IBM Watson Health has announced a joint initiative with the US Food and Drug Administration to study the use of blockchain technology to share health data to ultimately improve public health. At first, the two-year collaboration will focus on oncology data, pulling together and exchanging data from a variety of sources including that from clinical trials, genomic data, EMRs, and from miscellaneous Internet of Things data from wearables, apps and connected devices. IBM and the FDA will look at how the technology can facilitate information exchange across a spectrum of data types, including clinical trials and real world data. For example, patient-generated data from connected devices could provide clinicians with more insights into population health, potentially offering up research opportunities and ways to leverage large quantities of data into biomedical and healthcare industries. At the core of the collaboration is blockchain technology, which allows secure data sharing between organizations more freely and has been increasingly favored among industry leaders.

An Amazon application to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) emerged Saturday. The original application, which was first revealed in a Business Insider report, requests the FCC for a five-month experimental Special Temporary Authority to operate on selected channels on some mobile bands. This is the first time that news has emerged about Amazon working on mobile technology. Could it be that the company is secretly working on an Amazon Alexa smartphone? It wouldn't be a completely outlandish notion, even if it's true.

Will skills be as vibrant as apps?

SpaceX ended a four-and-a-half month hiatus in its operations by successfully launching a Falcon 9 rocket from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Saturday. The launch, which is the first since Sept.1, delivered 10 satellites to low-Earth orbit for the communications company Iridium. The 10 satellites are the first of at least 70 that SpaceX will launch for Iridium's global satellite constellation, Iridium NEXT, over the next 14 months. In addition to clinching the launch, SpaceX also successfully landed the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket, setting it down on a drone ship named "Just Read the Instructions" off the coast of California. Landing and reusing recovered boosters is a key part of the company's ambitious space program, as it would drastically reduce the cost of launches and space travel.

Amazon has a mysterious experimental project that it wants to start testing, based on the application it sent to the FCC that Business Insider found. The e-commerce giant has requested for permission to test a wireless communication technology for five months in preparation for research scheduled next year. It kept the application pretty vague, only mentioning that it involves "prototype equipment and associated software designed to support innovative communications capabilities and functionalities." Since Amazon listed Neil Woodward as a contact for the filing, the technology could have something to do with Prime Air. Woodward was a NASA astronaut who's now the company's program manager for its delivery drone's flight tests and safety efforts.

Artificial intelligence has wide-reaching implications across all aspects of the business, and now some leaders in the field advocate for this technology to be represented in the C-suite by a chief artificial intelligence officer (CAIO). Andrew Ng, a renowned A.I. researcher and thought leader, recently made that argument in Harvard Business Review article titled "Hiring Your First Chief A.I. Officer." Summarizing his case, Ng wrote, "The benefit of a chief A.I. officer is having someone who can make sure A.I. gets applied across silos." Since every aspect of a business involves the collection and use of data for competitive advantage, a CAIO could look across an organization and assess how different business units can work together to create new competitive advantages. Matthew Buskell, head of sales and business development at Rainbird Technologies, makes a similar case about the cross-functional impact of A.I. in a post on the Rainbird blog titled "Should There be a Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer?"

MEPs have warned European countries must "seriously" consider introducing a general basic income to prepare for wide scale unemployment that could come as a result of robots taking over manual jobs. A draft report, tabled by a socialist MEP Mady Delvaux-Stehres, warns preparations must be made for what it describes as the "technological revolution" currently taking place, including provisions for the "possible effects on the labour market of robotics". The report, which passed by 17 votes to two and will be put in front of the entire European Parliament in February, urges member states to consider a general basic income in preparation for robots taking over people's jobs. It states: "In the light of the possible effects on the labour market of robotics and AI a general basic income should be seriously considered, and invites all Member States to do so." The resolution also suggests that a system of reporting on how robotics are affecting the economic results of companies should be established "for the purpose of taxation and social security contributions".

It may take several years or even decades, but hackers won't necessarily always be human. Artificial intelligence--a technology that also promises to revolutionize cybersecurity--could one day become the go-to hacking tool. Organizers of the Cyber Grand Challenge, a contest sponsored by the U.S. defense agency DARPA, gave a glimpse of the power of AI during their August event. Seven supercomputers battled each other to show that machines can indeed find and patch software vulnerabilities. Theoretically, the technology can be used to perfect any coding, ridding it of exploitable flaws.

Microsoft today further proved its commitment to artificial intelligence through the acquisition of Maluuba. Maluuba -- a Montreal-based startup that impressed during TechCrunch's 2012 San Francisco Startup Battlefield competition -- uses natural language processing and machine learning to achieve a singular goal: achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI). AGI is the unicorn, at least so far, in the artificial intelligence and machine learning segments but if (once) achieved it'll lead to machines that can perform tasks at least as well as humans. TNW Conference won best European Event 2016 for our festival vibe. See what's in store for 2017.

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