There are more than 8,000 online courses out there. These are some of the best. More than 50 million students signed up for one this year. When scientists announce they've made a breakthrough, they usually promise we'll see the full effects of those discoveries--anything from a better understanding of how the universe works to a drug ready for use in patients--in about five years. TULSA -- Tom Coomer has retired twice: once when he was 65, and then several years ago.

These are some of the quandaries you may be faced with in 2018, according to the experts who appeared on SAP Game-Changers Radio 2018 Predictions, presented by SAP. The first installment of a five-part series, the show aired live December 6, 2017. Host/moderator Bonnie D. Graham asked 15 leading experts, academics, and business influencers what they see in their crystal ball for 2018. Each person was given just two minutes to share their predictions for what the next year holds for their industry, business, the world, and technology. The market is interested and the technology has matured.

Using cutting-edge video game technology and animation, the U.S. Army and Homeland Security Department have developed a computer-based simulator that can train everyone from teachers to first responders on how to react to an active shooter scenario. The training center is housed at the University of Central Florida in Orlando and offers numerous role-playing opportunities that can be used to train anyone in the world with a computer.

The Japan Times newsroom selected these economy and technology stories as the most important of 2017. But the struggling Japanese conglomerate later agreed on the ¥2 trillion sale of its chip unit to a Japan-U.S.-South Korea consortium. It also ended a months-long legal battle with its partner in the venture, Western Digital. Earlier this month, Japan agreed with the EU on a giant free trade deal, eliminating tariffs on 94 percent of imports from the EU. The bloc will eliminate tariffs on 99 percent of its imports from Japan.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has increasingly dominated the news agenda in 2017. This was highlighted in November when the UK Government's Autumn budget included a £20 million investment pledge for businesses working in AI. With research from Deloitte showing that 85 percent of UK businesses plan to invest in AI by 2020, it's clear that firms across the board are waking up to its benefits and are starting to take decisive action. More and more brands are making headway with AI in digital advertising, from better audience insights and targeting to campaign measurement. The results are evident in more relevant, targeted and measurable campaigns.

Prince Harry, the fifth in line to the throne, is the guest editor for BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Wednesday. The prince has interviewed former US President Barack Obama and his father, the Prince of Wales, for the programme. The programme is focusing on issues such as the armed forces, mental health, youth crime and climate change - a cause his father also champions. It is the 14th year public figures have been in control of the show's output between Christmas and New Year. Other guest editors this week include a robot, Bletchley Park code-breaker Baroness Trumpington, Tamara Rojo of the English National Ballet and poet and novelist Benjamin Okri.

All across the globe, countries have been building up Artifical Intelligence capabilities due to the possibility that AI could completely transform the nature of work and create better outcomes for businesses and society. An Accenture report estimates that Artificial Intelligence has the potential to add $957 billion, or 15% of current gross value, to India's economy, by 2035. The report outlines how India can benefit from AI. Flipkart, India's top e-commerce player, is already tapping into AI, using the technology in operations ranging from conversational search, visual similarity, better last-mile delivery, fraud-detection, personalisation to warehousing. The technology is expected to help Flipkart serve its existing customers better, and attract new ones as well. The emphasis and importance given to AI is rather one-sided, reports the Financial Express.

The doctor enters and pulls up the electronic medical record. The patient's history is already there. The doctor drags and drops the image, presses the "analyze" button. An actionable diagnosis appears a moment later. If artificial intelligence (AI) were to one day take over much of clinical practice, as some fear or anticipate -- being potentially faster, more reliable, and generally better at certain tasks than humans -- clinical decisions may no longer depend on tired eyes, imperfect risk scores, or lagging guidelines.

Identifying coordinate transformations that make strongly nonlinear dynamics approximately linear is a central challenge in modern dynamical systems. These transformations have the potential to enable prediction, estimation, and control of nonlinear systems using standard linear theory. The Koopman operator has emerged as a leading data-driven embedding, as eigenfunctions of this operator provide intrinsic coordinates that globally linearize the dynamics. However, identifying and representing these eigenfunctions has proven to be mathematically and computationally challenging. This work leverages the power of deep learning to discover representations of Koopman eigenfunctions from trajectory data of dynamical systems. Our network is parsimonious and interpretable by construction, embedding the dynamics on a low-dimensional manifold that is of the intrinsic rank of the dynamics and parameterized by the Koopman eigenfunctions. In particular, we identify nonlinear coordinates on which the dynamics are globally linear using a modified auto-encoder. We also generalize Koopman representations to include a ubiquitous class of systems that exhibit continuous spectra, ranging from the simple pendulum to nonlinear optics and broadband turbulence. Our framework parametrizes the continuous frequency using an auxiliary network, enabling a compact and efficient embedding at the intrinsic rank, while connecting our models to half a century of asymptotics. In this way, we benefit from the power and generality of deep learning, while retaining the physical interpretability of Koopman embeddings.

Federal lawmakers want to have a say in defining artificial intelligence. Researchers are now using TV shows to feed the predictive capability of an AI system. Google said in recent days it's opening an AI-focused research facility in China. And on and on the headlines keep coming, all of which is to say that interest in AI remains acute -- and its presence pervasive -- as 2017 draws to a close. And, based on a few recent developments, 2018 should be another big year of AI-related leaps forward as machines expand their influence over the minutiae of our lives.