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

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

SEOUL/WASHINGTON – Ahead of a rare congress of the ruling party next month, secretive North Korea is revealing details of its weapons development program for the first time, showcasing its push to develop long-range nuclear missiles despite international sanctions. Until recently, information on the North's weapons program was hard to come by, with foreign governments and experts relying on satellite imagery, tiny samples of atomic particles collected after nuclear tests and mangled parts recovered from long-range launches. In just over a month, the North has published articles with detailed color photos on a range of tests and other activities that point to fast-paced efforts to build a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). The reason for the revelations, many analysts say, is that Pyongyang believes that convincing the world, and its own people, of its nuclear prowess is as important as the prowess itself. Nevertheless, the isolated North's true capabilities and intentions remain unknown.

Cian Westmoreland was 18 years old when he enlisted in the US Air Force. Now 28, the former serviceman served with the 606 Air Control Squadron in Germany and the 73rd Expeditionary Air Control Squadron in Kandahar, Afghanistan, as an Air Force Technician. He built the communications infrastructure for the US military's drone programme in Afghanistan, which, according to a 2015 report by The Intercept led to the deaths of hundreds of civilians. In 2010, after four years in the military, he left the Air Force and joined other whistle-blowers speaking out about US drone policy. The group of technicians and operators wrote an open letter to US President Barack Obama.

Google has received tons of gushy press for its bubble-shaped self-driving car, though it's still years from the showroom floor. But for years John Deere has been selling tractors that practically drive themselves for use on farms in America's heartland, where there are few pesky pedestrians or federal rules to get in the way. For a glimpse at the future, meet Jason Poole, a 34-year-old crop consultant from Kansas. After a long day of meetings earlier this month and driving five hours across the state to watch his little girl's softball game, he was still able to run his John Deere tractor until 2 a.m. The land is hilly on Poole's family farm, so he drives the first curved row manually to teach the layout to his tractor's guidance system and handles the turns himself.

One of the arguments for self-driving cars is that they will be safer than human-driven vehicles.Human error is the cause of 94% of car crashes, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Those errors include drunk driving, speeding, distraction, and fatigue. But a new report finds that self-driving cars can't be tested enough hours to determine their safety. The report from research firm RAND Corporationsays autonomous vehicles would need to be tested "hundreds of millions of miles and sometimes hundreds of billions of miles" to gain enough information to compare its safety to human-driven automobiles. Such thorough testing would require "tens and sometimes hundreds of years," which would make it impractical to accomplish before clearing the vehicles for regular consumer use, the report said.

The 2016 winners were as follows: Tom Dietterich, AAAI President, for AAAI 2017 Awards, please Manuela Veloso, AAAI Past President contact Carol Hamilton at hamilton@aaai.org.

WWTS (What Would Turing Say?) Turing's Imitation Game was a brilliant Turing was heavily influenced by the World War II "game" If Turing were alive today, what sort of test might he propose? If a machine could fool interrogators as often as a typical man, then one would have to conclude that that machine, as programmed, was as intelligent as a person (well, as intelligent as men.) As Judy Genova (1994) puts it, Turing's originally proposed game involves not a question of species, but one of gender. The current version, where the interrogator is told he or she needs to distinguish a person from a machine, is (1) much more difficult to get a program to pass, and (2) almost all the added difficulties are largely irrelevant to intelligence! And it's possible to muddy the waters even more by some programs appearing to do well at it due to various tricks, such as having the interviewee program claim to be a 13-year-old Ukrainian who doesn't speak English well (University of Reading 2014), and hence having all its wrong or bizarre responses excused due to cultural, age, or language issues.

A new research initiative could provide the building blocks for a program that would send robots trillions of miles into space to better understand our neighboring star system. Billionaire investor Yuri Milner announced the Breakthrough Starshot project, the latest in Mr. Milner's Breakthrough Initiatives started in 2015. Breakthrough Starshot aims to send data-seeking nanocraft to Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system to the solar system, using laser propulsion. While the Breakthrough board of Milner, physicist Stephen Hawking, and entrepreneur Mark Zuckerberg just announced Starshot on Tuesday, they say it may not launch for 20 years, conservatively – and wouldn't reach Alpha Centauri for another 20 after that, despite traveling at one-fifth the speed of light. "We came to the conclusion it can be done: interstellar travel," Milner told The New York Times.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg attacked Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's extreme stance on refugees and immigrants during a speech on Tuesday, criticizing "fearful voices for building walls and distancing people they view as others." The founder of the social network spoke about Facebook's goal of sharing ideas during his company's annual F8 developer conference in San Francisco, when he said "instead of building walls, we can help build bridges," by welcoming refugees and immigrants. "It takes courage to choose hope over fear," he said. "Whether we are welcoming a refugee fleeing war or an immigrant seeking opportunity." Facebook launched the FWD.us immigration reform lobbying group in 2013, which advocates for legislation that supports a more open worker visa process.