Autonomous drones are important for ocean research, but today s drones don t make decisions on the fly, said Steve Chien, one of the research team s members. Chien leads the Artificial Intelligence Group at NASA s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. In order to study unpredictable ocean phenomena, we need to develop submersibles that can navigate and make decisions on their own, and in real-time. Doing so would help us understand our own oceans -- and maybe those on other planets...

The concept of artificial intelligence (AI) has been tossed around in books, movies, and media for decades -- from HAL 9000 wreaking havoc (2001: A Space Odyssey) to Marvin the Paranoid Android sadly going about its existence (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). We've been trained to expect AI-powered devices to have fully developed personalities who also can either fly or at least fly spaceships. So some people may be disappointed to hear from tech companies and the media about how we're entering the age of AI -- despite not seeing a single adorable robot zooming around. Truth is, we are at the very beginning of the AI revolution, but this technology has the potential to change the way we live and work. Even the Obama administration drafted a report that outlines the future impact of AI developments.

As we kick off a new year, I wanted to take a quick look back to offer some thoughts on the top ten technology books from 2016. Kelly was a founding editor of Wired magazine, and in this book, he offers an optimistic view into what the future of technology holds. His ability to see and interpret the future, as well as connect the dots to the past makes for an especially enlightening read. Alec Ross is a former Senior Adviser for Innovation to the Secretary of State, a post that took him to 41 countries. He draws on that experience to predict which industries will emerge and grow more than others, offering genomics, cybersecurity, robotics, and blockchain (among others) as examples. Ross includes anecdotes and stories from government officials and entrepreneurs alike.

"War never changes," intones Ron Perlman at the outset of one of Bethesda's war-torn futuristic Fallout roleplaying games. To wit, CNN seems to think the hacking mini-game in Fallout 4, the one with the retro terminals and Matrix-y code green-on-black code curtains, is the best way to illustrate Russian cyber-nefariousness. The shot, laid diagonally behind a banner reading "Obama orders unprecedented punishment for Russia hacking," is one the green-screens you can ply in the game, twiddling a cursor around columns of ASCII characters to highlight rare recognizable words in hopes of picking the right one to gain access. Like so much of the political rhetoric about hacking lately, it's the gamified version of Hollywood's idea of what real hackers do. So it's an amusing "not much to see here" error, an uncredited stock image fail that could just as well have been a still of Matthew Broderick clacking away on an IMSAI 8080.

Businesses are often data-rich but information-poor. Machine learning is changing that. The use of artificial intelligence to let computers learn independently through algorithms without being explicitly programmed can help companies process vast quantities of complex data to improve analytics, predictive accuracy and decision-making. Machine learning is already being used in everything from fraud detection to self-driving cars, and in sectors from marketing to government. "We are currently working on machine learning to pick up early signals of ill health. My current role is to ensure that this is implemented in line with national recording guidance which does not cover machine learning. This is currently in pilot phase in the A&E in Salford."

WASHINGTON – A nationwide collapse of the U.S. customs service computer system left thousands of passengers lined up at airports awaiting clearance to enter the country, authorities said Monday. "Customs and Border Protection has nationwide outage. Expect delays in passenger processing until the system is restored," said Fort Lauderdale's airport, a major hub for the United States and Caribbean, on Twitter. A Customs and Border Protection department spokesman told NBC News that there had been a disruption at several airports and was "taking immediate action to address the technology disruption." After a few hours of trouble, the glitch was fixed. "All airports are back on line after a temporary outage of CPB's processing systems.

Will technology at last help us to feel richer in 2017? The prevailing concern for several years now has been that despite rising GDP most people are not feeling any richer, and some people attribute the success of populist politicians to this sense of resentment. But we will hear a lot more about the clutch of technologies that potentially can transform our living standards, and accordingly give a practical response to populism by showing that things can and will get better. The core set of these technologies goes under the umbrella term Artificial Intelligence. The New York Times Magazine has just run a piece by Gideon Lewis-Kraus, under the title "The Great A.I. Awakening", which sums up what is happening.

Mosul, Iraq - As fighting raged in eastern Mosul on a recent afternoon, a black Humvee arrived at an Iraqi army command post with a collection of plastics, electronics and rotor blades lashed to its back. Soldiers leaped to unload the cargo, which comprised the remnants of the latest tool in ISIL's armoury: drones. The haul included a number of small devices of the kind favoured by filmmakers and hobbyists, costing a few hundred dollars apiece. But there were also larger, fixed-wing craft fashioned out of corrugated plastic and duct tape, apparently made by the fighters themselves. Since mid-2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group has held Mosul, after sweeping through northern Iraq in a shock offensive.

A 29-year-old Nepalese student in Tokyo has found herself stuck in limbo with her dreams derailed, and the state of Japan's language schools is to blame. A survivor of human trafficking in the past, the woman, who wished to be identified only by her last name, Puri, came to Japan in 2014 as an exchange student. Brimming with high expectations at the time, she said she was determined to acquire a master's degree in sociology, with an emphasis on a subject dear to her, women's rights. Imagine her disappointment, then, when her dream was cut short by the Japanese-language school in Tokyo where she was studying. The school taught her only the very basics of the language, lumped her in with unmotivated students who frequently fell asleep in class and -- to her shock -- informed her that a vocational school was the only educational path it could prepare her for.

India's patent laws allow for reverse-engineering of certain technologies. A prime example of this reverse-engineering is in the pharmaceutical space, where Indian pharma companies are allowed to reverse-engineer drugs, especially life-saving ones. These drugs may have been developed by pharma majors in other parts of the world--and then introduced into western markets--after India-based outsourcing firms had helped them out with clinical trials, data gathering and reporting to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or its equivalent to get these drugs passed. Indian courts have continued to allow such reverse-engineering of drugs--famously prompting Bayer AG's then CEO Martin Dekkers to say at a conference a few years ago, "We did not develop this medicine for Indians. We developed it for western patients who can afford it."