Way back in 1969, as a kid, I watched a very interesting movie - "2001: A Space Odyssey." It was a science fiction where a super intelligent computer program HAL is in charge of a mission to Jupiter which also carries several astronauts. The program becomes rogue and tries to kill all the astronauts. The hero survives and manages to disable the program. There is a lot more to the plot, but the fight between human and computer is still vivid in my memory. In 1969, such a scenario looked possible. After all 32 years is a lot of time given the rate of our progress.

After 15 years of development and more than 200 flights, an Israel firm is confident its autonomous flying ambulance will be ready to hit the market by 2020 – and will come with a $14 million price tag. The Cormorant, formally known as the'AirMule', can transport about a half a ton (500kg) of weight at 115 miles (185 km) per hour. Designed by Urban Aeronautics, its developers say the military drone will be able to reach areas unfit for helicopters to deliver supplies and carry wounded soldiers to safety. After 15 years of development and more than 200 flights, an Israel firm is confident its autonomous flying ambulance will be ready to hit the market by 2020 – and will cost about $14 million. The Cormorant, formally known as the'AirMule', can transport about a half a ton (500kg) of weight at 115 miles (185 km) per hour'Just imagine a dirty bomb in a city and chemical substance of something else and this vehicle can come in robotically, remotely piloted, come into a street and decontaminate an area,' Urban Aeronautics founder and CEO Rafi Yoeli told Reuters.

Last year Google recognized Coeur d'Alene as Idaho's eCity (beating out Boise and Moscow), and in a recent article in Chatbots Magazine, journalist Kelly Kissack speculated that the little resort town in the Idaho wilderness might just be the "cradle of civilization for artificial intelligence and robotics" in America. Kissack's piece follows the accomplishments of CDA native, Nick Smoot, and his "Innovation Collective". You can find her article here. It seems, however, that historically there is even more evidence to support Kissack's premise. In fact, a decade and a half earlier, a small Coeur d'Alene startup launched an A.I. that could very well have beaten the Turing test more than ten years before "Eugene" in 2014 -- had it competed. The development and origin of this A.I. technology is an intriguing story, and one that personally first drew me to the area and its talent.

For thousands of years humans believed that authority came from the gods. Then, during the modern era, humanism gradually shifted authority from deities to people. Jean-Jacques Rousseau summed up this revolution in Emile, his 1762 treatise on education. When looking for the rules of conduct in life, Rousseau found them "in the depths of my heart, traced by nature in characters which nothing can efface. I need only consult myself with regard to what I wish to do; what I feel to be good is good, what I feel to be bad is bad." Humanist thinkers such as Rousseau convinced us that our own feelings and desires were the ultimate source of meaning, and that our free will was, therefore, the highest authority of all.

Work means everything to us. But our beliefs around work are no longer plausible. In fact, they've become ridiculous, because there's not enough work to go around, and what there is of it won't pay the bills, writes James Livingston. The following is the first of two adapted excerpts from historian James Livingston's new book, "No More Work: Why Full Employment is a Bad Idea." Work means everything to us.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is touching every technology sector around the world, and it's having a significant impact on how enterprises and consumers interact with machines and devices. TechRepublic talked to IoT experts in a range of disciplines to find out what they think the biggest trends will be in 2017. Participants were Kevin Curran, IEEE senior member and senior lecturer in computer science at Ulster University; Francesco Cetraro, head of registrations, .cloud; Artificial intelligence, augmented reality, virtual reality, healthcare IoT, industrial IoT, and wearables are some of the topics of conversation about where the Internet of Things is headed in 2017. Kevin Curran: "AI, and machine learning in particular, is the process of building a scientific model after discovering knowledge from a data set. It is the complex computation process of automatic pattern recognition and intelligent decision making based on training sample data. AI techniques can replicate some specific elements of intellectual ability. Computers can already solve problems in limited realms. The basic idea of AI is simple but its execution is complicated. First, the AI algorithm gathers facts about a situation through sensors or human input. The computer compares this information to stored data and decides what the information signifies. The computer runs through various possible actions and predicts which action will be most successful based on the collected information. The IT giants such as Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and others have all been using AI techniques in various research projects. Google acquired DeepMind technologies who use neural networks and deep learning methods that deploy low-level transistor networks to produce high-level effects."

WASHINGTON – Ford scuttled a plan to build a new factory in Mexico Tuesday following criticism from Donald Trump, and just hours after the president-elect attacked General Motors for importing Mexican-made cars into the US. Following months of criticism from Trump for its investments in Mexico, Ford said it was spiking a plan to build a new $1.6 billion plant in San Luis Potosi, and would instead invest $700 million over the next four years to expand its Flat Rock Assembly Plant in Michigan to build electric and self-driving vehicles. Ford chief executive Mark Fields said the second-biggest U.S. automaker was hopeful Trump's policies will boost the U.S. manufacturing environment. "It's literally a vote of confidence around some of the pro-growth policies that he has been outlining and that's why we're making this decision to invest here in the U.S. and our plant here in Michigan," Fields told CNN. Earlier, GM became the latest multinational to end up in Trump's line of fire -- via Twitter as usual -- with the president-elect threatening to impose a tariff on GM's imports of a small number of Mexican-made Chevy Cruze cars to the U.S. Trump took to Twitter again to crow about the Ford reversal.

Threat hunters are able to see related behaviors and entities, and search and filter without having to master a query language. Because the platform connects users, devices, and IP addresses, hunters always know the "who" behind every indicator. Threat hunters can seamlessly explore data from disparate sources, pivot on behaviors and interesting data facets, and visualize data and relationships in multiple ways. E8's platform enables behavior hunting, allowing threat hunters to key in on the abnormal behaviors of internal resources that are typically the early warning signs that a threat is present. E8 Security's Fusion Behavioral Intelligence Platform enables security analysts to detect and hunt for unknown threat indicators, and respond before a breach occurs.

CNN used footage from the'Fallout 4' hacking mini-game in a video about Russian hacks. The word "hacking" is rather nefarious sounding, but most people have no idea what it actually involves. When we think of hacking we conjure up images of The Matrix or Mr. Robot, or possibly even video games, which have dozens of examples of hacking mini-games to pull from. Games like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and BioShock have players navigate little puzzles to access certain areas. And if you want to get into one of the many locked monochrome consoles in Fallout 4, you'll have to solve a hacking game, too.

Ford Motor Co. said Tuesday it was scrapping plans to build a $1.6-billion factory in Mexico and would invest $700 million to expand a Michigan plant to build electric and autonomous vehicles that will add 700 jobs there in a move Ford's chief executive said was a "vote of confidence" in the economic policies of President-elect Donald Trump. Ford isn't abandoning expanded production in Mexico. The company said that to "improve company profitability" it would build its next-generation Ford Focus at an existing plant in Hermosillo, Mexico. But in the wake of criticism by President-elect Donald Trump of the U.S. automaker and other companies moving manufacturing jobs across the border, Ford said it would cancel its plans for a major new plant in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. A company news release didn't mention Trump, but Chief Executive Mark Fields told CNN on Tuesday that the new plans were "a vote of confidence" in the direction of the U.S. economy under the president-elect.