CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA/MIAMI – The International Space Station received its first shipment from a private, Virginia-based company in more than two years Sunday following a sensational nighttime launch observed 250 miles up and down the East Coast. Orbital ATK's cargo ship pulled up at the space station bearing 5,000 pounds of food, equipment and research. "What a beautiful vehicle," said Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi, who used the station's big robot arm to grab the vessel. The capture occurred as the spacecraft soared 250 miles above Kyrgyzstan; Onishi likened it to the last 195 meters of a marathon. Last Monday's liftoff from Wallops Island was the first by an Antares rocket since a 2014 launch explosion.

You've probably heard politicians make more than a few outlandish claims, and not just in the run-up to the US presidential election. Do you really want to swing by a fact-checking website every time a candidate stretches credibility? As of now, you don't have to lift a finger. Duke Reporters' Lab has introduced an Amazon Echo skill that lets you fact-check any politician scrutinized by PolitFact, FactCheck.org If you want to know if Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump is telling it straight, you just have to ask your wireless speaker whether or not a claim is true.

Stephen Hawking, the famous scientist who once said intelligent machines could be mankind's biggest threat, opened an artificial intelligence lab in Britain this week to help develop robot surgeons and Terminator-style military droids. Britain's Cambridge University will play host to the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (CFI) as it uses a 10 million grant to bring together experts from many disciplines to develop AI robots. Scientists from around the world will use the AI lab to design and test intelligent robots that could potentially transform mankind, according to SpaceDaily. "Perhaps with the tools of this new technological revolution, we will be able to undo some of the damage done to the natural world by the last one – industrialization." Calling the creation of AI, the biggest event in the history of civilization, Hawking said the British lab hoped to help eradicate disease and poverty in our lifetime, according to Phys.org.

Hard on the heels of the White House's new report about artificial intelligence's potential to address major societal challenges, NVIDIA will be holding Washington's largest ever AI conference. GTC DC will feature some of the most prominent leaders in government and industry when it takes place Oct. 26-27, at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington. The event is the latest in a series of GPU Technology Conferences, which have attracted 16,000 people so far this year across Silicon Valley, Europe and Asia. The timing is right for policymakers and AI experts to meet, following yesterday's White House report concluding that "AI has the potential to help address some of the biggest challenges that society faces" and recommending increased funding in AI research to fuel economic growth. The report, Preparing for the Future of Artificial Intelligence, published by the National Science and Technology Council, notes that "the effectiveness of government itself is being increased as agencies build their capacity to use AI to carry out their missions more quickly, responsively and efficiently."

During the 2016 Collision Conference held in New Orleans, our Content Strategist Cecilia Haynes interviewed conference speaker Dr. Tyrone Grandison. At the time of the interview, he was the Deputy Chief Data Officer at the U.S. Department of Commerce. Tyrone is currently the Chief Information Officer for the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Coming fresh off his talk on "Data science, apps and civic responsibility", Cecilia was thrilled to chat with Tyrone all about the democratization of data and how open data can help anyone build innovative products and services. I saw your talk and I thought you would be the the perfect person to reach out to.

A new report from the Obama Administration focuses on the opportunities, considerations, and challenges of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Today, to ready the United States for a future in which Artificial Intelligence (AI) plays a growing role, the White House is releasing a report on future directions and considerations for AI called Preparing for the Future of Artificial Intelligence. This report surveys the current state of AI, its existing and potential applications, and the questions that progress in AI raise for society and public policy. The report also makes recommendations for specific further actions. A companion National Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Strategic Plan is also being released, laying out a strategic plan for Federally-funded research and development in AI.

Comcast Corp. CEO Brian Roberts said Friday that he believes one of the biggest business trends will be "artificial intelligence," in which computers do tasks once done by people, leading to smart cities and smart cars. He didn't say how he thought artificial intelligence could transform Comcast, but he noted that "there's always a dark side to that kind of change." In a question-and-answer format, Roberts spoke conversationally to about 1,200 executives, lawyers, city and state officials, and others at the annual Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce breakfast . Before Roberts' remarks, Drexel University president John Fry officially took over as the chamber's board chairman, replacing Exelon Corp.'s Dennis O'Brien. Fry said he believed that Philadelphia could be one of the world's 25 top-tier cities, but that civic leaders couldn't be complacent because "as we sit down here for breakfast, [competing cities] are preparing to eat our lunch."

Sportswear giant reveals new technique – invented by a Nasa scientist – for 3D printing training shoes tailored to customers' individual specifications Reebok has unveiled something it calls "Liquid Factory", which the company says will bring back sports shoe manufacturing back to the US. Reebok calls its new factory idea a ground-breaking manufacturing innovation that could fundamentally change the process and speed of footwear creation. Developed by the Reebok Future team, the Liquid Factory process uses state-of-the-art software and robotics to literally draw shoes in three dimensions. The new technique uses 3D drawing, where a proprietary liquid material, created especially for Reebok by BASF, is used to draw shoe componentry cleanly, precisely and in three-dimensional layers. This proprietary layering technique is used to create totally unique footwear, without the use of traditional molds.

JOINING "Hamilton", a Broadway show, and concerts by Adele, a British soul diva, on the list of tickets-to-kill-for in New York is a screening in an ugly new office building that recently popped-up in the East Village, a place best known for offbeat culture. There is a ten-week-long queue to see simulations by Watson, IBM's cognitive artificial-intelligence platform. Initially known for stunts such as beating human contestants on "Jeopardy!", a quiz show, Watson has been seeking a wider audience. It has found a vast potential one in the world of financial regulation. Rules have become so sprawling and mysterious that even regulators have begun asking for a map.

The Afghan Taliban has uploaded a drone footage showing a suicide bomber driving into a police base and blowing it up in the southern Helmand province. The fighters say the footage proves that they can now deploy drones as an "addition to their sophisticated possessions of advanced technologies". The 23-minute-long video, which begins with a self-proclaimed suicide bomber speaking in front of an explosives-rigged Humvee, was released on Saturday appears to be authentic, according to the Afghan defence ministry. "The remote-controlled drones to capture footage of their [Taliban] fighters conducting attacks is nothing but to instill fear among people and to indicate how far they can get in defeating us, but in fact, using a drone is not something they can call an achievement," Dawlat Waziri, spokesman for the defence ministry, told Al Jazeera by telephone. "You can get a drone anywhere, in any shop. They found or bought one, and used it."