Microsoft recently launched its new Artificial Intelligence for Earth program. They're using the speed of computers to tackle some of our most pressing environmental issues. "Artificial intelligence is just the idea of trying to teach computers to be able to do similar tasks that humans can naturally do," said Microsoft Chief Environmental Scientist Lucas Joppa. One of their projects is focused on saving the Southern Resident Killer Whales (SRKW) from extinction, using the same premise of facial recognition software. "What we're trying to do is bring that same level of sophistication to animals like orcas. But to be able to track them through photos, we need to be able to teach computers what we see," Joppa said.

The question of whether you should let Facebook save your face is gaining in urgency as Facebook makes moves to expand its deployment of facial recognition. It faces a lawsuit by Illinois residents over the technology. SAN FRANCISCO -- Of all the information Facebook collects about you, nothing is more personal than your face. With 2.2 billion users uploading hundreds of millions of photos a day, the giant social network has developed one of the single-largest databases of faces and -- with so many images to train its facial recognition software -- one of the most accurate. The question of whether you should let Facebook save your face is gaining in urgency as it moves to expand its deployment of facial recognition, rolling it out in Europe, where it was scrapped in 2012 over privacy concerns and scanning and identifying more people in photos. At the same time, the giant social network is attempting to quash efforts to restrict the use of facial recognitionin the U.S., from legislation to litigation.

Apple has created a new robot – not for building products, but for ripping iPhones apart. The robot, named Daisy, can take nine different iPhones models apart and extract the important parts of them, in ways traditional recyclers cannot. They can then be used all over again, helping to cut wastage out of the process of making phones. The new announcement is part of Apple's broad plans for Earth Day, the event held on 22 April each year to mark green efforts. It also said that it would encourage people to recycle more of their phones, so that they can be broken up by Daisy: for every iPhone handed in until 30 April through its GiveBack recycling scheme, it will make a donation to Conservation International.

Elon Musk's comment that humans are underrated (Humans replace robots at flagging Tesla plant, 17 April) doesn't come as much of a surprise, even though his company is at the forefront of the technological revolution. Across industries, CEOs are wrestling with the balance between humans and increasingly cost-effective and advanced robots and artificial intelligence. However, as Mr Musk has discovered, the complexity of getting a machine to cover every possibility results in a large web of interconnected elements that can overcomplicate the underlying problem. This is why so many organisations fail when they try to automate everything they do. Three key mistakes I see time and again in these situations are missing the data basics, applying the wrong strategy, and losing the human touch. There are some clear cases where automation works well: low value, high repetition tasks or even complex ones where additional data will give a better outcome, for example, using medical-grade scanners on mechanical components to identify faults not visible to the human eye.

Camden Sen. Vincent Sheheen says the legislation is timely after the Lee Correctional Institution fight that left seven dead and 22 injured. Officials say that fight was started over gang territories and contraband.

Joanna Goodman is a freelance journalist and author. She is The Law Society Gazette's IT columnist and writes about tech for other publications including The Guardian. Her focus is emerging tech, including artificial intelligence (AI), connected devices and robots. She is a visiting scholar at University of Westminster Law School. As she is also the author of ones of the very first books on AI in the legal sector, we were fascinated by her views on just how worried lawyers should be when it comes to the impact of these technologies.

Software and software-implemented inventions are not categorically disqualified from patent protection in the United States. As Roman Trusov has pointed out, you can find multiple examples of patents issued by the USPTO that are directed to ML algorithms. However, whether these types of patents would survive a post-grant challenge based on subject matter eligibility is uncertain. During litigation, an accused infringer would most likely argue that a patent claim covering an ML algorithm is invalid as directed to an abstract idea, and claims to mathematical algorithms are often vulnerable to this line of argument. The success of such an argument would largely depend on the wording of the patent claims and the manner in which the invention is framed.

The Minnesota Supreme Court on Wednesday largely backed Tony Webster, who said the county violated Minnesota's open records law when it denied him access to emails he requested in 2015. He had wanted to learn about how the sheriff's office uses biometrics, including facial recognition technologies.

Should robots be given legal status? This is the question that currently occupies the AI experts, and for a good reason, a paragraph well buried in a report of the European Parliament published in January 2017, suggests that it is necessary to assign "electronic personalities" to certain robots. "The creation, over time, of a legal personality specific to robots, so that at least the most sophisticated autonomous robots can be considered as electronic persons responsible for repairing any damage caused to a third party; it would be conceivable to consider as an electronic person any robot that makes autonomous decisions or that interacts independently with third parties." Translation, this recommendation suggests that autonomous robots should be held accountable, especially in the event that these machines damage the safety of people or damage property. The parties to this proposal, including builders, claim that this change is common sense.

A'malfunctioning' robot named Fred has terrified drinkers in a London pub by smashing a pint glass while talking about a'robot invasion'. The hyper-realistic automaton, modeled to be an exact replica of London-based actor Tedroy Newell, sat down for a refreshing lager at The Prince Alfred pub in Maida Vale, in the west of the capital. Unsuspecting customers were unprepared for what came next, with the humanoid berating locals before crushing the drinking vessel in his hands. The robot, described as'indistinguishable from humans', was created as part of a stunt to promote TV Series Westworld. A'malfunctioning' robot has terrified shocked drinkers in a London pub, by smashing a pint glass and talking about a'robot invasion'.