Ubuntu is partnering with IBM Power Systems and OpenPOWER to bring the POWER8 architecture into the mainstream of dev ops practices and cloud operations. In this short video featured at IBM Interconnect, Mark Shuttleworth talks about the number one workload to create competitive advantage, and how the OpenPOWER foundation has enabled IBM to bring innovation back into the data centre.

The relentless increase in computing power and the accumulation of big data over the years has sparked intense interest in machine learning and its associated techniques. The new SAS Visual Data Mining and Machine Learning software will feed this need for smarter analytics. Advanced analytics offer insight to businesses, but machine learning and deep learning algorithms take it deeper, revealing insights that were previously out of reach. For example, machine learning use can include facial recognition in security systems, speech recognition in customer service applications, accurate product recommendations in e-commerce, self-driving cars and medical diagnostics. "SAS Visual Data Mining and Machine Learning shatters barriers related to data volume and variety, limited analytical depth and computational bottlenecks. That means greater productivity – and faster, deeper insight," said Hugo D'Ulisse, Head of Analytical Platform, SAS UK & Ireland.

A wrong landing could be all it takes to break a robot. To protect our robot friends from their inevitable falls, researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) are creating customizable shock-absorbent padding. The team's "Programmable Viscoelastic Material" (PVM) technique allows users to digitally program every part of a 3D-printed object to exact levels of stiffness and elasticity. "We can make really effective dampers and those dampers can be tailored exactly to the application by controlling the amount of liquid and solid," one of the researchers, Robert MacCurdy, told Quartz. Although viscoelastics like rubber and plastic are cheap, compact, and readily available, they can prove hard to customize to specific levels of damping, which can reduce the rebound after impact.

Imagine a robot or a drone that is made with a'skin' of sorts capable of precise amounts of shock absorption, something tailored to meet the precise needs of the device. That's exactly what MIT researchers have made possible via a new shock-absorbing 3D material for robots that offers all sorts of interesting properties, not the least of which is less bouncy, more precise and controlled landings after a blow. Think of this material as being the very thing BattleBots creators dream of. The material is soft and made with a 3D printer, and it aims to make robots and other devices fitted with it more durable. This could be robots, of course, but also other things that have to take an impact and absorb high levels of shock: helmets, for example, or smartphones.

Over the last few decades, globalization has created great wealth and brought millions out of poverty. Today, a combination of technology, politics, and social pressures seems to be reversing globalization. While the new technology will continue to create wealth, it will favor developed countries. The increasing regionalization of economies and differences in rates of growth will create instability and challenge international security arrangements. The Economist defines globalization as the "global integration of the movement of goods, capital and jobs." The combination of labor cost advantages, efficient freight systems, and trade agreements fueled globalization by providing regional cost advantages for manufacturing. Over the last six decades, it transformed agricultural societies into industrial powerhouses.

John Deere announced that it is using advanced software innovations, including artificial intelligence (AI), the internet of things and open APIs.

At the same time, it's upping its old-school manufacturing capabilities with technology that will allow it to quickly punch out industrial components, for airlines or anything else, to satisfy any client's whim.

Tech giant Microsoft and large equipment manufacturer Liebherr are collaborating on a new generation of smart refrigerators that would help in shopping and planning meals with intelligent food management. "As part of the Liebherr household appliances division's digital initiative, the duo would develop'SmartDeviceBox' -- a communication module which fits into refrigerators and freezers -- connecting them to the internet," T.J. Hazen, Principal Data Scientist Manager at Microsoft, wrote. The system, which would utilize the same machine learning technology used in Microsoft's artificial intelligence (AI) assistant Cortana, is designed to have a long lifecycle. With this technology, modular units can be integrated and upgraded at any time in existing SmartDevice-ready appliances to create value and comfort for customers through new digital features and solutions, the post on Microsoft blog said. With the refrigerators, stored groceries can be monitored using internal cameras and object recognition technology.

There are currently over 100 million students waiting to become the next generation of engineers, rocket scientists and astrophysicists to get humans from Earth to Mars and beyond, but they may not be able to fulfill their potential simply due to a lack of access to a quality education. According to a study from UNESCO, more than 100 million young people worldwide, 62 to 66 million of whom are girls, are not attending school of any kind. Hundreds of millions more are unable to afford good-quality or safe schools. However, groups like OneWeb and ONE are aiming to provide universal Internet access worldwide by 2020, greatly expanding the ability to use educational resources online. Nevertheless, Internet access does not guarantee a quality education.

Researchers from the Case Western Reserve University in Ohio used tissues from a sea slug and 3D-printed components to create a biohybrid robot that can crawl like sea turtles on a beach. The robot, just under two inches long, can "walk" at a pace of 0.43 centimeters a minute when an external electrical current is applied which forces the muscles to contract. The scientists behind this biohybrid robot believe that in the future, an army of such robots could be used for a variety of tasks like locating the source of a toxic leak in a pond or even searching the ocean floor for a flight data recorder. "We're building a living machine--a biohybrid robot that's not completely organic yet," lead researcher and PhD student Victoria Webster said in a statement. "We want the robots to be compliant, to interact with the environment. One of the problems with traditional robotics, especially on the small scale, is that actuators -- the units that provide movement -- tend to be rigid."