In less than five years, a 2012 academic breakthrough in artificial intelligence evolved into the technology responsible for making healthcare decisions, deciding whether prisoners should go free, and determining what we see on the internet. Machine learning is beginning to invisibly touch nearly every aspect of our lives; its ability to automate decision making challenges the future roles of experts and unskilled laborers alike. Hospitals might need fewer doctors, thanks to automated treatment planning, and truck drivers might not be required by 2030. Serious questions are starting to be raised about whether the decisions made by AI can be trusted. Research suggests that these algorithms are easily biased by the data from which they learn, meaning societal biases are reinforced and magnified in the code.

France's data privacy watchdog may fine WhatsApp if it does not comply with an order to bring its sharing of user data with parent company Facebook into line with French privacy law. CNIL, the French data protection authority, has told WhatsApp to comply with the order within one month, and pay particular attention to obtaining users' consent. If WhatsApp doesn't comply, it could sanction the company, CNIL said. France's data privacy watchdog may fine WhatsApp if it does not comply with an order to bring its sharing of user data with parent company Facebook into line with French privacy law (stock image) WhatsApp said it would begin sharing some user data with the Facebook in 2016, drawing warnings from European privacy watchdogs about getting the appropriate consent. In October, European Union privacy regulators criticised WhatsApp for not resolving their concerns over the messaging service's sharing of user data with Facebook a year after they first issued a warning.

BANGALORE, INDIA – Among the five teams competing in the world's first international lunar probe contest, one of them, India's TeamIndus, is unique in its beginning and breadth of cooperation with a rival team. The Bangalore-based startup firm is the only Indian team in the Google Lunar XPRIZE contest, in which five privately funded finalists are competing to land their spacecraft on the moon and deploy robotic rovers on its surface. TeamIndus has partnered with the Japanese team to transport the latter's rover as well as its own to the moon using its own spacecraft, which is to be launched aboard an Indian rocket in March. It is the first collaboration between two of the contest's private enterprise competitors. "It's a privilege that we have the Japanese team flying with us to the moon surface," said Rahul Narayan, founder of TeamIndus.

On Dec. 15, SpaceX launched the first mission to fly a reused orbital rocket and spacecraft to resupply the International Space Station. This image, taken on Dec. 12 by DigitalGlobe s GeoEye-1 satellite, shows the Falcon 9 rocket horizontal on the launch pad. CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A recycled SpaceX capsule is back at the International Space Station, just in time for Christmas. NASA astronauts used the space station's big robot arm to grab the Dragon capsule out of orbit Sunday. It's the second visit for this particular supply ship, which made a delivery for NASA back in 2015 as well, and only the second time a Dragon has had a repeat performance 250 miles up.

German authorities have launched a six-month test of automatic facial recognition technology at a Berlin railway station, which the country's top security official says could be used to improve security in the future.

In April, it named a number of companies including Black & Decker, Bissell, iLife and Hoover in a complaint filed to the US International Trade Commission wherein it asked the commission to investigate their supposed patent violations and ban any products that it finds to incorporate any infringed upon intellectual property. Now, however, iRobot says it has reached an agreement with Black & Decker. Most of the settlement's contents are confidential, but iRobot says that Black & Decker has agreed to stop selling its robotic vacuums for a certain period of time once it works through its current inventory. In return, iRobot has removed its competitor from the pending US International Trade Commission investigation and US District Court of Massachusetts case. "This settlement represents another successful milestone in the enforcement effort iRobot initiated earlier this year," Glen Weinstein, chief legal officer at iRobot, said in a statement.

SYDNEY – After applying his machine-learning programs to central bank policy statements to churn out trading calls, a hedge fund-backed political economy specialist is training his sights on corporate earnings announcements. Evan Schnidman, a 31-year-old who set up his own firm after a Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation that looked at the Federal Reserve's communications, is hoping the approach that lured $3.3 million in a fundraising round last December will work in the corporate sphere. St. Louis-based Prattle has until now focused on applying the artificial intelligence method known as natural-language processing to make assessments of Fed and other central bank policy statements. At a time when analysis is poised to get its own price tag, with the introduction of Europe's MiFID II regulations, research costs are an increasing focus for investment banks and asset managers. BlackRock Inc. has even moved to use robots to design funds.

A bipartisan group in Congress wants to build a resource to guide policymakers as they confront the mammoth challenge of regulating artificial intelligence.

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA – A recycled SpaceX capsule is back at the International Space Station, just in time for Christmas. NASA astronauts used the space station's big robot arm to grab the Dragon capsule out of orbit Sunday. It's the second visit for this particular supply ship, which made a delivery for NASA back in 2015 as well, and only the second time a Dragon has had a repeat performance 250 miles up. "It's a great day to see Dragon back at ISS again," Mission Control radioed. Replied spaceman Joe Acaba: "It's a beautiful spacecraft, and we're looking forward to digging into it and getting some science on board."

The US military has used drones in combat zones for over a decade to scout and support infantry. Now they're testing a way to give ground troops another edge: The capability to build UAVs themselves. What's more, the US Army is partnering with the Marine Corps on a test project that lets troops 3D-print particular drone parts from a tablet-based catalog, which could eventually lead to manufacturing UAVs customized to the mission. The concept is promising, and so is the flexibility: The software catalog setup lets military units print out an unmanned aircraft system for specific missions. The Army Research Laboratory expects the turnaround time to create UAV parts to be from minutes to hours.