Images have emerged of a strange drone shaped like a real bird that was found crashed in Somalia, leading to claims it was being used to spy on targets. The metal bird, which is shaped to mimic a large bird of prey with'feathered' wings, is reported to have been recovered in an area of the capital, Mogadishu. According to local reports, the unmanned vehicle, which has two propellers attached to its wings, may be a surveillance craft used by the Somali intelligence agency, NISA. The drone is reported to have crashed in Mogadishu, Somalia earlier this week. Low quality images show it to resemble a large bird of prey.

Today, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced that it will invest more than 400 million over the next seven years to support fundamental wireless research and to develop platforms for advanced wireless research in support of the White House's Advanced Wireless Research Initiative. These investments will support the research community in experimenting with and testing novel technologies, applications and services capable of making wireless communication faster, smarter, more responsive and more robust. In the last decade, wireless usage across the U.S. has expanded dramatically, with nearly 350 million smartphones, connected tablets and wearable devices in use -- more than double the number from a decade ago -- carrying more than 100,000 times the traffic they supported in 2008. Experts anticipate as many as 200 billion connected devices globally by 2020. The need for ultra-high-speed, high-bandwidth and low-latency (rapid-response) wireless connectivity will only increase.

At least, that's what Google and so many business and tech journalists said when the search giant first faced antitrust complaints in Europe six years ago. And indeed, Microsoft had filed one of those complaints. It was also the money-weilding mastermind behind the Initiative for a Competitive Online Marketplace, a group that lobbied the European Union and helped others bring complaints against arch-rival Google. But all these years later, Microsoft has removed itself from the fight, reaching an agreement with Google that says both companies will drop all regulatory complaints against each other. And yet, Google's antitrust problems are only getting worse. Yesterday, the European Union announced a new round of antitrust charges against Google, this time pointing the finger at the company's advertising service, some of the most important tech in Google's moneymaking arsenal.

Singapore has announced a new partnership with Microsoft to create a digital government services platform that will shift towards conversational computing. Announcing the initiative at the World Cities Summit in the city-state on 12 July, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister-In-Charge of the Smart Nation Initiative, said the new medium, conceptually referred to as "Conversations as a Platform" will use chatbots -- intelligent software programmes that simulate human behaviour. "I believe there are more intuitive ways for government services to be delivered to our citizens," Dr Balakrishnan said. The chatbots, which combine human language, artificial intelligence and machine learning, are envisioned to make public and business transactions simpler, more efficient, and more consistent. "Everybody expects responsive and personalised interactions in real time. The recent quantum improvement of natural language processing means that'conversations' will be the new medium," he said.

Since presidential campaigns have incorporated social media into their strategic messaging, it has become more challenging for journalists to cover the election in depth, because of the large amount of data generated by candidates and the public every day. Journalists tend to focus on single quotes or tweets rather than providing analysis and reporting on the aggregate of messages on social media. But single tweets may not give people a full appreciation for the style of campaigning or the substance of the rest of the tweets. In order to get a sense of what the candidates and public are actually saying and how candidates communicate over time, we have taken a computational approach to predict categories of candidate-produced tweets and posts (as described in a blog post introducing the Illuminating 2016 project). We have been working on a system that automatically classifies each message into a category based on what the message is trying to do: urge people to act, change their opinions through persuasion, inform them about some activity or event, honoring or mourning people or holidays, or on Twitter having a conversation with members of the public.

The Air Force by the end of 2016 will have a beta version of a website that serves as an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven contracting officer, according to a key official.Air Force Assistant Secretary for Acquisitions Camron Gorguinpour said Friday the project,… You must be logged in as a subscriber to view this page. Please log in below to access the content. If you are already a Defense Daily subscriber or registered user, login here.

The Emmy nominations are always "political," but they're rarely political. While many non-artistic factors may affect the anointing of a chosen handful with the word "best," the nominations, at least as a group, rarely reflect the sociopolitical concerns of the American citizenry. In the midst of a presidential race bristling with divisive issues and distrust, the Television Academy singled out a large number of series that took on that distrust and those issues in ways dramatic, comedic and deeply human. Political TV came in two distinct forms this year. Robot," "Veep"--reflect a near-hopeless cynicism toward actual government. Other nominated series took on issues rather than governance --"black-ish," "The People v. O.J. Simpson," "American Crime"-- and directly addressed complicated themes, especially those of race, in a way that is, if not always hopeful, at least productive. Likewise, series anchored by the once-rare strong female lead and her experience filled virtually every ...

The Emmy nominations are always "political," but they're rarely political. While many non-artistic factors may affect the anointing of a chosen handful with the word "best," the nominations, at least as a group, rarely reflect the sociopolitical concerns of the American citizenry. In the midst of a presidential race bristling with divisive issues and distrust, the Television Ccademy singled out a large number of series that took on that distrust and those issues in ways dramatic, comedic and deeply human. Political TV came in two distinct forms this year. Robot," "Veep"--reflect a near-hopeless cynicism toward actual government. Other nominated series took on issues rather than governance --"black-ish," "The People v. O.J. Simpson," "American Crime"-- and directly addressed complicated themes, especially those of race, in a way that is, if not always hopeful, at least productive. Likewise, series anchored by the once-rare strong female lead and her experience filled virtually every ...

Deploying the most innovative technologies alone will not ensure Singapore can succeed in its smart nation ambition, as this will require a population that is willing to embrace change in the way it interacts with its government. Since the launch of its smart nation initiative in 2014, the Singapore government has been rolling out various pilots and programmes to put in place the supporting infrastructure and systems. These centred around key objectives, among others, to enable safer and greener urban living, provide more transport options, facilitate better healthcare, and deliver more responsive public services and citizen engagement. Several initiatives had focused on a range of technologies including data analytics, Internet of Things (IoT), and cloud computing. Microsoft earlier this week announced it was working with the Singapore government to explore the use of machine learning and chatbots to deliver more interactive online citizen services.

A bird-shaped robot crashed in Mogadishu earlier this week. It was covered in dirt and grime, with signs of heavy wear, shoddy construction, or both. The bird-bodied drone looked tired, if it's possible for a machine to look tired. Within hours, observers on Twitter noted that the crashed bird-drone looked a lot like a prototype floated by the U.S. Air Force Research Lab in 2010, though the existence of a U.S. prototype doesn't mean all future designs are derived from it. Local reports associate this drone, which came down on May 1st, with Somalia's National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA).