NASA needs help finding space objects, so the government agency teamed up with astronomy site Zooniverse for a new project that will recruit the public to help aid in the search for hidden planets and other solar system objects beyond Neptune. The NASA-funded project, named Backyard Worlds: Find Planet 9, launched on Zooniverse Wednesday. Participants in the project will search through data collected by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and separate actual celestial objects like brown dwarfs and low-mass stars from image artifacts that can sometimes appear to be real objects, referred to as false positive. WISE has pumped out hundreds of thousands of images but the computer system was unable to determine actual space object from image errors. "Spiky images of stars, especially variable stars, are everywhere. Worse, are the optical ghosts, blurry blobs of light that have been scattered around inside WISE's instruments. These can hop back and forth, or even change color. These artifacts can easily fool our image processing software," Zooniverse said in a statement.

Fingerspitzengefühl is a German word used to describe an ability to maintain attention to detail in an ever-changing operational and tactical environment by maintaining real-time situational awareness. The term is synonymous with the English expression of "keeping one's finger on the pulse." The problem with traditional fingerspitzengefühl, in addition to pronouncing it, is it is hard to scale. Today, however, in a world of sensors, GPS and mobile devices, having real-time situational awareness is far easier than ever before. In fact, today the challenge is not how to do it (answer: sensors), but what to do with all the information.

The European Parliament today called for EU-wide liability laws to cover robotics and artificial intelligence. MEPs also want researchers to adopt ethical standards that "respect human dignity". In a resolution today MEPs noted that several countries are planning robotics regulations and that "the EU needs to take the lead on setting these standards, so as not to be forced to follow those set by third countries". According to a European Parliamentary press release, MEPs said draft legislation was "urgently needed" to clarify liability in accidents involving self-driving cars. Although manufacturers including Volvo, Google, and Mercedes say they will accept full liability if their autonomous vehicles cause a collision, this is not currently a legal requirement.

Evoking thoughts of Gattaca, the 1997 film in which genetic engineering is used to make new and supposedly improved people, an eagerly anticipated report out Tuesday stopped short of recommending a ban on tweaking the genes of human eggs, sperm or embryos. The report, from the influential National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), concluded that clinical trials of genome "editing" of the human germline--cells that can be passed from one generation to the next--could one day be permitted, but only for serious inherited conditions and under stringent oversight. "Genome editing has great promise for preventing, ameliorating or eliminating many human diseases and conditions," the report concluded. "Along with this promise comes the need for ethically responsible research and clinical use." While germline genome editing to eliminate inherited diseases might seem like a worthy goal, critics say it could lead to attempts to make healthy babies even healthier, not to mention smarter, more athletic and more attractive.

What supercomputers will look like in the future, post-Moore's Law, is still a bit hazy. As exascale computing comes into focus over the next several years, system vendors, universities and government agencies are all trying to get a gauge on what will come after that. Moore's Law, which has driven the development of computing systems for more than five decades, is coming to an end as the challenge of making smaller chips loaded with more and more features is becoming increasingly difficult to do. While the rise of accelerators, like GPUs, FPGAs and customized ASICs, silicon photonics and faster interconnects will help drive performance to meet many of the demands of such emerging applications as artificial intelligence and machine learning, data analytics, autonomous vehicles and the Internet of Things, down the road new computing paradigms will have to be developed to address future workload challenges. Quantum computing is among the possibilities being developed as a possible solution as vendors look to map out their pathways into the future.

Eric Schmidt on Wednesday shared some of his top concerns regarding the future of the internet -- namely, preserving its interconnectedness and ensuring that artificial intelligence isn't used to militarize it. "Machine learning capabilities... need to be done in the open and not in military research labs," the Alphabet executive chairman said on stage at the RSA cybersecurity conference in San Francisco. Had the internet developed within the confines of military research labs, "We'd spend all day worrying if they were in our networks, the internet would begin being shut down," he said. "One of the questions the industry should be asking is can we come up with a way where countries can agree not to use machine learning technologies in a way that militarizes the internet." He noted that at the end of the Obama administration, President Obama and President Xi of China inked a deal to bring down the number of cyberattacks against each other.

In April 2016, Uber announced the acquisition of Otto, a San Francisco-based startup that has developed a kit that can turn any big rig into a self-driving truck. The Otto technology enables complete autonomy on highways: trucks can navigate, stay in their lane, and slow or stop in response to traffic conditions completely without human intervention. Otto's equipment currently costs about $30,000, but that is certain to fall significantly in the coming years. Otto is by no means alone. Massive automated vehicles are already commonly used to move materials for the Australian mining industry.

Reddit has tweaked its front page to show more different posts – and exclude those from political forums. New users to the site and those who aren't logged in will be treated to a range of different posts than before, after the site made a tweak to what it will show. The change appears to be a response to the site's growing popularity – and fears that same popularity might be warping the kind of things that get shared and seen on the internet. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar. Japan's On-Art Corp's CEO Kazuya Kanemaru poses with his company's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot'TRX03' and other robots during a demonstration in Tokyo, Japan Japan's On-Art Corp's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot'TRX03' performs during its unveiling in Tokyo, Japan Singulato Motors co-founder and CEO Shen Haiyin poses in his company's concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China A picture shows Singulato Motors' concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China Connected company president Shigeki Tomoyama addresses a press briefing as he elaborates on Toyota's "connected strategy" in Tokyo.

In this video, John Launchbury, the Director of DARPA's Information Innovation Office (I2O), attempts to demystify AI--what it can do, what it can't do, and where it is headed. Through a discussion of the "three waves of AI" and the capabilities required for AI to reach its full potential, John provides analytical context to help understand the roles AI already has played, does play now, and could play in the future.

Sounds like a self-help group for frustrated call center employees. Rather, it's a catch-all term for how companies manage customer interactions and data. It covers strategies involving everything from customer service to sales. Each incoming phone call or email may contain an overwhelming amount of data that a mere human in today's hyper-competitive, tech-intensive environment can't handle alone. Time to bring in some help with artificial intelligence.