The next great leap for computing may be a bit closer with the help of joint efforts between the U.S. government, the private sector -- and hundreds of millions of dollars. And along the way, we might see a benefit for the financial services sector in the form of reduced false positives in fraud detection. The U.S. Department of Energy said this week that it will spend $625 million over the next five years to develop a dozen research centers devoted to artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing. Another $340 million will come from the private sector and academia, bringing Uncle Sam together with the likes of IBM, Amazon and Google to apply the highest of high tech to a variety of verticals and applications. In an interview with Karen Webster, Dr. Stefan Wörner, global leader for quantum finance and optimization at IBM, said we're getting closer to crossing the quantum-computing Rubicon from concept to real-world applications.

It used to be that super soldiers were just the stuff of science fiction but now it seems they are coming to life. Indeed, engineers are coming up with all kinds of innovations to upgrade soldiers from robotic exoskeletons that give super strength to jet packs that will allow soldiers to fly into battle. One such super cool invention is an implantable device that can fight off jetlag. The device, manufactured by DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, would allow soldiers to travel as far as they wish without ever needing to take time to adjust to their new environment. This would mean that as soon as they landed in their new location, they would be ready for their mission.

In 2018, a big fan of Nicholas Cage showed us what The Fellowship of the Ring would look like if Cage starred as Frodo, Aragorn, Gimly, and Legolas. The technology he used was deepfake, a type of application that uses artificial intelligence algorithms to manipulate videos. Deepfakes are mostly known for their capability to swap the faces of actors from one video to another. They first appeared in 2018 and quickly rose to fame after they were used to modify adult videos to feature the faces of Hollywood actors and politicians. In the past couple of years, deepfakes have caused much concern about the rise of a new wave of AI-doctored videos that can spread fake news and enable forgers and scammers.

Amba Kak was in law school in India when the country rolled out the Aadhaar project in 2009. The national biometric ID system, conceived as a comprehensive identity program, sought to collect the fingerprints, iris scans, and photographs of all residents. It wasn't long, Kak remembers, before stories about its devastating consequences began to spread. "We were suddenly hearing reports of how manual laborers who work with their hands--how their fingerprints were failing the system, and they were then being denied access to basic necessities," she says. "We actually had starvation deaths in India that were being linked to the barriers that these biometric ID systems were creating. So it was a really crucial issue."

New coronavirus tests are being developed every day. The Trump administration just ordered 150 million rapid antigen tests from Abbott Laboratories, but how do they stack up against other tests like the Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test? Top infectious disease doctors from Harvard and Johns Hopkins break down the differences between the two tests to determine which diagnostic tool might be better at curbing transmission rates. Rapid antigen tests could play a pivotal role in curbing the spread of the coronavirus, according to some of the country's top medical professionals. Antigen tests are the type of tests the White House just ordered from Abbott Laboratories in a $750 million deal that will reportedly buy 150 million of its new rapid coronavirus tests: the BinaxNOW COVID-19 Ag Card.

The U.S. Air Force is expanding its embrace of predictive analytics tools to keep pace with maintenance demands for its huge fleet of fighters, bombers, tankers, transports and helicopters. There is no shortage of U.S. military aircraft, with estimates ranging as high as 5,400 for the Air Force alone. The problem has been keeping that air armada flying. According to Air Force Times, aircraft readiness as measured as a percentage of planes able to fly has steadily decreased over the past decade. Hence, the service has been enlisting analytics and AI software companies to help get a handle on maintaining increasingly complex aircraft loaded with electronics gear.

The upcoming US presidential election seems set to be something of a mess--to put it lightly. Covid-19 will likely deter millions from voting in person, and mail-in voting isn't shaping up to be much more promising. This all comes at a time when political tensions are running higher than they have in decades, issues that shouldn't be political (like mask-wearing) have become highly politicized, and Americans are dramatically divided along party lines. So the last thing we need right now is yet another wrench in the spokes of democracy, in the form of disinformation; we all saw how that played out in 2016, and it wasn't pretty. For the record, disinformation purposely misleads people, while misinformation is simply inaccurate, but without malicious intent.

LONDON: A data and artificial intelligence (AI) summit will be held in Saudi Arabia in October, it was announced on Friday. The Global AI Summit, under the patronage of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and organized by the Saudi Data & AI Authority (SDAIA), will take place on October 7-8 with the theme "AI for the Good of Humanity." SDAIA said the summit will be a virtual one due to the ongoing precautionary measures put in place by the Saudi government to tackle the spread of COVID-19. The summit will discuss how AI trends can assist the global recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, some inspirational insights about future requirements for regulators, investors, and companies in the field of AI as well as how AI will develop in the future. Among the participants will be many distinguished speakers and global experts from different countries, who will cover a range of topics divided into four sectors: 'Shaping the New Normal,' 'AI and Governments,' 'Governing AI' and'The Future of AI.' According to a SDAIA statement, the event will tackle global changes and their impact on the transformation of AI and review how AI technologies can be used to create a better future for all, in addition to highlighting the most prominent technical challenges facing the global AI community today and how to develop AI technologies safely and ethically in various applications that affect human life.

Facebook and Twitter earlier this week took down social media accounts associated with the Internet Research Agency, the Russian troll farm that interfered in the U.S. presidential election four years ago, that had been spreading misinformation to up to 126 million Facebook users. Today, Facebook rolled out measures aimed at curbing disinformation ahead of Election Day in November. Deepfakes can make epic memes or put Nicholas Cage in every movie, but they can also undermine elections. As threats of election interference mount, two teams of AI researchers have recently introduced novel approaches to identifying deepfakes by watching for evidence of heartbeats. Existing deepfake detection models focus on traditional media forensics methods, like tracking unnatural eyelid movements or distortions at the edge of the face.

Artificial intelligence today (properly known as'narrow' or'weak' AI) is progressing at an ever-accelerating pace. AI can encompass anything from Google's search algorithms to IBM's Watson. However, AI is also being exploited by governments eager to enhance their power over an ever-more digitally-dependent world. Simon McCarthy-Jones, Associate Professor in Clinical Psychology and Neuropsychology at Trinity College Dublin, reveals why the'technological elite' require'checks and balances' in the use and development of artificial intelligence. AI is the ultimate source of knowledge, making it the ultimate source of powerProfessor Simon McCarthy-JonesHe told Express.co.uk: "AI is the ultimate source of knowledge, making it the ultimate source of power."The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, says that whoever leads the world in AI will rule it.