Cognitive technologies are now impacting almost every aspect of people's lives. Not only are these technologies an emerging source of competitive advantage for businesses and the economy, but they also have the potential to improve societal well-being.1 They can be a disruptive force in the way work gets done and employers interact with workers, customers, and suppliers, as well as the trade-offs that conventionally govern the relationship between speed, cost, and quality. This primer aims to help readers understand these technologies and the emerging landscape better, illustrate their transformational potential, and demonstrate how business and government leaders can adopt them in driving smarter insights and stronger organizational outcomes. There is no single definition of cognitive technologies.

Video game fans who just happened to be watching Russian state TV on Sunday got a strange surprise. "Vremya," a long-running television news program on the Russian network Channel One, mistakenly used footage from a military simulation video game in a segment celebrating Russian military veterans, BBC reported. The Sunday edition of "Vremya" was paying tribute to Roman Filippov, an aircraft pilot who died in Syria less than a month ago. A short montage during the segment was meant to show off the Su-25 aircraft Filippov piloted, but it featured a brief clip from the first-person shooter video game "Arma 3." Russian social media users immediately noticed and debated for a while about whether or not it was an accident or a bonus thrown in by a producer. As the BBC report noted, that may not have been the most sensitive thing to do intentionally during a segment on a fallen soldier.

Alphabet's artificial intelligence arm DeepMind and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs have unveiled a research partnership focused on predicting patient deterioration in the hospital setting. The issue is the cause of approximately 11 percent of in-hospital deaths, NHS research shows. Together, the organizations will examine 700,000 historical, depersonalized patient medical records. They'll analyze patterns from the data to see if machine learning can pinpoint risk factors for patient deterioration. To start, the relationship will zoom in on acute kidney injury, a complication related to patient deterioration.

U.S. Pacific Command PR Newswire: AI & Robotics to Dominate the Defense Industry Artificial Intelligence & Robotics are going to dominate the expenditures in de defense market the next decade, this is the conclusion from the new market study launched by MarketForecast.com. Enormous potential of Natural Language Processing, Computer Vision and Robotics among other technologies are going to dominate the defense industry for the next 10 years. The global Artificial Intelligence & Robotics in the Defense industry market, is valued at US $39.22 billion in 2018, is projected grow at a CAGR of 5.04%, to value US $61 billion by 2027. The cumulative market for global expenditure on AI & Robotics Defense Systems is valued at US $487 billion over the forecast period. Read more .... WNU Editor: Some believe China is ahead .... Seeking to outsmart US, China races ahead on artificial intelligence (McClatchy), but my money is on the U.S..

US President Donald Trump has said America's legislators must "do something" to tackle the issue of violence in video games. Speaking at a White House meeting of local and state officials on security in the aftermath of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the President criticised gaming culture and the ease with which young people can see films featuring graphic violence and bloodshed. "We have to look at the Internet because a lot of bad things are happening to young kids and young minds and their minds are being formed, and we have to do something about maybe what they're seeing and how they're seeing it," he said. "I'm hearing more and more people say the level of violence on video games is really shaping young people's thoughts. And you go the further step, and that's the movies. You see these movies, and they're so violent. And yet a kid is able to see the movie if sex isn't involved, but killing is involved, and maybe they have to put a rating system for that."

The UK government has sunk £1.8 million into the development of cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) to bolster security and help alleviate wait times at some of the country's busiest airports. Eight projects have been chosen to trial technology that the government hopes will help bridge the gap between maintaining robust security measures and offering a quick and easy-to-use service for passengers. Security Screening Technologies, a small research team based in Derbyshire, has been given the nod to test an AI system that's been trained to identify suspicious objects in footwear, including explosives. If successful, the technology would mean passengers would no longer be required to take their shoes off during pre-flight security checks. A sophisticated scanning system is also being developed by Sequestim, a small team based in Wales, that promises to provide a way for security staff to scan passengers as they pass through security gates without the need to take off outer clothing.

Chinese device maker Lepu Medical Technology Co. has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the registration of an electrocardiogram analysis and diagnosis system based on artificial intelligence. The Beijing-based firm's Carewell Healthcare subsidiary developed the product, named AI ECG Platform, which covers major cardiovascular diseases, Lepu said in a statement. AI ECG Platform's diagnostic accuracy for a variety of heart diseases is over 95 percent, a similar level to ECG medical experts and it is capable of outperforming specialists for the diagnosis of some complex cases, the firm added. The company has applied for more than a dozen Chinese and international patents related to the technology. Lepu aims to promote the use of the product in primary hospitals and clinics which lack professional cardiologists.

In 2009, the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command wanted the ability to track, in real-time, national security threats. Potential solutions had to provide instant results, and use graphics to provide insight into their extremely large streaming datasets. At the time, there was nothing available to meet their needs. Both NoSQL solutions and classical relational systems couldn't handle the scaling requirements. In response, Nima Negahban and Amit Vij, of Kinetica, designed and built a new database.

First, the futurist Amy Webb told the audience of journalists, librarians and foundation managers that they could easily be duped by the ever-growing purveyors of artificial intelligence. Images of their faces could be affixed to others' bodies, their voices to impostors. Media people have acknowledged to pollsters that they are so focused on the present that they don't pay close attention to what might be in store for them in five, 10 or 20 years. Later in her talk Wednesday before the Knight Media Forum in Miami, Webb told people of color that they weren't thought about when the creators of self-driving cars, GPS navigators, robotics and other such technologies were being developed. "My question is, what does all this mean for communities of color?" (video) asked Sara Lomax-Reese, president and CEO of black talk-formatted WURD radio in Philadelphia. She was one of about 500 at the sold-out conference sponsored by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. "It's not good," replied Webb. "Any person of color who's ever felt invisible, you're totally invisible to the networks. Right?" said the author of the 2016 book "The Signals Are Talking: Why Today's Fringe Is Tomorrow's Mainstream: Forecast and Take Action on Tomorrow's Trends, Today."

Defence and foreign policy decisions are based on immense cognitive and intangible skillsets. As AI evolves further, it could play a vital role in analyzing large data sets, intelligence inputs, imagery from satellites or other airborne platforms, scenarios or even draw cognitive deductions from the historical records of foreign policy decisions or deployment of military resources during previous wars. Such detailed analyses could also supplement individual and organisational ability during bilateral or multilateral negotiations, and military standoffs or geopolitical conflicts. AI is also being used for crime prevention as facial detection and recognition technology has made strides. Akin to any advanced technology, AI also has its own set of risks.