The idea of a drone superhighway may sound like a concept from the latest science fiction blockbuster. But it could soon become a reality in England, with the submission of plans to build a network across the Midlands and the Southeast. A consortium led by software provider Altitude Angel has submitted plans for a 165-mile-long superhighway network dubbed Project Skyway, connecting airspace above cities including Reading, Oxford, Milton Keynes, Cambridge, Coventry, and Rugby. If approved, the network could potentially then be extended to Southampton on the south coast and Ipswich on the east coast. The group hopes the superhighway will'unlock the huge potential offered by unmanned aerial vehicles,' with a decision from the government on whether to green light the project expected in the coming weeks.

Ukraine's deputy prime minister says the tech will help provide transparency about how many Russian soldiers are dying in the war. Critics say the use of facial recognition in war zones is a disaster in the making. Ukraine is using Clearview AI facial recognition to identify dead Russian soldiers as part of a campaign to combat Kremlin disinformation on the number of dead from the war. Find a photo of a dead Russian soldier on social media. Get an identity match from a database of billions of social media images.

In a 2013 high-profile cybersecurity incident, the personal and financial information of nearly 110 million Target shoppers were compromised. The potential path of entry: an HVAC vendor who conducted business with the retail giant. The headline-grabbing news took place a few years ago, but the take-home message remains constant: Internet of Things (IoT)-driven building automation systems (BAS) are a double-edged sword. They deliver a range of much-needed efficiencies but increase the number of threat vectors. Using IoT for managing BAS does not have to be a game of chance.

Europe's proposed artificial intelligence (AI) rules should try to benefit from the technology instead of hindering it, an EU lawmaker told Reuters this week. "There should be a general positive approach towards artificial intelligence," European Parliament member Svenja Hahn said in an interview published Wednesday (March 23). Last year, the European Commission proposed rules governing AI that include fines of as high as 6% of global turnover for violations and stringent safeguards for high-risk applications used for areas such as recruitment, infrastructure, migration, credit scoring and law enforcement. The European Parliament and EU countries are due to arrive at negotiating positions by the end of the year, with Hahn and other lawmakers charged with coming up with a compromise. At issue is the potential use of facial recognition applications, which positions EU countries that hope to use them for law enforcement and security against concerned civil rights groups.

The EU needs to act as a'global standard-setter' in AI, according to a new report that also warned about the risks of mass surveillance. A new EU report says public debate on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) should focus on the technology's "enormous potential" to complement humans. The European Parliament's special committee on artificial intelligence in a digital age adopted its final recommendations yesterday (22 March) after 18 months of inquiries. The committee's draft text notes that the world is on the verge of "the fourth industrial revolution" from an abundance of data combined with powerful algorithms. But it adds that that the EU has "fallen behind" in the global race for tech leadership, which poses a risk that tech standards could be developed in the future by "non-democratic actors".

Artificial Intelligence in a Digital Age (AIDA), a special committee set up in September 2020 to analyse the horizontal impact of Artificial Intelligence on society, has concluded with its own-initiative report, adopted on Tuesday (22 March). The AIDA report had a rocky start, as progressive political groups criticised conservative rapporteur Axel Voss for the report's overall narrative. It was seen as too focused on international competition, where the EU was inevitably falling behind. After significant redrafting, the report was adopted with a vast majority in the parliamentary committee while maintaining the original emphasis on the potential benefits of the emerging technology. "The EU now has the unique chance to promote a human-centric and trustworthy approach to AI based on fundamental rights that manages risks while taking full advantage of the benefits AI can bring for the whole of society – including in healthcare, sustainability, the labour market, competitiveness and security," Voss said.

Artificial intelligence (AI) currently plays a central role in the digitisation and modernisation strategies of public administrations and companies throughout Europe, the United States and China. The potential improvements and advances in efficiency that the incorporation of AI can offer strategic sectors in different countries have made it indispensable in a new era of technological transformation. And while no one wants to be left behind, the main players of this new digital era have from the very beginning approached these technologies in significantly different ways. While the United States and China have already embraced AI as one more component of their geopolitical strategies, the European Union (EU) is positioning itself as a global leader in its ethical use. According to the EU, in order to be considered ethical, any AI technology used in its territory must ensure respect for the fundamental rights of EU citizens.

More technologically knowledgeable stakeholders and committed leadership within the federal government are critical to successfully implementing scalable artificial intelligence technology in public offices. Speaking during a virtual panel discussion, officials including Jack Shanahan, the inaugural director of the Department of Defense's Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, discussed the need for modernization advocates in federal agencies, specifically needing a "disrupter" helming the implementation of new software. "If this is really the first big AI project designed to go fast and to go to scale, you need almost a classic glass breaker type of person that's just going to plow over all those bureaucratic obstacles," he explained. He added that agency leaders and deputies need to be completely on board with new technology rollouts to help ensure that adequate oversight and accountability is present in artificial intelligence acquisitions. Shanahan also noted that more employees with a technical aptitude are vital.

One down, one to go. After locking down its first FDA clearance, Wision A.I. is already lining up its next regulatory score.

Ukraine is using facial recognition software to identify the bodies of Russian soldiers killed in combat and to trace their families to inform them of their deaths, Ukraine's vice prime minister has said. Reuters exclusively reported that Ukraine's Ministry of Defense began this month to use technology from Clearview AI, a New York-based facial recognition provider that finds images on the web that match faces from uploaded photos. It was not clear at that time how the technology would be used. Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's vice prime minister who also runs the ministry of digital transformation, said Ukraine had been using Clearview AI software to find the social media accounts of dead Russian soldiers. From there, authorities are messaging relatives to make arrangements to collect the body, he said.