Why can't computers watch the Earth from above and automatically map our roads, buildings, and trash heaps? Satellite operator DigitalGlobe is teaming up with Amazon, the venture arm of the CIA, and chipmaker Nvidia to try to make it happen. In a joint project, DigitalGlobe today released satellite imagery depicting the whole of Rio de Janeiro to a resolution of 50 centimeters. The outlines of 200,000 buildings inside the city's roughly 1,900 square kilometers have been manually marked on the photos. The SpaceNet data set, as it is called, is intended to spark efforts to train machine-learning algorithms to interpret high-resolution satellite photos by themselves.

WORLD superpowers are engaged in a feverish "arms race" to develop the first killer robots completely removed from human control, the Sun Online can reveal. These machines will mark a dramatic escalation in computer AI from the drones and robots currently in use, all of which still require a human to press the "kill button". In a series of exclusive interviews, leading experts told The Sun Online machines making life or death decisions will likely be developed within the next 10 years. Fears are now growing about the implications of creating such smart machines, as are concerns they will fall into the hands of terrorist groups such as ISIS. Locked in this new race for military supremacy is Britain, the US, China, Russia and Israel – all of which have robot programmes of varying advancement.

Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae -- or dark patches -- on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts. Several hundred camped outside the London store in Covent Garden. The 6s will have new features like a vastly improved camera and a pressure-sensitive "3D Touch" display

To design the prosthetic Ferrell and a group of volunteers took measurements of Katelyn's arms, and used a design provided on the internet from the e-NABLE community, a global network of volunteers. Ferrell told The Huffington Post that the designs for Katelyn's prosthetic are publicly available, already tested and have been adopted by many users around the world. It is not a FDA-approved device, but the material used for 3D printing is a well-known, non-toxic plastic called polylactic acid. "[The prosthetic we built] is generally recognized as a beneficial alternative to more expensive professional prosthetics," Ferrell told HuffPost. The hand device that Ferrell and his team made is pink and purple, Katelyn's favorite colors, and includes fingers and a thumb that allow Katelyn to grasp objects. It is attached to Katelyn's arm by Velcro straps and is controlled by her elbow.

Assigning people the tedious task of manually reviewing and manipulating documents is a sure-fire way to miss errors and introduce inaccuracies as blurry-eyed employees move between programs and cut-and-paste data. Although this is standard practice at many companies, it's a problem that Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technology is now able to solve. RPA can mimic a human's ability to gather data and put data into Excel spreadsheets. It can access disparate systems (ERP, sales, tax, etc.), review tens of thousands of documents in an hour or two (instead of several days), do so without error, and put the data in a standardized format. But RPA's advantages go far beyond imitating keystrokes and avoiding errors; RPA's speed, accuracy and formatting abilities make it an essential foundational technology for a more automated, intelligent enterprise.

On August 29, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)'s Part 107 commercial drone rules go into effect, and although they are quite restrictive, some companies have already found creative ways to work within the limitations. One commercial application that has already started to take off is drone inspections for large structures such as cell towers, buildings, and bridges. PRENAV, a Silicon Valley startup, has developed an automated drone that uses an alternative navigation system to precisely fly drones close enough to towers to see any structural issues that need to be repaired. Manual inspections are inefficient and unsafe; it just doesn't make sense to send humans to climb large structures when robots can do it better, without risking any lives. According to OSHA, tower climbing is the most dangerous job in America, and demand for tower maintenance is growing as consumers increasingly rely on broadband and wireless communications.

For the second installment of our series exploring the future of human augmentation, we bring you a story by the Transhumanist Party's presidential candidate (and occasional Motherboard columnist), Zoltan Istvan. Though he's spent most of the last year traveling the nation in a coffin-shaped bus, spreading the gospel of immortality and H, he's no stranger to fiction. His novel, The Transhumanist Wager, is about the impact of evolving beyond this mortal coil. This story is even bolder. He struggled to open his eyes. 'Who the hell is calling me in the middle of the night?' he thought. He rolled out of bed and walked naked to his desk to see. His phone showed it was his secretary.

As machine-learning becomes increasingly embedded into our everyday lives, Dr David Bray, a 2015 Eisenhower Fellow, Visiting Executive In-Residence at the Harvard Kennedy School and CIO at the US Federal Communications Commission, explores both the possible positive opportunities and potential cyber-security challenges. "The exponential changes being driven by digital technology are typically painted in a highly positive light. Just look at the average Internet minute during 2013: more than 204 million emails were sent, more than 4 million Google search results were conducted, more than 2.4 million items of Facebook content were uploaded and more than 72 hours of video were uploaded to YouTube. But it's worth remembering that technology itself is amoral: it's how we humans choose to use it that decides whether it's good or bad. The more challenging side of the exponential era is evident elsewhere: in 2013, cyber-security technology company McAfee identified 200 new threat vectors ...

By 2025 Australians may well see the application of artificial intelligence in the preparation of tax returns, according to a report by KPMG. The report, 2025: People, economy and the future of tax, suggests a future world in which service industry professionals such as accountants will be replaced by robots and the size of revenue authorities such as the Australian Taxation Office will shrink. "The technological changes ... are likely to mean few mid-skilled jobs will be required," the report says. Tax in 2025 could involve the application of artificial intelligence to the preparation of tax returns. "This is beyond complex automation, which would involve picking up items in the general ledger and mechanistically using that data in the tax return," it says.

Vinod Iyengar is the director of product marketing at open source machine learning company H2O.ai. Forget Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump -- we need a trust-buster like Teddy Roosevelt, who in 1902 attacked the Northern Securities Company, a railroad holding company led by J.P. Morgan and James J. Hill. Amid the flurry of recent tech M&A deals, you would be forgiven for missing a relatively quiet acquisition: Apple bought Seattle-based artificial intelligence startup Turi for around 200 million. On its own, the Turi deal wouldn't raise eyebrows were it not for the record amount of M&A in artificial intelligence, with the giants Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft leading transactions. Consolidation in any market is expected, but AI is consolidating at such a rapid clip, at such an early stage and by so few companies that there are strong reasons to be concerned.