China is deploying machinegun-carrying robots to its western desert regions amid a standoff with India because troops are struggling with the high-altitude conditions, it has been claimed. Dozens of unmanned vehicles capable of carrying both weapons and supplies are being sent to Tibet, Indian media reports, with the majority deployed in border regions where Chinese troops are locked into a standoff with Indian soldiers. Vehicles include the Sharp Claw, which is mounted with a light machinegun and can be operated wirelessly, and the Mule-200, which is designed as an unmanned supply vehicle but can also be fitted with weapons. Beijing has sent 88 Sharp Claws to Tibet, which borders India high in the Himalayas, of which 38 are deployed to the border region, Times News Now has claimed. Some 120 Mule-200s have also been sent to Tibet, News Now reports, with a majority of them deployed to the border area.

The use of artificial intelligence to determine access to credit and other important life opportunities has been targeted by legislation under consideration by the District of Columbia City Council. On December 9, 2021, DC Attorney General Karl Racine introduced the "Stop Discrimination by Algorithms Act of 2021." "Not surprisingly, algorithmic decision-making computer programs have been convincingly proven to replicate and, worse, exacerbate racial and other illegal bias in critical services that all residents of the United States require to function in our treasured capitalistic society, " said AG Racine. "This so-called artificial intelligence is the engine of algorithms that are, in fact, far less smart than they are portrayed, and more discriminatory and unfair than big data wants you to know. Our legislation would end the myth of the intrinsic egalitarian nature of AI."

Artificial intelligence's current fascinating breakthroughs are sweeping across all businesses and countries and the healthcare industry is no exception. It's no surprise that all the developed, developing, and emerging nations are all concentrating on AI adoption to improve their healthcare prospects and progress. While AI technology advances globally, certain major AI powers strive for first place. In terms of becoming an AI superpower, the United States of America is giving China a run for its money. Because of the United States' well-established tech culture, the country has profited from US$10 billion in venture money directed towards AI.

This week - a Covid passport implant; brain cells in a dish learned to play Pong; reprogramming human cells; the future of military fighter drones; and more! Swedish company DSruptive offers subdermal implants that can work as Covid passports. "I have a chip implant in my arm and I have programmed the chip so that I have my COVID passport on the chip and the reason is that I always want to have it accessible and when I read my chip, I just swipe my phone on the chip and then I unlock and it opens up," said Hannes Sjoblad, managing director of DSruptive Subdermals. Cortical Labs, a company that works on combining living neurons with electronic chips, showed how they trained hundreds of thousands of human brains cells in a dish to play Pong. And these neurons learned to play the game faster than an artificial neural network.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement will issue a solicitation in mid-January 2022 for a new Scalable Ways to Initiate Flexible Tasks (SWIFT) contract that is intended to cover development and operational and maintenance support for existing and prospective apps within a new Center of Excellence. The DHS sub-agency plans to support agile development of Platform-as-a-Service, hyperautomation, visualization and collaborative services applications through the procurement. According to ICE, outsourcing the work to contractors with strong DevSecOps processes will allow it to scale the new procurement model agency-wide and evaluate emerging technologies, software and hosting options. "Automation, continuous integration and continuous development are viewed by the Office of the Chief Information Officer as paramount to being able to successfully deliver value to our customers," reads the draft performance work statement (PWS). The Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) domain covers the ServiceNow and Dynamics systems, as well as emerging technologies, with the goal of developing workflow automation improving user experience through self-service and mobility.

We've come a long way since the early days of AI. Today, AI technology is capable of amazing things, like learning how to recognize faces and understand human speech with increasingly impressive accuracy. As the technology continues to advance in the coming years, we'll likely start seeing more AI assistants in our homes and our schools. Though many people think we're on the cusp of making machines that can think and act like humans, it's not quite there yet. AI is an incredibly hot topic right now, and it seems like almost every week a new development in the field makes the news.

IF ALL goes well, the first major space mission of 2022 will be the launch of the Space Launch System rocket in February. After many budget and schedule overruns, NASA's colossal rocket is finally set for its first uncrewed flight, which will carry several small satellites into orbits either near or around the moon. They won't be the only lunar visitors. NASA has contracted private firms to send nine rovers to the moon, along with landers and other experiments. "Many of these are tests of this new idea that NASA is pushing, on whether commercial companies can deliver payloads to the moon, accepting higher risk for lower cost," says Jim Bell at Arizona State University.

The recently signed customer experience executive order will help agencies refocus efforts to deploy artificial intelligence across critical services, the director of federal AI implementations said Wednesday. Within 120 days, the Office of Management and Budget must coordinate guidance on improving data sharing among agencies with interagency councils like the Chief Information Officers and Chief Data Officers councils. Speaking Wednesday at an AFFIRM webinar, Anil Chaudhry said the order is expected to support the AI Center of Excellence at the General Services Administration with its work helping agencies to implement technologies such as bots and interactive voice response systems. "That is really about focusing data and analytics efforts in a very structured way to make sure that the high-impact federal services are the ones being addressed first," Chaudhry said, during and AFFIRM webinar. "And the second aspect of that is: How do we reduce the cognitive burden on the federal workforce?"

Unlike previous Challenges that evaluated the staining patterns present in IHC, this Grand Challenge new edition proposes to find an image analysis algorithm to identify with high sensitivity and specificity HER2 positive BC from HER2 negative BC specimens evaluating only the morphological features present on the hematoxylin and eosin (HE) slide. The team as a whole has experience in machine learning and computer vision, has medical expertise, and has experience in organizing previous challenges. For questions related to the Grand Challenge, please contact Eduardo Conde-Sousa (econdesousa@gmail.com). This challenge is held as part of the European Congress on Digital Pathology. Please read the Rules section.

The Biden administration established several artificial intelligence bodies in 2021 likely to impact how agencies use the technology moving forward, but oversight mechanisms are lacking, experts say. Bills mandating greater accountability around AI haven't gained traction because the U.S. lacks comprehensive privacy legislation, like the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, which would serve as a foundation for regulating algorithmic systems, according to an Open Technology Institute brief published in November. Still the White House launched the National AI Research Resource (NAIRR) Task Force and the National AI Advisory Committee, both authorized by the National AI Initiative Act of 2020, hoping to strengthen the U.S.'s competitive position globally, which may prove a losing battle absent oversight. "Right now most advocates and experts in the space are really looking to the EU as the place that's laying the groundwork for these kinds of issues," Spandana Singh, policy analyst at OTI, told FedScoop. "And the U.S. is kind of lagging behind because it hasn't been able to identify a more consolidated approach."