When the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union in June, ultimately tanking the British pound, traders with access to Cambridge, Massachusetts-based artificial intelligence platform Kensho had a special advantage. With a few keystrokes on Kensho's AI-powered platform, traders quickly combed through an intelligence-grade database of information and in seconds learned that populist votes such as Brexit historically led to an extended drop in the local currency, washing out any short-term recovery. That's exactly what happened in the days and months after Brexit. The pound plunged to three-decade lows in July, sinking to $1.28 versus the dollar, before rallying slightly to $1.33. The currency has been in a slump since then and currently sits at $1.24.

Helicopter drones which could shoot down Islamic State's new remote-controlled weapons are under development, the Defence Secretary announced yesterday. Sir Michael Fallon said the terror group's latest drone tactics in Iraq – in which they drop grenades from the skies – had been a'wake-up call' for Britain. Unmanned craft would enable the UK to stay ahead of enemies as they would be faster, fly for longer, and spare pilots from any risk, he said. In a speech at Oxford University to engineers and academics, he said drone wars were the future, adding: 'Science fiction will soon be science fact. Unmanned warfare is coming absolutely.'

When the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union in June, ultimately tanking the British pound, traders with access to Cambridge, Massachusetts-based artificial intelligence platform Kensho had a special advantage. With a few keystrokes on Kensho's AI-powered platform, traders quickly combed through an intelligence-grade database of information and in seconds learned that populist votes such as Brexit historically led to an extended drop in the local currency, washing out any short-term recovery. That's exactly what happened in the days and months after Brexit. The pound plunged to three-decade lows in July, sinking to $1.28 versus the dollar, before rallying slightly to $1.33. The currency has been in a slump since then and currently sits at $1.24.

In George Orwell's classic dystopian novel, "1984," every house is equipped with a Telescreen, a monitoring device enabling government surveillance. Amazon is trying to prevent its Echo/Alexa from turning into just that. Amazon is hoping to keep its Alexa devices from being a tool of government listening, which could inhibit people from buying them. Accordingly, the Seattle-based company has filed a motion to prevent recorded audio from an Echo being used as evidence in a criminal trial. Last year, police in Arkansas sought to obtain recordings captured by Echo as evidence in a 2015 murder case.

The next big goal in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is to make them fully autonomous. The belief is that this will be the only way drones can deliver goods to customers from a mobile platform or return to a warship moving at high speeds in the ocean. Researchers at University of Cincinnati's College of Engineering and Applied Sciences are tackling the issue of drones and precision landing by using a type of artificial intelligence, which they call fuzzy logic. Researchers test drones using fuzzy logic, a type of artificial intelligence, in order for precision landing on moving targets. Source: University of Cincinnati "[A drone] has to land within a designated area, with a small margin of error," says Manish Kumar, associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Cincinnati.

Dyson, the technology company, is to undergo a dramatic expansion in the UK by opening a new 210 hectare (517 acre) campus as part of a £2.5bn investment that will support its development of new battery technologies and robotics. The company, led by the billionaire inventor Sir James Dyson, will increase its UK geographical footprint tenfold by developing the campus on a former Ministry of Defence airfield and intends to at least double its workforce of 3,500 over the next few years. The new facility in Hullavington, Wiltshire is part of a £2.5bn investment by Dyson in new technologies and will focus on research and development. The size of the campus and the company's work on batteries, robotics and artificial intelligence will increase speculation that Dyson is developing a driverless electric car. Theresa May said said: "This investment is a vote of confidence in our modern industrial strategy and our determination to cement the UK's position as a world leader in high-tech engineering. "Dyson's exporting strength and commitment to creating jobs in Britain is a real success story that demonstrates the opportunity that our plan to create a truly global Britain can present." The expansion plan is a boost for the government amid growing speculation about the future of other key industrial facilities. BMW is considering building its new electric Minis in Germany rather than its factory at Oxford. There are also concerns that jobs could be lost at Vauxhall's factories in Ellesmere Port and Luton if PSA Group, the owner of Peugeot, completes a deal to buy parent company General Motors' European business. Dyson was one of the most prominent business leaders to publicly support Brexit before the referendum in June. His company has developed from a business specialising in bagless vacuum cleaners into a fast-growing multinational technology company selling bladeless fans, air purifiers, hand-dryers, hairdryers and robotic vacuum cleaners. Dyson said he did not understand claims that the UK is suffering from economic uncertainty and that the prospect of the country leaving the EU had not dissuaded him from investing. "We have got the opportunity to export globally – Europe is only 15% of global trade and declining.

Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, certainly raised the profile of quantum computing a few notches last year, when he gamely--if vaguely1--described it for a press conference. But we've heard a lot about quantum computers in the past few years, as Google, I.B.M., and N.A.S.A., as well as many, many universities, have all been working on, or putting money into, quantum computers for various ends. The N.S.A., for instance, as the Snowden documents revealed, wants to build one for codebreaking, and it seems to be a common belief that if a full-scale, practical quantum computer is built, it could be really useful in that regard. A recent New Yorker article, for example, stated that a quantum computer "would, on its first day of operation, be capable of cracking the Internet's most widely used codes." But maybe they won't be as useful as we have been led to believe.

Every week The Job Shop Blog will bring you our 5 top science and technology news stories from around the web. This week: NASA Found a solar system with 7 Earth-like planets, SpaceX is launching tourists to the moon, computers that can code themselves, AIs are helping to save lives, and robot teachers could be commonplace by 2030. Scientists working with telescopes at the European Southern Observatory and NASA announced a remarkable new discovery: An entire system of Earth-sized planets. If that's not enough, the team asserts that the density measurements of the planets indicates that the six innermost are Earth-like rocky worlds. Three of the planets lie in the star's habitable zone.

The Amazon Echo can seem like your best friend--until it betrays you. That's because this device is different from anything else in your house. Alexa, the voice assistant that powers Echo and more, is always listening, sending what you say after using a "wake" word to Amazon's servers. Of course, Echo isn't the only voice-assistant speaker on the market, but it sits in millions of homes, and Alexa is headed to devices from companies like Ford, Dish, Samsung, and Whirlpool. Veteran civil trial attorney Gerald Sauer is a founding partner at Sauer & Wagner LLP of Los Angeles.

Machine learning is a hot topic in healthcare right now. One health IT expert told SearchHealthIT that he predicts machine learning and artificial intelligence will move quickly in the industry and be applied to many different use cases. The progression of healthcare IoT, or the Internet of Medical Things, is not without its challenges. Download a PDF of this exclusive guide now and learn how to overcome the obstacles: security, data overload, regulations, and more. This email address is already registered.