The year of AI: Major developments in 2016 could pave the way for a future where'intelligent machines are omnipresent in our daily lives' Artificial intelligence or AI is getting a foothold in people's homes, starting with the Amazon devices like its Echo speaker (pictured) which links to a personal assistant'Alexa' to answer questions and control connected devices such as appliances or light bulbs Donald Trump claims torture ¿works¿ ¿ but what does the... South Korea comes a step closer to LIMITLESS energy:... Facebook Messenger launches an in-app camera and... The shoes that will tell you if you're too tired to run:... Donald Trump claims torture ¿works¿ ¿ but what does the... South Korea comes a step closer to LIMITLESS energy:... Facebook Messenger launches an in-app camera and... The shoes that will tell you if you're too tired to run:... Analyst Carolina Milanesi of the research firm Creative Strategies said that '2016 was the year about raising awareness, and exposing ...

Last year's outlook for 2016 suggested that you keep your eye on the growing consumer control, the questions around AI and the excitement of virtual reality applications. The landscape has changed -- a lot. For the coming year, trends show a growing emphasis on a shifting local and global identity, the impact of intersectionality, and the real threat of cyber spying. As we enter 2017 are we more connected globally or not? A few years ago (or maybe just a month or two back?) globalism seemed like an inevitability.

What will a future driven by technological change look like? Will it be like Star Wars, dominated by greed and economic gain? A world where we've advanced technologically, but not as a society? Or will our future look more like Star Trek? Where material problems have been solved, and society guides its citizens towards reaching their full potential? In Star Trek, technology is used primarily for learning and discovering.

While the US Navy's new state-of-the-art USS Zumwalt destroyer struggles to remain functional, the service branch's R&D department has been busy investigating cutting-edge tech at a much smaller scale. Back in October, the Office of Naval Research (OCR) demonstrated the harbor defense capabilities of a group of prototype small autonomous boats, aka "swarmbots," in Chesapeake Bay. The ONR used four rigid hull inflatable boats (RHIB) -- think of the larger soldier-ferrying Zodiacs -- to show off the drone squad's ability to patrol, investigate approaching unknown crafts and relay that information back to a human supervisor. Using autonomous vehicles for dull yet important tasks such as harbor defense is cheaper than using human crews, especially since some of the drone tech used in the demo is off-the-shelf. The ONR's autonomous system, Control Architecture for Robotic Agent Command and Sensing (CARACaS), was first demonstrated in RHIBs back in 2014, according to the department's press release.

As part of Artificial Lawyer's continuing series about emerging legal tech markets around the world, today's guest post about Belgium is brought to us by Tom Pieters, a lawyer at Belgian law firm AdvoDender. He is also a member of COMMIT (Committee on IT) and A.I.-D.I. (Committee on Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation) of the Flemish Bar Association. On October 27, 2016 Artificial Lawyer published a guest article by Dutch lawyer Niek van de Pasch on the quickly growing legal tech scene in Holland. It was a very interesting read, but it only added to my growing sense of unease, a feeling that started upon my discovery of Dutch Legal Tech in February 2016. I have been interested in all things tech for a very long time.

Though artificial intelligence experts may cringe at the portrayals of humanlike AI in science fiction, some researchers are nudging us closer to those visions. "I think it's useful that your user interface not only understand your emotions, your personality, your tone, your motivations, but that it also have a set of emotions, personality, motivations," says Rob High, the CTO of IBM Watson. "I think that makes it more natural for us." Last month, High's company unveiled Project Intu, an experimental platform that allows developers the ability to build internet of things devices using its artificial intelligence services, like Conversation, Language and Visual Recognition. Someday, the system promises to let programmers create a staple character of sci-fi: the gregarious, hyper-connected AI like J.A.R.V.I.S. of Iron Man, KITT of Knight Rider, or Star Wars' C3PO.

On Tuesday, an Uber driverless car waits in traffic during a test drive in San Francisco. The ride-hailing company is refusing to obey demands by the state's Department of Motor Vehicles that it stop picking up San Francisco passengers in specially equipped Volvo SUVs. On Tuesday, an Uber driverless car waits in traffic during a test drive in San Francisco. The ride-hailing company is refusing to obey demands by the state's Department of Motor Vehicles that it stop picking up San Francisco passengers in specially equipped Volvo SUVs. Regulating Self-Driving Cars For Safety Even Before They're Built Uber has started offering rides in self-driving cars in San Francisco without a permit for autonomous vehicles -- defying state regulators, who say the permit is mandatory.

Jerry Kaplan is widely known as an Artificial Intelligence expert, technical innovator, serial entrepreneur, and bestselling author. He is currently a Fellow at The Center for Legal Informatics at Stanford University and a visiting lecturer in the computer science department, where he teaches social and economic impact of Artificial Intelligence. Kaplan founded several technology companies over his 35-year career, two of which became public companies. As an inventor and entrepreneur, he was a key contributor to the creation of numerous familiar technologies including tablet computers, smart phones, online auctions, and social computer games. Kaplan is the author of three books: the best-selling classic Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure; Humans Need Not Apply: A Guide to Wealth and Work in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (2015); and Artificial Intelligence: What Everyone Needs to Know (2016). In 1998, Kaplan received the Ernst & Young Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year Award, Northern California. He has been profiled in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Forbes, among others. He received a BA degree from the University of Chicago and a PhD in Computer and Information Science from the University of Pennsylvania. Jerry will be speaking at the Gigaom AI Now in San Francisco, February 15-16th.

Here are some story lines I don't want you to miss today. Donald Trump has chosen one of the most consistently conservative presidential cabinets in recent history -- one whose presumed members' views don't always align with what Trump promised on the campaign trail. In Washington circles, the biggest guessing game is how it will all play out. Somehow, you have to think tweeting is involved. We don't want to jinx it, but … all of California should be in for some rain today.

I've written before about the apparent shift in healthcare whereby making sense of the vast quantities of data produced within the system is key to successful treatment of patients. Nowhere is this moreso than in cancer care. For instance, a team from UCL utilized deep learning earlier this year to more accurately identify cancer cells. This trend is continued with a second study, which aims to make sense of the cancer data currently sitting in the cancer registry program that's coordinated by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This database has records of cancer incidences across the US, but the curation of it can often be a hugely time-intensive process as it requires manual editing and annotation from experts for each file.