It's been rumoured for months, but on Friday, Electronic Arts confirmed that the next title in its Battlefield series of military shooters will be set during the first world war. While the rival Call of Duty titles have been marching ever further into the future, Battlefield 1 is an attempt to re-engage with fans of the genre, who fell for titles like Battlefield 1942, Medal of Honor and the original Call of Duty games with their depiction of historically authentic scenarios. "This was the dawn of all-out war, the switch from the old world to the new world," says creative director Lars Gustavsson. "Battlefield has always been about the land, sea and air war experience. This was something we had to do." According to Gustavsson, this project has been bubbling under for several years, though when Battlefield 4 came to a close, it gave the team the opportunity to start on something new.

Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae -- or dark patches -- on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts. Several hundred camped outside the London store in Covent Garden. The 6s will have new features like a vastly improved camera and a pressure-sensitive "3D Touch" display

Moon caves could provide shelter for astronauts exploring Earth's nearest neighbor, researchers say. A new analysis of data gathered by NASA's twin Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft, which mapped the moon's gravitational field in unprecedented detail, turned up a number of new candidates for lava tubes -- cave-like structures that could be large enough to house supplies and astronauts. Space is a harsh environment. Radiation from the sun, galactic cosmic rays and constantly falling micrometeorites all present a threat to human explorers. "A lava tube provides a safe haven from all these hazardous environmental conditions," study team member Rohan Sood, a graduate student at Purdue University in Indiana, told Space.com.

Despite their huge potential, artificial intelligence and biometrics still very much need human input for accurate identification, according to the director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Speaking at an Atlantic Council event, Arati Prabhakar said that while the best facial recognition systems out there are statistically better than most humans at image identification, that when they're wrong, "they are wrong in ways that no human would ever be wrong". "I think this is a critically important caution about where and how we will use this generation of artificial intelligence," she said, reported FedScoop. "You want to embrace the power of these new technologies but be completely clear-eyed about what their limitations are so that they don't mislead us," Prabhakar said. That's a stance humans must take with technology writ large, she said, explaining her hesitance to take for granted what many of her friends in Silicon Valley often assume -- that more data is always a good thing.

The White House will host a series of public meetings to help figure out the benefits and risks of recent and anticipated breakthroughs in artificial intelligence -- and will study how it could help government services. Four workshops will be held across the country in the next two months, co-hosted by local universities and non-profits, examining the various ways AI is already intruding into public life, according to the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy. The announcement comes in the wake of comments from the government's top blue-sky researcher on the limits of AI -- and of recent public commentary about the apocalyptic threat of learning machines. "Like any transformative technology, artificial intelligence carries some risk and presents complex policy challenges along several dimensions, from jobs and the economy to safety and regulatory questions," writes U.S. Deputy CTO Ed Felten in a blog post. "There are tremendous opportunities and an array of considerations across the Federal Government in privacy, security, regulation, law, and research and development to be taken into account when effectively integrating this technology into both government and private-sector activities."

Drones seem to be a hot topic for debate at the moment in terms of their morality. Drones currently are controlled from control rooms at a distance, there is no pilot within the vehicle allowing no harm to come to him. However, what happens when there isn't even a man or woman holding the trigger? This is where modern warfare seems to be progressing, and though its a controversial topic I don't see any halt of advancements in the area coming any time soon. A computer's'mind' is far from similar to ours.

On a bitter, soul-shivering, damp, biting gray February day in Cleveland--that is to say, on a February day in Cleveland--a handless man is handling a nonexistent ball. Igor Spetic lost his right hand when his forearm was pulped in an industrial accident six years ago and had to be amputated. In an operation four years ago, a team of surgeons implanted a set of small translucent "interfaces" into the neural circuits of his upper arm. This afternoon, in a basement lab at a Veterans Administration hospital, the wires are hooked up directly to a prosthetic hand--plastic, flesh-colored, five-fingered, and articulated--that is affixed to what remains of his arm. The hand has more than a dozen pressure sensors within it, and their signals can be transformed by a computer into electric waves like those natural to the nervous system. Since, from the brain's point of view, his hand is still there, it needs only to be recalled to life. With the "stimulation" turned on--the electronic feed coursing from the sensors--Spetic feels nineteen distinct sensations in his artificial hand. Above all, he can feel pressure as he would with a living hand. "We don't appreciate how much of our behavior is governed by our intense sensitivity to pressure," Dustin Tyler, the fresh-faced principal investigator on the Cleveland project, says, observing Spetic closely. "We think of hot and cold, or of textures, silk and cotton. But some of the most important sensing we do with our fingers is to register incredibly minute differences in pressure, of the kinds that are necessary to perform tasks, which we grasp in a microsecond from the feel of the outer shell of the thing. We know instantly, just by touching, whether to gently squeeze the toothpaste or crush the can." With the new prosthesis, Spetic can sense the surface of a cherry in a way that allows him to stem it effortlessly and precisely, guided by what he feels, rather than by what he sees. Prosthetic hands like Spetic's tend to be super-strong, capable of forty pounds of pressure, so the risk of crushing an egg is real. The stimulation sensors make delicate tasks easy. Spetic comes into the lab every other week; the rest of the time he is busy pursuing a degree in engineering, which he has taken up while on disability.

Space missions can be dangerous for humans. Risks include ship malfunctions and space radiation that can cause cancer. Plus, spending months up in space can be psychologically taxing for astronauts and costly for NASA. In the distant future, NASA may instead send up something like Valkyrie, a 6-foot, 300-pound humanoid that can help astronauts perform tasks that are too dangerous. Designed by engineers at the NASA Johnson Space Center, the robot prototype can walk, climb, balance on one foot, and navigate a room.

It's no secret that Google has broad ambitions in healthcare. But a document obtained by New Scientist reveals that the tech giant's collaboration with the UK's National Health Service goes far beyond what has been publicly announced. The document – a data-sharing agreement between Google-owned artificial intelligence company DeepMind and the Royal Free NHS Trust – gives the clearest picture yet of what the company is doing and what sensitive data it now has access to. The agreement gives DeepMind access to a wide range of healthcare data on the 1.6 million patients who pass through three London hospitals run by the Royal Free NHS Trust – Barnet, Chase Farm and the Royal Free – each year. This will include information about people who are HIV-positive, for instance, as well as details of drug overdoses and abortions.

When government research and development is outpaced by private-sector investment, products with potential military applications are likely to enter the global market more quickly. That was one of the takeaways from a recent talk by Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work on the Pentagon's new strategy, called the Third Offset, to double down the U.S. military's technological edge in part by investing in human-technology teaming for war fighting. "R&D is going down in the public sector, but up in the private sector," Work said on Monday during a conference sponsored by The Atlantic Council. "Most things that have to do with AI [artificial intelligence] and autonomy are happening in the private sector. And so all competitors are going to have access to it, it's going to be a world of fast-followers. You're going to have an instance where you're not going to have a lasting advantage."