Machines may not be known for their EQ (emotional quotient), but a new collaboration between Cogito Corp. and the U.S. Military Academy is on track to change our perceptions. The art of negotiation, which may have once been a distinctly human skill set, is being enhanced by Cogito, a company that specializes in real-time emotional intelligence solutions. Cadets at West Point will use this technology to improve their own tactics when it comes to striking a bargain and gaining crucial information. "We believe that the ability to effectively negotiate is a critical skill that will serve military personnel well in numerous situations over the course of their careers," said Col. James Ness, Ph.D. Director: Engineering Psychology Program, West Point. "Cogito's behavioral analytics technology will systematically analyze communication patterns within negotiating sessions and provide insight into the cadet's psychological state. This technology will provide an unbiased assessment of how each cadet is being perceived by the other party. It will deliver insights into how they can modify their behavior to improve negotiation outcomes."

The Rio Olympics 2016 is something everyone is looking forward to. But the Olympics have been a frontier for individuals flexing their physical muscles and achieving greatness. Well, it's time for it to move over to the Cyber Grand Challenge (CGC) is here. Individuals wanting to showcase their brain muscles in a competition could change how we defend against cyber attacks. The challenge organized by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the United States where the seven finalists will battle it out with the Artificial Intelligence system to detect flaws and scan networks for exploits.

SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral and landed it about eight minutes later. CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION, Fla. -- The rocket that SpaceX landed early Monday after launching a Dragon spacecraft packed with supplies for the International Space Station is ready to fly again, the company's chief executive said. CEO Elon Musk said after preliminary inspections were completed overnight at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket touched down at SpaceX's landing pad at the cape minutes after a 12:45 a.m. With an engine firing brightly to slow its speed, the booster dropped through the darkness to a soft landing on four legs, an event punctuated by sonic booms that rattled buildings miles away and prompted some 9-1-1 calls from startled residents.

Japanese technology company SoftBank Group Corp. is buying British ARM Holdings for 31 billion in a deal the British government hailed Monday as a vote of confidence in the country following last month's vote to leave the European Union. The recommended cash deal underlines SoftBank's desire to expand in the so-called Internet of Things, which refers to how a multitude of home devices from smart-thermostats to security cameras and domestic appliances can connect online and work in sync. ARM, which is the biggest-listed technology company in Britain, has a world-renowned reputation as an innovator in the Internet of Things -- its technology is used in most smartphones, for example. "ARM will be an excellent strategic fit within the SoftBank group as we invest to capture the very significant opportunities provided by the Internet of Things," said Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive of SoftBank. ARM centers its business on intellectual property, especially in mobile computing, rather than chip manufacturing, for which it relies on partners.

The U.S. Air Force has awarded BAE Systems' U.S. subsidiary a three-year, 9.4 million contract to help the service branch develop, integrate and demonstrate a machine learning platform. BAE Systems Inc. will explore latest machine learning advancements to support the Air Force's efforts to apply analytics to address space situational awareness challenges as well as leverage high-performance computing and reasoning visualization architectures, the Defense Department said Friday. The Air Force also seeks to increase its ability to detect and predict new complex scenarios through the project. BAE systems will perform the services in Massachusetts and Virginia and is scheduled to finish July 15, 2019. The Air Force Research Laboratory obligated 868,750 in fiscal 2016 research, development, test and evaluation funds at the time of award.

Coding will join this list in time, however, where it differs wildly from the afore mentioned examples is it is unlikely to be lovingly preserved for future generations to admire, fiddle with or better still, reactivate. Its essence will not be reified for one specific reason – it can't be touched and humans value tactility. We touch immediately, both inside and outside the womb. Today, we find ourselves at a pivotal moment in our existence and about to experience an exponential period of rapid technological growth the likes of which is quite probably beyond our comprehension and at a base level, will have serious implications for coding. We rather arrogantly think that because we have a good grasp of our own technological advancement so far, we can somehow predict the mass cultural and behavioural shift about to happen as we question our own skills in the world. Us techies hold on to the notion that we are the masters of code, and we will be forever commanding line by line, the computers to do our bidding.

Using the power of analogy, a new structure-mapping engine gives computers the ability to reason like humans and even solve moral dilemmas. Northwestern University's Ken Forbus is closing the gap between humans and machines. Using cognitive science theories, Forbus and his collaborators have developed a model that could give computers the ability to reason more like humans and even make moral decisions. Called the structure-mapping engine (SME), the new model is capable of analogical problem solving, including capturing the way humans spontaneously use analogies between situations to solve moral dilemmas. "In terms of thinking like humans, analogies are where it's at," said Forbus, Walter P. Murphy Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering.

Peering deeper and deeper into space will require telescopes with huge mirrors, but building, testing, and transporting those super-scopes will be a daunting challenge, a conference of future space leaders was told Thursday. Alberto Conti, a Northrop Grumman manager, said the James Webb Space Telescope, currently undergoing tests, has a mirror that's about 21 feet in diameter. Even at that size, Conti said it is difficult to find a facility large enough to test the mirror and a spacecraft that can transport it to the orbiting International Space Station. His solution, echoed by Jay Falker of NASA, is to use robots to begin building and testing the telescopes – in space, where there's plenty of elbow room. Robots in space were just one of the "wicked cool technologies" introduced at the Future Space Leaders conference on Capitol Hill last week.

DARPA are starting a competition to help automate defence and see how artificial intelligence can combat cyber-threats. The latest DARPA Grand Challenge is looking to artificial intelligence to seek out and destroy vulnerabilities in software. The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Cyber Grand Challenge will see seven teams battle it out to see if machine learning can do better in finding and fixing exploits better than humans. The agency said on its competition website that identifying threats and remediating them can take over a year from first detection to the deployment of a solution, by which time critical systems may have already been breached. "This slow reaction cycle has created a permanent offensive advantage," reads the blurb.

Machine learning is set to go mainstream in the next two years, according to a new survey by software and application development vendor SoftServe Inc. The new report, based on an April poll of 300 U.S. and U.K.-based medium and large enterprises, shows that 62 percent of firms expect to roll out machine learning-based tolls for business analytics within the next two years. The majority of those companies said the most promising opportunity for machine learning lays in real-time data analysis. According to SoftServe, the survey is evidence that machine learning is moving past the "hype cycle", with enterprises looking to automate analytics processes in areas like business intelligence and cyber security. In the latter area, further evidence of machine learning's progress comes from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is sponsoring an "all-machine" hackathon at the DEF CON hacking conference in Las Vegas next month.