As American soldiers were being maimed by roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military was working feverishly on a solution. One problem: It wasted nearly a decade developing one that was available off the shelf in Israel, a staunch U.S. ally. "That's just one anecdote of the kind of parochialism that's been the case at the Pentagon. That mentality, that mindset needs to change," said Ken Weinstein, president and CEO of the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank on international affairs and technology. More collaboration with foreign partners is needed, but that might be easier said than done, Dr. Weinstein said during a trip to Atlanta to speak at the annual AmCham Germany Business Day event organized by BridgehouseLaw at the Porsche Experience Center.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is in the process of spinning up a new research program to develop ways to teach machines to learn while they are operating -- and apply their knowledge to new situations "the way biological systems do." The agency is now accepting research proposals for the program's first funding opportunity via a Broad Agency Announcement, published last week. Dubbed the Lifelong Learning Machines program or L2M, DARPA plans through the four-year program to fund the development of "substantially more capable systems that are continually improving and updating from experience." Artificial intelligence systems today can't adapt to situations for which they were not already trained or programmed, as DARPA notes in its Broad Agency Announcement released last week. And so applying AI systems for military uses in areas like "supply chain, logistics and visual recognition" is difficult to do today, because many of those applications involve details that aren't defined in advance, according to DARPA. When systems run into something they didn't see in training, they have to be taken offline and reprogrammed, DARPA says, a process that is "expensive and time-consuming," and potentially disruptive to a mission.

Facebook launched the research shop, called Building 8, last year to conduct long-term work that might lead to hardware products. In charge of the unit is Regina Dugan, who led a similar group at Alphabet Inc's Google and was previously director of the U.S. Defense Department's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.

A pair of state lawmakers tried to persuade a Senate committee Tuesday to approve a bill that would allow delivery robots to traverse Wisconsin sidewalks and crosswalks. The measure would limit the robots to operating only on sidewalks and in crosswalks, impose an 80-pound weight limit as well as a 10 mph speed limit and require operators to control or monitor the devices. The bill would prohibit the robots from traveling in roadways and allow local governments to ban them if they so desire.

In late 2015, mandatory drone registration went into effect in the United States. Since then, anyone who wants to fly a drone (or model aircraft) weighing over 0.55 pound (0.25 kilogram) must register with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to receive a unique identification number. This number needs to be placed on the drone, but there is no requirement for the tiny aircraft to broadcast signals to allow for remote identification. That might change in the future. The FAA Extension, Safety, and Security Act of 2016 [PDF] required the FAA administrator to "convene industry stakeholders to facilitate the development of consensus standards for remotely identifying operators and owners of unmanned aircraft systems and associated unmanned aircraft."

Two years ago, former President Barack Obama announced the Precision Medicine initiative in his State of the Union Address. The initiative aspired to a "new era of medicine" where disease treatments could be specifically tailored to each patient's genetic code. This resonated soundly in cancer medicine. Patients can already manage their cancer with therapies that target the specific genes that are altered in their particular tumor. For example, women with a type of breast cancer caused by the amplification of gene HER2 are often treated with a therapeutic called herceptin.

The government is looking for data scientists with expertise in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to help the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and other departments to extract and analyse critical information in a bid to stay "one step ahead" of terrorists and other potential adversaries. "Let's be honest, if the MoD is going to maintain a winning edge and keep our forces safe we are going to have to handle today's most valuable commodity, data, very differently," the job advert for the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (dstl) states. It added that MoD sensors pick-up and stream hundreds of terabytes of data per hour, including images, radar, speech, text, maps, vehicle data, medical data, and data that is both open and hidden. "Out of this avalanche we must extract critical information and bring it together to gain the vital insights that keep our Defence and Security one step ahead. No one can read it all; these days, making the links and protecting the UK at home and abroad depends on the right fusion of human and machine abilities. That's where you come in," the advert states.

Well this is a bit odd. Attorney Lisa Schifferle writing for the Federal Trade Commission's Consumer & Business education division issued a warning on April 18 titled "There's no Nintendo Switch emulator." That has been, and as far as I can tell continues to be, a true statement, though the FTC isn't generally in the business of issuing warnings about video games. There's apparently a noteworthy scam making the rounds, wherein people are either going looking for counterfeit software on dubious websites, or being approached by scammers peddling nonsense in the guise of a Nintendo-fied simulacrum. In a blog post that seems at time to knowingly wink at readers amidst its stern language, Schifferle acknowledges the Switch's supply scarcity at the moment.

For some reason, certain people just don't believe it's real. Even Scott Pruitt, the man President Trump named to head the Environmental Protection Agency, isn't steadfast about global warming and what causes it. But years of scientific study have shown the planet is getting warmer. According to Bill Nye, the answer is simple: cognitive dissonance. "People have a certain worldview; [then] they're confronted with evidence that conflicts with the worldview, so they have dissonance, conflict in their minds," Nye says.

Nintendo Switch emulator scams have become increasingly common as the new hybrid games console remains hard to find. In fact, the problem has gotten so pervasive that the Federal Trade Commission decided to tackle the trend in a recent blog post. In few words, any Switch emulator links were debunked as total scams. The post describes various ways in which gamers may come across one of these fake emulators. Sightings include ads on internet websites, inside apps or even as installations with other downloads.