In May of 2017, a nasty cyber attack hit more than 200,000 computers in 150 countries over the course of just a few days. Dubbed "WannaCry," it exploited a vulnerability that was first discovered by the National Security Agency (NSA) and later stolen and disseminated online. It worked like this: After successfully breaching a computer, WannaCry encrypted that computer's files and rendered them unreadable. In order to recover their imprisoned material, targets of the attack were told they needed to purchase special decryption software. Guess who sold that software? The so-called "ransomware" siege affected individuals as well as large organizations, including the U.K.'s National Health Service, Russian banks, Chinese schools, Spanish telecom giant Telefonica and the U.S.-based delivery service FedEx.

NASA is set to send the first woman and next many to the moon in 2024 and has revealed what the crew will call home – an RV rover. The American space agency is ditching concepts of inflatable tents and underground bases, and is now looking at a pressurized surface vehicle. The space group recently joined efforts with Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), which has been designing a six-wheeled, self-driving Toyota rover - providing Japan with a key role in the Artemis program. The RV-like rover will hold two people up to 14 days, allowing them to live and work inside while traveling across the moon. NASA recently joined efforts with Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), which has been designing a six-wheeled, self-driving lunar rover with Toyota for two years - providing Japan with a key role in the Artemis program Mark Kirasich, the acting director of NASA's Advanced Exploration Systems, said in a video interview: 'The pressurized rover is really an incredible element, human element,' 'I have been in a lot of spacecraft on the ground, I have been in the International Space Station on the ground, this thing is the coolest element I've ever seen for people because they can live and work inside.' 'It's like a space station-esque, kind of a habitat for up to 14 days for two people, but it's on wheels and you can go places.'

DONE wisely, artificial intelligence "can be the best thing ever for humanity", says the fundamental physicist turned AI researcher Max Tegmark in our interview this week (see "If we do it wisely, AI can be the best thing ever for humanity"). We subscribe wholeheartedly to his assessment. Seldom has there been a technology with such an obvious power to improve our lot – or one with such obvious dangers. The risks are potentially existential.

AI service providers are bringing together the best machine learning algorithms, NLP applications and Deep Learning methodologies to provide solutions that have foolproof algorithms to detect viruses and malware, often by running pattern recognitions in software. With time, advanced ways AI software and ML implementation in organizations are being tested, with AI algorithms being trained to identify even the smallest malware and ransomware attacks in the system. In several cases the algorithms can even predict future attacks and take necessary action for prevention.

Gyant, whose AI-enabled health platform is designed to drive patient-doctor engagement, today closed a $13.6 million round. The company says the funding will support its ongoing product development, operational, and interoperability efforts. The demand for triaging technologies, like conversational bots, has risen substantially as the coronavirus pandemic rages on, which isn't surprising. Millions of patients wait at least two hours to see a health care provider, according to a study published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In response, tech giants like IBM, Facebook, and Microsoft have partnered with governments and private industry to roll out chatbot-based solutions, as have a number of startups.

While it was a sci-fi concept, then, it is no longer a fiction anymore. Scientists around the world are using AI algorithms to predict the life of other planets in the solar system, detecting the presence of water, finding out the possibility of a Blackhole, or determining the orbital curve of a celestial object. According to NASA officials, AI could also aid in the search for life on alien planets and the detection of nearby asteroids in space. What took years for earlier astronomers to discover can now be done in a shorter time duration by using machine learning models of AI. Now researchers from Princeton University have claimed to have found a way to predict if a planet will clash with another in its path.

Samsung has revealed its plans for 6G technology, outlining its vision for "digital twins" of our physical selves. In a research paper published on Wednesday, the South Korean smartphone giant stated that there will be three key 6G services: Immersive extended reality (XR); high-fidelity mobile hologram; and digital replicas. "With the help of advanced sensors, AI, and communication technologies, it will be possible to replicate physical entities, including people, devices, objects, systems, and even places, in a virtual world," the white paper states. "In a 6G environment, through digital twins, users will be able to explore and monitor the reality in a virtual world, without temporal or spatial constraints. Users will be able to observe changes or detect problems remotely through the representation offered by digital twins."

For today's warfighters, it's imperative to have access to the latest technology at the blink of an eye to ensure mission success and warfighter safety. To meet the challenge of equipping today's warfighters with mission-critical information, milCloud 2.0 is stepping up to provide the technology that is vital to that effort. On Wednesday July 22, General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT), Intel, Oracle, and MeriTalk will be hosting a webinar, "milCloud 2.0: Leveraging the Latest Tech for the Mission" to educate mission partners about the latest milCloud 2.0 capabilities and technologies, as well as how the platform helps support rapid innovation in mission-critical areas including artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), cyber sensing, and other emerging technology solutions. The July 22 webinar – the second in a series of four – will help organizations maximize milCloud 2.0 capabilities, and will dive into: The digital conversation will be led by three preeminent subject matter experts: Senior Director for Oracle Public Sector Lauren Farese; Cloud Services Portfolio Lead for milCloud 2.0 at GDIT Jeffrey Phelan; and Chief Enterprise Solution Architect at Intel Darren Pulsipher. Managed by the Defense Information Systems Agency and operated by GDIT, milCloud 2.0 connects commercial cloud service offerings to Defense Department (DoD) networks.

In 2018, Silicon Valley, like Hamlet's engineer, was hoist with its own petard. Citizens were panicking about data privacy, researchers were sounding alarms about artificial intelligence, and even industry stakeholders rebelled against app addiction. Policymakers, meanwhile, seemed to take a renewed interest in breaking up big tech, as a string of congressional hearings put CEOs in the hot seat over the products they made. Everywhere, techies were grasping for answers to the unintended consequences of their own creations. So the Omidyar Network--a "philanthropic investment firm" created by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar--set out to provide them.

Set in 2013, California based AI-centric healthcare providers, Caption Health has raised a fund of up to 53 million dollars to modify equipment and quicken the medical scanning by their registered nurses without undergoing an elaborative training. It was a revisionist approach by Caption Health CEO, Charles Cadieu to bring alteration in the field of medical science with the help of artificial intelligence. Investors seized this opportunity with the pandemic's onset to envision quick popularization of Caption Health and contributed to equipping better AI-powered Softwares for performing ultrasounds and scans. After receiving the market authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for cardiac ultrasound software last year, it helped to engage even the non-specialist to conduct the ultrasound where the machine automated reading and interpretation of the search results. It further helped to demonstrate the accuracy of machine learning technologies recently. Robert Ochs, deputy director of the FDA's Office of In Vitro Diagnostics and Radiological Health, commented on it: Cardieu observed the significance of this software as it will be a boon to the COVID patients in this time of crisis by quickly detecting any change in the cardiovascular functions.