Actor and writer Wil Wheaton wants to "add an A to the STEM acronym and make it STEAM." He'll be speaking at the USA Science and Engineering Festival April 16-17 in Washington about why he thinks the arts should be represented in the acronym commonly used when referring to the science, technology, engineering and math fields. Wheaton, 43, best known for his role as Wesley Crusher on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" in the 1980s and '90s and more recently as a fictionalized version of himself on "The Big Bang Theory," says that he has always been fascinated by science and technology, and has made it a goal of his to ensure that kids get the encouragement they need to pursue those fields. Wheaton spoke with U.S. News by phone about why he got involved in the festival, how science fiction and fact have shaped his life and career and why he thinks it should be "science, technology, engineering, arts and math." How did you get involved with the USA Science and Engineering Festival?

Authors from the Australian National University, Monash and La Trobe provide the most complete answer yet: the size of a flaccid penis can significantly affect how attractive a man's body is to women. Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (a journal commonly known by its initials as PNAS), Brian Mautz, Bob Wong, Richard Peters and Michael Jennions use a clever experimental manipulation of computer-generated imagery - CGI - to test the effects of variation in penis size relative to height and torso shape (shoulder width relative to waist width) on the attractiveness of male bodies to women. How important is penis size? Authors from the Australian National University, Monash and La Trobe provide the most complete answer yet: the size of a flaccid penis can significantly affect how attractive a man's body is to women While researchers found that torso shape was by far the most important determinant of attractiveness, penis size has about as much influence on attractiveness as height. It has been suggests that women favor slightly larger than average penises.

We humans may still be licking our wounds following AI's victory at the ancient game of Go, but it turns out we still have something to be proud of: We're doing a lot better than machines are at solving some of the key problems of quantum computing. Quantum mechanics are notoriously mind-bending because so-called "qubits" -- the atomic-scale building blocks of quantum computers -- can inhabit more than one physical state at once. That's known as superposition, and it's what gives the prospect of quantum computers their exciting potential. It's just potential at this point, however, because there are still many, many challenges to be solved before we can create a working quantum computer. That's where gaming comes in.

Singapore: Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp., a US-based information technology (IT) firm with most of its employees working out of India, expects its business growth in the Asia-Pacific region to outpace the company average this year, maintaining the trend seen in recent years, Jayajyoti Sengupta, president and Asia-Pacific head, said in an interview. Automation, which includes robots, machine learning and artificial intelligence, will be among the new frontiers for Cognizant, as rote and repetitive processes become "digital, instrumented, analyzed and intelligent", he said. Cognizant has said it expects its revenue growth to slow to between 10% and 14.3% for the calendar year 2016. How do you see the situation in the Asia-Pacific? It would be pertinent to note that Cognizant's growth of 21% in calendar 2015 included revenues from the acquisition of TriZetto.

Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae -- or dark patches -- on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts. Several hundred camped outside the London store in Covent Garden. The 6s will have new features like a vastly improved camera and a pressure-sensitive "3D Touch" display

With the evolution of digital technology, the definitions of AI and Machine Learning are quite distinct from what they were before. Add to that the complexity of people using these terms interchangeably or to mean different things, and we have a prime example of our confusions about modern technology. Ask a random guy at Times Square, "what do you think is meant by AI?" and he's sure to think of aliens, Men In Black or Halo. However, the fact is that artificial intelligence is quite a common part of our everyday lives – at least in the 21st century. What does it basically mean?

"It is our endeavor to create great value for every business through solutions built on our artificial intelligence technology and open, cloud platforms, to have Infoscions amplified by intelligent technology, to bring purposeful innovation to life, and in that sense, we are still very much at the beginning of this journey," he added.

DigitalGenius is announcing its Human AI customer service platform today, along with a 4.1 million seed investment. The work is to augment the process, while still keeping the human element decidedly at the center of things. It's interesting to note that Salesforce was part of the deal, as that could conceivably help the startup scale quickly in this space, thanks to Salesforce's massive distribution network and its suite of automation products ripe for AI. I talked to DigitalGenius chief strategy officer Mikhail Naumov to clarify what AI is and isn't. "It's important to decipher between Hollywood AI and practical AI you can use today," he said.

The "Artificial Intelligence Market" report provides analysis of the global artificial intelligence market for the period 2014–2024, wherein the years from 2016 to 2024 is the forecast period and 2015 is considered as the base year. The report precisely covers all the major trends and technologies playing a major role in the artificial intelligence market's growth over the forecast period. It also highlights the drivers, restraints, and opportunities expected to influence the market growth during this period. The study provides a holistic perspective on the market's growth in terms of revenue (in US Bn), across different geographies, which includes Asia Pacific (APAC), Latin America (LATAM), North America, Europe, and Middle East & Africa (MEA). Moreover, the report provides the overview of various strategies and the winning imperatives of the key players in the artificial intelligence market and analyzes their behavior in the prevailing market dynamics.

Demis Hassabis has a modest demeanour and an unassuming countenance, but he is deadly serious when he tells me he is on a mission to "solve intelligence, and then use that to solve everything else". Coming from almost anyone else, the statement would be laughable; from him, not so much. Hassabis is the 39-year-old former chess master and video-games designer whose artificial intelligence research start-up, DeepMind, was bought by Google in 2014 for a reported 625 million. He is the son of immigrants, attended a state comprehensive in Finchley and holds degrees from Cambridge and UCL in computer science and cognitive neuroscience. A "visionary" manager, according to those who work with him, Hassabis also reckons he has found a way to "make science research efficient" and says he is leading an "Apollo programme for the 21st century". He's the sort of normal-looking bloke you wouldn't look twice at on the street, but Tim Berners-Lee once described him to me as one of the smartest human beings on the planet. Artificial intelligence is already all around us, of course, every time we interrogate Siri or get a recommendation on Android. And in the short term, Google products will surely benefit from Hassabis's research, even if improvements in personalisation, search, YouTube, and speech and facial recognition are not presented as "AI" as such. "It's just stuff that works.") In the longer term, though, the technology he is developing is about more than emotional robots and smarter phones.