Canada is celebrating a technological milestone after its first official self-driving car test on public roads last week. The street test was conducted in Ottawa's west end using technology developed by Blackberry. The city of Ottawa announced a partnership with Blackberry's QNX team, the operating system arm of the company which is developing self-driving vehicle software. "With support from BlackBerry QNX and its Autonomous Vehicle Innovation Center and by working closely with all our partners, we are facilitating smart initiatives and research, and fuelling innovation and job creation in Ottawa," said the city's mayor, Jim Watson in a press release. The test was not run in real-life conditions as the roads were closed during the demonstration.

The post-disaster environment poses immense challenges for crisis response teams tasked with assessing the extent of the damage as quickly as possible, often over thousands of square miles. These teams need a sound and reliable understanding of the situation on the ground, to quickly and safely provide the right help to the people affected. Citizen scientists from around the world can play a key role in delivering this information to emergency responders on the ground. In the wake of hurricanes Irma and Maria, which swept across the Caribbean during September 2017, an ongoing collaboration between the Zooniverse (an online citizen science platform), the University of Oxford, and NGO Rescue Global, has enlisted thousands of volunteers worldwide to analyse satellite-based information. The end result is a series of maps that highlight affected areas, providing a robust source of information which helps Rescue Global and the disaster relief community to generate more detailed mapping, and conduct needs assessments, aid deliveries and evacuations on the ground. When Rescue Global began their Hurricane Irma response operation in early September, the Planetary Response Network, a collaboration between the Zooniverse and Oxford University, was activated quickly and began sourcing satellite images of the disaster-affected areas from data providers Planet, Digital Globe, NASA and ESA.

Members of the US Supreme Court pose for a group photograph at the Supreme Court building in Washington, DC. In 2007, a group of California Institute of Technology scientists working at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory filed suit against the venerated space agency. Many of the scientists had worked on NASA missions and research for years as outside employees. As part of efforts to tighten security measures after 9/11, in 2004 NASA started requiring outside workers to submit to the same kind of background checks used for federal employees, including questions about drug use. The scientists, some of the nation's best and brightest, protested and resisted for years, and finally went to court to argue that the checks violated their privacy rights. The case ultimately made it to the US Supreme Court, where, in 2011, the justices unanimously sided with NASA. Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the opinion, made a central point of noting that such background checks had long been commonplace in the private sector. Alito even cited a very specific statistic: 88 percent of all private companies in the country conduct such checks, he wrote. It was a powerful claim in a decision with real consequences for American workers. Alito, it turns out, had borrowed the statistic from a brief filed in the case by the National Association of Professional Background Screeners. ProPublica asked the association for the source of its statistic. The association offered a variety of explanations, none of which proved true, and ultimately conceded it could not produce evidence that the 88 percent figure was accurate or say where it came from. The decisions of the Supreme Court are rich with argument, history, some flashes of fine writing, and, of course, legal judgments of great import for all Americans.

How do you see the world adapting/evolving in an AI environment? In terms of computer applications, we will see increasing application and adoption of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques. We already see this in shopping recommendations, games, and large social networks. Voice assistants such as Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant use ML to perform natural language processing and classification to respond appropriately. Such techniques will make interacting with devices increasingly seamless, which will ultimately make technology easier to use while making humans more efficient in finding and managing information.

General Motors plans to test vehicles in fully autonomous mode in New York state in early 2018, according to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. A link has been sent to your friend's email address. A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. General Motors plans to test vehicles in fully autonomous mode in New York state in early 2018, according to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

WASHINGTON – The imminent fall of the Islamic State's de facto capital leaves America a multitude of tasks to restore stability in the Middle East, starting with pockets of remaining IS resistance in Syria and Iraq. Then there are the more deeply rooted problems, not fixable by guns or bombs, that allowed extremism to rise and flourish: Syria's civil war and Iraq's intractable political, religious and ethnic disputes, which turned violent again this week. The challenge is more than the U.S. can handle alone. It likely will keep some troops in Iraq for years to come to train and advise the army, police and other members of security forces that imploded when IS fighters swept across the Syrian border and captured Mosul in June 2014. The militants also have footholds in Afghanistan and beyond.

Neven, who speaks with a thick German accent and favors pink Christian Louboutin sneakers covered in spikes, has led some of Google's most groundbreaking projects, from image-recognition software to Google Glass, a consumer flop that pioneered the idea of head-worn computers. The task in front of him is the most complex of his career: Build a computer based on the strange laws of quantum mechanics. There is no quick explanation of quantum mechanics, but the Cliffs Notes version goes something like this: Scientists have proved that atoms can exist in two states at once, a phenomenon called superposition. A single atom, for example, can be in two locations at the same time. Superposition gets even stranger as it scales.

A robot conducts the Orchestra Filarmonica di Lucca at Teatro Verdi in Pisa, Italy, this September. The ongoing artificial-intelligence revolution will change almost every line of work, creating enormous social and economic opportunities -- and challenges. Some believe that intelligent computers will push humans out of the job market and create a new'useless class'; others maintain that automation will generate a wide range of new human jobs and greater prosperity for all. Almost everybody agrees that we should take action to prevent the worst-case scenarios. The automation revolution is emerging from the confluence of two scientific tidal waves. Computer scientists are developing artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms that can learn, analyse massive amounts of data and recognize patterns with superhuman efficiency.

Davis says the computer system is regularly backed up, and workers are using that information to restore the system to its condition prior to Friday. When the system returns, he says paper filings made in the meantime will have to be added.

The UK government has said that artificial intelligence should not be regulated, but overseen. According to a report, which was commissioned in February, an AI council should "operate as a strategic oversight group", and guide discussions around diversity, transparency, accountability and diversity in the sector. Additionally, the report made 18 key recommendations, which included proposals to improve access to data in a bid to spur the development of AI systems in the UK. The report also touched on ways in which government, industry and academia could group together to improve the supply of skills, with proposals including the creation of 200 AI-dedicated PhD places at leading universities. Maximising AI research in the UK was also on the agenda, with the report highlighting the need for universities to use "clear, accessible and where possible common policies and practices for licensing IP and forming spin-out companies". Culture secretary Karen Bradley said: "I want the UK to lead the way in artificial intelligence.