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Photos: Donald Trump, Video Game Villain

U.S. News

Trump plays the role of Mike Tyson in Punch Out!! Courtesy of Jeff Hong Trump is trapped in the NES classic Donkey Kong Jr. Courtesy of Jeff Hong Little Mac goes head-to-head against Donald Trump in Punch Out!! In the original game, Mike Tyson is "The Dream Fight." Humble plumber Mario is replaced by Bernie Sanders in Super Mario Bros. Courtesy of Jeff Hong The final battle between Mario and Bowser in Super Mario Bros. is replaced by Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. The main characters have been switched from white to black. Bomberman's helmet is colored in to resemble the ISIS uniform.


Are you ready for the 4th Industrial Revolution?

#artificialintelligence

As the third industrial revolution - led by software - continues to gather steam, world leaders are predicting our entrance into the fourth industrial revolution. Can you guess what is leading it? We all dreamed of the day when robots would effortlessly takeover our mundane chores like doing the dishes, but the truth is that AI can already do more than that. AI is already driving cars, making art, beating humans at Go...and will soon take over your job! Forget science fiction, AI is already here and it is so close to getting so much bigger that governments are starting to prepare for this Tsunami. The White House recently released a report that highlighted staggering numbers for the job market due to AI.


France deploying anti-drone technology to protect Euro 2016

U.S. News

France will deploy anti-drone technology to interfere with and take control of any flying machines that violate no-fly zones over stadiums at the European Championship, part of unprecedented measures to secure Europe's biggest sports event since the Paris attacks in November. In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Euro 2016 security chief Ziad Khoury said Tuesday that no-fly zones will be declared over all 10 stadiums as well as training grounds for the 24 teams at the June 10-July 10 tournament. "We've noted the general proliferation of drone-usage in society," Khoury said in his Paris office. "So no-fly zones will be defined over every training ground and every stadium, and in most stadiums and for most matches anti-drone measures -- which are quite innovative -- will be deployed, working with the state, which will interfere with drones and take control of them if they are spotted." French authorities have trained for the possibility of drones being used to disperse chemical weapons over crowds.


How physicists programmed AI to do their job – by accident

Christian Science Monitor | Science

A group of researchers recently developed an AI program to assist them in a complex procedure for an experiment involving finely optimized conditions. But rather than simply assist, the AI showed enough proficiency to run the experiment on its own and faster than humans or previous programs designed for the experiment. "I didn't expect the machine could learn to do the experiment itself, from scratch, in under an hour," co-lead researcher Paul Wigley, a doctoral student at the Australian National University Research School of Physics and Engineering, said in a statement. The physicists from the ANU, University of Adelaide, and the University of New South Wales Australian Defence Force Academy, were attempting to recreate an experiment that won the 2001 Nobel Prize – creating a Bose-Einstein condensate, a super chilled gas trapped in between laser beams. Bose-Einstein condensates are able to reach temperatures so low that they are some of the coldest areas of the universe, in some cases less than a billionth of a degree above absolute zero, the temperature where all atoms stop moving.


Final EEOC rule sets limits for financial incentives on wellness programs

PBS NewsHour

Employer wellness programs can gather medical information from employees and spouses -- so long as financial incentives or penalties don't exceed 30 percent of the annual cost for an individual in the company's group health plan, according to final rules issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Monday. Although such penalties or incentives could run into the hundreds or even thousands of dollars, the programs are considered voluntary -- and therefore legal, the commission said. The rules seek to ensure "wellness programs actually promote good health and are not just used to collect or sell sensitive medical information about employees and family members or to impermissibly shift health insurance costs to them," the EEOC said. But the final rules drew immediate concern from some groups. Jennifer Mathis, director of programs for the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, says the new rule rolls back protections in existing law.


IBM's ROSS becomes world's first artificially intelligent attorney

Daily Mail - Science & tech

IBM's technology has won Jeopardy, managed companies and is now practicing law. ROSS, 'the world's first artificially intelligent attorney' powered by Watson, recently landed a position at New York law firm Baker & Hostetler handling the firm's bankruptcy practice. The machine is designed to understand language, provide answers to questions, formulate hypotheses and monitor developments in the legal system. IBM's technology has won Jeopardy, managed companies and is now practicing law. ROSS, 'the world's first artificially intelligent attorney' powered by Watson, has just landed a position at New York law firm Baker & Hostetler handling the firm's bankruptcy practice Lawyers ask ROSS research questions in natural language, just like they were talking to a colleague, and the AI'reads' through the law, gathers evidence, draws inferences and returns with a'highly relevant', evidence-based answer.


Trump's demand that Apple must make iPhones in the U.S. actually isn't that crazy

Washington Post - Technology News

Donald Trump has promised that "we're gonna get Apple to start building their damn computers and things in this country, instead of in other countries." He said this at a speech at Virginia's Liberty University and several other events. It is very likely that he is not serious; Trump tends to say things he couldn't possibly mean. But he did raise an intriguing question about whether Apple -- and other American companies -- could bring manufacturing back to the United States. When American companies moved manufacturing to China, it was all about cost.



A Strategist's Guide to Industry 4.0

#artificialintelligence

Industrial revolutions are momentous events. By most reckonings, there have been only three. The first was triggered in the 1700s by the commercial steam engine and the mechanical loom. The harnessing of electricity and mass production sparked the second, around the start of the 20th century. The computer set the third in motion after World War II (see "The Man Who Made the Computer Age Possible," by Jeffrey E. Garten). It might seem too soon to proclaim that the fourth industrial revolution, spurred by interconnected digital technology, has begun. But Henning Kagermann, the head of the German National Academy of Science and Engineering (Acatech), did exactly that in 2011, when he used the term Industrie 4.0 to describe a proposed government-sponsored industrial initiative. When you look closely at the rapid pace of digitization in industry today, the name doesn't seem hyperbolic at all. It is a signal of sweeping change that is rapidly transforming many companies and may catch others by surprise.


Replicants and robots: what can the ancient Greeks teach us? – Adrienne Mayor Aeon Essays

#artificialintelligence

The question of what it meant to be human obsessed the ancient Greeks. The beloved myths of Hercules, Jason and the Argonauts, the sorceress Medea, the engineer Daedalus, the inventor-god Hephaestus, and the tragically inquisitive Pandora all raised the basic question of the boundaries between human and machine. Today, developments in biotechnology and advances in artificial intelligence (AI) bring a new urgency to questions about the implications of combining the biological and the technological. It's a discussion that we might say the ancient Greeks began. Medea, the mythic sorceress whose name means'to devise', knew many arcane arts. These included secrets of rejuvenation. To demonstrate her powers, Medea first appeared to Jason and the Argonauts as a stooped old woman, only to transform herself into a beautiful young princess. Jason fell under her spell and became her lover. He asked Medea to restore the youthful vigour of his aged father, Aeson.