The 30 nominees for Japan's top buzzwords of 2016 were announced Thursday by the Jiyukokuminsha publishing house, covering a variety of new popular terms ranging from the "Shin Godzilla" film to the "Zika fever." Comedian Pikotaro was just in time to make the list with his "PPAP," music video going viral on social media since September. The finalists for the 2016 U-Can Shingo Ryukogo Taisho (2016 U-Can New Words and Buzzwords Awards) included many phrases that highlighted the year's cultural trends. The augmented reality phone app "Pokemon Go," released in Japan in July, of course made the cut. But so did "aruki-sumaho," or literally, "smartphone walking," a term describing the act of walking while looking down at a smartphone screen.

KOBE – A drone crashed into World Heritage-listed Himeji Castle on Thursday following a similar incident last year, local government officials said. The small drone hit two parts of the main Daitenshu donjon and fell to the ground at around 12:45 p.m. Two groups of people preparing to fly drones had been seen at the castle site earlier, but their whereabouts were unknown, the officials said, adding no one was injured in the incident. The Himeji city government in Hyogo Prefecture collected the drone wreckage and reported the matter to police, and is checking whether the 17th century castle, a national treasure and one of the first UNESCO World Heritage sites in the country, was damaged. A guard saw a group of four people between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. and around 10 people between noon and 1 p.m. Both groups packed up their equipment after being warned, according to a city government liaison office at the site.

General Electric builds jet engines and wind turbines and medical gear. But the 124-year-old industrial giant is also transforming itself for the digital age. It's fashioning software that pulls data from all this hardware, hoping to gain an insight into industrial operations that was never possible in the past. The problem is that analyzing all this data is difficult, and the talent needed to make it happen is scarce. So GE is going shopping.

For those of you unfamiliar with my work, I write frequently about Fourth Industrial Revolution (#4IR) themes such as Tech Innovation, Agtech, and Industrial Disruption. If I had to pick one area I find most exciting, most potentially disruptive and thus the best opportunity for return on investment, it would be A.I. Artificial Intelligence is the brain that makes everything work. It's easy to get lost in #4IR Tech Innovation jargon with complex topics such as: Artificial Intelligence (A.I.), Augmented Intelligence, Deep Learning, Machine Learning, Neural Networks Internet of Things (IOT), Internet of Industrial Things (IOIT), IOE (Internet of Everything) Blockchain, Fintech, Mobile Payments, Cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin Big Data, Data Science, Data Mining: Especially for Healthcare and Agriculture Cybersecurity, Cyber Terrorism, Hacking, Asymmetrical Warfare Smart Cities, Smart Grid, Energy Storage, Portable Power 3D and 4D Printing: BioPrinting, Cloud Manufacturing, Bionics, and printing objects that assemble and reshape themselves over time Industrial Revolution says that, ultimately, the innovation leads to disruption, change, and economic unrest… but also leads to a new era of opportunity and invention. Or is it the other way around? The anatomy of infrastructure is not unlike that of the human body, and we all know it's possible to live long, healthy lives.

Google has built machine learning systems that can create their own cryptographic algorithms -- the latest success for AI's use in cybersecurity. But what are the implications of our digital security increasingly being handed over to intelligent machines? Google Brain, the company's California-based AI unit, managed the recent feat by pitting neural networks against each other. Two systems, called Bob and Alice, were tasked with keeping their messages secret from a third, called Eve. None were told how to encrypt messages, but Bob and Alice were given a shared security key that Eve didn't have access too.

An update to his DoNotPay bot works by asking users a simple set of questions about their circumstances, before advising them on the best course of action--often helping them draft an effective form letter to apply to their local councils for emergency housing. Councils have to take every letter seriously, and using Freedom of Information requests, he's researched the best ways to prompt them into acting on his bot's clients' behalf. The bot's creator, Joshua Browder, a 19-year-old Brit studying at Stanford University in California, told Ars that since the update launched last Wednesday "almost every local government in the UK has signed up for the website." "I can see on the back end that they are actively trying out the service for themselves," he added. He's also working with Centrepoint, one of the UK's largest and most recognisable homelessness charities, with volunteer lawyers helping out to finesse the legal advice his bot provides.

During his first official visit to Australia, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella revealed how the company will be working with a range of local organisations to push the next stage of Australia's investment into artificial intelligence [AI]. Among the world's first users of Microsoft's new high performance virtual and intelligent machines are the Australian Government, Cricket Australia, and Webjet. Microsoft will deliver cloud services to Australian developers that will underpin the next generation of intelligent apps. This comes as the largest Windows 10 deployment in the Asia-Pacific region, and will help companies around Australia generate deeper customer insights and learnings. Speaking at a technology developer's conference in Sydney on Wednesday, Nadella said the new intelligent technology to be deployed by Microsoft and will allow human-like interactions with complex business systems.

Elon Musk is a polarizing figure. He's promised that, with his two companies, his sole interest is to free humanity from its current tethers -- Tesla, with its autonomous electric cars, and SpaceX, with its plans for Mars-bound spacecraft. Together, these companies have the potential to release us from our dependence on fossil fuels, virtually eliminate car accident fatalities, and get us off Earth. Musk's vision for the future of the species is bright. As long as you don't let him talk about artificial intelligence.

It seems like we've perennially been on the edge of major breakthroughs in AI (artificial intelligence), virtual reality, personal robots, and other such cool tech for the past two decades. The first set of science fiction imaginings came true rather rapidly -- think trans-continental air travel, space stations, even drone warfare -- but it appears that the emergence of next-gen tech wizardry has stalled. But while we still can't chat with the on-board computer on our personal spaceship, artificial intelligence is far more pervasive in our daily lives today than most of us realize. As anyone who has trained their mobile phone assistant can attest, years of painstaking research and investment in artificial intelligence technologies is starting to yield impressive results. Siri can predict our commute patterns, Microsoft Cortana warns us of bad weather, and the Google Assistant diligently sets calendar reminders with the impassive demeanor of an English butler of yore.

The demonstration took place at Griffiss International Airport in New York where four unmanned aircraft worked together for this mission. Hundreds watched from the sidelines as these machines located and smothered a small fire and tracked down a'lost camper' Humans all have a unique brain'fingerprint': US Army funded... Elon Musk reveals Tesla's'ludicrous mode' is about to get... Can't get enough of Sir David Attenborough? BBC gives... Revealed: 2.5-million-year-old teeth of our ancestors... Humans all have a unique brain'fingerprint': US Army funded... Elon Musk reveals Tesla's'ludicrous mode' is about to get... Can't get enough of Sir David Attenborough? BBC gives... Revealed: 2.5-million-year-old teeth of our ancestors... Controllers first released a remote-controlled Indago quadcopter that used a thermal camera to find a small fire. This UAV has a 2.4 mile range and is designed to operate both military and civilian functions The location of the blaze was sent to a remotely piloted K-MAX unmanned cargo copter, which flew to a body of water to fetch water in a bucket and then dumped it over the flames.