Scientists have been able to develop artificial intelligence (AI) capable of besting humans at their own games, but a new study suggests that people may have the upper hand when it comes to intuitive thinking. A team of researchers led by Denmark's Aarhus University associate professor Jacob Sherson managed to develop a game based around complex theoretical science in which human players were "able to find solutions to difficult problems associated with the task of quantum computing," whereas computerized numerical optimization failed, according to the scientists' findings published in Nature. "The big surprise we had was that some of the players actually had solutions that were of higher quality and of shorter duration than any computer algorithms could find," Mr. Sherson told the Associated Press. The game, Quantum Moves, is available online for the purpose of helping in the development of quantum computing. While it functions as entertainment, Quantum Moves is built to take quantum physics optimization problems and turn them into a game, the results of which demonstrate fundamental differences between human thought processes and the problem solving of computers.

Artificial consciousness[1] (AC), also known as machine consciousness (MC) or synthetic consciousness (Gamez 2008; Reggia 2013), is a field related to artificial intelligence and cognitive robotics. The aim of the theory of artificial consciousness is to "define that which would have to be synthesized were consciousness to be found in an engineered artifact" (Aleksander 1995). Neuroscience hypothesizes that consciousness is generated by the interoperation of various parts of the brain, called the neural correlates of consciousness or NCC, though there are challenges to that perspective. Proponents of AC believe it is possible to construct systems (e.g., computer systems) that can emulate this NCC interoperation.[2] Artificial consciousness concepts are also pondered in the philosophy of artificial intelligence through questions about mind, consciousness and mental states.[3] As there are many hypothesized types of consciousness, there are many potential implementations of artificial consciousness. In the philosophical literature, perhaps the most common taxonomy of consciousness is into "access" and "phenomenal" variants. Access consciousness concerns those aspects of experience that can be apprehended, while phenomenal consciousness concerns those aspects of experience that seemingly cannot be apprehended, instead being characterized qualitatively in terms of "raw feels", "what it is like" or qualia (Block 1997).

When it comes to human senses, we've found ways to reproduce the look and sound of the real world reasonably accurately. There are even technologies for reproducing the feel of certain experiences, such as flight and car simulators. But the problem of reproducing smell is much more intractable. The 1960 SmelloVision experiment is a case in point. This involved some 30 odors that were released into the cinema at certain times during a movie.

In 2008, Max Yankelevich was in India, visiting the cubicle farms where big banks and insurance companies outsource business processes -- the invoices, memos, and other papers pushed to keep organizations humming. The employees were smart, says Yankelevich, who was running a cloud computing startup at the time. There was good money in doing this sort of back office work -- but it was mind numbing. Companies were trying to figure out the back office work with "the brute force of human power," says Yankelevich, who studied artificial intelligence while getting his MIT computer science degree in the 1990s. "I started thinking ... there's gotta be a way where artificial intelligence can be used generically enough to learn some of these things that these people are doing," he says.

Smart PR Communications just released a set of marketing guidelines that address the rapidly changing technology industry and marketplace. President Jeanna Van Rensselar said, "The technology sector is evolving from a fast-growth industry to a mature industry. While this presents fewer opportunities for start-ups, it is excellent news for any company that is already established. The key to success, when it comes to marketing, is understanding the competitive environment of a mature industry." They are the best source of information on how the company rates compared to competitors -- where they are winning and losing sales.

In the league of continuous additions to the Unicorn Startup List, China makes the maximum number of entries. Though getting in to the list just before some time was rare, the current scenario is getting different. It all turned around when a recently founded biotech startup Icarbonx announced a Series A round of funding on Monday that now values it at US 1 billion. Icarbonx was founded in late of October, 2015. The company aims to "Manage Your Digital Life", as its name suggests; the name centers around "carbon" – the element of life, while the "i" and "X" indicate the company's plan to fuse the internet and artificial intelligence to create something entirely new.

ESPN is already taking advantage of the growing interest in eSports, and the network is hopping on the drone trend, too. Today, the International Drone Racing Association (IDRA) announced a "multi-year" deal with ESPN for coverage of its competitive UAV events. The network's first broadcast of drone racing and its first-person views will be August's US National Drone Racing Championships from Governor's Island in New York City. Live coverage of the event will stream on the WatchESPN app, so you'll need a cable subscription to follow along on a mobile device or streaming gadget. If you can't tune in then, there will be a one-hour special that recaps the action as well.

Ian Burkhart has been a cyborg for two years now. In 2014, scientists at Ohio State's Neurological Institute implanted a pea-sized microchip into the 24-year-old quadriplegic's motor cortex. Its goal: to bypass his damaged spinal cord and, with the help of a signal decoder and electrode-packed sleeve, control his right arm with his thoughts. Neuroengineers have been developing these so-called brain-computer interfaces for more than a decade. They've used readings from brain implants to help paralyzed patients play Pong on computer screens and control robotic arms.

A paralyzed 24-year-old man has regained some use of his right hand, controlling it with signals relayed from electronic sensors in his brain. Ian Burkhart of Dublin, Ohio, can grasp a bottle, pour its contents into a jar, pick up a stick and stir the liquid. He can grab a credit card and swipe it through a reader. He can move individual fingers and hold a toothbrush. But he can do these things only for a few hours a week, in a laboratory where he is hooked up to an experimental device that interprets his brain signals and stimulates his muscles with electrodes on his forearm. With improvements, researchers hope the system will eventually aid the everyday lives of people like Burkhart with spinal cord injuries, and perhaps others with stroke or traumatic brain injury.

Computers may have us beat at chess and checkers, but new research suggests our brains still have an edge when it comes to solving certain tricky problems thanks to a very human trait: intuition. Scientists in Denmark have found that people who played a game that simulated a complex calculation in physics sometimes did better than their silicon rivals. "The big surprise we had was that some of the players actually had solutions that were of high quality and of shorter duration than any computer algorithms could find," said Jacob Friis Sherson, a physicist at Aarhus University who co-wrote the study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. Experts say the results could advance the quest to develop effective quantum computers, something most major universities and several tech companies are working on as they seek to accelerate processing power. Such computers use individual atoms to store information and it's hoped they could one day outperform even the fastest conventional silicon-based supercomputers.