A Canadian company wants to open a so-called "robot brothel" in Houston, but the mayor says the city is reviewing its ordinances to determine if they address public safety and health concerns raised by the business.

A former employee of Google has warned of the web giant's'disturbing' plans for a search engine in China which could help Beijing monitor its citizens online. Jack Poulson wrote in a letter to the US Senate's commerce committee that the proposed Dragonfly website was'tailored to the censorship and surveillance demands of the Chinese government'. In his letter he also claimed that discussion of the plans among Google employees had been'increasingly stifled'. Mr Poulson was a senior research scientist at Google until he resigned last month in protest at the Dragonfly proposals. A former employee of Google has warned of the web giant's'disturbing' plans for a search engine in China which could help Beijing monitor its citizens online While China is home to the world's largest number of internet users, a 2015 report by US think tank Freedom House found that the country had the most restrictive online use policies of 65 nations it studied, ranking below Iran and Syria.

One of the intriguing aspects of the popular 1960s television show "Mission Impossible" was the opening sequence of every episode, which featured a secret agent listening to a recorded message about an upcoming mission. At the end of the recording each week, the tape would sizzle, crackle, and disintegrate into a heap of smoke and debris, ensuring no one else could access the top-secret information it contained. Until recently, self-destructing electronic systems remained within the realm of science fiction, but advances in chemistry, engineering, and materials science are finally allowing researchers to construct circuits that break down on their own timetable. This includes systems that rely on conventional complementary oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology. "The goal is to develop functional circuits that can operate for a period of time and then vaporize," says Amit Lal, Robert M. Scharf 1977 Professor of Engineering in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, and director of the university's SonicMEMs lab.

Automation is changing the way that businesses operate. From the factory floor to back-end IT, automated services and machines are increasing speed and productivity while freeing workers up to focus on more skilled tasks. 'Automation' is often used synonymously with'artificial intelligence', but although automated machines can use AI, they are very different. Automation is rule-based: 'If A, then B'. AI, on the other hand, is trained to learn, develop and grow using the data it is given.

Kai-Fu Lee is the chairman of Sinovation Ventures and the president of its Artificial Intelligence Institute. He was the founding president of Google China. He recently spoke about his new book, "AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley and the New World Order," with The WorldPost's editor in chief, Nathan Gardels. WorldPost: Artificial intelligence is surely the most consequential technological development of the 21st century. In your book "AI Superpowers," you've written the most comprehensive global account of artificial intelligence to date. What are the central themes of your book?

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford responds to a question from Sen. Dianne Feinstein during testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on her sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Christine Blasey Ford gave a detailed scientific explanation for her memory of the alleged incident involving Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh at her highly anticipated Senate testimony Thursday. Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., pressed Ford over her level of certainty that it was, in fact, Kavanaugh who allegedly pinned her down 36 years ago, while in high school, and attempted to remove her clothing. "How are you so sure that it was he?" Feinstein asked. Ford, a California-based psychology professor, laid out a detailed scientific explanation.

The security industry has experienced its share of rapid changes that have been well documented in recent years. The question is how soon will the next wave of potential disruption really take hold? In this case, consider buzzwords that are becoming more common to hear at industry trade shows and in market research reports but perhaps remain foreign to many in terms of the everyday lexicon: artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and deep learning. There is much work to be done as these still-futuristic-sounding technologies make their way into the security industry. Since many sensor manufacturers do not have the expertise in these areas, go-to market strategies have been mostly by partnering with video analytics solution providers taking their first steps into AI.

Japan's former Olympics minister said Thursday it would be difficult to introduce daylight saving time ahead of the 2020 Games in Tokyo, a move that has been discussed as a way to mitigate the nation's scorching heat during the sporting event. "A part of me still wants to do this, but the reality is it's a difficult timeline -- especially when you think about issues around computer systems," said Toshiaki Endo, former minister and senior Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker, to reporters after the party's first meeting on the measure at its headquarters in Tokyo. Endo also currently serves as a vice president of the Tokyo Organising Committee for the games. The ruling party's lawmakers gathered for a study session on the possibility of introducing daylight savings time after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gave instructions last month to examine its pros and cons. Fast-forwarding the clock has been seen by some as a way for Japan to combat its sultry midsummer weather.

Machine learning cybersecurity startup Darktrace Ltd. said today it has raised $50 million in new late-stage funding on a valuation of $1.65 billion to further international expansion and development. The Series E round was led by Vitruvian Partners and included existing investors KKR and 1011 Ventures. Founded in 2013, Darktrace pitches itself as the leader in "Enterprise Immune System Technology" with a cybersecurity product that tackles advanced cyberthreats using a machine learning platform developed at the United Kingdom's University of Cambridge. Differentiating itself from others in the market, Darktrace claims its platform is based on the "biological principles of the human immune system." It also says the platform can learn "self," which is said to constitute "the normal pattern of life for the organization, its users and devices – and detecting subtle deviations from this normal behavior, which suggest a compromise, breach or cyber-attack."

Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Wednesday said Artificial Intelligence (AI) played key role in sustainable development, increasing happiness of people and ease of living. It also played an important role in the economic development of the State, he told a round-table meet on'Artificial Intelligence and the paradigm shift' in New York. The State government had been using cloud management and data storage in governance. Every issue was being analysed with the help of Information Technology and real-time governance. The government was making the best use of technologies in extending services to the people like, to name one, the Bhudar to prevent tampering of land records.