The terrifying faces may look like creatures from a horror movie, but these digital images were actually generated by artificial intelligence (AI). Pix2pix project has unleashed a new tool that analyzes portraits and fills them in with colors and textures using a technique called generative adversarial networks (GANs). During the process, the system determines if its result match the sketch and will keep repeating the generation process until its own passes as'real' – regardless of how nightmarish the results may look. The terrifying faces may look like creatures from a horror movie, but these digital images were actually generated by artificial intelligence (AI). Users are presented with an input box and an output box and are prompted to draw a face in input, select process and in seconds, the AI will reveal its version of the sketch.

The U.S. entertainment and media business is expected to see modest-to-slow growth over the next five years, according to a new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers. The report singles out traditional sectors such as cinema and television as areas of sluggishness, while pointing to emerging industries including e-sports and virtual reality as sectors poised for the most growth. Total domestic revenue for all media and entertainment industries is expected to rise less than 4% annually over the next five years, reaching $759 billion in 2021. The forecast data comes as media companies are scrambling to find innovative ways to reach consumers in a rapidly changing environment. "[Entertainment and media] companies are operating amidst a wave of geopolitical turbulence, regulatory changes and technological disruption," Mark McCaffrey, PwC's leader for U.S. technology, media, and telecommunications, said in a statement.

Just yesterday, over 5000 developers gathered at the San Jose Convention Center for Apple's WWDC 2017. In addition to the usual hardware overhauls and new products, Apple also announced some new APIs. The MusicKit API allows developers to extend the functionality of Apple Music to third-party applications. The API makes it possible for applications to tap into a user's Apple Music account (once they authorize the application of course) and create playlists, add songs to their library, and play any of the content in the Apple Music catalog. If a user is not already signed up for Apple Music, the company makes note that they can be offered a trial membership. You had to know that was coming.

When it comes to Artificial Intelligence (AI), people's responses vary: from "Terminator and Skynet are coming to kill us all" to "Will the bots take my jobs?" to "Awesome, now I can sit back and do the fun stuff while the bots take care of tedious tasks for me." But there are also misperceptions and misinformation. It's always useful to have a basic grasp of AI, because whether you like it or not, AI is already manifesting in many aspects of our lives. For instance, you can now order Domino's pizzas by talking to your phone. Plus, the pizza giant also says it is moving from a "mobile first" to an "AI first" philosophy.

In shows like HBO's "Westworld" and AMC's "Humans," Hollywood pits robots, with artificial intelligence, against humans. Half a century ago, a science fiction film about a space mission planted the first seeds of doubt about just how the human race could coexist with man-made sentient beings. "Consider the fictional robot HAL in '2001: A Space Odyssey,' " said Ken Ford, a computer scientist and founder and CEO of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, in Pensacola, which has won awards for its robotics innovations. HAL eventually turned on its master in that classic film, sending shivers down the spines of moviegoers everywhere. Some of that wariness about artificial intelligence still exists, but Ford said the fear is unwarranted, and in the case of fictional robots, misplaced.

NEW YORK-- Alexa and Siri, rival voice assistants on Amazon's Echo and Apple's iPhone, don't directly communicate with one another. But the Amazon executive in charge of Alexa and the Amazon Echo said he'd welcome the idea. "You should be able to tell Alexa, ask Siri X,'" said David Limp, senior vice president of devices at Amazon. "If Apple or Google want to come calling, my phone number is out there, they can call...I don't know if I can envision it but I hope that will happen on behalf of customers," Limp told a group of journalists at the Wired Business Conference Wednesday in New York. Limp has a strong interest in Apple's entry into the voice-activated, artificially-intelligent infused speaker space, which also includes Google Home and Microsoft's Cortana on the Harmon Kardon Invoke speaker.

This article originally appeared on the Motley Fool. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has officially stepped into the market for stationary speakers powered by virtual assistants, a product category that Amazon.com Amazon's Echo family continues to expand, recently adding the Echo Look and Echo Show. Apple has never put all that much weight into being the first to market provided it can be the best when it finally gets there. With that in mind, how does the new HomePod stack up against the dominant Echo?

There are visual differences in the training snapshots shown in the difference graph. So the interesting thing is that it has actually learnt different dynamics for each genre which means it has learnt different styles. I then carried out a group of experiments on the different outputs. I showed survey participants the Jazz and Classical output of certain songs, and asked them to select a specific genre. Participants said that they could hear the difference between the two tracks, and they sounded like different renditions.

Kodi has become a hot topic in recent months, and not just within tech circles. The software has gone mainstream, with more and more people realising you can use it to watch new films and TV shows for free. However, it's currently under intense scrutiny, and has attracted the attention of police, broadcasters and legal authorities too. Here's everything you need to know about Kodi. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph.

Yasmin Green leads a team at Google's parent company with an audacious goal: solving the thorniest geopolitical problems that emerge online. Jigsaw, where she is the head of research and development, is a think tank within Alphabet tasked with fighting the unintended unsavory consequences of technological progress. That means listening to fake news creators, jihadis, and cyber bullies so that she and her team can understand their motivations, processes, and goals. "We look at censorship, cybersecurity, cyberattacks, ISIS--everything the creators of the internet did not imagine the internet would be used for," Green said today at WIRED's 2017 Business Conference in New York. Last week, Green traveled to Macedonia to meet with peddlers of fake news, those click-hungry opportunists who had such a sway over the 2016 presidential election in the US.