The Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cloud computing are three technologies that are converging to disrupt nearly every industry. IoT refers to a connected network of objects embedded with technology that enables the collection and exchange of data. Cloud computing is the storing and retrieval of data, and accessing application programs via the Internet. Artificial Intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence by machines. We are currently in the midst of the rise of the first wave of this technological convergence.

U.S. drone operators had been stalking the baby-faced British terrorist for days with infrared cameras and other sensors before the order came to kill him. As night fell on April 25, a U.S. warplane dropped a guided-bomb that obliterated the SUV occupied by 23-year-old Raphael Saihou Hostey near Mosul, Islamic State's stronghold in Iraq. Hostey, a recruiter for the militants, was targeted by a U.S. military campaign that has singled out and killed more than 120 Islamic State leaders, commanders, propagandists, recruiters and other so-called high-value individuals so far this year, officials said. The leadership attacks have picked up recently due to intelligence collected by special operations teams on night raids, from captured militants, and from intercepts of emails, cellphones and other communications. The focus on Islamic State's command and control structure, including its recruitment and funding systems, has helped weaken the Sunni extremist group as Iraqi, Syrian and Kurdish forces press the militants on the battlefield.

We met up with Régis Vincent, Head of Software at SRI Robotics, a unit of SRI International, which is a non-profit, independent research centre serving government and industry. Located in Menlo Park at the heart of Silicon Valley, SRI International runs projects for government agencies, notably the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) – the US Ministry of Defence agency which develops technologies for military use – as well as private sector players, both large firms and startups – intended to develop disruptive innovations. The stated aim of SRI International is to move R&D from the laboratory to the marketplace. SRI is hardly a household name, but the organisation has nevertheless been behind a large number of the devices which we now use in our daily lives. Since the research centre was founded 65 years ago, its engineers have been closely involved in the development of such innovations as colour television then colour photographic film in the 1950s, ultrasound for medical diagnostics in the 1980s, computers as we know them today, Arpanet, a 1960s precursor to the Internet, and more recently Siri – the first-ever virtual personal assistant, later acquired by Apple.

Leo Meyerovich, CEO of Graphistry Inc., shares how GPUs and machine learning are protecting the largest companies and organizations in the world by visually alerting them of attacks and big outages. Using NVIDIA GPUs and CUDA, the graph analysis cloud platform is able to help the company's response and hunting team sift through 100M alerts a day. "We've built one of the world's fastest clustering algorithms and some of our customers might have had to wait hours to see the result of their data – with our tool, you can get answers in seconds," said Meyerovich. Watch more scientists and researchers share how accelerated computing is benefiting their work at http://nvda.ly/X7WpH

For the second time in months, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said "we will fight on to liberate every inch of our land". The last time Assad made a similar statement, he was scolded by the Russian ambassador to the UN who said this was not in line with the Kremlin's policies. At the time, it wasn't - Russia was pushing for a political settlement and was involved in efforts with the United States to bring about a cessation of hostilities to create a conducive atmosphere for peace talks. This time around, however, Assad has so far not been told off. Instead, Russia sent its defence minister to Iran's capital Tehran to take part in talks with his Syrian and Iranian counterparts.

Public and private sector cybersecurity leaders are rapidly shifting their attention to technologies like analytics and artificial intelligence which increase their ability to predict, and ultimately prevent, cyber incidents. During this panel, Donna Dodson ( Associate Director, Chief Cybersecurity Advisor and Director, NIST), Mark Kneidinger (Director, Federal Network Resiliency, DHS), Malcolm Harkins (ICIT Fellow - Cylance) and Stan Wisseman (ICIT Fellow - HPE) discuss this trend and share real world examples of how these technologies are reshaping the cybersecurity landscape.

We may soon have categorical evidence that living in San Francisco is a terrible idea. IBM announced on Nov. 20 that it had created an award-winning simulation of the Earth's tectonic plates that could soon be used to make predictions about when the next great earthquakes and volcanic eruptions will occur. And its artificial intelligence system, Watson, may prove to be the computer brain that can tell us when it's time to get out of the Bay Area. A team of computer scientists at IBM, in partnership with researchers from the University of Texas at Austin, New York University and the California Institute for Technology, created a model that simulated the entire flow of mantle under the Earth's surface. The model is so complex that it had to run on the Sequoia supercomputer (the third-fastest computer in the world), which the company built for the US government.

British military drones bringing death from above could be capable of firing on targets without the need for a human operator. A new drone being developed by French and British military contractors for use by the RAF, is being built with capabilities of selecting and engaging targets using artificial intelligence. While human intervention is required under international law, the Taranis drone could potentially become fully autonomous if the laws change, taking humans out of the loop and leaving the decision-making to the machines. A new drone being developed by French and British military contractors for use by the RAF, is being built with capabilities of selecting and engaging targets using artificial intelligence, removing the need for humans in the decision-making process. Developed by BAE Systems, the Taranis drone is named after the Celtic god of thunder and is designed to stealthily approach and attack targets, without being detected.

While the idea of tinkering with asteroids might seem like a bad idea, countries around the world are thinking of doing just that. Asteroid mining could be the next big way to harvest resources such as water, oxygen and metals. Now Nasa has awarded 100,000 ( 70,000) to a company to develop technology to direct asteroids towards Earth in order to more easily access them. Nasa has awarded the funding to Made in Space - a California-based company who manufacture technology for space environments. Nasa has awarded the funding to Made in Space - a California-based company who manufacture technology for space environments. The initial 100,000 funding gives the company nine months to prove whether a system to turn asteroids into self-propelled AI spaceships, is viable.

Artificial intelligence has had a bad rap (see: Terminator), and public confidence has waned. Would you trust a machine to diagnose you? Medical professionals today faced off against health firm Babylon's'Check a Symptom' app feature, in a bid to find out who's best equipped to triage patients: man or machine? The challenge saw Professor Irwin Nazareth, former head of primary care at UCLH, examining patients with the help of either: (1) one of Britain's most senior A&E nurses, (2) an Oxford-educated Junior Doctor, or (3) Babylon's'Check' feature. It turns out that that the app came to "the same accurate assessment" as both the nurse and junior doctor, but faster, and at no cost.