Top Republican lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent letters Monday asking Apple and Google for more information on how extensively their smartphones track people's locations and record snippets of their conversations. The questions from lawmakers come amid a broader scrutiny from Capitol Hill into how the underlying, everyday practices of technology companies may infringe on Americans' privacy. Congressional hearings with Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg revealed several lawmakers were troubled by the amount of data that the social network collects on a regular basis. In the letters to Google and Apple, lawmakers said the committee is "reviewing the business practices that may impact the privacy expectations of Americans." The letters ask Larry Page -- the chief executive of Google's parent company Alphabet -- and Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, for more specific information on how their phones collect location information at times when many people may not expect.

WASHINGTON--A new initiative kicks off today to evaluate the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and situational awareness technologies during critical incidents. The effort is a joint partnership between the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) and Canada's Department of National Defence science and technology organization, Defence Research and Development Canada Centre for Security Science (DRDC CSS) to ensure both American and Canadian next generation first responders are better connected, protected and fully aware during critical incidents. Over the next two years, the two countries will collaborate on new research and development projects, hold joint workshops and field experiments and share best practices and lessons learned to ensure the safety and effectiveness of first responders and the public. "Canadian and American responders have very similar requirements," said John Merrill, DHS S&T's Director of Next Generation First Responder Apex Program. "By jointly determining research and development priorities between the two countries, we can reach our goal faster and more efficiently, eliminating duplication of effort and optimizing funding."

It is a stunning new view of the moon - taken from a unique viewpoint. Posted to Twitter by @Astro_Alex, European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst, this image shows our planet's Moon as seen from the International Space Station. He posted the stunning image to illustrate just how far astronauts aboard the ISS travel as they orbit the Earth. European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst posted the amazing image of the Moon as seen from the International Space Station. 'By orbiting the Earth almost 16 times per day, the #ISS crew travel the distance to the Moon and back – every day,' he said.

Robots have been around, in some form or other, since the ancient world. Early legends of automata existed in Greek and Roman legends and basic mechanical'robots' were designed and built in China and Greece. Our modern concept of robots wouldn't appear until the Industrial Revolution with the notion of the android (humanoid robot) coming into existence in 20th Century film and sci-fi literature. Since then many engineers have worked tirelessly to improve and, in some cases, redefine robotics. These 15 are just some of them. The following is far from exhaustive and is in no particular order. Their contribution to robotics: Joseph Endgelberger is widely credited for the birth of the robotics industry.

Executives from the Taiwanese contract electronics company Foxconn made high-profile visits to the United States during the last few weeks. They announced a new company in Silicon Valley that will focus on artificial intelligence (AI). And Foxconn's founder joined President Donald Trump for a ground-breaking ceremony at a new factory in Wisconsin. Foxconn, also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry, is the world's largest contract maker of electronics. It operates factories across China and is most well-known for making phones and other devices for Apple.

ZHENGZHOU: In the Chinese city of Zhengzhou, a police officer wearing facial recognition glasses spotted a heroin smuggler at a train station. In Qingdao, a city famous for its German colonial heritage, cameras powered by artificial intelligence helped police snatch two dozen criminal suspects in the midst of a big annual beer festival. In Wuhu, a fugitive murder suspect was identified by a camera as he bought food from a street vendor. With millions of cameras and billions of lines of code, China is building a high-tech authoritarian future. Beijing is embracing technologies like facial recognition and artificial intelligence to identify and track 1.4 billion people. It wants to assemble a vast and unprecedented national surveillance system, with crucial help from its thriving technology industry.

To fly drones commercially, however, companies must comply with numerous regulations and restrictions. The Federal Aviation Administration requires commercial drone operators to complete a "Part 107" process -- which Deangelis compared to "ground school" -- that includes testing to assure drone pilots understand things like airspace, weather patterns and sectional maps. Commercial operators must retest every two years and carry insurance that can cost several thousand dollars annually.

The Army will be using machine learning software to predict when components on the Bradley Fighting Vehicle need maintenance. Through an award facilitated by Defense Innovation Unit Experimental, the Army will be working with Uptake, a company that provides artificial intelligence solutions for industrial sector clients, to predict component failures, decrease the frequency of unscheduled maintenance and improve the productivity of repair operations. "The Bradley already has sensors throughout it on major components of systems, so what we'll be doing is capturing that data that is generated all throughout the Bradley and then combining it with our software to provide insights on potential failures before they happen," said Matthew Lehner, a spokesperson for Uptake. None of the company's software is uploaded to the military vehicle. The data from the sensors is transmitted to the cloud, where Uptake's software analyzes normal operational patterns and learns to predict failures.

The Office of Naval Research has revealed plan to partner with the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, the Naval Research Laboratory, and a number of universities to develop a new type of leg prostheses. Along with being more comfortable, these smart artificial limbs will help users prevent the threat of infection. The Monitoring OsseoIntegrated Prosthesis (MOIP) project hinges upon a titanium fixture that is surgically implanted into the recipient's femur. Bone is generated around the point where it's implanted, so only the small connection point juts out. An artificial limb can be connected or detached from this adapter at will.

The achievement gap between students who come from different socio-economic backgrounds is a well-known and persistent problem in education. Disparities in achievements between high and low socio-economic groups are evident in children as young as age 3 years and seem to be a problem the world over. Despite pupils' overall attainment scores rising over the last decade or so, the gap between students from different socio-economic groups remains intractably present and widespread. Family finances play a big part amongst the various reasons for this disparity. Pupils from low socio-economic backgrounds (SEBs) are often only able to attend a few, if any of the extra-curricular activities enjoyed by their more affluent peers. Access to good schools for pupils from SEBs is often reduced as is their access to the educational and occupational aspirations which can impact children's academic achievement.