Data science, analytics, and machine learning are growing at an astronomical rate and companies are now looking for professionals who can sift through the goldmine of data and help them drive swift business decisions efficiently. IBM predicts that by 2020, the number of jobs for all U.S. data professionals will increase by 364,000 openings to 2,720,000. We caught up with Eric Taylor, Senior Data Scientist at CircleUp in a Simplilearn Fireside Chat to find out what makes data science such an exciting field and what skills will help professionals gain a strong foothold in this fast-growing domain. Watch the complete Fireside Chat recording here or read on to find out everything new and exciting about data science. People have tried to define data science for over a decade now, and the best way to answer the question is probably via a Venn diagram.

Ex Machina is a 2015 science fiction psychological thriller film written and directed by Alex Garland (in his directorial debut) and stars Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, and Oscar Isaac. The film follows a programmer who is invited by his CEO to administer the Turing test to an intelligent humanoid robot. Made on a budget of $15 million, the film grossed $36 million worldwide. The National Board of Review recognized it as one of the ten best independent films of the year and the 88th Academy Awards honored the film with the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, for artists Andrew Whitehurst, Paul Norris, Mark Williams Ardington and Sara Bennett. Garland was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, while Vikander's performance earned her Golden Globe Award, BAFTA Award, Empire Award and Saturn Award nominations, plus several film critic award wins, for Best Supporting Actress.

You know when you're listening to a podcast interview and the guest says something and you literally smack your head, pause the podcast, and start tweeting? Happened to me last week. Andrew Yang, founder of "Venture for America" (and a long-shot candidate for president in 2020) said "Google recently demonstrated software that can do the job of an average call center worker … that's going to result in hundreds of thousands of jobs lost". Now, I grant some leniency for people outside our industry not getting some details right. But this thought is so wrong -- and, sadly, growing in popularity -- that it really needs correcting.

Of course you do! You're reading IEEE Spectrum, so you almost certainly love robots. Now let us ask you this: What's your favorite robot? We bet some of you said R2-D2. These are all cool robots. But here's the problem: Those are not real robots.

"Transhumanism" is a relatively new word for the very old belief that humans can transcend the limitations of our mortal bodies, perhaps even mortality itself. In its modern form, the term encompasses a wide variety of techno-utopian ideas ranging from life extension to body hacking to virtual reality and artificial intelligence. With the rapid advance of biotechnology, the term has acquired a new vogue, attracting famous adherents such as futurist Ray Kurzweil. Swiss photographer Matthieu Gafsou, who has a degree in philosophy from the University of Lausanne and is a member of the MAPS art collective, has spent the past four years traveling the world, shooting prominent transhumanist activists and their work for his series "H ." Because of the lingering stigma attached to the word, many potential subjects, including Kurzweil, declined to participate in the project.

That the modern world is a complex place will not have escaped your notice. We are all dimly, unsettlingly aware that our lives are enmeshed in systems we can't fully comprehend. The last meal you ate probably contained produce grown in another country that was harvested, processed, packaged, shipped, then sold to you. The phone in your hand is the end-product of an even more convoluted chain; one that relies on human labor from mines in Africa, assembly lines in China, and standing desks in San Francisco. Explaining how these systems connect and the effect they have on the world is not an easy task.

More than 14 trillion photos are taken annually and most people have no formal training in photography. Most photographs come out subpar and it can easily be fixed with better lighting. Unfortunately, smartphone cameras do not provide sufficient lighting to accurately frame the subject, but Relonch AI changes that. This startup launched its latest product Relonch Alfred, which imitates light sources that don't exist in real life to give your camera phone photographs look as if they are professional quality. The company is inspired by the great NYC photographer Alfred Steiglitz, who revolutionized photography as an artistic medium.

A world renowned pioneer in social robotics, Cynthia Breazeal splits her time as an Associate Professor at MIT, where she received her PhD and founded the Personal Robots Group, and Founder and Chief Scientist of Jibo, a personal robotics company with over $85 million in funding. While Breazeal's work has won numerous academic awards, industry accolades, and media attention, she had to fight early skepticism in the 1990s from other experts in robotics and AI. At the time, robots were seen as physical and industrial tools, not social or emotional companions. Her first social robot, Kismet, was unfairly called out in popular press as "useless". Breazeal bucked the trend with a very different vision: "I wanted to create robots with social and emotional intelligence that could work in collaborative partnership with people. In 2-5 years, I see social robots helping families with things that really matter, like education, health, eldercare, entertainment, and companionship." She hopes her work and influence will inspire others to create robots "not only with smarts, but with heart, too."

An unmanned automobile competes in the i-VISTA (Intelligent Vehicle Integrated Systems Test Area) Autonomous Driving Challenge on August 18 in Chongqing, China. An unmanned automobile competes in the i-VISTA (Intelligent Vehicle Integrated Systems Test Area) Autonomous Driving Challenge on August 18 in Chongqing, China. For many, if not most Americans, the idea of a world in which we don't drive cars is a distant and possibly unlikely future. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. When autonomous, or self-driving cars make headlines, it's often for all the wrong reasons: yet another Tesla public scandal; an accident during an autonomous test drive; or the laughably terrifying face of the new autonomous Jaguar.

In the documentary Swiped, filmmaker Nancy Jo Sales investigates how dating apps have created unintended consequences in actual relationships. In the documentary Swiped, filmmaker Nancy Jo Sales investigates how dating apps have created unintended consequences in actual relationships. For some of the 40 million or so Americans who currently use online dating apps like Tinder, Bumble and Hinge, the findings of the new HBO documentary Swiped might be intuitively obvious. But for others, there may still be revelations aplenty in the film, which is subtitled Hooking Up in the Digital Age. It's about how these apps may change how we think about relationships -- and it doesn't paint a positive picture.