The light bulb flickers inside the old elevator that creaks as it takes you to the eighth floor of the 1960s-era building, tucked away in a corner of Mile End that was Montreal's garment industry a half century ago. Walk down the dank corridor and into the office of Landr's. The contrast is striking: White, shiny and minimalist, the space embodies the new economy. Its 70 employees are young, educated and casually dressed. The juxtaposition of the office space housing the four-year-old audio technology firm inside the aging building is an easy metaphor for how the Quebec government hopes to inject new life into its economy by kick-starting the artificial intelligence (AI) industry.

Our announcement this week that we'll invest $5 million in the newly formed Vector Institute is the latest example of our work with Canada's thriving artificial intelligence community. When the Toronto-based AI research organization approached us for help, we were quick to join in, along with Google and some of Canada's top corporations. We've worked for years to drive technology that supports AI. And Vector's other sponsors in areas like finance, healthcare and automotive are prime candidates for implementing GPU deep learning to create smarter, more efficient products for their large customer base. It's also a great opportunity for us to expand our activities in the key Canadian market. We opened our first Canadian office in Toronto in 2015, and we're turning it into a hub for top AI talent.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is racing fast with booming start-ups, in terms of popularity and wide acceptability for its immense possibilities to boost productivity and propel economic growth. Every industry, be it e-commerce or education or fashion, is trying to introduce AI in every way conceivable to get the desired results. Prakash Mallya, Managing Director, Intel South Asia, shared his insight into Artificial Intelligence and talked about India's need for the same, on the sidelines of an event to mark Intel AI Day. "We conceptualized the AI Day a few months ago to bring together different industries, even communities and ecosystems to talk about Artificial Intelligence. Intel's point of view is that other than this one obvious reason, the event can also serve as an opportunity to seek and receive feedback on the same, hold discussions with ecosystems on how we can work jointly to accelerate the implementation or usage of AI and transform lives of every individual in the country," he said.

The Commander of the US Air Force's Air Mobility Command wants to develop "Star Trek" electronic cloaking technologies to protect military aircraft. General Carlton Everhart has called for Silicon Valley technology companies, specialists at the Pentagon's new innovation office and the wider defense industry to build something capable of altering a plane's radar image, to either hide it completely or trick the system into thinking it's in an entirely different location. One of Air Mobility Command's responsibilities is refuelling US armed forces aircraft in mid-air. General Everhart says he'd like to see both brand new and bulkier, first-generation Air Mobility Command aircraft receive the treatment, which he believes will have the dual-benefit of also keeping fighter jets hidden from enemies. 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.

Scientists might soon take the most important portrait in the history of the universe: a picture of the centre of our galaxy. Observatories all around the world are being linked up and turned towards one specific part of the universe, getting an image of a black hole that is thought to be swirling there. That work has just begun and will run into next week, and might shed light on the darkest and most mysterious part of physics. From the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Flight Engineer Terry W. Virts took this photograph of the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Gulf Coast at sunset This image of an area on the surface of Mars, approximately 1.5 by 3 kilometers in size, shows frosted gullies on a south-facing slope within a crater. The image was taken by Nasa's HiRISE camera, which is mounted on its Mars Reconaissance Orbiter The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, Nov. 24, 2014, carrying three new astronauts to the International Space Station. It also took caviar, ready for the satellite's inhabitants to celebrate the holidays X-rays stream off the sun in this image showing observations from by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, overlaid on a picture taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) This near-infrared color image shows a specular reflection, or sunglint, off of a hydrocarbon lake named Kivu Lacus on Saturn's moon Titan Although Mimas and Pandora, shown here, both orbit Saturn, they are very different moons.

Amazon has agreed to refund $70 million worth of in-app purchases made by children without their parents' knowledge or authorisation. The company was taken to court by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) back in 2014 for failing to clearly inform parents that apps that are free to download from its app store can still allow in-app purchases. A US federal judge ruled in the FTC's favour, and Amazon appealed the decision last year. The firm was found to have failed to provide enough protective measures to prevent Amazon device users from unwittingly spending money. 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.

In Miami Beach, they call it "sunny-day flooding." You'll be hanging out downtown under clear blue skies--only to see, whoa, the streets slowly filling with water. Miami Beach, Florida, is a coastal city built on porous limestone, so as climate change melts polar ice into the oceans, water is literally pushed up out of the ground. "It's an eerie, scary, unnerving feeling, like something out of a sci-fi movie," says Philip Levine, mayor of the city of 90,000. On days when Miami Beach actually gets a coastal storm, it can see a 2-foot flood.

The present wave of automation, driven by artificial intelligence (AI) – the development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence – is creating a gap between current legislation and new laws necessary for an emerging workplace reality, states a report published today by the International Bar Association Global Employment Institute (IBA GEI). Gerlind Wisskirchen, IBA GEI Vice Chair for Multinationals and coordinator of the report, commented: 'Certainly, technological revolution is not new, but in past times it has been gradual. What is new about the present revolution is the alacrity with which change is occurring, and the broadness of impact being brought about by AI and robotics. Jobs at all levels in society presently undertaken by humans are at risk of being reassigned to robots or AI, and the legislation once in place to protect the rights of human workers may be no longer fit for purpose, in some cases.' She added:'The AI phenomenon is on an exponential curve, while legislation is doing its best on an incremental basis.

Former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers recently took exception to current US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin's views on artificial intelligence (AI) and related topics. The difference between the two seems to be, more than anything else, a matter of priorities and emphasis. Mnuchin takes a narrow approach. He thinks that the problem of particular technologies called "artificial intelligence taking over American jobs" lies "far in the future." And he seems to question the high stock-market valuations for "unicorns" – companies valued at or above US$1 billion that have no record of producing revenues that would justify their supposed worth and no clear plan to do so.

Will there be a time in the not-so-distant future when people won't need to learn a second language -- instead relying on machine translation powered by artificial intelligence to interpret real-time conversations? This is a key question, and a fear, for many businesses in the language industry. But panelists at a recent symposium on how the "internet of things" will affect media outlets and education, co-hosted by English language school chain Aeon Corp. and The Japan Times, agreed that AI and other technologies will never be able to completely replace humans. For those who want to study a second language, the goal is not simply to become fluent in the language, said Aeon President Yoshikazu Miyake. "It's to become confident enough to enjoy communication in a foreign language," Miyake said.