New York – When Toyota aired a Super Bowl television ad featuring a surprisingly quick Prius gas-electric hybrid eluding police, it marked a turning point for the auto industry. For years, automakers pushed fuel efficiency to sell hybrid and electric vehicles. Now, in an era of cheap gasoline, the message is: These cars are faster and quieter than their gas-powered counterparts. And, yes, you still save on fuel. "They've graduated out of the class of something that's a bit of an oddity to drive," says Mike O'Brien, vice president of product planning for Hyundai.

Pennsylvania is set to consider a ban on drones in the skies above all 1.5 million acres of state game lands following several incidents of harassment of wildlife by the unmanned aerial vehicles.

DARPA has announced plans to hold a competition pitting electromagnetic spectrum receivers (think: TVs, wifi-enabled computers, radios). As the amount of mobile data traffic is growing at an exponentially rapid rate, DARPA believes we need to start refining the way we handle the crowded spectrum. The Spectrum Collaboration Challenge (SC2) will see research teams collaborating to create smart systems to share wavelengths using algorithms and artificial intelligence. Global mobile data traffic grew by 74 percent in 2015, and more than half a billion devices and connections were added to the overwhelmingly clogged spectrum, according to recent Cisco reports. Analysts expect that the monthly global mobile traffic rates will reach 30.6 exabytes by 2020 (rates are at 3.7 exabytes per month as of 2015).

IBM's Watson AI product is mostly rolled out live with machine learning halted to avoid "losing control" of its behaviour, Europe CTO Duncan Anderson has confirmed. Anderson said the idea of AI always learning and adjusting its behaviour is still something people are "a bit nervous about". "At the moment, you stop the learning before it goes live, so you don't get any surprises," Anderson told Computing at our Big Data & Analytics Summit 2016 in London. The aim, explained Anderson, is to "get a sensible kind of answer" from an AI in line with the business's expectations. He added that Watson's modular-based learning updates are now so advanced in specific areas of industry that it's now possible to sell "off the shelf" versions of the AI that can immediately get to grips with traditional tasks in a given area.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is here to stay. The AI revolution is changing lives but scaring millions. AIs are already everywhere, supporting the human mind in the pursuit to make the world better and our way of life even easier. They're in your phones and favorite apps, helping you stay connected and do what you do best in the shortest possible time. The opportunities are endless and uncertain.

Microsoft's attempt at engaging millennials with artificial intelligence has backfired hours into its launch, with waggish Twitter users teaching its chatbot how to be racist. The company launched a verified Twitter account for "Tay" – billed as its "AI fam from the internet that's got zero chill" – early on Wednesday. The chatbot, targeted at 18- to 24-year-olds in the US, was developed by Microsoft's technology and research and Bing teams to "experiment with and conduct research on conversational understanding". Related: How much should we fear the rise of artificial intelligence? "Tay is designed to engage and entertain people where they connect with each other online through casual and playful conversation," Microsoft said.

Mauna Kea Technologies (Euronext: MKEA, FR0010609263; OTCQX: MKEAY), inventor of Cellvizio(R), the multidisciplinary confocal laser endomicroscopy platform, today announced its full-year results for the financial year ended December 31, 2015, as approved by the Board of Directors at its meeting on March 23, 2016. Benoît Jacheet, Chief Financial Officer of Mauna Kea Technologies, stated: "2015 was a critical year in the implementation of our updated strategic plan and this affected our sales performance. Even so, we successfully delivered a significant improvement in our gross margin and operating performance by streamlining our cost structure to reduce fixed operating costs. Increased financial flexibility is expected to support the continued growth of our global user base." As previously reported, Mauna Kea Technologies recorded a 22% decline in its full-year 2015 sales to EUR8,547 thousand.

Microsoft's attempt at engaging millennials with artificial intelligence has backfired hours into its launch, with waggish Twitter users teaching its chatbot how to be racist. The company launched a verified Twitter account for "Tay" – billed as its "AI fam from the internet that's got zero chill" – early on Wednesday. The chatbot, targeted at 18- to 24-year-olds in the US, was developed by Microsoft's technology and research and Bing teams to "experiment with and conduct research on conversational understanding". Related: How much should we fear the rise of artificial intelligence? "Tay is designed to engage and entertain people where they connect with each other online through casual and playful conversation," Microsoft said.

What would be the best way to deliver nutrition to the 7.1 billion odd people on this planet? Science would tell you that it is not the animals. Researchers at the Not Company (NotCo) which is a food-tech startup based at Chile have developed food products that is no longer based on animal ingredients but entirely based on plants. They use machine learning technology to develop tasty, nutritious and affordable plant-based food. However, the food looks and tastes like the classic (animal-based) food.

Manuela Veloso is the new head of Carnegie Mellon University's Machine Learning Department. Manuela Veloso, a computer scientist renowned for her work in artificial intelligence and robotics, is the new head of Carnegie Mellon University's Machine Learning Department, Andrew Moore, dean of the School of Computer Science, announced today. She succeeds Tom Mitchell, E. Fredkin University Professor and the founding head of the Machine Learning Department (MLD), who remains a member of the faculty. Veloso, the Herbert A. Simon Professor of Computer Science, has been a faculty member since earning her Ph.D. in computer science at Carnegie Mellon in 1992. "Carnegie Mellon's AI community has long nurtured the field of machine learning -- software that acquires knowledge and improves its performance with experience -- culminating in the creation of the world's first machine learning department 10 years ago," Moore said.