Microsoft unveiled its AI chatbot on Twitter on Wednesday and the Internet managed to corrupt it in under 24 hours. Named Tay, the bot is an experiment in "conversational understanding," according to the company, as Tay evolves as users interact with it. Upon its launch, the Internet did what it does best: destroyed the innocence of Tay. Users on Twitter sent Tay racist and misogynistic comments that helped Tay become a prejudiced bot that repeated these sentiments. Microsoft has since issued a statement apologizing for the bot's behavior.

A robot assistant lifeguard called EMILY is making waves by helping migrants cross the Mediterranean Sea safely. In the wake of unrest, over 500 refugees have drowned attempting to cross the Mediterranean from Turkey to Greece. Members from the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station's (TEES) Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR) and Roboticists Without Borders gathered at the Greek island of Lesvos to assist the local Coast Guard and lifeguard organizations to prevent this from happening in the future. Dr. Robin Murphy, Raytheon Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University, aided authorities in Lesvos alongside CRASAR, of which she is an active member. She is working with students to continually improve the lifesaving device, which can carry up to eight people at once.

The world is on the precipice of an artificial intelligence revolution, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says. Mr Wozniak told the Advance Queensland Innovation and Investment Summit in Brisbane on Thursday, via a live feed from Orlando in Florida, machines were closer than ever to emulating the human brain. "I looked at the brain my whole life thinking we would never understand how it's wired, never know what consciousness is, we would never know what intuition is," he said. "And now we're seeing so many signs that are getting so close - we speak to our phones, we can get answers." Mr Wozniak said the artificial intelligence revolution would be separate from, and have just as big an influence on the world, as the digital revolution that proceeded it.

Eric Horvitz, managing director of Microsoft's Redmond, Washington, research lab was awarded the ACM – AAAI Allen Newell Award for groundbreaking contributions in artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction. Horvitz's work has primarily been focused on exploring the interrelationships between artificial intelligence and fields like decision science, cognitive science and neuroscience. The Newell award is given to a researcher whose work falls within the field of computer science or spans multiple disciplines. Horvitz's coworkers describe his impact as "immeasurable", and describe him as "an epic example of those brilliant researchers who have this huge confidence -- not over-confidence, but just confidence -- to keep pushing forward,". His research is described as delving into the ideas of how artificial intelligence can help to augment human intelligence, focusing on concept such as the principles of bounded rationality, and how computing systems immersed in the real world could make the best decisions in time-critical situations.

Armored tanks are built to protect, but they weren't designed to manoeuvre through rough terrain or avoid incoming threats. New concept vehicles have dropped the extra thick steel padding, allowing future machines to travel over 95 percent of available terrain and with more speed. Created by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), the Ground X-Vehicle Technology program is working to produce'nimble, fast and smart' combat trucks that are able to shield themselves from enemies and deflect targeted missiles. A new concept design drops the extra thick steel padding from the machines, allowing the future fighting vehicles to travel over 95 percent of available terrain and with more speed. Created by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), the Ground X-Vehicle Technology program is working to produce'nimble, fast, smart' combat trucks that can shield itself and deflect missiles Survivability through Agility--Autonomously avoid incoming threats without harming occupants through technologies that enable, for example, agile motion and active repositioning of armor.

Citing the All Writs act as a way to give the government the power to compel companies to redesign or reimplement their electronic products to government specifications represents a threat to everyone's civil liberties. This U.S. federal statute, first adopted in 1789 and updated in 1911, today plays a pivotal role in the FBI vs. Apple legal battle in which a federal magistrate in California ordered Apple, at the behest of the FBI, to create and sign a new version of Apple's iOS operating system. In a related court filing, the Justice Department said all information on an electronic device must be accessible to police under court warrant. Does that mean the government has the authority to obtain a court order to compel Apple to redesign its next generation of iPhones so it can break into and read any encrypted information? Moreover, can it prohibit importation of, say, Samsung smartphones for which Samsung has no ability to break in or read encrypted information?

Image processing is a mathematically intensive operation & one of the biggest areas of research for a big data field. Image processing analytics has applications from processing a X-Ray to identifying stationary objects in a self driving car. We have collected a list of Python libraries which can help you in image processing. PIL (Python Imaging Library) supports opening, manipulating and saving the images in many file formats. It supports various image manipulations like filtering, enhancing, masking, handling transparency, additions and the like.

Technology allowing a pre-programmed robot to shoot to kill, or a tank to fire at a target with no human involvement, is only years away, experts say. A new report called Monday for a ban on such "killer robots." The report by Human Rights Watch and the Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic was released as the United Nations kicked off a week-long meeting on such weapons in Geneva. The report calls for humans to remain in control over all weapons systems at a time of rapid technological advances. It says that requiring humans to remain in control of critical functions during combat, including the selection of targets, saves lives and ensures that fighters comply with international law.

Machine Learning (ML) is a field of computer science that came out of research into Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data analytics. ML focuses on the creation of models that have been defined by the deduction of algorithms during the analysis of data by a computer system. The resultant model has utility in its ability to be applied to new datasets and thus the potential for valuable insights to be gleaned from the data. Supervised Learning Supervised learning uses a pre-labelled dataset as an input to the system and the resultant model is the result of mapping the inputs to the outputs. Labels are used to identify the correct answers to the question that is to be posed to the system on a historical dataset.

After years of gridlock, a bill that would help legalize Internet poker in California advanced out of a legislative committee on Wednesday after its author said there has been "serious progress toward consensus" between many competing interests in the gambling industry. The measure by Assemblyman Adam Gray (D-Merced) would allow Internet poker websites to be operated by Native American tribes that operate casinos in partnerships with card clubs. Federal approval would also be required. It would give at least 60 million annually to the horse-racing industry to compensate it for being excluded from Internet poker and for losing revenue to tribal gambling casinos. The provision on subsidizing the horse-race industry removes one stumbling block that has prevented an agreement in the past.