How do you get a robot to recognize a surprise? That's a question artificial intelligence researchers are mulling, especially as A.I. begins to change space research. A new article in the journal Science: Robotics offers an overview of how A.I. has been used to make discoveries on space missions. The article, co-authored by Steve Chien and Kiri Wagstaff of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, suggests that autonomy will be a key technology for the future exploration of our solar system, where robotic spacecraft will often be out of communication with their human controllers. In a sense, space scientists are doing field research virtually, with the help of robotic spacecraft.

The chief executive of west London's Kensington and Chelsea Council - who's been among the officials and politicians facing criticism over the Grenfell Tower fire - has resigned. Nicholas Holgate called the disaster, in which at least 79 people died, "heart-breaking", adding that remaining in office would be a "distraction". He also said that Local Government Secretary Sajid Javid had asked him to quit, but Mr Javid hasn't yet commented on the claim. Prime Minister Theresa May announced on Wednesday that 68 social housing flats in Kensington Row, about 1.5 miles away from Grenfell Tower, would be made available to survivors. It's clear from the Queen's Speech that Theresa May's main priority over the next couple of years is most definitely going to be Brexit.

The Obama administration implemented rules that opened the skies to low-level small drones for education, research and routine commercial use. The Trump administration is considering whether to expand drone use for purposes such as deliveries where aircraft would fly beyond the sight of an operator. Security issues would need to be resolved.

Two months before the first total solar eclipse to cross the continental United States in a century, NASA has revealed its plans to study and promote a celestial show that will darken skies from Oregon to South Carolina. During the Aug. 21 eclipse, the moon will pass between the sun and Earth, blocking the face of the sun and leaving only its outer atmosphere, or corona, visible in the sky. It is the first coast-to-coast total eclipse since 1918 - and NASA has creraqted a pair of eclipse posters to celebrate the occasion. To celebrate the upcoming eclipse, NASA has also created these retro posters to mark the occasion,. The space agency said viewers around the world will be provided a wealth of images captured before, during, and after the eclipse by 11 spacecraft, at least three NASA aircraft, more than 50 high-altitude balloons, and the astronauts aboard the International Space Station – each offering a unique vantage point for the celestial event.

We study computational problems for two popular parliamentary voting procedures: the amendment procedure and the successive procedure. They work in multiple stages where the result of each stage may influence the result of the next stage. Both procedures proceed according to a given linear order of the alternatives, an agenda. We obtain the following results for both voting procedures: On the one hand, deciding whether one can make a specific alternative win by reporting insincere preferences by the fewest number of voters, the Coalitional Manipulation problem, or whether there is a suitable ordering of the agenda, the Agenda Control problem, takes polynomial time. On the other hand, our experimental studies with real-world data indicate that most preference profiles cannot be manipulated by only few voters and a successful agenda control is typically impossible. If the voters' preferences are incomplete, then deciding whether an alternative can possibly win is NP-hard for both procedures. Whilst deciding whether an alternative necessarily wins is coNP-hard for the amendment procedure, it is polynomial-time solvable for the successive procedure.

MindBridge AI needs to expand to meet demand, and founder Solon Angel says its $4.3-million seed round is just enough to take the company to the next level. The Ottawa-based firm develops artificial intelligence technologies aimed at preventing fraud, alerting auditors to suspicious or anomalous activity in the books. Just a few months ago, MindBridge AI was selected to participate in the Bank of England's FinTech accelerator program, where it will use its AI Auditor tool in collaborations with the massive institution. The round, which officially closed last Friday, includes members of Ottawa's Capital Angel Network and Fresh Founders, as well as funds such as Toronto-based MaRS Investments and Montreal-based Real Ventures. Mr. Angel tells OBJ that the round will allow MindBridge AI to meet the international demand for its product.

Artificial intelligence can predict the behavior of Congress. The health care bill winding its way through the U.S. Senate is just one of thousands of pieces of legislation Congress will consider this year, most doomed to failure. Indeed, only about 4% of these bills become law. So which ones are worth paying attention to? A new artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm could help.

Uber's rocky year: Travis Kalanick's resignation is just the latest thing Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick resigned as chief executive of the ride-hailing giant Wednesday, pushed out by investors just a week after he announced he was going on an indefinite leave of absence. The San Francisco startup, valued at near $70 billion, has been rocked this year by allegations of a corrosive culture that allowed sexual harassment and other bad behavior to go unchecked for years. Uber drivers have their say about Kalanick's resignation Column: With Travis Kalanick out, we'll see the real value of Uber -- and it won't be pretty Column: With Travis Kalanick out, we'll see the real value of Uber -- and it won't be pretty Facing mounting investor pressure brought on by a torrent of scandals, Travis Kalanick, co-founder and chief executive of ride-hailing company Uber, resigned -- just a week into a leave of absence meant to quell concerns about his management style. The New York Times reported that five of Uber's major investors demanded Kalanick's immediate resignation because the company needed a change in leadership. Kalanick reached his decision to resign after hours of talks with some of the investors.

So it seems only right that a similarly sentimental picture of NASA's Curiosity rover appears to show another pale blue dot in action--thanks to exaggerated color, anyway. The intrepid space explorer, which will celebrate its fifth anniversary on Mars in August, is roughly the size of a car. But the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is nearly 200 miles above the red planet's surface, so Curiosity looks oh-so-smol. For some of you, this may just look like a really-not-great photo of a space robot. After all, we see close-up selfies of Curiosity all the time.

It takes up to 24 minutes for a signal to travel between Earth and Mars. If you're a Mars rover wondering which rock to drill into, that means waiting at least 48 minutes to send images of your new location to NASA and then receive marching orders. It's a lot of idle time for a robot that cost $2.6 billion to build. That's why engineers are increasingly giving spacecraft the ability to make their own decisions. Space robots have long been able to control certain onboard systems--to regulate power usage, for example--but artificial intelligence is now giving rovers and orbiters the ability to collect and analyze science data, then decide what info to send back to Earth, without any human input.