The Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System is an unmanned ground vehicle for reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition missions. From April 11–15, 2016, at the United Nations Office at Geneva, the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) conducted a third year of informal meetings to hear expert testimony regarding a preemptive ban on lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS). A total of 94 states attended the meeting, and at the end of the week they agreed by consensus to recommend the formation of an open-ended Group of Government Experts (GGE). A GGE is the next step in forging a concrete proposal upon which the member states could vote. By the end of 2016 a preemptive ban has been called for by 19 states. Furthermore, meaningful human control, a phrase first proposed by advocates for a ban, has been adopted by nearly all the states, although the phrase's meaning is contested. Thus a ban on LAWS would appear to have gained momentum. Even the large military powers, notably the U.S., have publicly stated that they will support a ban if that is the will of the member states.

On this cheerful Tuesday morning, Angela Merkel is at peace with herself and her country. She is standing in a factory loft in central Berlin and listening to Rami Rihawi, a refugee from Syria, who, in his blue suit and only slightly accented German, looks as though he has just jumped out of a glossy brochure on successful integration. After fleeing his homeland to Germany, Rihawi attended a school for computer experts, the site of Merkel's visit. He then received an internship at steel retailer Klöckner before being offered a fulltime job at the company. "We were extremely happy that Rami accepted our job offer," says Klöckner CEO Gisbert Rühl, who is standing proudly next to Rihawi.

We live in an age where science fiction ever more quickly becomes science fact. Big data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are revolutionizing industries across the developed world, from retail to finance to domestic and international spying. These technologies are automating functions previously considered tasks only a human could do, and offering detailed, personalized predictions a human could never make. Now these tools are underpinning a new era of content marketing technology: content intelligence. Big data involves computationally analyzing extremely large data sets to reveal patterns, trends, and associations; especially those relating to human behavior and interactions. It is used in everything from predicting stock performance to seasonal buying behavior to helping the NSA know whether your post about "blowing up the joint" refers to your bomb-making or DJing skills. Every human who uses any form of digital communication generates data constantly, both about themselves and about humans in aggregate. Big data refers to the ability to find, sort, and make sense of this ocean of ones and zeroes. It encompasses structured, semi-structured, and unstructured information, both human-generated and from sensors, machines, and public records. Structured data generally means information residing in a fixed field within a record or file, such as that found in spreadsheets and relational databases. Information that's tagged to show some elements within the data, such as metadata in email or photos, is semi-structured data. Unstructured data meanwhile, includes content such as untagged text, images, audio, video, and so on. Big data can also includes demographic or psychographic information about consumers. Think product reviews and commentary, blogs, content on social media sites, and the digital exhaust streamed 24/7 from mobile devices, sensors, and technical devices. The definition of AI is more nebulous because what is considered AI is constantly changing.

While the field of artificial intelligence (AI) has been around for some 60 years, it's now finally a part of our daily lives -- including how we work, bank, shop, interact, invest, drive and get insured. The term AI means different things to different people, but at PwC we think about it on a continuum, moving from assisted to augmented and, finally, autonomous intelligence. Here, I am primarily focusing on assisted intelligence -- applications that help us better perform tasks we're already doing today. This includes things like email filtering, automated processing of insurance claims and customer service chatbots, just to name a few applications. Of course when you're talking about AI, the question of automation and its potential to replace human jobs isn't far behind.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that cybersecurity is a different beast than it was 10, or even 5 years ago. While traditional cyber threats such as adware and spam emails are certainly still alive and kicking, the threat surface has grown enormously with the advent of IoT, mobility, BYOD, and the cloud. It's a basic equation- the more interconnected we get, the more devices, the more digital traffic there is, control declines, the more crevices there are for cyber threats to exploit. As an industry analyst who's been in the tech sector for a long time, I've had an up close and personal look at the evolving security. I wanted to spend some time today highlighting the trends I've been noticing, and what areas we as an industry need to be focusing on.

Drone Co-habitation Services operates a Phantom 3 commercial drone, one of 11 vehicles in the NASA field demonstration in Nevada. Drone Co-habitation Services operates a Phantom 3 commercial drone, one of 11 vehicles in the NASA field demonstration in Nevada. By 2020, an estimated 7 million drones could be zipping around the country delivering packages, taking photos, inspecting infrastructure or conducting search and rescue missions. But before that happens, they'll need a system in place to avoid crashing into each other -- or worse, passenger aircraft. NASA, along with the Federal Aviation Administration and an extensive list of industry partners, has been researching the requirements needed to establish a drone traffic management system. This summer, some of those ideas will be tested in the field.

Like major transformations before it, Artificial Intelligence (AI) promises to transform our lives and to lead us to a better world, while creating even greater impact for business and society. Already, machines and programs that can sense, learn, reason, and act, are tackling large-scale global challenges in a variety of fields, including science, medicine, education, finance. They are augmenting human capability, and helping us to go exponentially farther and faster in the understanding of our world. Fueled by improved algorithms, access to growing and massive data sets, ubiquitous network access, near infinite storage capacity and exponential computing power, AI is at the heart of much of today's technical innovation. AI is a new factor of production, driving growth by providing intelligent automation and potential labor augmentation: Unlike traditional automation solutions, AI can help automate complex physical and reasoning tasks that require adaptability and self-learning; enabling workers to transition to more creative and innovative responsibilities.

The UK government is secretly planning to force technology companies to build backdoors into their products, to enable intelligence agencies to read people's private messages. A draft document leaked by the Open Rights Group details extreme new surveillance proposals, which would enable government agencies to spy on one in 10,000 citizens – around 6,500 people – at any one time. The document, which follows the controversial Investigatory Powers Act, reveals government plans to force mobile operators and internet service providers to provide real-time communications of customers to the government "in an intelligible form", and within one working day. 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. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar.

Layer by metal layer, a complex component began to take shape with the help of an additive manufacturing machine -- known as a 3-D printer to most people -- and a clutch of USC engineering students at the region's newest center devoted to building better stuff and creating jobs. The part was being made for a Southern California company that was trying out an improved design but didn't have the machinery to produce something involving complicated shapes and angles. "We looked at the geometry and said'we should be able to,' and we printed it for them," said Satyandra K. Gupta, a USC professor and director of the Center for Advanced Manufacturing. The collaboration with the company, which had asked Gupta for complete secrecy to avoid tipping off competitors, was one of the first for the Center for Advanced Manufacturing. The facility opened in February as part of a $253-million Defense Department-sponsored consortium of dozens of corporations, schools, nonprofits and local governments around the country.

The months-long manhunt for French-born Rachid Kassim ended one chilly morning early this year when a drone-launched missile destroyed his battered white pickup truck as it motored through the besieged Iraqi city of Mosul. The 29-year-old former rapper had cast a grim shadow in international counter-terrorism circles. He spoke fluent French, once beheaded a man in an online video and allegedly helped organize or encourage nine terrorist plots -- nearly all unsuccessful -- in France last year. The Feb. 8 drone strike notched a victory for a U.S.-led effort that seeks to silence Islamic State operatives who use social media, encrypted messaging and other online tools to reach disaffected Muslims overseas and to launch what counter-terrorism experts now call "remote-controlled" attacks. As Islamic State steadily loses ground in Iraq and Syria, its ability to sponsor and inspire headline-grabbing attacks abroad looms larger than ever -- providing the militants the appearance of lethal viability despite the caliphate's collapsing borders.