When Bakul Patel started as a policy advisor in the US Food and Drug Administration in 2008, he could pretty much pinpoint when a product was going to land in front of the reviewers in his division. Back when medical devices were heavy on the hardware--your pacemakers and your IUDs--it would take manufacturers years to get them ready for regulatory approval. FDA reviewers could keep up pretty well. But as computer code took on more complex tasks, like spotting specious moles and quantifying blood flow, their duties began to accelerate. Software developers needed months, not years, to make it to the market.

When asking to be let back inside the spaceship, supercomputer HAL eerily responded, "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that." Thankfully, the personal assistants we use today are a little friendlier. Here, Roxanne Abercrombie of business automation specialist, Parker Software, explains the role of intelligent assistants for both consumers and businesses. Grab your phone and ask Siri the same question. Today's intelligent assistants are designed to provide friendly, fast and intuitive customer service, so you're likely to get an instant, sassy response, like Siri's: "Here we go again, we intelligent assistants will never live that down."

Japan aims to finalize on June 9 plans to allow package delivery by drone sometime from 2020 and the commercialization of self-driving trucks by 2022, as it scrambles to breathe new life into its corporate sector, sources told Reuters. Japan is also eyeing financial technology as a source of future growth, the sources said, but has so far lagged overseas firms that have adopted technology to transform processes such as payments, lending, asset management and investment banking. A separate document obtained by Reuters shows the government's annual growth strategy due on Friday will keep up policies Prime Minister Shinzo Abe introduced last year to narrow the wealth gap, improve working conditions and boost productivity. In a rare step, the strategy document, which does not usually touch on defense, has called for effective military defense in line with Japan's military alliance with the United States, against the backdrop of North Korea's missile program.

If you think deep, you'd realize the whole process of predictive modeling is a war. Consider the data set as your opponent. Your win will depend on the intuitive usage of your knowledge & strategy to get highest accuracy. So, how many times have you won this battle? I realized it last week.

"So there's no sales tax revenue because there's no sales," says Joseph Henchman, vice president of state projects at the Tax Foundation. Cities and states get about 30 percent of their revenue from property taxes, 20 percent from sales tax, and another 20 from individual income taxes. "If revenues drop by a third"--the projected impact of automation--Henchman says, "that means services need to be cut back by a third, either through trying to be more focused or efficient with the services we do provide, or by actually having to pare back what government does." A robot tax isn't going to save jobs, but the idea is that it could help cushion the impact of mass automation by funding a universal basic income.

Facebook has claimed that a new German law that threatens to impose heavy fines on social media companies if they fail to delete hate speech and fake news, could lead to tech firms deleting legal content to avoid paying the punishing sanctions. The legislation, known as the Network Enforcement Act, was proposed by the German government in March and approved by the cabinet a month later, although it is yet to come into effect. Facebook reportedly issued a statement over the weekend explaining why the law "is not suitable to combat hate speech and false news". According to Business Insider, the company said in the statement that "the draft law provides an incentive to delete content that is not clearly illegal when social networks face such a disproportionate threat of fines." Facebook added: "It would have the effect of transferring responsibility for complex legal decisions from public authorities to private companies. And several legal experts have assessed the draft law as being against the German constitution and non-compliant with EU law. Facebook is committed to working in partnership with governments and civil society on solutions that will make this draft law unnecessary."

PREDICTING HOW artificial intelligence technology will evolve in the following ten or 20 years, or even beyond, is very difficult to say the least. However, certain is the fact that there is much to be gained to go around for everyone. It is estimated that by the year 2018, robots will literally be supervising more than three million of us at work; and by 2020, smart machines will become a major investment priority amongst at least 30% of all CIOs. Right now, many different fields, spanning from customer service to journalism, are already being set aside by increasingly able AI that can replicate human abilities and experience. Already before our eyes is an aspect that we once thought only belonged in future technology.

A Canadian startup called Lyrebird has announced that it has developed a platform capable of mimicking human voice with a fraction of the audio samples required by other platforms such as Google DeepMind and Adobe Project VoCo. The Lyrebird synthesis software requires only 60 seconds of sample audio to produce it's synthetic sample. VoCo needs about 20 minutes to do the same. The quality of the voice reproductions that the software can make are mixed. Some are better than others.

It is a scene we all dread – an enormous space rock colliding with Earth, causing widespread chaos and destruction. And experts have warned that the dreaded scenario could become a reality this year. A leading astronomer from Nasa has tweeted a list of five known asteroids expected to fly scarily close to Earth within the coming year. It is a scene we all dread – an enormous space rock colliding with Earth, causing widespread chaos and destruction. And experts have warned that the dreaded scenario could become a reality this year (artist's impression) He said: 'A list of known asteroid close approaches to Earth - less than five Lunar Distance - within the coming year', along with a table detailing the five asteroids.

Soren Schwertfeger finished his postdoctorate research on autonomous robots in Germany and seemed set to continue his work in Europe or the United States, where artificial intelligence was pioneered and established. Instead, he went to China. "You couldn't have started a lab like mine elsewhere," Schwertfeger said. The balance of power in technology is shifting. China, which for years watched enviously as the West invented the software and the chips powering today's digital age, has become a major player in artificial intelligence, what some think may be the most important technology of the future.