Amazon Web Services today unveiled DeepLens, a wireless video camera made for the quick deployment of deep learning. The camera will cost $249 and is scheduled to ship for customers in the United States in April 2018. DeepLens comes pre-loaded with AWS Greengrass for local computation and can operate with SageMaker, a new service to simplify the deployment of AI models, as well as popular open source AI services such as TensorFlow from Google and Caffe2 from Facebook, according to an AWS blog. "DeepLens runs the model directly onto the device. The video doesn't have to go anywhere. It can be trained with SageMaker and deployed to the model," said AWS general manager of AI services Matt Wood during the keynote address today at AWS re:Invent conference being held this week in Las Vegas.

Over a third of the nearly 22 million comments that poured into the Federal Communications Commission regarding its plan to repeal net neutrality protections included one of seven identical messages. More than half were associated with duplicate or temporary emails, including some 7,500 affiliated with the address "example@example.com." Dozens included references to the animated film Bee Movie, a film about a disillusioned worker bee that has become fodder for several popular memes. Roughly one million comments came from Pornhub.com email addresses. And more than 7,000 comments were submitted by a gentleman--or woman--named, simply, The Internet.

Nissan is banking on still having the force. After a successful tie-up between Nissan's Rogue sport utility vehicle and the "Star Wars" franchise a year ago, Nissan is back with a "Star Wars"-themed promotion across its 2018 product line at this year's L.A. Auto Show. The automaker plans to display modified, "Star Wars"-themed versions of not only the Rogue, but also the Rogue Sport compact SUV and the Altima and Maxima sedans, among others. There will be seven of the concept vehicles overall. They're tied to the upcoming movie, "Star Wars: The Last Jedi," set for release Dec. 15.

The government is continuing the process of data mining of deregistered companies and so far, bank details have been gathered for nearly 50,000 such entities, Union minister P P Chaudhary said today. Amid the clampdown on the black money menace, names of more than 2.24 lakh companies have been struck off from the records and over 3 lakh directors have been barred from directorship for their associations with such firms. The minister of state for corporate affairs said that based on details gathered from banks, around 50,000 deregistered companies deposited and withdrew about Rs 17,000 crore during demonetisation. Data mining is continuing with respect to the struck-off entities, Chaudhary said, adding that artificial intelligence could be used to identify illegal activities of companies. He was speaking at an event organised by the Institute of Cost Accountants of India.

At 9 on a Friday night, I knocked on a door in a nondescript Los Angeles apartment building. The only distinguishing feature was a small label with red text that read "Lauren." Soon came a whirring sound and the click of the door unlocking. My night with Lauren had begun. Lauren is the creation of artist and UCLA professor Lauren McCarthy, whose weeklong interactive performance was part of the IDFA DocLab, an International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam showcase for new-media projects, and also part of "Vulnerability: The Space Between," an exhibition at Young Projects Gallery in West Hollywood.

Your phone gets notifications, so why can't your smart speaker? Amazon is doing something about it.. and thankfully, it's not as bothersome as it could be. The company is trotting out a developer preview of notifications in Alexa skills. If you opt in, third-party skills can push notifications to your Alexa-equipped devices (such as an Echo speaker or your phone) that will trigger both a sound and an on-device alert (whether an LED light or on-screen display. This doesn't mean you're going to be peppered with unwanted speech, though: your notifications accumulate, and you'll only hear what they are when you ask Alexa to read them. Amazon stresses that it won't allow notifications with advertising, and it wants developers to use notifications "sparingly."

A new short film from the Campaign Against Killer Robots warns of a future where weaponised flying drones target and assassinate certain members of the public, using facial recognition technology to identify them. Is this a realistic threat that could rightly spur an effective ban on the technology? Or is it an overblown portrayal designed to scare governments into taking simplistic, unnecessary and ultimately futile action? We asked two academics for their expert opinions. A new short film from the Campaign Against Killer Robots warns of a future where weaponised flying drones target and assassinate certain members of the public, using facial recognition technology to identify them.

Today in Entertainment: Royal wedding location set; 'Get Out' scores big at 2017 Gotham Awards Grammy nominations 2018 updates: People of color and women dominate top four categories Royal wedding location set; Meghan Markle to become U.K. citizen Jordan Peele's'Get Out' scores big at 2017 Gotham Awards Trevor Noah and Seth Meyers take on Trump's'big, beautiful' tax cut'Avengers: Infinity War' will be a finale of sorts, producer Kevin Feige says Seth Meyers to host the 2018 Golden Globes Royal wedding location set; Meghan Markle to become U.K. citizen Jordan Peele's'Get Out' scores big at 2017 Gotham Awards Trevor Noah and Seth Meyers take on Trump's'big, beautiful' tax cut'Avengers: Infinity War' will be a finale of sorts, producer Kevin Feige says'Lady Bird' kicks'Toy Story 2' to the Rotten Tomatoes curb Greta Gerwig's directorial debut, "Lady Bird," has broken a Rotten Tomatoes record: It has accumulated the longest run of positive reviews ever recorded by the movie website. As of Tuesday morning, the film written by Gerwig and starring Saoirse Ronan found itself at 170 fresh reviews and counting, with an overall rating of 8.9 out of 10 from critics and no "rotten" reviews. About 87% of the audience rated it 3.5 stars or better. Here's some perspective: Before "Lady Bird" earned its 164th consecutive positive review on Monday, the Rotten Tomatoes title was held by "Toy Story 2," an animated crowd-pleaser released in 1999. "Citizen Kane" also has 100% positive critical response, with a 9.4 rating, but only 75 reviews total.

Chatbots/ Conversational Systems, Virtual Reality (VR)/Augmented Reality, Digital Twins, Virtual Assistants, Artificial Intelligence, and Advanced Machine Learning have become the most recent disruptive trend in technology. Thus if you want to create a killer app, this is the way to go. Artificial Intelligence experts, particularly Chatbot Developers on my Linked In, are claiming they are changing the face of the e-commerce and medical industry with systems that emulate human speech. Therefore, in time, it seems that humans could become obsolete in the workforce. Now we are posed with the question: Can a "robot" really replace the need for human workers?

This Echo device is charming-looking, smart, and simple to use. And thanks to the Alexa brains built into the software, it's improving all the time, too. The only downside is you can't actually buy it until December, but you can pre-order it now and have it for Christmas. The smart speaker, video caller, and alarm clock makes a solid gift for someone who doesn't already have a stack of gadgets at home. That voice control system pioneered by the Echo means your friend or relative won't have to fumble around with keyboards, or a mouse, and there's no complicated setup procedure.