EY announces the appointment of machine learning and AI authority Nigel Duffy as EY Global Innovation Artificial Intelligence Leader. As part of the EY Global Innovation Team, Dr. Duffy will lead the application of AI throughout EY, helping it to be effectively leveraged across the organization. Based in Palo Alto, California, Dr. Duffy will also be responsible for expanding and further strengthening EY's relationships with start-ups and academic and business communities worldwide. "Nigel is considered one of the world's foremost thought leaders in AI, with demonstrated leadership in applying the technology to drive real commercial value. With Nigel joining the EY Global Innovation Team, we look forward to working together to turn ideas leveraging AI into realities that help EY and our clients innovate."

After taking a lengthy absence from sci-fi, South African film director Neill Blomkamp has decided to pit the human race against extraterrestrial forces once again. Created by his new science fiction studio, Oats Studios, his latest project is a short film called Volume 1 -- and surprisingly, it could make its debut on PC gaming platform, Steam. With Hollywood currently afflicted by franchise fever, Blomkamp's latest project aims to let viewers test out an experimental series of entirely new sci-fi movie concepts over the internet. If I sold experimental short films on @steam_games as tests for potential full feature films, would people watch them?

The long-awaited Essential Phone has finally been revealed. The handset, which comes from Andy Rubin, the creator of Android, has been teased for months. It can instantly be described as one of the best-looking mobiles on the market, and has been built to challenge the iPhone, Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy S8 for smartphone supremacy. 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. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar.

Facebook has claimed that a new German law that threatens to impose heavy fines on social media companies if they fail to delete hate speech and fake news, could lead to tech firms deleting legal content to avoid paying the punishing sanctions. The legislation, known as the Network Enforcement Act, was proposed by the German government in March and approved by the cabinet a month later, although it is yet to come into effect. Facebook reportedly issued a statement over the weekend explaining why the law "is not suitable to combat hate speech and false news". According to Business Insider, the company said in the statement that "the draft law provides an incentive to delete content that is not clearly illegal when social networks face such a disproportionate threat of fines." Facebook added: "It would have the effect of transferring responsibility for complex legal decisions from public authorities to private companies. And several legal experts have assessed the draft law as being against the German constitution and non-compliant with EU law. Facebook is committed to working in partnership with governments and civil society on solutions that will make this draft law unnecessary."

This week, Google's AlphaGo program beat the world's best Go player, Ke Jie, in 2 straight games in a best of 5 series. Go is considered to be the world's hardest board game, and some AI experts didn't think that a machine would be able to best humans for another decade. In the area of photography, companies like Google have already introduced various aspects of machine learning allowing users to search for photos by keyword without having ever entered keywords. Combined with other features like facial recognition give the user surprisingly accurate and useful results. It's clear that AI has reached a powerful inflection point.

A Canadian startup called Lyrebird has announced that it has developed a platform capable of mimicking human voice with a fraction of the audio samples required by other platforms such as Google DeepMind and Adobe Project VoCo. The Lyrebird synthesis software requires only 60 seconds of sample audio to produce it's synthetic sample. VoCo needs about 20 minutes to do the same. The quality of the voice reproductions that the software can make are mixed. Some are better than others.

Robotic toy company Sphero, which has previously designed toys such as an interactive BB-8, has launched an app controlled Lightning McQueen car from Pixar's Cars film franchise. The car, who's launch comes before the release of Cars 3 in June, is controlled with a companion iOS or Android app. The Ultimate Lightning McQueen car has expressive eyes powered by a 320 x 120 LCD display, and a soft plastic mouth that allows it to talk. The Ultimate Lightning McQueen car has a 30-meter (98-feet) bluetooth range and can reach a top speeds of up to six miles (9.6 kilometers) per hour. The car, priced at $299.99, can'speak' 300 different phrases and users can play games on it.

The actor Danny McBride looked around the Jekyll & Hyde Club, in the West Village, and said, "This is where the New York bankers do all the big deals, huh?" It was shortly after noon, and the putatively scary horror-themed restaurant--skeletons in top hats, chattering mummies--was empty. "I worked in places like this in Los Angeles," the actor continued, "and I recognize that disgusting stale-beer stink." Unconcerned, McBride ordered a Caesar salad with chicken, then suggested that the menu was a missed opportunity: "The names should be more horror-infused, more'The Creature from the Black Lagoon' Wings." In Ridley Scott's new film, "Alien: Covenant," the latest installment of the actually scary horror franchise about aliens who burst from the bellies of spaceship crew members, McBride plays a jaunty Southerner named Tennessee.

To become data scientist, you have a formidable challenge ahead. You'll need to master a variety of skills, ranging from machine learning to business analytics. However, the rewards are worth it. Organizations will prize alchemists who can turn raw data into smarter decisions, better products, happier customers, and ultimately more profit. Plus, you'll get to solve interesting problems and master new, impactful technologies.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has entered our daily lives like never before and we are yet to unravel the many other ways in which it could flourish. All tech giants such as Microsoft, Uber, Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Oracle, Intel, IBM or Twitter are competing in the race to lead the market and acquire the most innovative and promising AI businesses. AI is already being used in everyday life with applications including speech recognition, smart cars, fraud detection, security surveillance, music recommendations and AI-powered personal virtual assistant such as Cortana (Microsoft), Siri (Apple) or Alexa (Amazon). Discussions on AI are generally dappled with the terms, 'Machine Learning' and'Deep Learning'. Moreover, they are often interchangeably used.