As part of its projects with Britain's National Health Service, Google's artificial intelligence unit DeepMind announced last week it's developing a new way to protect confidential health data--from itself. Its problem: How to assure hospitals, and the public at large, that patient confidentiality isn't compromised as it processes the sensitive medical health records entrusted to it. DeepMind's proposed solution is to create an indelible data log that can't be tampered with. It would show when a piece of data was used, and for what purpose. Importantly, DeepMind itself wouldn't be able to modify logs to use the data nefariously.

The insideBIGDATA Guide to Deep Learning & Artificial Intelligence is a useful new resource directed toward enterprise thought leaders who wish to gain strategic insights into this exciting area of technology. In this guide, we take a high-level view of AI and deep learning in terms of how it's being used and what technological advances have made it possible. We also explain the difference between AI, machine learning and deep learning, and examine the intersection of AI and HPC. We present the results of a recent insideBIGDATA survey that reflects how well these new technologies are being received. Finally, we take a look at a number of high-profile use case examples showing the effective use of AI in a variety of problem domains.

Machine learning is one of the biggest buzzwords in cybersecurity in 2017. But a sufficiently smart adversary can exploit what the machine learning algorithm does, and reduce the quality of decision-making. Today's security threats have expanded in scope and seriousness. There can now be millions -- or even billions -- of dollars at risk when information security isn't handled properly. "The concern about this is that one might find that an adversary is able to control, in a big-data environment, enough of that data that they can feed you in misdirection," said Dr Deborah Frincke, head of the Research Directorate (RD) of the US National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS).

Editor's note:China concluded the annual two sessions of its national legislature and top political advisory body on Wednesday. From among the thousands of proposals and motions submitted by delegates, the Global Times has chosen eight that we believe may have the greatest impact on the livelihoods of Chinese people. It has been 15 months since China allowed all married couples to have two children to help with its aging population. However, the increase in births has fallen below expectations as young parents are worried about the extra financial burden. He Youlin, the lawmaker and former principal of Sun Yat-sen Memorial Middle School who previously proposed the two-child policy, advised the government to grant subsidies to and reduce the taxes of two-child families.

On March 5, at the opening meeting of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature's annual session, Premier Li Keqiang announced that China will accelerate research and development (R&D) in new and emerging industries, such as artificial intelligence (AI). It is the first time that China's highest national meeting has included AI in the Government Work Report. The report's singling out of AI indicates Beijing's prioritization of the industry in its economic agenda, and therefore its determination to support its growth. In recent years, China's leadership has been increasingly thinking about how to ensure their competitive edge in the AI industry. The acceleration of China's policy efforts to advance AI development began in 2014, when President Xi Jinping called for innovation and breakthroughs in science and technology, including AI, at the opening ceremony of the 17th Congress of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Two Democratic lawmakers proposed legislation Wednesday that would protect the privacy of U.S. citizens from the growing use of drones by government and commercial entities. The bill, dubbed the Drone Aircraft Privacy and Transparency Act, was introduced by Democratic Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Congressman Peter Welch of Vermont to install transparency standards for drone usage and privacy protections for individuals. According to the two legislators, the bill will require disclosure for location, flight timing and ownership information of unmanned aerial vehicles. It will also require that any data collected by drones adhere to privacy protections. The bill would require data collected by drones to undergo a minimization process to make sure no unnecessary or excess personally identifying information is gathered.

In the consumer report, we are number one once again and just like the Q7, in the consumer report it also occupies the first position as the best luxury SUV. And I think this power of the brand makes it possible for us to grow significantly. There are couple of models which have not even be launched yet in this market, models which we already know here, for instance the S4, the A5, and the entirely new A5 Sportback. They are now being launched in the United States. All new models for this market, and I assume that this year once again we are going to experience very solid growth in the United States. And the question so whether we spend more money for this? I can tell you we even spend less money in form of sales discounts because of the powerful brand and the relatively young product portfolio. So you would take the second part?

Technically it ain't brain surgery, but let's just say you wouldn't want to do a cochlear implant while sleepy or distracted. So it's a good thing this surgery robot can't be either of those things. The bit passes just half a millimeter from the facial nerve, and another half a millimeter from the taste nerve, before entering the spiraling cochlea of the inner ear. The first robot-assisted cochlear implant in a clinical trial, which researchers describe today in the journal Science Robotics, doesn't just enhance a surgeon's dexterity like the by-now-common da Vinci robot might. "We are interested in doing something with the robot that a surgeon is not able to do," says study co-author Stefan Weber of the ARTORG Center for Biomedical Engineering Research.

BenevolentBio's CMO, Dr Patrick Keohane, says the industry is on the cusp of an artificial intelligence (AI) revolution… Medical research is entering a period of rapid transformation, driven by the explosion of scientific data, rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI), and the development of extremely powerful computers. This convergence enables researchers to access enormous and diverse datasets to rapidly form and test scientific hypotheses. It is disrupting the way we identify, validate, and transform scientific concepts into potential Healthcare solutions – ultimately revolutionising the scientific process. AI enables access and the more effective use of existing information for the discovery and development of better drugs at a speed previously unimagined. This is helping to meet the high demand from society to provide better medicines at a reasonable cost, but also influencing how we are looking to treat rarer forms of disease.

The scale of money laundering globally is estimated to be as large as $1 trillion to $2 trillion annually. The overwhelming majority of this money is channeled to organizations trafficking drugs, weapons and human beings, or used to finance terrorist activity. However, despite the fact that almost 70% of that illicit finance flows through legitimate financial institutions, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that less than 1% of the global trade is seized and frozen. In light of that, it's perhaps unsurprising that regulators are stricter today when it comes to enforcement. Since the 2008 financial crisis, regulators, particularly those in the U.S., have been handing down record fines to financial institutions seen to be trading with sanctioned parties and countries, or failing to appropriately comply with anti-money laundering (AML) initiatives.