The 8.6 billion mobile devices on the planet have meant that quite often, getting a decent signal can be tough. However, researchers say a new drone could be the key. It can create an incredibly detailed 3D map of a city, allowing researchers to model how radio waves move through it. Researcher have devised a new method that involves taking aerial photographs of an area with a drone, which can be used as models to design radio links. Drones are equipped with a high quality cameras that can capture multiple points of view.

HBO's Westworld is a reality-bending science fiction epic about technology, human decency and free will. Having pored over the show's released episodes, I've begun to develop several theories about the Westworld universe. Is the show covering multiple timelines? Is William the Man in Black? Is Melania Trump also a Westworld robot, along with the entire Trump family except for Tiffany?

This morning, former CBS6 anchor and reporter, Teresa Priolo asked Siri what she thought of Ted Cruz. I loved the idea, so I "stole" it -- asking Siri what she thought of each of the potential candidates for US President. The takeaway: She remains fairly mum on one party, but has lots to offer on the other.

Artificial intelligence, and technology in general, will have a crucial role to play in society's progress, that is the view of the UK and American governments anyway. This Thursday President Obama announced at the first White House Frontier Conference that more than $300 million in funding, through partnerships, will be released for tech innovations that will improve healthcare, develop smart cities and enhance America's space ambition. "We may be in a slightly different period now, simply because of the pervasive applicability of AI and other technologies," said President Obama in a video shown at the start of the conference. President Obama believes AI, in particular, will be able to help solve the biggest crises that face the world, such as disease, famine, climate change and economic inequality. Others, like Tesla CEO Elon Musk, suggest AI's rise will be the biggest threat to the survival of the human race.

In October, the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and the U.S. president issued a joint report titled "Preparing For The Future of Artificial Intelligence." If you were waiting for a sign to prove that the Fourth Industrial Revolution had begun, a policy statement from the White House on thinking robots definitively fits the bill. The report consists of a state of AI summary and lays out potential applications. It then delves into questions everyone has about what AI will do to society and public policy. It concludes with a strategic plan for federally-funded R&D for practical AI, based on actual request-for-information (RFI) proposals.

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Credit Pulse" newsletter to their offering. A criminal whose name has been added to a sanction list compiled by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is highly unlikely to use that exact name when opening a bank account. I handle the news around here.

Liberia has lost access to the entire internet in apparent preparation for shutting down the entire internet. Repeated attacks are flooding the country's network with requests and taking it down entirely. That has intermittently knocked the entire web offline, meaning that people can't access any websites or web services. The attacks appear to be a way for hackers to test a variety of ways of attacking internet connections and taking offline. In that way they resemble the attacks launched recently, when hackers brought down many of the world's biggest websites.

Apple may have been a bit stingy with its Mac upgrades earlier this week, but the company has been going gangbusters in the construction of what's become known as the Apple spaceship campus. You may recall that Steve Jobs himself pitched the campus to the Cupertino City Council a few months before he passed away almost exactly five years ago. Well, time has passed, and the new Apple Campus 2 (as it's more officially known) has been progressing quite well. We shared some early drone footage in September 2014 showing where ground had been broken, and some of the earthworks in progress. But it's been two years since then, and intrepid drone pilot Matthew Roberts has been surveilling the campus on a regular basis with his DJI Phantom 3 Professional drone.

Before you fall back this weekend, it's time to take a look at Google's Assistant-powered Home device, take a spin with GoPro's drone and find out how Singapore is pushing to be the first "Smart Nation." Also, undecided (or, more likely, firmly decided) voters can peruse Engadget's election guide to see where presidential candidates stand on tech issues. Across this 30-mile-wide island, a network of fiber connections and sensors underpin scientists' efforts to address the problems of urban living. The "Smart Nation" plan is trying to address pain points, like energy usage, health and transportation, while also accumulating data to fill out a detailed model of Virtual Singapore, where planners can test new projects to see their potential impact. Nathan Ingraham says Google Home is a great way to show off just how smart Google is, but it doesn't feel like an essential experience yet.

Do Twitter users who mention Donald Trump swear more than those who mention Hillary Clinton? Let's find out by taking a natural language processing approach (or, NLP for short) to analyzing tweets. This walkthrough will provide a basic introduction to help developers of all background and abilities get started with the NLP microservices available on Algorithmia. We'll show you how to chain them together to perform light analysis on unstructured text. Our gentle introduction to NLP will help you get started.