The NHS shares patient data with 1,500 outside organisations including Google and doesn't ask first because it is'not practical', it was revealed today. Private firms including computer giants and consultancy agencies are among those who are being supplied with the confidential records. Only this week the Royal Free NHS Trust in London revealed that it had passed on medical files of up to 1.6million patients to a Google subsidiary to develop an app. This included highly personal details such as whether patients had been diagnosed with HIV, suffered from depression or had ever undergone an abortion. Under Government rules drawn up in 2013, staff do not have to obtain patients' prior consent as long as the information does not include names and is being used to improve care.

Footage of Canadian soldiers sporting Kurdish flags on their uniforms in Iraq has raised questions about Canada's military training mission in the war-torn country. Canadian military personnel are training Kurdish Peshmerga forces in northern Iraq in their fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Footage shot by Canadian news channel CTV in Iraq showed Canadian troops wearing the red, green and white flag of Kurdistan, with a yellow sun at its centre, on one sleeve of their uniforms in late April. A spokesperson for the Department of National Defence told Al Jazeera the Kurdish flag is being used to ensure troop safety. "Our members are wearing the flag of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region to enhance cohesion with partner forces and to ensure easy visual identification, which contributes to force protection," Daniel Lebouthillier said in an email.

The Federal Aviation Administration is setting up an advisory committee, led by Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, to guide it on the integration of unmanned aircraft systems in the national airspace. The formation of the committee could link to plans by the FAA to finalize much-awaited rules for the commercial operation of drones, which will likely pave the way for the widespread use of the airborne devices for deliveries and other applications by companies like Amazon.com and Google. "By late spring, we plan to finalize Part 107, our small UAS rule, which will allow for routine commercial drone operations," FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said in a speech at a drone event on Wednesday. Huerta had said in January that the the rules would be finalized at the end of spring, but there has been skepticism as the process has been plagued by delays, including missing a September deadline mandated by the U.S. Congress. Members of the new drone advisory committee will include representatives from a variety of organizations with interests in drones, including manufacturers and operators, application service providers, pilots, the FAA, NASA, representatives of manned aviation and the Department of Defense.

A Facebook logo seen through the windows of the NASDAQ stock exchange in 2012. SAN FRANCISCO -- A San Francisco federal judge rejected Facebook's request to toss a lawsuit alleging its photo-tagging feature that uses facial recognition technology invades users' privacy. U.S. District Judge James Donato allowed the case to move forward against Facebook under an Illinois law that bans collecting and storing biometric data without explicit consent. "The Court accepts as true plaintiffs' allegations that Facebook's face recognition technology involves a scan of face geometry that was done without plaintiffs' consent," Donato wrote in Thursday's ruling. Facebook launched the photo-tagging tool in 2010 which automatically matches names to faces in photos uploaded to the social network.

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

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

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

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

THERE is an apocryphal story in technology circles: Google and Facebook could do things with our data that would make our heads spin, but they don't because it would freak everyone out. Apocryphal it may be, but data companies do not have to do much to freak us out. Some people will be extremely unnerved by our revelation that Google's subsidiary DeepMind has access to healthcare data from three UK National Health Service hospitals (see "Revealed: Google AI has access to huge haul of NHS patient data"). People who use the hospitals now know that DeepMind has intimate – albeit anonymised – details of their medical history, including HIV status, past drug overdoses and abortions. It doesn't help that DeepMind is very unwilling to talk about what it wants to do with this data.

The Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot (STAR) can autonomously perform 60 percent of bowel anastomosis on pig intestines. Robots are a growing presence in operating rooms throughout the U.S. as surgeons embrace the technology to help them remove damaged organs or cancerous tissue. These systems have improved greatly in recent years but still need hands-on surgeons to guide their instruments and make critical decisions. Turning a robot loose on its own to cut and sew delicate tissue inside a human body would be a massively complex undertaking requiring advanced imaging, sensor and artificial intelligence technologies--not to mention a lot more acceptance from the medical community and federal regulators. But those hurdles have not stopped scientists at Children's National Medical Center's (CNMC) Sheikh Zayed Institute from developing a robotic system that has successfully sutured and reconnected portions of pig intestine in a living animal with little or no human intervention, according to a report in the May 4 Science Translational Medicine. Soft tissue surgeries like this one, which is called intestinal anastomosis, are especially challenging for robotic systems because the tissue changes shape and moves around during the procedures.