Facebook has launched yet another politically focused feature. The social network is making the most of the general election, and has created a collection of new graphics breaking down the results. A notification saying, "You have newly elected representatives. Find out who represents your constituency," has just started rolling out to users. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph.

Boston Dynamics makes a variety of robots, including machines that mimic humans and animals, but has struggled to find a market for them. Boston Dynamics makes a variety of robots, including machines that mimic humans and animals, but has struggled to find a market for them. Boston Dynamics products also include Big Dog's little brother Spot, a complex machine that can walk and trot on four legs like a dog. Their companion robot Pepper, hit the headlines last year, after the Japanese robot refused to share whether it held a desire to rule the world.

So there's a blend of anticipation and dread within a wide range of organizations and industries--and public-sector agencies are no exception.4 Conversations with government executives suggest that most lack a clear vision of how AI applications might affect their staff and missions, which is understandable, since prior research hardly offers an actionable forecast. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics optimistically predicts that government workforces will see almost no job losses between now and 2024,5 while a recent study by Deloitte-UK and Oxford University suggests that up to 18 percent of UK public-sector jobs could be automated by 2030.6 We've attempted to bring clarity to the confusion, for agency chiefs looking to future workforce needs. Our view is that the key to planning ahead is understanding how much time cognitive technologies could save. And indeed, our research, based on a new method for studying AI-based technology's effects on government workforces, indicates that cognitive technologies could free up large numbers of labor hours by automating certain tasks and allowing managers to shift employees to tasks requiring human judgment. These new applications could save hundreds of millions of staff hours and billions of dollars annually.

An American F-15 warplane has shot down a pro-government drone in Syria after it fired at coalition forces, officials said, marking an escalation of tensions in the war-torn country's south. No one was hurt in Thursday's incident which occurred near the coalition's At-Tanaf garrison close to the Jordan border, Colonel Ryan Dillon, spokesman for the coalition against ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), told Pentagon reporters. The drone "was armed and still had weapons on it when it was fired upon by US forces from an aircraft", said Dillon. Although the weapon deployed by the drone deployed hit only dirt, the action was "clearly meant" as an attack, added Dillon. Dillon said it was not immediately clear who owned the drone. "Regardless of what kind of drone it was, it fired upon our coalition forces, and therefore showed hostile intent, and it was perceived as a threat," he said.

WASHINGTON – A drone likely connected to Iranian-supported militias fired on U.S.-backed troops near a military camp in southern Syria on Thursday, near where the U.S.-led coalition is training Syrian rebels fighting the Islamic State group, an American military spokesman said. The weapon fired by the drone did not detonate and no one was hurt, but Army Col. Ryan Dillon told reporters at the Pentagon that it was considered a direct threat and that a manned U.S. aircraft shot it down. The attack came just hours after the U.S. bombed Syrian government and allied troops inside a protected zone in that area, and marked a sharp escalation in the skirmishes between the coalition and those pro-Syrian government forces there. Dillon said this was the first time that forces supporting Damascus had attacked coalition troops in that region, which is near the training camp in Tanf, close to the border with Jordan. He declined to say who owned or operated the drone, but other officials said it was likely Iranian or Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

William D. Eggers is the executive director of the Deloitte Center for Government Insights. Dr. Peter Viechnicki is a strategic analysis manager and data scientist with the center. This piece is adapted from their new study, How much time and money can AI save government? Government agencies are no exception, and today this requires endless staff hours spent inputting, processing and sharing information across systems. The work needs to get done, so someone has to peck away at a keyboard, right?

Standing on stage in front hundreds of policymakers, academics, and industry leaders in a United Nations conference room on Wednesday, Margaret Chan admitted shes probably the least knowledgeable person present on the topic of artificial intelligence. Chan, an expert in her own right as director general of the World Health Organization, was nonetheless chosen to open apanel of the first inaugural AI for Good Global Summit, a UN-hosted event that hopes to guide AI development with ethical, social, and sustainable goals in mind. And she raised some important issues about how this technology will effect society. Despite her claim to ignorance, Chan is relatively optimistic about emerging technologiesand theirpotential health benefits. She flashed a wearable that tracks her daily steps and admitted she was yet to meet her goal.

Machine learning may sound like it belongs in the distant future or in science-fiction films, but we're already seeing how it could be applied to our own technology and the impact it could have on the travel industry. It is a form of artificial intelligence allowing computers to learn from examples rather than having to follow step-by-step instructions. In fact, there is already machine learning integrated into everyday technologies, such as automatic tagging of your photos with image recognition. So what does machine learning mean for the travel industry, and how can we harness it? Examining technology trends like these is a vital process for Amadeus to continue at the forefront of our industry, allowing us to anticipate the trends and challenges affecting our customers and travellers.

International borders and high security sites could one day be protected by high tech virtual defences. That's the plan of Palmer Luckey, the man behind Oculus virtual reality technology, who is now working on a way to secure America's borders from illegal immigrants. The scheme would employ lasers, as used in self-driving cars, to detect the movement of people, drones and other unwanted traffic into restricted areas. Palmer Luckey last hit headlines back in March after being jettisoned from Occulus, the VR company he helped found and sold to Facebook. In September 2016, it emerged that he secretly funded a pro-Donald Trump group that mocked Hillary Clinton online, during the US presidential race.

Nearly half of NHS trusts (43%; obtained from a Freedom of Information (FoI) request) are investing in artificial intelligence (AI) enabling patients to'self-help' when accessing services. The trusts are harnessing technology such as virtual assistants, speech recognition technology and chat bots to ease the pressure on healthcare workers across their organisations. These vital investments are geared up to primarily provide access to information and services all-day, every-day, but they also play a key role in reducing the numbers of patients queuing to see their GP for information they can now access through a virtual assistant. Research commissioned by Nuance in 2015 into the impact of clinical documentation in NHS acute care trusts revealed that clinicians spend over half of their work day on clinical documentation. In a more recent Nuance study of UK GP practices, over nine in 10 reported that patient documentation was a considerable burden for their practice and that in 49 per cent of the practices, over half their patient documentation is paper versus electronic format.