The distraught mom of the tourist allegedly killed by her Tinder date left an Australian courthouse in distress Thursday when she accidentally heard her daughter's last words played on an audio recording, according to reports. Marzabeth Tagpuno Wright was distraught outside the Brisbane Supreme Court after a reporter played the tape of Warriena Wright yelling, "No, no no" -- just before she plunged 14 stories to her death from Gable Tostee's 14th-floor balcony at his posh Gold Coast apartment in Australia, the Courier Mail said. The chilling audio had been played for the jury earlier in the week, but the mom was not in the courtroom at the time.

There has never been so much interest in legal technology as right now. Conferences about technology and the law are now oversubscribed and people are being turned away because they are full. Legal Geek's 2016 conference in London on 18th October, is a case in point, generating the kind of excitement one normally sees for the arrival of a stadium rock band. At the same time the mainstream legal media now covers what are in effect software supplier deals on their front pages, even if that software is Artificial Intelligence (AI) software. We are even seeing dedicated legal AI sites such as ArtificialLawyer.com

Chicago police use algorithmic systems to predict which people are most likely to be involved in a shooting, but they have proved largely ineffective. This week, the White House published its report on the future of artificial intelligence (AI) -- a product of four workshops held between May and July 2016 in Seattle, Pittsburgh, Washington DC and New York City (see go.nature.com/2dx8rv6). During these events (which we helped to organize), many of the world's leading thinkers from diverse fields discussed how AI will change the way we live. Dozens of presentations revealed the promise of using progress in machine learning and other AI techniques to perform a range of complex tasks in every day life. These ranged from the identification of skin alterations that are indicative of early-stage cancer to the reduction of energy costs for data centres. The workshops also highlighted a major blind spot in thinking about AI.

But physics and chemistry give us a clear definition of the element magnesium--which we can then use in the Wolfram Language to have a well-defined "magnesium" entity. It's very important that the Wolfram Language is a symbolic language--because it means that the things in it don't immediately have to have "values"; they can just be symbolic constructs that stand for themselves. And so, for example, the entity "magnesium" is represented as a symbolic construct, that doesn't itself "do" anything, but can still appear in a computation, just like, for example, a number (like 9.45) can appear. There are many kinds of constructs that the Wolfram Language supports. Like "New York City" or "last Christmas" or "geographically contained within". And the point is that the design of the language has defined a precise meaning for them. New York City, for example, is taken to mean the precise legal entity considered to be New York City, with geographical borders defined by law.

A UK parliamentary committee has urged the government to act proactively -- and to act now -- to tackle "a host of social, ethical and legal questions" arising from growing usage of autonomous technologies such as artificial intelligence. "While it is too soon to set down sector-wide regulations for this nascent field, it is vital that careful scrutiny of the ethical, legal and societal dimensions of artificially intelligent systems begins now," says the committee. "Not only would this help to ensure that the UK remains focused on developing'socially beneficial' AI systems, it would also represent an important step towards fostering public dialogue about, and trust in, such systems over time." The committee kicked off an enquiry into AI and robotics this March, going on to take 67 written submissions and hear from 12 witnesses in person, in addition to visiting Google DeepMind's London office. Publishing its report into robotics and AI today, the Science and Technology committee flags up several issues that it says need "serious, ongoing consideration" -- including: "[W]itnesses were clear that the ethical and legal matters raised by AI deserved attention now and that suitable governance frameworks were needed," it notes in the report.

Despite robotics and artificial intelligence being labelled as threats to the profession, the head of digital legal services for a global firm has downplayed concerns. Speaking ahead of the Lawtech Summit, Tae Royle, head of digital legal services for Ashurst, said reports about the robot lawyer takeover have escalated unnecessarily. "The doom and gloom scenarios are a bit overcooked; the majority of the workforce will adapt rapidly and are getting on the front foot," he said. Mr Royle added that these fears are unsubstantiated at present, as the application of AI remains "very narrow". However, Mr Royle also said that opportunities for AI are "progressively widening, and in five years' time the use cases will be broader and the impacts will be very deep", though he noted there is no need for firms to panic over this, and instead they should properly prepare.

There are many clichés about lawyers, but one that even lawyers buy into is that we are slow to adopt new technology. It may be heresy for me to say this, but I do not believe it is true. Yes, the behemoth that is the profession as a whole is slow to adopt change of any kind – tech, business, and otherwise. But the behemoth is a creature of the lowest common denominator. It does not define us all.

A UK parliamentary committee has urged the government to act proactively -- and to act now -- to tackle "a host of social, ethical and legal questions" arising from the rise of autonomous technologies such as artificial intelligence. "While it is too soon to set down sector-wide regulations for this nascent field, it is vital that careful scrutiny of the ethical, legal and societal dimensions of artificially intelligent systems begins now," says the committee. "Not only would this help to ensure that the UK remains focused on developing'socially beneficial' AI systems, it would also represent an important step towards fostering public dialogue about, and trust in, such systems over time." The committee kicked off an enquiry into AI and robotics this March, going on to take 67 written submissions and hear from 12 witnesses in person, in addition to visiting Google DeepMind's London office. Publishing its report into robotics and AI today, the Science and Technology committee flags up several issues that it says need "serious, ongoing consideration" -- including: "[W]itnesses were clear that the ethical and legal matters raised by AI deserved attention now and that suitable governance frameworks were needed," it notes in the report.

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

Vox tech writer Timothy B. Lee used to be one of the most ardent techno-optimists. But he's had a bit of a conversion, of late, and is now on the side of those who think tech progress is slowing. Maybe it was the economist Robert Gordon who convinced him, or maybe years of observing the tech world changed his mind. In any case, Lee now broadly suggests that the inventions of tomorrow won't be as world-changing as those of yesteryear. There are a number of industries -- with health care and education being the most important -- where there's an inherent limit on how much value information technology can add.