Get used to hearing a lot more about artificial intelligence. Even if you discount the utopian and dystopian hyperbole, the 21st century will broadly be defined not just by advancements in artificial intelligence, robotics, computing and cognitive neuroscience, but how we manage them. For some, the question of whether or not the human race will live to see a 22nd century turns upon this latter consideration. Last month, in a 17-2 vote, the parliament's legal affairs committee voted to begin drafting a set of regulations to govern the development and use of artificial intelligence and robotics While forecasting the imminence of an AI-centric future remains a matter of intense debate, we will need to come to terms with it. For now, there are many more questions than answers.

On December 15, 1791, when the U.S. government passed the first amendment and guaranteed freedom of speech, legislators were not thinking about Alexa, Siri, Cortana, or Google Assistant. People enjoy rights such as free speech in the United State and other countries around the world, and corporations are legally considered people for many purposes. As the field of artificial intelligence continues to grow and engineers pair it with natural language processing, we are increasingly seeing a voice-first future computer interface driven by intelligent assistants. And that matters, because where AI is answering, AI had to be listening. And when AI listens, sometimes it hears sensitive material.

Innovation is exploding into new territories...daily. Artificial intelligence is becoming the crux of sales strategies, facial recognition technology promises to create a seamless digital experience for brick and mortar stores, and self-driving cars will soon be carting us around as we read the news about what's next. And with all that innovation comes the marketing that goes with it. When you are creating anything new, the time will come when you have to find the best way to sell it to the masses. So you get your marketing team in there to bounce around ideas and find the best way to persuade the audience to buy the product.

After a delayed launch and one aborted delivery attempt, SpaceX's caution paid off Thursday when its Dragon capsule stuffed full of food, equipment, and experiments successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS). Now on its 10th re-supply mission, the private space company has become an essential part of the supply lines supporting an increasingly intricate space operation. After a GPS error scuttled its first docking attempt Wednesday, the Dragon capsule smoothly slipped close enough to the ISS for the space station's robotic arm to snag the craft early Thursday morning, along with the 5,500 pounds of goodies on board. "Looks like we've got a great capture," radioed space station commander Shane Kimbrough. In addition to a much needed food refresh, the capsule also contains more than 250 science experiments.

Get used to hearing a lot more about artificial intelligence. Even if you discount the utopian and dystopian hyperbole, the 21st century will broadly be defined not just by advancements in artificial intelligence, robotics, computing and cognitive neuroscience, but how we manage them. For some, the question of whether or not the human race will live to see a 22nd century turns upon this latter consideration. While forecasting the imminence of an AI-centric future remains a matter of intense debate, we will need to come to terms with it. For now, there are many more questions than answers. It is clear, however, that the European Parliament is making inroads towards taking an AI-centric future seriously.

With the use of data-centric business models and big data services on the rise, it is becoming increasingly harder to detect threats and data breaches. Cybersecurity experts are finding themselves hard pressed to keep tabs on the reams of data that are being generated by their companies and organizations. Attackers on the other hand are finding it easier to hide their malicious packets in the flood of data that is being exchanged over corporate networks. A solution to this dilemma might be found in the use of machine learning, the hot trend that is taking the world by storm and is transforming numerous industries in ways that were previously inconceivable. Machine learning can complement and amplify human efforts and help detect and block cyberattacks faster and more efficiently than before.

An important shipment has finally arrived at the International Space Station, after a series of errors, delays and challenges. The SpaceX capsule smoothly arrived at the station the second time around as astronauts grabbed hold of the cargo ship, as the two of them floated somewhere over Australia. The capsule had been scheduled to arrive on Wednesday. But a GPS error stopped it from getting too close and the move had to be aborted. 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.

Machine learning is becoming an increasingly important artificial intelligence approach to building autonomous and robotic systems. One of the key challenges with machine learning is the need for many samples, the amount of data needed to learn useful behaviors is high. In addition, the robotic system is often non-operational during the training phase. This requires debugging to occur in real-world experiments with an unpredictable robot. Microsoft's Aerial Informatics and Robotics platform has a solution for these two problems: It will provide realistic simulation tools for designers and developers to generate the training data needed and will also leverage recent innovations in physics to create accurate, real-world simulations.

For many it is no more than the first port of call when a niggling question raises its head. Found on its pages are answers to mysteries from the fate of male anglerfish, the joys of dorodango, and the improbable death of Aeschylus. But beneath the surface of Wikipedia lies a murky world of enduring conflict. A new study from computer scientists has found that the online encyclopedia is a battleground where silent wars have raged for years. Since Wikipedia launched in 2001, its millions of articles have been ranged over by software robots, or simply "bots", that are built to mend errors, add links to other pages, and perform other basic housekeeping tasks.

In a bid to ensure that self-driving cars are safe when they hit the roads, the UK government has put together a new proposal. The proposal states that insurance cover for self-driving cars must offer protection for both times when the driver is in control, and when the car is in autonomous mode. Ministers hope that if the bill is passed, it will put the UK at the forefront of the modern transport revolution. In a bid to ensure that self-driving cars are safe when they hit the road, the UK government has put together a new proposal. The proposal states that insurance cover for self-driving cars must offer protection for both times when the driver is in control, and when the car is in autonomous mode. Insurers could still try to recover the costs from the vehicles' makers.