Is this an invasion of privacy or fair practice to protect our country? Former DHS oversight counsel Mike Howell weighs in. The Trump administration announced Thursday that it's backing away from a proposal that would have required all U.S. citizens to submit to facial recognition scans at airports and other ports of entry whenever they leave or enter the country. The Department of Homeland Security said it removed the idea from its regulatory agenda following meetings with advocates and lawmakers who voiced serious privacy concerns for American citizens. U.S. passport holders can opt out of being photographed upon entering or exiting the country, a process that is required for foreign travelers.

Cyberattacks continually evolve at an ever-increasing pace, making them more difficult to prevent and even more dangerous. Protecting against these sophisticated attacks requires advanced technologies. This is where artificial intelligence, or AI, comes in. The sheer velocity of malware evolution, the geometric growth of enterprise connected devices, and petabytes of sensitive corporate data make it impossible for human-created models to provide comprehensive, up-to-date protection. By incorporating AI into its unified, multi-layererd security architecture, Check Point provides an intelligent system that not only detects, but actively prevents advanced attacks.

Currently, AI is expensive and difficult to implement fully into businesses, and, at this time, AI is not ready to fully meet the demands of cybersecurity. The science fiction style concept of AI, the ability for a machine to mimic intelligent human behavior, does not exist at this time. However, machine learning can still be leveraged to support cybersecurity initiatives. The technology stack using machine learning is growing. Large tech companies rely on machine intelligence and have products that depend upon AI or machine learning.

SpaceX launched a three-ton shipment to the International Space Station on Thursday, including "mighty mice" for a muscle study, a robot sensitive to astronauts' emotions and a miniature version of a brewery's malt house. The Dragon capsule also is delivering holiday goodies for the six station residents. NASA's Kenny Todd isn't giving any hints, but said, "Santa's sleigh, I think, is certified for the vacuum of space." The recycled capsule should arrive Sunday. The Falcon rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral a day late because of high winds.

Sophisticated machine learning applications require not only enormous amounts of training data, but powerful computer hardware on which to train. An analysis conducted by San Francisco research firm OpenAI found that since 2012, the amount of compute used in the largest training runs has been increasing exponentially with a 3.4-month doubling time, and that it's grown by more than 300,000 times over that same time period. The trend spurred the development of supercomputers like the U.S. Department of Energy's Sierra and Summit, which leverage dedicated accelerator chips to speed up AI computation. Now, IBM's Hardware Center, in collaboration with New York State, SUNY Polytechnic Institute, and other members of IBM's AI Hardware Center, has delivered a new machine for the Department of Computer Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) that's optimized for state-of-the-art machine learning workloads. It's dubbed Artificial Intelligence Multiprocessing Optimized System, or AiMOS (in honor of Rensselaer cofounder Amos Eaton), and it will principally tackle projects in biology, chemistry, the humanities, and related domains underway at the new IBM Research AI Hardware Center on the SUNY campus in Albany.

It's been another eventful year for cyber attacks. More than 4 billion records have been breached so far – and we're not even to the end of the year yet! But 2019 will soon be behind us. It's now time to look toward 2020 and speculate on what will transpire next in the ongoing cybersecurity battle. What new and evolving technologies will be at the forefront of cybersecurity?

Employers engage artificial intelligence solutions amid a talent shortage. As employers grapple with a widespread labor shortage, more are turning to artificial intelligence tools in their search for qualified candidates. Hiring managers are using increasingly sophisticated AI solutions to streamline large parts of the hiring process. The tools scrape online job boards and evaluate applications to identify the best fits. They can even stage entire online interviews and scan everything from word choice to facial expressions before recommending the most qualified prospects.

The Department of Veterans Affairs, the nation's largest integrated healthcare system, is centralizing the agency's efforts to advance its artificial intelligence research and development capabilities. The VA on Thursday announced the establishment of the National Artificial Intelligence Institute, a joint initiative by the Office of Research and Development and the Office of the Secretary's Center for Strategic Partnerships. "VA has a unique opportunity to be a leader in artificial intelligence," said VA Secretary Robert Wilkie in a written statement. "VA's artificial intelligence institute will usher in new capabilities and opportunities that will improve health outcomes for our nation's heroes." The National Artificial Intelligence Institute will solicit, develop and execute flagship AI research and development projects--with veteran input--focusing on deep learning, explainable AI, privacy-preserving AI as well as AI for multi-scale time series.

ESA's SpaceBok robot is designed to walk, hop, and run in low-gravity environments. From free-flying droids to humanoids, from crawlers to inflatable torsos, space robots of myriad types are now being considered for missions in low Earth orbit, on interplanetary spacecraft, and on other worlds. It might sound like a prop list from a Star Wars movie, but space agencies and their contractors are developing a panoply of robotic assistants with a serious aim in mind: to boost the productivity and safety of astronauts. The idea behind robot assistants is multifaceted: one aim is to offload time-consuming repetitive tasks like space station cleaning and inventory making from crew members to free-flying or humanoid robots. Ground robots controlled from, say, spacecraft orbiting the Moon or Mars could construct human habitats ahead of a landing, or perform reconnaissance ahead of human exploration missions.

I recently had the opportunity to take a ride in a Waymo self-driving car in Chandler, AZ. I had been looking forward to this experience, not only to see how well the technology worked but also what the experience might be like as a passenger. Upon my arrival at the Waymo facility, I had apparently approached the side of the building where the Waymo cars go at the end of their duty cycles to be refueled and inspected. As I drove in, I was more or less surrounded by incoming Waymo vehicles. I relaxed as they navigated their way around me.