Google has revealed the most powerful computer for understanding the English language in the world – and called it Parsey McParseFace. The technology, which is built on the more sensibly named TensorFlow and SyntaxNet frameworks, is a powerful tool that uses new artificial intelligence technology to be able to analyse the linguistic structure of language, and understand what each part of a sentence does to its meaning. Google is making the tool open source, so that anybody can use it for free. But it will probably go down in history because of its silly name. Google said that the name – a reference to the controversial Boaty McBoatface – was a suggestion that came while it was trying to name the new technology, and that it didn't have any better alternatives.

Get ready because artificial intelligence is on the White House's radar, and it's taking the field seriously. The White House this week announced the new National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) Subcommittee on Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence will meet for the first time next week, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy will cohost four workshops to create a dialogue around the positives and negatives of artificial intelligence and machine learning. "Like any transformative technology … artificial intelligence carries some risk and presents complex policy challenges along several dimensions, from jobs and the economy to safety and regulatory questions," Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer Ed Felten wrote. "For example, A.I. will create new jobs while phasing out some old ones--magnifying the importance of programs like TechHire that are preparing our workforce with the skills to get ahead in today's economy, and tomorrow's." According to Felten, the new subcommittee is meant to monitor advances and milestones in the field, including in the federal realm, the private sector, and internationally.

WASHINGTON – U.S. special operations forces working with African partners called in an airstrike against the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabaab group in Somalia on Thursday, killing five, the Pentagon said. Jeff Davis said U.S. troops were advising and assisting Ugandan troops from the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) in southern Somalia, west of Mogadishu. The AMISOM troops were raiding an illegal Shabaab roadblock where the jihadis were extorting payments from drivers. "They came under fire from the al-Shabaab militants, and we called in an airstrike in their defense," Davis said. A U.S. defense official said the strike was conducted by drone.

Will Machine Learning come to rescue for cybersecurity? Or is it just more empty promises. This is the third part of a short series on cybersecurity. Watch the video below and let's discuss. This article is published as part of the IDG Contributor Network.

A century ago, more than 60,000 tigers roamed the wild. Today, that number has dwindled to around 3,200. Poaching is one of the main drivers of this steep decline. Humans have pushed tigers to near-extinction, whether for their skins, medicine or for trophy hunting. The same applies to other large animal species like elephants and rhinoceros that play unique and crucial roles in the ecosystems where they live. Human patrols serve as the most direct form of protection of endangered animals, especially in large national parks.

IBM is teaming up with eight North American universities to further tune its cognitive system to tackle cybersecurity problems. Watson for Cyber Security, a platform already in pre-beta, will be further trained in "learning the nuances of security research findings and discovering patterns and evidence of hidden cyber attacks and threats that could otherwise be missed". IBM will work with eight US universities from autumn onwards for a year in order to push forward the project. The universities selected are California State Polytechnic University, Pomona; Pennsylvania State University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; New York University; the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC); the University of New Brunswick; the University of Ottawa; and the University of Waterloo. The project is ultimately designed to bridge the cyber-security skills gap, a perennial issue in the industry.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory is kind of a misleading name. NASA's southern Californian center doesn't really make rockets or jets or anything propulsive these days. Nope, JPL builds robots that explore the solar system: Curiosity, Voyager, Galileo, GRACE. On July 1, the center's legacy becomes the responsibility of Michael Watkins. Watkins is a twenty-year NASA veteran who has been mixed up in nearly every important JPL project during that time.

At 100million a pop, you might expect F-35 fighter jets to take-off at the first time of asking. But the life of a test pilot is not that simple, with dozens of computer systems to calibrate and reset before the Air Force's most sophisticated plane can even taxi to the runway. Defense News got a glimpse of how testing F-35s works during a visit to Edwards Air Force Base in southern California. Major Raven LeClair, of the 461st flight test squadron, begins his day at around 10am by checking the plane for any issues. It immediately became clear that the day's testing would not pass without a hitch, with an alarm sounding as soon as he got to the aircraft.

A Lincoln man says he's not dead, despite what the Social Security Administration has said. Chuck Zellers learned of his demise in March after his Social Security deposit was removed from his bank account while he and his wife, Alice, were in Arizona, he told the Lincoln Journal Star (http://bit.ly/1TcuM3V They talked to a woman at the Social Security office who checked her computer and told him, "'Oh, by golly, you are dead,'" Zellers said. "She told me it could be a funeral home declared you deceased; or that someone just put in a wrong keystroke or something like that," he said. But Zellers, 73, admitted he will probably never know how it happened.

While this sounds like the stuff of science fiction the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is working to make this amazing project science fact. Known as Upward Falling Payloads (UFPs), the pods are made by DARPA, which aims to develop innovative technologies to keep the U.S. safe. Hidden throughout global seas, the giant pods would let the U.S. Navy launch surprise attacks anytime, anywhere. UFPs would let the Navy deploy Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or drones, to provide surveillance and other key cutting-edge tech to support operations. UFPs resemble giant 15-foot high pods or capsules.