The new superhero in the fight to find missing and exploited children is artificial intelligence. In 2016, there were 465,676 entries for missing children in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Crime Information Center. And in an effort to find missing children, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and Intel Corp. recently formed a new program, called Intel Inside, Safer Children Outside, to apply AI to the problem. During the South by Southwest event held in Austin TX, an "AI for Good: Harnessing Power to Solve Problems" panel convened. Mark Gianturco, Ph.D., PMP, vice president and chief technology officer of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, participated in the discussion.

The drones fell out of the sky over China Lake, California, like a colony of bats fleeing a cave in the night. Over 100 of them dropped from the bellies of three Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jets, their sharp angles cutting across the clear blue sky. As they encircled their target, the mechanical whir of their flight sounded like screaming. This was the world's largest micro-drone swarm test. Conducted in October 2016 by the Department of Defense's Strategic Capabilities Office and the Navy's Air Systems Command, the test was the latest step in what could be termed a swarm-drone arms race.

TRAVELLERS sometimes have to show their travel documents five times when catching a flight: at check-in, at security, then occasionally at outbound immigration, before another check when boarding. Finally there is passport control at the destination. Each is a potential queue. So regular flyers will be interested in anything that might speed up the process. One answer could be facial-recognition technology.

During the recent U.S. Presidential election, it became clear that both the left and right were using the Internet and social media to disseminate false information using a new form of insidious propaganda: "fake news." Nearly in real-time and at little cost to the campaigns, organizations and individuals were able to post fake news stories on news sites, social media, and blogs that looked and felt legitimate. Millions of people saw these stories and may have been influenced by what they read. "If we are not serious about facts and what's true and what's not -- and particularly in an age of social media where so many people are getting their information in sound bites and snippets off their phones -- if we can't discriminate between serious arguments and propaganda, then we have problems." It's still up for debate whether fake news changed the outcome of the recent presidential election, but most would agree the country is better off if we were reading accurate stories.

Chile's Atacama Desert contains Earth's closest Mars-like conditions: It's extremely dry with high UV radiation from the sun. So naturally, NASA has made the area it's go-to practice facility for tests and experiments that they may one day perform on the red planet. Recently, scientists from NASA's Atacama Rover Astrobiology Drilling Studies completed their second season of tests. The tested KREX-2 rover was able to rove, drill, and detect life signs all at the same time. Such multi-tasking robotic rovers could ultimately help scientists to figure out if there was (or still is) microbial life forms under Mars' surface.

TL;DR: Machine-driven communications tools are a reality now and artificial intelligence enabled tools will soon dominate the online information space. This paradigm shift isn't limited to artificial personal assistants like Siri and recreational chatbots like Xiaoice. It refers to machine-driven communication overwhelming Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Match, Reddit, chat rooms, news site comment sections, and the rest of the social web. All of it will be dominated by machines talking. This machine communication will be nearly indistinguishable from human communication. The machines will be trying to persuade, sell, deceive, intimidate, manipulate, and cajole you into whatever response they're programmed to elicit. They will be unbelievably effective. Machine-driven communication is here now. Advances in artificial intelligence will radically increase the efficacy of machine-driven communication tools. A machine-dominated information environment is a rational extrapolation of current technology trends into the near future.

Jefferson Graham shows how to change your security settings on Facebook, Twitter, Google and Microsoft for two-factor authentication, which security experts say is your best, quick defense against a hack. LOS ANGELES -- Maybe your Yahoo account got hacked. Or your preferred presidential candidate didn't get elected, in part due to damaging information revealed by a hack of an official's Gmail account. How about that McDonald's Twitter hack this week--now, do we have your attention? No story generated bigger tech headlines this week than news related to what's thought to be the largest hack on the books: The Yahoo hacks.

Who are the Women in STEM who changed the world through science, technology, engineering and mathematics? We asked this question of women at Ayogo, adding "who are the women in STEM you wish you knew?" Here's our list of 13 amazingly cool women in STEM who we wish we knew. Born in 1918, Katherine Johnson, graduated from university at 18. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015 for a lifetime of work as a pioneering physicist, mathematician and space scientist. She and her colleagues, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson did the calculations that guided NASA's 1962 Friendship 7 Mission.

The way tech companies deal with online harassment and abuse is broken. YouTube allows anti-Semitism to stay live. Twitter waffles as targeted harassment runs rampant. Facebook takes down an iconic photo that shouldn't be banned. Now one German politician is tired of letting platforms make excuses.

The Bank of England's fintech accelerator programme has launched a new community forum for innovation talks and two new proof of concept trials exploring the use of AI and distributed ledgers.