Computers are devices that can be instructed to carry out arbitrary sequences of arithmetic or logical operations automatically. Their ability to follow generalized sets of operations, which are called programs, enables them to perform an extremely wide range of tasks. Take a look below for 30 more fun and interesting facts about computers. It was designed to protect their research work. Based on the abacus, which was a counting device invented in China over 4,000 years ago, the original computers were designed to deal with large numbers faster and more accurately than humanly possible.

Germany, France and Japan have joined forces to fund research into "human-centered" artificial intelligence that aims to respect privacy and transparency, in the latest sign of a global split with the U.S. and China over the ethics of AI. The three countries' funding agencies have put out a joint call for research proposals, backed by an initial 7.4 million euros ($8.2 million). They stressed that they "share the same values" and warned that the technology has the potential to "violate individual privacy and right to informational self-determination." Observers see the move as part of a wider divergence in AI research priorities, with Europe, plus Japan and potentially Canada, taking the lead on its ethical development. "We share the same beliefs and the same standards," said Susanne Sangenstedt, a program officer at the German Research Foundation who is helping to oversee the collaboration.

"Please think forward to the year 2030. Analysts expect that people will become even more dependent on networked artificial intelligence (AI) in complex digital systems. Some say we will continue on the historic arc of augmenting our lives with mostly positive results as we widely implement these networked tools. Some say our increasing dependence on these AI and related systems is likely to lead to widespread difficulties. Our question: By 2030, do you think it is most likely that advancing AI and related technology systems will enhance human capacities and empower them? That is, most of the time, will most people be better off than they are today? Or is it most likely that advancing AI and related technology systems will lessen human autonomy and agency to such an extent that most people will not be better off than the way things are today? Please explain why you chose the answer you did and sketch out a vision of how the human-machine/AI collaboration will function in 2030.

The Pentagon, taking the next big step of deploying artificial intelligence to aid troops and help select battlefield targets, must settle lingering ethical concerns about using the technology for waging war. Search giant Google dealt a blow last year to the military's maiden artificial intelligence, or AI, program sorting drone footage. Thousands of employees protested working on surveillance technology they said eventually could be used to kill. The Pentagon's Joint Artificial Intelligence Center is pushing ahead with a new series of AI projects that will be rolled out to commanders over the coming year with an expected funding boost from...

On July 31, 2019, DeepMind published a research letter in Nature (via AI in Healthcare) about a clinically applicable approach to the continuous prediction of acute kidney injury (AKI). The predictive model was developed on a longitudinal dataset comprised of 703,782 adult patients across 172 inpatient and 1,062 outpatient sites. It "predicted more than half (55.8%) of all inpatient episodes of acute kidney injury and 90.2% of all acute kidney injuries that required dialysis. The lead-up time was 48 hours, and the model had a ratio of two false alerts for every true alert." TechCrunch reported on the study in an article titled "DeepMind touts predictive health care AI'breakthrough' trained on heavily skewed data."

This article is adapted from GreenBiz's newsletter, VERGE Weekly, running Wednesdays. If you think your organization has a challenging energy consumption profile, try running a network of cold storage facilities -- with most sites in not-so-cold locations, such as California and Georgia. One of the more intriguing examples of smart power management I've come across in recent months is an initiative under way at Lineage Logistics, which runs more than 200 warehouses across North America, Europe and Asia. It handles food for more than 2,500 customers, which are all businesses themselves, such as grocery stories and food services organizations. Each of the Lineage buildings -- an average of 1 million square feet in size -- basically stores about the same amount of food that you'd find in 770,000 home freezers.

The Apache Software Foundation, world's largest open source foundation, oversees more than 350 open source projects. While many of these projects are household names, such as Apache Maven, Groovy, Apache Cassandra, and Apache CouchDB, it's always worthwhile to browse through the lesser-known names. Today, we are looking at Apache Rya, an open source big data database. ASF recently announced that Apache Rya has moved on up to a Top Level project. In celebration of its maturity and welcome aboard, let's have a quick look at Apache Rya and see what it's all about.

NASHVILLE, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Change Healthcare (Nasdaq: CHNG), today announced that its artificial intelligence (AI) technology has been added to the CareSelect Imaging decision support solution. The new AI capabilities will help healthcare providers using leading electronic health record (EHR) systems enhance workflow efficiency, improve patient safety, provide higher-value care, and meet pending regulatory requirements. CareSelect Imaging now uses Change Healthcare AI in EHR workflow to help physicians streamline imaging orders. In addition, it helps providers comply with new Protecting Access to Medicare Act (PAMA) requirements governing advanced imaging ordered under Medicare Part B. "Bringing Change Healthcare AI to CareSelect Imaging helps providers ensure they're delivering the highest quality, most appropriate care, while reducing their administrative and regulatory burdens through advanced automation," said Michael Mardini, CEO of National Decision Support Company, a Change Healthcare Company. "This is a perfect example of how strategic applications of AI will continue to improve healthcare processes and benefit all stakeholders."

Five Dutch companies including Ahold Delhaize, ING, KLM, NS and Philips aim to further boost the AI ecosystem in the Netherlands by accelerating and promoting the development of AI technology and nurturing AI talent in the country. This effort will add educational capacity, foster the development of the AI community in the Netherlands and reiterate the position of the Netherlands as a competitive and relevant global AI hub. The goal of Kickstart AI, is to bridge the AI gap between the Netherlands and other countries, like the UK, the US and China, that have made notable progress in this area. In order to keep the country's position as a pioneer and inventor of technologies, the Dutch government, organizations and universities have ground to cover in terms of structural investments and availability of global AI talent. The five companies "kickstarting" AI are, for the first time, uniting forces in this kind of joint initiative and taking highly needed decisive action.

Cities around the world have an increasing number of inhabitants, and when the number of people in an area increases also the production of garbage is increased. This created the dilemma of collecting this garbage. By making this process more efficient the garbage will be on city streets for a shorter duration and thus have less negative effects on the environment. When garbage can be detected in a timely manner this will allow for a more efficient reaction from the local government, which in turn can deploy the correct resources to solve the problem. For example a truck that can pick up bulky waste or enforcers that can enforce when local regulations are broken.