Big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning are ruling the tech structure of most industries. We all know how Amazon combines a customer's historical data and other customers' data to power recommendations. Likewise, for Google, it's not difficult to predict our preferences and interests. They make use of big data, analytics and machine learning to be able to process huge amounts of data, identify patterns, analyze them and consequently indulge in predictive analysis. The most complicated disease of the most important organ of the body – the brain, is a clear beneficiary of this AI approach.

AMMAN – Prince William on Sunday praised "historic ties and friendship" between Britain and Jordan, as he kicked off a historic, politically delicate five-day tour of the desert kingdom, Israel and the Palestinian territories. Though billed as nonpolitical, it's a high-profile foreign visit for William, 36, second in line to the throne. He is meeting with young scientists, refugees and political leaders in a tumultuous region Britain controlled between the two world wars. On Sunday, he was welcomed in Jordan by 23-year-old Crown Prince Hussein, a member of the Hashemite dynasty Britain helped install in then-Transjordan almost a century ago. William was greeted by an honor guard after his plane landed at a small airport on the outskirts of the capital of Amman.

Britain's Prince William on Sunday praised "historic ties and friendship" with Jordan and the kingdom's commitment to Syrian and Palestinian refugees, as he began a historic five-day tour that also includes Israel and the Palestinian territories. Though billed as non-political, it's a high-profile visit for William, 36, second in line to the throne. He is meeting with young scientists, refugees and political leaders in a tumultuous region Britain controlled between the two world wars. In Jordan, the prince was hosted by Crown Prince Hussein, 23, a member of the Hashemite dynasty Britain helped install in then-Transjordan almost a century ago. The pair capped the day Sunday by watching England's World Cup match against Panama which the heir to the Jordanian throne had recorded earlier, Press Association said.

The U.S. cotton market has remained stable since its spike in 2011, when China executed its cotton reserving and fiber hoarding plan. It is believed that U.S. cotton demand and price were artificially kept low because there are always worries that China would unexpectedly unleash its cotton stockpile, about half of the global storage. However, U.S. cotton price finally showed a revival in recent days. The ICE July cotton futures closed at 95.21 cents a pound on Tuesday, June 12, the highest level for a front-month future contract in the last 6 years. The revival could be attributed to multiple factors, with an emphasis on the worries about insufficient rain in the cotton-growing areas and the newly issued import quotas from China.

Instead of merely selling copies of 1984, Amazon appears determined to help bring the dystopian classic's vision of widespread government surveillance to life. And Amazon employees are really not happy about it. In 2016, Amazon unveiled Rekognition, an AI-powered facial recognition software that scans videos or photos to detect people or objects. It can analyze a person's face to determine their emotions, identify 100 faces in a single photo, and track a person throughout a video even if they leave and reenter the field of view. In other words, it's a powerful surveillance tool, and government agencies and law enforcement are apparently two of Amazon's target customers.

A little over a week after the fervor surrounding Google's involvement in the Department of Defense's Project Maven, an autonomous drone program, showed signs of abating, another machine learning controversy returned to the headlines: local law enforcement deploying Amazon's Rekognition, a computer vision service with facial recognition capabilities. In a letter addressed to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, 19 groups of shareholders expressed concerns that Rekognition's facial recognition capabilities will be misused in ways that "violate [the] civil and human rights" of "people of color, immigrants, and civil society organizations." And they said that it set the stage for sales of the software to foreign governments and authoritarian regimes. Amazon, for its part, said in a statement that it will "suspend … customer's right to use … services [like Rekognition]" if it determines those services are being "abused." It has so far declined, however, to define the bright-line rules that would trigger a suspension.

Members of the scientific and military communities from approximately 20 NATO countries came together to discuss leading developments in big data and artificial intelligence (AI) at the NATO Science and Technology Organization's specialists meeting, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence for Military Decision Making, from May 30 – June 01, 2018 in Bordeaux, France. Over the three day seminar, approximately 300 experts and researchers in data, artificial intelligence, modeling and simulation, and military operations discussed how technology, data and machine learning are increasingly influencing the trajectory of modern warfare – and the inherent risks and challenges involved. The meeting's purpose was to better inform technology acquisition, funding, and operational decisions within the NATO community. Specific topics focused on systems and operations, human-machine interface, security, and enabling technologies. Secretary of the Air Force for Operational Energy, Roberto Guerrero, led the senior leader panel on June 01.

For the past few years, the world's biggest tech companies have been on a mission to put artificial-intelligence tools in the hands of every coder. The benefits are clear: Coders familiar with free AI frameworks from Google, Amazon, Microsoft, or Facebook might be more inclined to someday work for one of those talent-starved companies. Even if they don't, selling pre-built AI tools to other companies has become big business for Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. Today these same companies are under fire from their employees over who this technology is being sold to, namely branches of the US government like the Department of Defense and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Workers from Google, Microsoft, and now Amazon have signed petitions and quit in protest of the government work.

The future of transportation is all about brilliant engineering, sure, the sort of fast-moving modeling and number-crunching that Volvo employees needed to pull to transform a concept car to a production one in less than two years. Ford making strategic, symbolic moves and purchases in the big, struggling city it once helped make great. Massachusetts attempting to balance the leeriness of its citizens about self-driving tech with its desire to maintain its reputation as a center of innovation. This week was all about automakers, tech goliaths, states, and cities making canny moves to position themselves to welcome the next few months, years, and decades. Sometimes, you gotta get down and dirty.

Last week in the New Mexico desert, military and civilian bomb squads faced off at the 12th annual Robot Rodeo, which is a week of intense training organized by Sandia National Laboratories. To test their skills, bomb squads steered their bots to enter downed planes, explore faux-radioactive disaster sites, and climb flights of stairs. "Everybody else is running away from the bomb, and these guys are going in," says Jake Deuel, robotics manager at Sandia and coordinator of the rodeo. His goal is for the event to help bomb squads tackle real-world situations and learn what their robots can and cannot do. "We train these guys to come home safe," he says.