Machine learning is a buzzword that has picked up steam across several industries, and especially in the cybersecurity space we see more and more companies adding machine learning capabilities as a differentiator into their marketing materials. However, machine learning has been around for decades, and many security companies have been using it under the hood for a while. So what is changing, how much is hype and what shows promise? To better understand the value of machine learning, it's important to take a step back at how most security tools work. The traditional workhorses of cybersecurity have been signatures and heuristics.

The Washington Post plans to cover every House, Senate and gubernatorial race in the country on Election Day with the aid of what it describes as artificial intelligence. The plan is to use a data-crunching program called Heliograf, which was built in-house, to bolster efforts by the Post's team of 60 political reporters to provide detailed coverage of nearly 500 contests across the U.S. Reporters will focus their attention on covering high-profile contests and races expected to be close or pivotal, while the program fills in the gaps. "This will give readers Washington Post-quality coverage at all levels but will also be used to alert reporters to things that they may not see, or draw their attention to a particular race that they didn't expect to be a close one," said Jeremy Gilbert, the Post's director of strategic initiatives. The Post first experimented with Heliograf to cover events at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro this summer and will look to expand its use on Election Day. Using templates and pre-written previews, the program will automatically update stories as results come in, said Sam Han, the Post's director of data science.

When it comes to maintaining the mental health and wellness of American citizens, the 2016 presidential election cycle has been less than ideal. In a recent article in Politico, therapists and their clients described how the last several months of political turmoil have thrown them for a loop. One psychologist even commissioned a poll of 1,000 voter-age respondents to probe the emotional impact of the election. The results: Nearly 30 percent of respondents reported emotional distress due to Hillary Clinton's campaign, while over 40 percent reported emotional distress due to Donald Trump's campaign. Perhaps most tellingly, a whopping 90 percent of those who reported emotional distress felt that the toll of this election was worse than any other election in the past, offering perspective into the general American psyche right about now.

Language Technologies must be considered an area of particular relevance both at the academic and industrial levels. In recent years, several programs have been designed to promote research and development, entrepreneurship and innovation that have highlighted the key role of these technologies for progress and society. At the European level, we have witnessed a strong funding action in the field from the 7th Framework Programme to the H2020 that have resulted in the creation of what has been called the European Multilingual Digital Single Market. In Spain, for example, the government presented a Plan to Promote Language Technologies with an estimated investment of over 70 million euros. In 2015, a group of professors and researchers at the University of Seville faced the challenge to convene a workshop where experts from different countries could meet to analyze emerging trends in this field so that they could also envision the pace for the future.

They are wise-cracking companions, able to communicate in more than six million languages. Others are bent on enslaving or destroying humanity, deeming themselves better, more rational caretakers of the Earth in light of our irrational behaviors. Pilot or garbage man, soldier or slave, hero or villain--robots have played every role imaginable in popular science fiction for nearly a century. In the 21st century, real-life robots inspired by their fictional counterparts are beginning to take starring roles in everyday life. Several companies, Google among them, are testing autonomous cars (unfortunately, there is no indication that they will be able to travel into the past or future anytime soon).

Brace yourselves: Artificial intelligence, virtual reality and a host of new emerging technologies are becoming mainstream. Fortunately, for the federal government, two new digital communities will coalesce around these burgeoning technologies in an effort to promote interagency collaboration, partnerships with industry and to exchange ideas about what works. Launched last month, the Artificial Intelligence for Citizens Services and Virtual/Augmented Reality communities add two new focus areas to General Services Administration's Digital Communities effort, which already boasts some 10,000 members and 16 active mission areas. Justin Herman, digital communities and open government lead at GSA, said the communities arose from direct conversations, feedback and analysis from federal agencies themselves. "Agencies had the need for more information and clarification for how to approach these technologies of tomorrow," Herman told Nextgov.

Google cut power usage in its data centers by several percentage points earlier this year by trusting artificially intelligent software derived from 1980s-era Atari video games. And in the years to come, the Internet giant not only could save much more electricity, but also solve far larger problems by taking on a much more complex video game. Research scientists at Google's DeepMind unit announced Friday they are developing a computer program that reads data about Blizzard Entertainment's "StarCraft II" games and learns how to play on its own. The software would have to figure out how to split its attention between micromanagement and long-term strategic decisions. It's that maneuvering that could deliver big breakthroughs.

Elon Musk's "Alien Dreadnought" is bringing a German crew on board. Tesla, the electric car company based in Palo Alto, announced Tuesday that it will buy Grohmann Engineering, based in Prum, Germany, to be renamed Tesla Grohmann Automation. Grohmann, founded by Chief Executive Klaus Grohman, is a highly regarded supplier of factory automation systems in industries ranging from automobiles to microelectronics. It has outposts around the world, including offices in Charlotte, N.C. and Chandler, Ariz. The German company employs about 700 people.

Ecommerce company Etsy today disclosed in a filing that it spent $32.5 million to acquire Blackbird Technologies, a startup that had developed artificial intelligence (AI) software that could be used for various search applications in the context of shopping. "The Company completed this acquisition to improve the quality and relevance of search on Etsy.com," says the SEC filing. Total consideration for the acquisition was approximately $15.0 million, consisting of $8.1 million in cash and 513,304 shares of the Company's common stock with a fair value of $6.9 million on the acquisition date. Additionally, the Company issued 184,230 shares of common stock or restricted stock units ("RSUs") on the acquisition date with a fair value of $2.5 million which are tied to continuous service with the Company as an employee and are being accounted for as post-acquisition stock-based compensation expense over a three-year vesting period. The Company will pay up to an additional $8.8 million in cash and issue up to an additional 460,575 shares of RSUs post-close with a fair value of $6.2 million, both of which are also tied to continuous service with the Company as an employee and are being accounted for as post-acquisition stock-based and other compensation expense over a three-year vesting period.

Crunching vast tracts of data is a growing task for defense, intelligence and security agencies. They need analysis, fast, of what's going on in the air and on the ground to assess battlefields, secure environments, and decide when and how to deploy people or humanitarian aid. Artificial intelligence may be the key to digesting the barrage of data from multiple sources. To unlock insights from this data, agencies are increasingly turning to GPU-powered deep learning, with algorithms that can identify relevant content and patterns in raw data at machine speed. The GPU is the engine of modern AI, NVIDIA solution architect Jon Barker Barker told a broad audience from the defense, intelligence and homeland security communities at the recent annual GEOINT Symposium.