The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is reportedly looking into ways to use machine learning technology and social media monitoring to identify people for visa denial–and to select people for deportation from the United States. After IBM attended the informational meeting, rights groups are concerned that the company might be considering getting involved with the program. While Reuters obtained an email from Christopher Padilla, IBM's vice president of government affairs, saying that IBM "would not work on any project that runs counter to our company's values, including our long-standing opposition to discrimination against anyone on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, or religion," he also noted that it was "premature to speculate" whether IBM would pursue this business. To hopefully sway IBM from getting in bed with ICE, a coalition of rights groups, including 18 Million Rising and Center for Media Justice launched an online petition on Thursday urging IBM Corp to renounce the proposal entirely. If you sign it, you won't be alone.

Standing 6 foot 9 and weighing in at 167 pounds, Atlas is a robot that you really don't want to argue with. Just months ago, Boston Dynamic's humanoid bot became an object of ridicule after a series of accidents at a government'robo olympics' saw if falling constantly, and needing a crane to get back on its feet. Now, 'the World's Most Dynamic Humanoid' is back - and you really don't want to mess with it. Boston Dynamics, the secretive firm behind the bot, posted this video to youTube with no explanation, and simply called it'What's new, Atlas?' Its makers have given the bot an overhaul, and it is now so stable it can even perform a perfect backflip. 'Atlas is the latest in a line of advanced humanoid robots we are developing, Boston Robotics said.

An unidentified aircraft was seen flying among other airliners in skies above Oregon - causing confusion among air traffic control and the Air Force, which sent F-15s to investigate. The aircraft flew over Oregon on October 25, with no flight plan, no active identification transponder or transmitting collision avoidance signals. While information about plane's pilot or intended destination remain unclear, some have suggested that the aircraft was trafficking drugs. Additionally, it is believed that the mysterious flight could be a potential breach of national security. An unidentified aircraft flew over Oregon on October 25, with no flight plan, no active identification transponder or transmitting collision avoidance signals.

ANN ARBOR--Researchers, hospitals, companies, consumers and government agencies are drowning in data that they can't fully capitalize on. Now, a team from the University of Michigan has received $1.6 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to help develop a toolkit so that even nondata scientists can use that data to possibly answer questions and ultimately speed up the process of discovery. The Michigan project seeks to develop algorithms that draw on techniques like machine learning for applications such as understanding video. It is one of 24 projects selected from around the country. DARPA intends to combine techniques from the projects into a central repository.

A team of scientists hailing from the Sandia National Laboratories and Boston University developed an experimental algorithm that could automatically diagnose problems in supercomputers. There is an array of internal and external issues that could arise with these powerful machines. For instance, factors like physical parts breaking can occur or previous programs performing "zombie processes" that prevent the computer from functioning properly. Furthermore, the repair process for these devices can take an extended period of time, which raises another issue since these computers perform critical tasks like forecasting the weather and ensuring the U.S. nuclear arsenal is safe and reliable without needing to do underground testing. To develop the algorithm, the team took a multi-step approach. First, the engineers created a suite of issues they became familiar with over the time they spent working on various supercomputers, which was then followed by them writing specific codes to re-create these anomalies.

Widespread devastation in Athens, Greece, was depicted Thursday in new drone footage following heavy flooding and violent storms. The destruction has left many surrounding areas underwater in what Mandra Mayor Yianna Krikouki called a "biblical" flood. Several regions in Greece have faced inclement weather for about a week. The situation escalated when heavy rain resulted in severe flooding Wednesday night. The death toll has risen to at least 16, and at least four civilians are reportedly still missing.

At least once a week, I read or hear that new research has found that human memories are fallible and that, therefore, survey research and other "traditional" marketing research methods cannot be relied upon. Instead, we should use some new method that is being peddled. The new method may really be old wine in a new bottle. Usually these claims are wrapped in scientific or pseudo-scientific jargon and, on occasion, are made by academics. The problem is that the frailty of human memories is old news and well-known to professional marketing researchers and survey experts.

Hamas has blamed the Israeli national intelligence agency Mossad for the assassination of one of its Tunisian members after conducting an 11-month-long investigation. The Palestinian group said Mohammed al-Zawari, a commander of its armed wing the Qassam Brigades since 2006, was fatally shot outside his home multiple times while in his car near Sfax, 270km southeast of Tunis, on December 15, 2016. Hamas had set up an investigative committee in the immediate aftermath of the assassination. Speaking at a press conference in Beirut on Thursday, Mohammed Nazzal, Hamas politburo member, called the Mossad operation a "terrorist act". "Mossad is officially accused of being behind the assassination, which is not only a terrorist act, but a violation of state sovereignty," he said.

Algorithmia started out as an online marketplace for -- can you guess it? Many of these algorithms that developers offered on the service focused on machine learning (think face detection, sentiment analysis, etc.). Today, with the boom in ML/AI, that's obviously a big draw and Algorithmia is now taking its next step in this direction with the launch of a new service that helps data scientists manage and deploy their machine learning models -- and share them with others inside their companies. This basically means that the company is turning some of the infrastructure and services it built to run these models itself into a new product. "Tensorflow is open-source, but scaling it is not," said Kenny Daniel, co-founder and CTO of Algorithmia, in today's announcement.

The surveillance-equipment market in China was valued at $6.4 billion last year, according to IHS Markit . China is a big buyer of surveillance technology as Beijing steps up its efforts to better monitor its 1.4 billion people. That is providing a boon for equipment makers, who are looking to export their gear abroad. But it has also sparked concern from rights activists about how the authoritarian government is using the souped-up "Big Brother" technology. Seagate Technology PLC, Qualcomm Inc. and United Technologies Corp. were among the foreign companies to show their wares at the 16th China Public Security Expo, where prospective customers included Chinese police, government officials and businesses.