It is used to disguise a person's identity, cover explicit areas of an image or to render vehicle number plates unreadable. But deliberate pixilation of photographs could soon be rendered useless by artificial intelligence that can peer through the blurring to see what is hidden beneath. Software engineers have used machine learning to teach a piece of software to adapt image recognition techniques to recognise objects, faces and words in obscured images. Artificial intelligence could be used to defeat attempts to protect people's identity (stock image) or hide certain information in videos and photographs posted online. The software could mean that people who appear on Google Street View, for example, could be identified despite attempts by the search company to hide their identity with image blurring. It is a bizarre disappearing act that only the most affluent seem to be able to afford.

Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae -- or dark patches -- on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts. Several hundred camped outside the London store in Covent Garden. The 6s will have new features like a vastly improved camera and a pressure-sensitive "3D Touch" display

Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae -- or dark patches -- on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts. Several hundred camped outside the London store in Covent Garden. The 6s will have new features like a vastly improved camera and a pressure-sensitive "3D Touch" display

Tech investor Marc Andreessen took the stage Tuesday at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco. SAN FRANCISCO – For tech entrepreneurs, these are both the best of times and the gnarliest of times. But only standout ideas with either unique intellectual property or quantifiable traction are likely to benefit from this buoyant climate in the form of investments or acquisitions. "Only strong companies are getting acquired," Greylock Ventures' Josh Elman told attendees at TechCrunch Disrupt Tuesday, citing the 1 billion price tags paid for self-driving car startup Cruise Automation (General Motors) and Dollar Shave Club (Unilever). Elman might have added another recent purchase to the list, Microsoft's 26 billion spend for professional networking site LinkedIn, founded by Elman's fellow Greylock colleague and panelist, Reid Hoffman.

The reliance on drones--and the tendency to regard them as the default tool for taking out jihadi suspects on the battlefield--subsided in Obama's second term, in part because the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were winding down, in part because the drones weren't having the dramatic effect that they seemed to promise. It turned out that killing a key terrorist or destroying a terrorist hangout--while sometimes fruitful and always tempting--has little impact on the course of the war. Al-Qaida had a seemingly endless line of No. 3–ranking officials to replace the ones just killed. And to the extent terrorist groups have been decimated on the battlefield, it's been due to a combination of conventional airstrikes and forces on the ground. And sometimes, in drone strikes, innocent people get killed, not because the Hellfire missile veers off course but because the intelligence was poor, the images were fuzzy, someone has made a mistake about who was (or wasn't) in the crosshairs. And when innocent people get killed, new terrorists--their husbands, cousins, fathers, sons, or neighbors--are often created.

Parked outside a warehouse by the Allegheny River was Uber's vision of the future: 14 Ford Fusions, each mounted with conspicuous cameras, antennae and sensors. A lumpy lidar unit, which uses light to map its surroundings, spun atop each car's roof like a high-tech propeller hat. But I was about to get into a car that drives itself. Style was the least of my worries. This fleet of geekmobiles, clearly marked with Uber's logo, will be deployed Wednesday as part of a test that will let Pittsburgh customers hail a self-driving car.

Robots will be used to suppress attempts by the masses to rise up, a CEO who works with artificial intelligence has warned. Brad Wardell, founder of software company Stardock, said that automation will replace more and more jobs; but the elite few left with all the wealth will be able to crush any attempts to rebel with an array of security machines. "My day job is to evaluate technology and try to predict where it's going to go next," Wardell said in a blog post published Monday. "And with that, I am telling you the automation revolution isn't happening soon. Initiatives aimed at protecting workers made obsolete – like the universal basic income – are not a given, especially if those in charge of the machines don't have any incentive to worry about the working class. With adequate protection for accumulated wealth, Wardell believes the societal shift brought about by automation could be catastrophic. "What we do as a civilization, will define my generation," Wardell said. "I pray we figure it out.

Modern radar and communications systems can subtly and quickly change their character, making them harder for U.S. aircraft and other platforms to jam or spoof. That reality is prompting DARPA to lead industry teams to apply artificial intelligence to electronic warfare. The U.S. military developed its current approach to EW in the 1960s and 70s when it studied enemy systems to identify their vulnerabilities. It then came up with countermeasures to disrupt them, which went into a sort of tactical EW "playbook." "Cognitive EW is being developed to deal with the unexpected."

Cyber criminals are quite adept at stealing data, money and privacy. No network is off limits as they exploit any point of weakness they find in businesses, homes, institutions, automobiles, utility networks and other portals. And their tactics evolve faster than security professionals can manage them. The question is, can we leverage technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and cognitive computing to win the war against cyber criminals? Cybersecurity experts shared their thoughts on this topic.

In this episode of Newsbud's Roundtable Professor Abigail Hall Blanco provides a deeper look into the driving factors behind official drone policy, who it benefits and why. We are also joined by Erik Moshe, a Newsbud Analyst & Author. We cover Erik's recent series'The New Drone Order, Part IV- Reapernomics: An Economic Way of Thinking About Drones' Follow Newsbud on Twitter http://bit.ly/29d5XFD