The Unit for Natural Language Processing [1] of the Insight Centre for Data Analytics [2] at the National University of Ireland, Galway [3], invites applications for two PhD positions in Natural Language Processing and Linked Data. The positions are associated with the SFI funded research program on Text Mining with Linked Data. Candidates should preferably have a Masters degree in a relevant field of study with an emphasis on areas such as text mining, natural language processing, computational linguistics, machine learning etc. Please send your application, including CV and a research proposal of up to two pages (both in PDF only) before the closing date of April 25th, 2016 to Dr. Paul Buitelaar at paul.buitelaar@insight-centre.org

The idea that computers are people has a long and storied history. It goes back to the very origins of computers, and even from before. There's always been a question about whether a program is something alive or not since it intrinsically has some kind of autonomy at the very least, or it wouldn't be a program. There has been a domineering subculture--that's been the most wealthy, prolific, and influential subculture in the technical world--that for a long time has not only promoted the idea that there's an equivalence between algorithms and life, and certain algorithms and people, but a historical determinism that we're inevitably making computers that will be smarter and better than us and will take over from us. You'll have a figure say, "The computers will take over the Earth, but that's a good thing, because people had their chance and now we should give it to the machines."

The advent of audit analytics and cognitive technology does not mean the end of human auditors. It means an end to painstaking checking and crossfooting of debit and credit entries and the beginning of auditing careers that thrive on understanding, monitoring, and improving analytical and cognitive systems. I have worked for a couple decades with professional services firms that perform financial audits, but I have never done one--nor have I ever wanted to do one, to be honest. I'm not good with work that involves structured processes, details, and rigorous checking, and audits always seemed heavily infused with those kinds of tasks. Now, however, I am becoming quite interested in audits for two reasons.

Your Fitbit (or whatever it is the activity-enlightened wear these days) can make a pretty good guess at how many calories you're burning through. And it can do it without any input from you. But if you want to keep track of how many you're putting in, you'll still need to do some work yourself, even if it's only choosing from a menu on an app. Inspired by that asymmetry, State University of New York at Buffalo computer scientist Wenyao Xu and colleagues at Northeastern University in China developed Autodietary, a necklace-like gadget that attempts to tell what you're eating. The device senses sounds from your neck to categorize your meal.

UPDATE Mar 12th 2016: AlphaGo has won the third game against Lee Sedol, and has thus won the five-game match. That was the score, as The Economist went to press, in the latest round of the battle between artificial intelligence (AI) and the naturally evolved sort. The field of honour is a Go board in Seoul, South Korea--a country that cedes to no one, least of all its neighbour Japan, the title of most Go-crazy place on the planet. To the chagrin of many Japanese, who think of Go as theirs in the same way that the English think of cricket, the game's best player is generally reckoned to be Lee Sedol, a South Korean. Mr Lee is in the middle of a five-game series with AlphaGo, a computer program written by researchers at DeepMind, an AI software house in London that was bought by Google in 2014.

"The fourth industrial revolution is unlike anything humankind has previously experienced. New technologies are merging the physical, digital and biological worlds in ways that create both huge promise and potential peril. The speed breadth and depth of this revolution is forcing us to rethink how countries develop, how organizations create value and even what it means to be human." We are living in an increasingly complex and uncertain world of constant change unlike anything in history. Advances in technology are outpacing implementation and these emerging technologies whilst presenting brilliant opportunities for a more positive world also present potentially detrimental threats.

Image Comics have a big June coming up. They are launching Midnight Of The Soul from Howard Chaykin, She Wolf from Rich Tommaso, an artist's roof edition of Injection, and the return of Frank Quitely to Mark Millar's Jupiter's Legacy for the second book…. The sequel to industry sales-beast JUPITER'S LEGACY is back and it boasts monthly FRANK QUITELY! Superhero offspring Hutch and Chloe have come out of hiding with son Jason to assemble a team of super-crooks from around the globe. It's 1950, and Joel Breakstone, former GI and liberator of Auschwitz, is seriously damaged goods.

Although the Google Photos app is only 10 months old, the service has already amassed more than 100 million monthly active users. The reason Google's cloud-based photo management software has gained so many users so quickly? It makes organizing photos dead easy. It automatically backs up all your images from all of your devices into one central location, plus it collects pictures of the same people or objects into groups, and helps you find images in your archive with text searches. No wonder it's already become an integral part of photo organization for so many people.

The Justice Department has charged three current or former members of the so-called Syrian Electronic Army for computer hacking-related conspiracies. The charges were unsealed Tuesday in the U.S. Eastern District Court of Virginia. Prosecutors allege that two Syrians, 22-year-old Ahmad Umar Agha and 27-year-old Firas Dardar, tricked email users to steal usernames and passwords to compromise government, media and private-sector computer systems. In April 2013 they allegedly tweeted from the Associated Press account on Twitter falsely claiming a bomb had exploded at the White House and injured the president. None of them are in custody.

Delivery drivers everywhere are set to be ousted by'ground drones' that can navigate city streets by themselves. Following trials in London, the US invasion is set to begin in Washington. Starship Technologies' delivery bots will begin trials this week, and claim they can deliver packages anywhere in the city in just half an hour. Unlike robots designed to resemble humans, the Starship's bot is purely functional with a large compartment to hold deliveries, the equivalent size of two grocery bags Unlike robots designed to resemble humans, the Starship's bot is purely functional with a large compartment to hold deliveries, the equivalent size of two grocery bags. Each six-wheeled'ground drone' is almost completely self-driving.