Companies spend a fortune to provide health insurance for their employees. In the U.S., 57 percent of all people get their health care through an employer-provided plan. In the past 10 years, employers have seen their costs increase over 63 percent, and costs are forecasted to grow at three times the inflation rate for the foreseeable future. Companies have begun shifting more of these costs to employees. The use of high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) by companies of all sizes just passed the 50 percent mark.

The term'Artificial Intelligence' is one that resonates far and wide and encompasses everything and everyone, – from the scientists seeking to reach out beyond the existing limits of our knowledge of the universe to the intelligent digital personal assistants now found on various platforms such as iOS, Android, and Windows Mobile. It includes the self-driving car, which is getting ever-closer to reality and the ubiquitous smartphone that is growing even smarter (e.g. Even the way we carry out financial transactions, light and heat our homes and restock our fridges and freezers has AI at its heart. It is not difficult to see why AI is impacting our lives in such a transformational manner; after all, everything we have of value as human beings, as a civilisation, is deeply entwined with our intellect. At its best, AI can become a commanding force that helps to augment that human acumen. Properly employed, it has the power to help us move our civilisation forward in so many positive and ethically sound ways.

You may be all too familiar with HAL 9000 from Space Odyssey, 2001 film, AI program onboard the spaceship that became all too powerful. Welcome NASA's humanoid robot, developed to power space exploration and help astronauts by operating in extreme and dangerous environments and performing repetitive tasks. Though Robonaut is still in a test phase, the ESA powered it up to test its power consumption and troubleshoot a faulty cable. The ESA post reveals that Robonauts could be used to explore other planets under human control by astronauts – the Haptics2 telerobotic experiment.

Southern California has experienced a boost in trade and logistics employment in the last decade, but policy and labor challenges lie ahead, according to a new economic report. Trade-related jobs increased nearly 10% from 2005 to 2015, more than double the overall regional employment increase of 4.2%, the report released Monday by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. found. Warehousing and logistics jobs led the charge, jumping 55.1% over the decade, said the report, titled "Trade & Logistics in Southern California." The growth came at a cost, however. Wages in warehousing dropped 9% during the period, compared with an increase of almost 3% in the industry overall, which includes the highly paid dockworkers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation's largest cargo complex.

The video game industry's annual jamboree, E3, is set to open in Los Angeles on Tuesday, but some of the biggest companies in the business will begin their quest to build buzz before then. On Sunday, Microsoft revealed a new game console that supports 4K video, called Xbox One X. It will go on sale on Nov. 7. On Monday, Sony is expected to promote exclusive games for its PlayStation 4, while Nintendo on Tuesday plans to show off games for its new Switch console, including the much-anticipated Super Mario Odyssey. The Federal Reserve is expected to raise its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday after a two-day meeting of its policy-making committee.

A US intelligence director says a lot of espionage is more boring than you might think, and much of it could be handed over to artificial intelligence. "A significant chunk of the time, I will send [my employees] to a dark room to look at TV monitors to do national security essential work," Robert Cardillo, head of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency told reporters including Foreign Policy. "But boy is it inefficient." Cardillo calls out recent advances in artificial intelligence, giving algorithms the ability to analyze vast amounts of images and video to find patterns, give data about the landscape, and identify unusual objects. This kind of work is critical for assessing national security concerns like foreign missile-silo activity, or even just to check in on North Korean volleyball games.

Beijing is backing its artificial intelligence push with vast sums of money. Having already spent billions on research programs, China is readying a new multibillion-dollar initiative to fund moonshot projects, start-ups and academic research, all with the aim of growing China's AI capabilities, according to two professors who consulted with the government on the plan. China's private companies are pushing deeply into the field as well, although the line between government and private in China sometimes blurs. China is spending more just as the United States is cutting back. This past week, the Trump administration released a proposed budget that would slash funding for a variety of government agencies that have traditionally backed artificial intelligence research.

NZTech CEO Graeme Muller says New Zealanders are engaging with artificial intelligence (AI) everyday, probably without even realising it. Muller made the comments on the eve of the launch of the New Zealand AI Forum in Wellington, describing AI as "the fastest growing impactful technology spreading the globe." The forum was announced in February with further details being provided in late May, including the naming of Stu Christie, investment manager at the New Zealand Venture Investment Fund, as its chairman. NZTech says dozens of New Zealand's leading tech companies are joining the forum, which has been initiated via a collaboration between NZTech, the government and AI tech leaders. According to Muller, one of the most recent examples of AI in New Zealand is the chat function on the Air New Zealand website that helps with ticket bookings: users of that function are chatting with AI not a human, Muller said.

Connecting the human brain to computers is quickly becoming one of the hottest ideas in Silicon Valley, with Tesla's Elon Musk and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg among the many top tech entrepreneurs leading the charge. In March, Musk launched Neuralink, a medical research company that creates brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). Musk has previously expressed the importance of upgrading human cognition in order to ensure people are not made obsolete by artificial intelligence. BCIs would initially be used for medical research, with the ultimate goal being to blur the lines between people and artificial intelligence. Read: Will Robots Take Your Job? Elon Musk Thinks We Have 30 Years Until AI Is Better Than Us At Everything Neuralink has been registered as a medical research company, and Musk said they will produce a product to help people with severe brain injuries within four years, the Washington Post reports.

Roaming charges are finally being killed off, after the EU forced phone companies to stop hitting people with massive, shock bills. But customers have been warned that they might still have to pay more than they expect and should continue to be vigilant. The roaming charges will come to an end after 15 June. That will mean that people in the UK can take their normal contract – with all its free calls, texts and data – anywhere in the EU, for no extra cost. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph.