes, will be in the form of emulations. In his new book, The Age of Em, the economist explains: you take the best and brightest 200 human beings on the planet, you scan their brains and you get robots that to all intents and purposes are indivisible from the humans on which they are based, except a thousand times faster and better. Related: The Guardian view on artificial intelligence: look out, it's ahead of you Editorial For some reason, conversationally, Hanson repeatedly calls these 200 human prototypes "the billionaires", even though having a billion in any currency would be strong evidence against your being the brightest, since you have no sense of how much is enough. But that's just a natural difference of opinion between an economist and a mediocre person who is now afraid of the future. These Ems, being superior at everything and having no material needs that couldn't be satisfied virtually, will undercut humans in the labour market, and render us totally unnecessary.

Senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett is still listing "ending two wars" as one of the major accomplishments of the Obama administration, despite deepening U.S. involvement overseas – including the recent U.S. drone strike that took out Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Akhtar Mansour. Jarrett, one of President Obama's closest aides, made the remarks in an interview aired Sunday on CBS' "60 Minutes." Asked whatever happened to the president's call for "hope and change," she cited a slew of changes during Obama's two terms: "Just look at what's happened in the last seven years. While the interview may have been conducted before the official Pentagon announcement, her comments coincided with the news that a drone strike had taken out Taliban leader Mansour in the Pakistan province of Baluchistan – the latest sign of the prolonged fight in the Middle East and South Asia. Even before those comments, the administration was taking criticism for efforts to downplay U.S. military actions against terror and insurgent groups.

Google is working on a new project to determine if artificial intelligence can ever be truly creative. The project, called Magenta, was unveiled this weekend at Moogest in Durham, North Carolina, Quartz reports. During a presentation at Moogfest, Google Brain researcher Douglas Eck said the goal of the new group is to determine if AI is capable of creating original music and visual art somewhat independently of humans. The Magenta team will use Google's open-source machine learning software TensorFlow, and try to "train" AI to make art. They'll create tools (and make them available to the public), like one that helps researchers import data from MIDI files into TensorFlow, Quartz reports.

China will boost growth of the artificial intelligence (AI) sector in the next three years, said a statement issued by the National Development and Reform Commission on Monday. By 2018, China shall build platforms for fundamental AI resources and innovation and make breakthroughs on basic core technology, said the three-year implementation program for "Internet Plus" AI. The country shall be in line with global AI technology and industries by 2018, it said. The program will involve key projects such as intelligent home appliances, smart automobiles, intelligent wearable devices and robots. Government departments shall map out supportive fiscal policies for the sector and boost international cooperation, it said.

Google is launching a new project to see whether artificial intelligence can create art. In a talk at Moogfest, a US technology festival, Google researcher Douglas Eck described a project that would seek to understand whether or not a computer can create art. Magenta, which will launch in early June, is part of Google Brain, the company's deep learning research. Eck said the project was in part inspired by DeepDream, an artificial intelligent system trained to find patterns in pictures. "There's a couple of things that got me wanting to form Magenta, and one of them was seeing the completely, frankly, astonishing improvements in the state of the art. And I wanted to demystify this a little bit," said Eck. "The question Magenta asks is, 'Can machines make music and art? If not, why not?'," he said.