Accounts of mysterious flashing lights in the sky, spacecrafts and encounters with'real' aliens reflect high levels of public interest in UFOs and the belief that there is'something out there'. However, many psychologists are less convinced, and think they can provide more down-to-earth, scientific explanations. Belief in aliens has increased steadily since the birth of modern alien research in the 1940s and 1950s, following the news surrounding a classified US military project at Roswell Air Force Base, New Mexico. The theory that alien abductions are hoaxes may be true in a few cases, but there is no reason to assume that the majority of'experiencers' are frauds Surveys in Western cultures estimated belief in aliens to be as high as 50% in 2015. And despite the fact that it is considered rare, a significant number of people also believe they have experienced alien abduction.

President Donald Trump's executive order on immigration and green card holders from several majority-Muslim countries earned widespread response this weekend with protests and legal action. Among game industry companies and developers, their response was similarly vocal. In a statement, industry trade group the Entertainment Software Association strongly came out against the order. "The Entertainment Software Association urges the White House to exercise caution with regard to vital immigration and foreign worker programs. As a leading force in technology and exporter of entertainment, the U.S. video game industry thrives on the contributions of innovators and storytellers from around the world," the Software Association's statement said.

NEW YORK – Techies have devised a program to execute quickfire stock trades to take advantage of President Donald Trump's Twitter habit of blackballing individual companies. And the president's tweets are saving puppies, since when the program earns money, the funds are donated to an animal welfare group. The "Trump & Dump" artificial intelligence program identifies Trump's market-moving tweets, assesses instantaneously whether the sentiment is positive or negative and then executes a speedy trade. Ben Gaddis, president of Austin, Texas, marketing and technology company T3, said the idea was sparked by watching Trump's actions during his transition, when Twitter attacks of companies such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin sent the share prices tumbling. "Everyone is asking themselves how to deal with the unpredictability of Trump's tweets," Gaddis told AFP.

Much of the software now revolutionizing the financial services industry depends on algorithms that apply artificial intelligence (AI)--and increasingly, machine learning--to automate everything from simple, rote tasks to activities requiring sophisticated judgment. These algorithms and the analyses that undergird them have become progressively more sophisticated as the pool of potentially meaningful variables within the Big Data universe continues to proliferate. When properly implemented, algorithmic and AI systems increase processing speed, reduce mistakes due to human error and minimize labor costs, all while improving customer satisfaction rates. Creditscoring algorithms, for example, not only help financial institutions optimize default and prepayment rates, but also streamline the application process, allowing for leaner staffing and an enhanced customer experience. When effective, these algorithms enable lenders to tweak approval criteria quickly and continually, responding in real time to both market conditions and customer needs. Both lenders and borrowers stand to benefit. For decades, financial services companies have used different types of algorithms to trade securities, predict financial markets, identify prospective employees and assess potential customers. Although AIdriven algorithms seek to avoid the failures of rigid instructions-based models of the past--such as those linked to the 1987 "Black Monday" stock market crash or 2010's "Flash Crash"--these models continue to present potential financial, reputational and legal risks for financial services companies.

President Trump portrays Mexico, China and global trade as the biggest threats to American manufacturing jobs. "It has been a one-sided deal from the beginning of NAFTA with massive numbers of jobs and companies lost," Trump tweeted on January 26. His predecessor also offered a warning to American workers, of a different kind. "The next wave of economic dislocations won't come from overseas. It will come from the relentless pace of automation that makes a lot of good middle class jobs obsolete," President Obama said in his farewell address.

The transport ministry said Monday it will introduce safety standards for self-driving vehicles in Japan as early as this fall, including an alarm system that sounds 15 seconds after a driver takes his hands off the steering wheel while traveling on a highway. The introduction of the integrated standards is expected to spur the development of self-driving vehicles by Japanese automakers as well as information technology companies as they will make clear the technology necessary for such cars. The safety standards are in line with an agreement reached Friday by a U.N. working party tasked with creating a uniform system of regulations for vehicle design to facilitate international trade. Japanese automakers will be able to sell vehicles that pass domestic safety tests based on the new standards in the European market in the future as the same standards are expected to be introduced there. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism will revise relevant ministerial ordinances under the Road Traffic Act in line with the new regulations.

The ride-hailing company with a glittering informal valuation of $70 billion shot itself in the foot on Saturday, public-image-wise, by apparently sending drivers to New York's Kennedy airport during a one-hour taxi drivers' strike staged to protest President Trump's immigrant and refugee ban. That action, in which Uber announced it would suspend "surge" charges on Kennedy airport trips during the strike, provoked thousands of Uber users to adopt the "#DeleteUber" hashtag on Twitter, signifying that they were removing the company's ride-ordering app from their smartphones. Hours later, Uber was backpedaling furiously, tweeting that the firm had not been trying to break the strike. Chief Executive Travis Kalanick subsequently announced a $3-million defense fund for Uber drivers caught in Trump's immigration net and issued a bland statement about Trump's executive order that stopped short of actually criticizing it. He merely observed that "allowing people from all around the world to come here and make America their home has largely been the U.S.'s policy since its founding."

Tax season is around the corner, and for most Americans, it involves dealing with the complex tax code, an accountant, and maybe friends who claim to be tax experts. According to IRS statistics, there were 507 million visitors to the irs.gov website in 2016, a 3 percent increase when compared to 2015. Furthermore, Americans spend 6.1 billion hours and $233.8 billion complying with the tax code. With complexity comes confusion and frustration, leading many taxpayers to turn to tax preparers or tax preparation software. Those who don't are at a disadvantage because most Americans are unaware of which deductions to consider, dependents to claims, student loan amounts to deduct, or where to file.

I know how terrible healthcare records theft can be. I myself have been the victim of a data theft by hackers who stole my deceased father's medical files, running up more than $300,000 in false charges. I am still disputing on-going bills that have been accruing for the last 15 years. This event led me on the path to finding a solution so others would not suffer the consequences that I continue to be impacted by, but hospitals and other healthcare providers must be willing to make the change. The writing is on the wall.

Cyber threats are an ever-present danger to global economies and are projected to surpass the trillion dollar mark in damages within the next year. As a result, the cybersecurity industry is investing heavily in machine learning in hopes of providing a more dynamic deterrent. ABI Research forecasts machine learning in cybersecurity will boost big data, intelligence, and analytics spending to $96 billion by 2021. "We are in the midst of an artificial intelligence security revolution," says Dimitrios Pavlakis, Industry Analyst at ABI Research. "This will drive machine learning solutions to soon emerge as the new norm beyond Security Information and Event Management, or SIEM, and ultimately displace a large portion of traditional AV, heuristics, and signature-based systems within the next five years."