Earlier Tuesday, Uber announced the first successful run of one of its self-driving freight trucks, developed by San Francisco-based company Otto. The truck, designed by Otto, successfully completed a 120-mile journey between Fort Collins, Colorado and Colorado Springs, Colorado, delivering 2,000 cases of Budweiser beers with nary an issue along its journey on Interstate 25. So what's the deal with Otto, the company acquired by Uber in August, driving (pun intended) this push of self-driving technology? When it launched, Otto estimated that the price of its autonomous drive system would be a "small fraction" of the 100,000 to 200,000 price tag of a brand-new semi truck.

In the hunt for extra-terrestrial life, astronomers often try to find Earth-sized planets in what is called the'habitable zone' of their host star. This means they are orbiting at the correct distance for liquid water to exist on the planet, and this is considered the most important factor for the possibility of life as we know it existing on other planets. Now, using computer simulations, a group of scientists has discovered these planets are likely to be orbiting low-mass stars known as red dwarfs. Using computer simulations, a group of scientists has discovered the planets orbiting low-mass stars known as red dwarfs are likely to be Earth-sized and have liquid water. Artist's impression of Earth-sized stars orbiting a red dwarf, shown The team decided to run the computer simulations based on the discovery of a planet orbiting our nearest star, Proxima Centauri.

Almost half of UK grocery retail directors say replenishment is still driven by gut feel, according to research by Blue Yonder, which supplies predictive applications of retail. It said that interviews with 750 grocery managers and directors in the USA, UK, Germany and France, showed that despite a rise in accurate machine learning algorithms for automated replenishment and demand planning, 46 per cent of surveyed directors in the UK say replenishment is still an entirely manual process. Some 85 per cent of respondents identified automation as a key tool for making the fast decisions needed to meet customer demand. The research also identified that 31 per cent of directors in the UK feel there are now too many decisions to be made manually, with the same number stating that gut feel is slowing them down. The research also found that 62 per cent of UK directors say they have invested in replenishment optimisation in the last two years; 31 per cent say they will be investing further in replenishment optimisation in the next two years.

The evolution of the AI programs is reaching many fields: for example, to allow the AI to communicate in an ever more human way, Google's DeepMind developers have started to make it read hundreds of romance novels to help it improve its dialectical skills and develop a minimum of personality. The choice fell on the romantic novels because they have very linear plots and simple narrative schemes but also they are very similar to each other, an element that AI can learn to manage and rework to interact with a human being. The next step is to draft long and elaborate sentences, or even writing entire novels. Not surprisingly, a recent book written by a computer has passed a literary prize screening. The Japanese literary prize Hoshi Shinichi is also open to works produced by artificial intelligences and the jury – without knowing its origin – admitted the book "The day a computer writes a novel", written by the program of a professor of the Hakodate Future University.

With long flowing hair and rosy red cheeks, you might do a double take when you see Jia Jia, a humanoid robot. Dubbed the'robot goddess', Jia Jia is being taught deep learning abilities, including understanding human language, and detecting facial expressions. The life-like cyborg was displayed at the 2016 World Robot Conference, where she pulled in huge crowds eager to see her abilities. Dubbed the'robot goddess', Jia Jia is being taught deep learning abilities, including understanding human language, and detecting facial expressions. It took a team three years to complete the robot, which can speak, show micro-expressions, move its lips and body, yet seems to hold its head in a submissive manner. The humanoid is programmed to recognize human/machine interaction, has autonomous position and navigation and offers services based on cloud technology.

Stephen Lamm, a supervisor with the ID fraud unit of the North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles, looks through photos in a facial recognition system in 2009 in Raleigh, N.C. Stephen Lamm, a supervisor with the ID fraud unit of the North Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles, looks through photos in a facial recognition system in 2009 in Raleigh, N.C. Nearly half of all American adults have been entered into law enforcement facial recognition databases, according to a recent report from Georgetown University's law school. But there are many problems with the accuracy of the technology that could have an impact on a lot of innocent people. There's a good chance your driver's license photo is in one of these databases.

While IBM has invested heavily in Watson, and the artificial intelligence technology is paying off in innovations within healthcare and other sectors, it's performing less brilliantly for the company's bottom line, at least so far. "IBM has pursued big, bespoke moonshot initiatives that can take years and are extremely expensive," Gartner research fellow Tom Austin told The New York Times. "It seems like they're swimming upstream with that." According to the article, the company believes more lucrative times lie ahead. IBM points to a collaboration announced Oct. 18 with Quest Diagnostics, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard as an example.

A little dishonesty goes a long way. Scientists who studied the brain activity of people who told small lies to benefit themselves found that these fibs appeared to pave the way to telling whoppers later. The findings, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, demonstrate how self-serving lies can escalate and offer a window into the processes in the brain at work. It's commonly held wisdom that small transgressions often lead to bigger and bigger ones, study coauthor Tali Sharot of University College London said in a news briefing. "Whether it's evading tax, infidelity, doping in sports, making up data in science, or financial fraud, deceivers often recall how small acts of dishonesty snowballed over time and they suddenly found themselves committing quite large crimes," Sharot said.

Close to 350 actors took their grievances to Electronic Arts in Playa Vista on Monday, marching and chanting for more pay and better working conditions for performers who do voice-over and motion-capture work on blockbuster video game titles. The picket line was the latest signal from SAG-AFTRA that it is preparing for a long fight with several prominent game companies, as both sides have failed to agree on the union's demand for residual-like payments that are commonplace in film and TV but not in the gaming industry. SAG-AFTRA also wants employers to reveal the titles of games when hiring actors, but companies including Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts and Take Two Interactive are arguing that level of transparency is impossible and could put them at a competitive disadvantage. On Monday, the video game companies hit back, accusing SAG-AFTRA negotiators of failing to communicate the most recent proposal to its members before officially calling the strike Friday. "If I was a performer, I would want the opportunity to say yes or no," said Scott Witlin, a lawyer at Barnes & Thornburg and chief negotiator for the gaming companies, during a news conference Monday afternoon.

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--MediaGamma has announced the launch of a new Audience Prediction product, which is set to make a major impact on the ad tech market. By applying deep learning to unique data sets, coupled with MediaGamma's unique AI Decision Support Engine, the product is set to provide players in the ecosystem with over 90% certainty about a user's interests and demographic profile. The new product will help people to navigate uncertainty to make better decisions, and a major telecoms company has already signed up. The Audience Prediction product is the latest in a broad portfolio of products created by MediaGamma (http://www.mediagamma.com/), The start-up's world-renown team of data scientists deliver bespoke real time, prediction-based data science solutions focusing on online user behaviour.