NAIROBI – Japanese and African leaders on Sunday pledged to fight terrorism and emphasized the importance of rules-based maritime order as they wrapped up a Japan-led international conference on the continent's development. In the Nairobi Declaration adopted at the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), the leaders also agreed to promote investment in infrastructure that leads to job creation in the fast-growing region. "Japan's public and private sectors will offer cooperation for the development that is led by Africa itself," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a news conference after wrap-up of the sixth TICAD, convened in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta told the same news conference that Japan does not press its own views on the continent and continues to be a force for African development. The triennial conference was held outside Japan for the first time, as Tokyo seeks to strengthen its economic and political presence in the continent amid China's increasing influence.

The blending of home-based diagnostic platforms with medical care at home is arriving. The Tricorder XPRIZE competition is well underway, with several teams set to compete in the final stages. Leading contenders include CloudDx and Scanadu, a company started at our first Exponential Medicine program, have successfully leveraged crowdfunding to enable their clinical trials. Gale by 19Labs is a next generation "first aid kit meets home health center" (see the below video for a demo) exemplifying how integration of home diagnostics paired with menu-driven (and potentially AI-driven) assistance and optional telemedicine connectivity can provide increased access to home-based diagnosis, triage and management of minor bumps and scrapes and also more complex medical conditions. Interactive and engaging, from coaching on diet and nutrition to reminding you to take your medications or offering psychological support and follow up -- the chatbots are on their way.

We've had more than 150 speakers in the past three seasons. Two of them made the news this summer: Danny Bickson (E9 Season 1) one of the co-founders of Graphlab then Dato then Turi and Arjun Bansal from Nervana systems (E12 Season 3). Turi just got acquired by Apple for 300M, and Nervana got acquired for 350M by Intel. In a different direction, at the last meetup, Raymond Francis explained to us what got picked by the LA Times a month later, Curiosity now uses Machine Learning on Mars. This news is exciting on two levels: First, robots can now explore the universe better and second, it definitely brings some perspective when we talk about the dichotomy between exploration and exploitation in our discussions.

NASA scientists are engineering a form of artificial intelligence (AI) that they hope will help firefighters and other first responders escape dangerous situations. Set to launch next year, the system will help first responders through unpredictable fires and chemical leaks by giving them advice based on machine learning of past emergencies. The new system--called AUDREY--the Assistant for Understanding Data through Reasoning, Extraction and sYnthesis--is designed to be distributed to individual firefighters so it can collect a precise network of data directly from the field, and learn from that data for next time. No emergency is the same, which means first responders have to rely on extensive training and experience to stay safe in dangerous conditions that can change rapidly. The AUDREY system hopes to use distributed data collection and machine learning to better inform first responders about the situation at hand.

It took a while for the US military to bolster its defenses against cyberattacks, and it looks like there's a similar deficit when it comes to artificial intelligence. A new Defense Department report says that the country needs to take "immediate action" to speed up its development of AI war technology. Academic and private research on AI and autonomous tech is well ahead of American forces, the study says. There's a real chance that we could see a repeat of what happened in cyberwarfare, where the US was focused so heavily on launching attacks that it left itself off-guard. Naturally, the board already has some advice.

Naturally, the board already has some advice. It recommends that the Pentagon gather more intelligence on other nations' AI capabilities, and develop "counter-autonomy" solutions. The military could deceive or overwhelm autonomous war machines, for example. Also, the writers suggest that the US pour many more resources into developing and testing learning AI, such as weapons that adapt to battlefield conditions. There's no guarantee that officials will heed the advice, or even that it's absolutely necessary.

Machine learning is nipping at the heels of conventional physical modeling of air quality predictions in more and more places. The latest is Johannesburg, South Africa, where computer engineer Tapiwa M. Chiwewe at the newly opened IBM Research lab is adapting IBM's air quality prediction software to local needs and adding new capabilities. The work is an expansion of the so-called Green Horizons initiative, in which IBM researchers partnered with Chinese government researchers and officials, starting two years ago. Last month, Chiwewe presented some of the Johannesburg lab's first results, involving ground-level ozone level predictions, at the 14th International Conference on Industrial Informatics in Poitiers, France. "You can do a lot of physics to understand how ozone is found in different places," he says, "but what we did is we just collected a lot of data and trained these machines on it and they were able to predict [local ozone levels] without any knowledge of how ozone works in the atmosphere."

Back in 1999, I read a great book by Bruce Sterling called "Distraction"; billed as a fictional view into the status of U.S. public service in the year 2044, the technology and cultural ideas packed into that book still resonate more than 15 years later. The book in part motivated me to strive to make a difference in public service, if only to avoid some of the more dystonia views in the book. Apparently I'm not the only one who found the book packed with ideas, Cory Doctorow also wrote a great review in 2008. The book's central premise: that all of us could suffer from "Distraction" from what really matters, especially in a world with 300 cable channels, 24/7 news, and always-on social media in the United States, is an idea that I'd like to explore more fully given our rapidly changing world of today. Technology is amoral, it is how we humans choose to use it that determines good vs. bad outcomes.

Germany's economy minister and vice-chancellor has defended flicking the middle finger to a group of right-wing protesters earlier this month. Sigmar Gabriel, who is Angela Merkel's second-in-command, said his only mistake was not using both hands. He said his critics should think about what they would do if faced with 12 "young, aggressive, swearing and ready-for-violence Nazis". Mr Gabriel was confronted by the hecklers in northern Germany. They called him a traitor of the people and mentioned his father's Nazi past.

NAIROBI – Japanese and African leaders on Sunday pledged to fight terrorism and emphasized the importance of rule-based maritime order as they wrapped up a Japan-led international conference on the continent's development. In the Nairobi Declaration adopted at the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), the leaders also agreed to promote investment in infrastructure that leads to job creation in the fast-growing region. The sixth TICAD, convened in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, was held outside Japan for the first time, as Tokyo seeks to strengthen its economic and political presence in the continent amid China's increasing influence. In the declaration, the leaders said they will seek to maintain maritime order based on rules, and strengthen security and safety at sea by international and regional cooperation in accordance with international law. The reference to maritime security comes as tensions remain high in the South China and East China seas amid China's growing assertiveness.