No longer the subject of science fiction, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is profoundly transforming our daily lives. While computers have been mimicking human intelligence already for some decades using logic and if-then kind of rules, massive increases in computational power are now facilitating the creation of'deep learning' machines i.e. algorithms that permit software to train itself to recognize patterns and perform tasks, like speech and image recognition, through exposure to vast amounts of data. These deep learning algorithms are everywhere, shaping our preferences and behaviour. Facebook uses a set of algorithms to tailor what news stories an individual user sees and in what order. Bot activity on Twitter last year suppressed a protest against Mexico's now-president by overloading the hashtag used to organize the event.

Music follows a set of patterns that can extract feelings from its listeners and provoke emotional responses. While machines can now make music too, they don't give much consideration to the emotional response of their audience. But now a team of researchers has developed a machine-learning device that can detect the emotional state of listeners and make new songs that provoke new feelings. In the study, participants listened to music while wearing wireless headphones that contained brain wave sensors. The team of researchers, under the support of Osaka University's Center of Innovation (COI) program, developed the AI that detects users' brain state and provides a means for activating it through music.

You know, I really did think we'd have more games with Shadow of Mordor's "Nemesis System" by now. It was the standout feature! Procedurally-generated orc enemies who, through tech wizardry, remembered your last encounters and even bore the physical scars. Cool stuff, and while I assumed there'd be a grace period before it showed up in other games, we're nearly three years on and there's been nothing at all. So perhaps it's not surprising that for Shadow of Mordor's sequel, Shadow of War, all that's required is "…More Nemesis System."

In the middle of Paris Fashion Week, Ghost in the Shell "Prototype" (hosted by Paramount Pictures and Tumblr) aimed to show off cutting-edge fashion that makes use of technology. Weirdly, the event actually didn't have much to do with the movie at all, other than trying to demonstrate how humans can enhance themselves via smart clothing, much like in Ghost in the Shell's fictional near-future. Rather, it gave us an up-close look at the future of couture, including Intel's "Adrenaline" dress that gets "upset" when you do, a "Smart Coat" that warms you up with infrared tech and fabrics that can sense the amount of air pollution. The showcase was provocative, and designers were excited to work with the new creative formats offered by wearable tech, but it also demonstrated why wired-up clothes aren't quite ready for prime-time.

In a short time, Viet Thanh Nguyen has encircled the American literary consciousness: first with his mind-bending 2015 novel "The Sympathizer," then last year's cultural history "Nothing Ever Dies" and now with eight short stories entitled "The Refugees." Nguyen, the Aerol Arnold Chair of English and professor of English and American studies and ethnicity at USC, has called refugees "the zombies of the world" because they are haunted, unwanted at home and abroad. In "Black-Eyed Women," the first tale in his new collection, his characters do share such qualities with the undead. The narrator is a 38-year-old Vietnamese refugee, working as a ghostwriter and living in near silence with her mother. She leads a denatured American life -- her gender unclear until the ninth page.

Ex Machina has a simple story dealing with a deeply complex and philosophical topic: namely what makes humans human. The increasingly omnipresent Oscar Isaac plays billionaire Nathan Bates, genius creator of'Google' - my mistake - 'BlueBook', the world's "leading search engine". Bates lives in the middle of the American wilderness (in reality, a very picturesque Norway) and in a property that actually exists (BlueBook the Juvet Hotel). He is leading a one-man research project into the development of an Artificial Intelligence. Leading neatly on from the recent Cumbur-busting "The Imitation Game" the eccentric and erratic Nathan needs to share his work with someone external in order to perform'The Turing Test' - the test to determine if a machine can genuinely pass itself off as human to another human.

My wife used to love reading but since her stroke has aphasia, no speech, limited vision and limited dexterity in her left hand only. She can select TV channels on a remote but she cannot read a short news story let alone a novel, so she listens to the radio and watches a lot of TV. I thought of getting her a Kindle e-reader but they don't seem to do text to speech any more. A shop assistant suggested a tablet with a text-to-speech app. It needs a really simple interface or my wife will not be able to use it without assistance.

This is a particularly tough time for broadcasters and service providers. There's more competition than ever before thanks to instant streaming and on-demand viewing, and each company is in a battle for the best content. Pay TV operators have built enormous on-demand catalogues, and broadcasters are expanding their online services with more library content and short-form video. The ultimate goal for each company is to draw in as many viewers as possible, and ultimately to keep them engaged for as long as possible, too. But, with an ever-expanding sea of content in front of them, it's getting more difficult for viewers to choose what they want to watch.

I'm proud and excited to share that Kaggle is joining Google Cloud! Seven years ago, we launched our first ever competition, to predict the voting patterns for the Eurovision Song Contest. It was won by Jure Zbontar, who beat 21 teams to win the $1000 prize. Since then, the Kaggle community has used machine learning to grade high school essays, diagnose heart failure and increase the discovery significance of the Higgs Boson. Geoff Hinton and George Dahl showed the power of deep neural networks on a Merck competition and Tianqi Chen used Kaggle Kernels to introduce the community to XGBoost. Kaggle profiles have become a well recognized credential, with community members landing jobs at companies ranging from DeepMind to Walmart.

It may sound like Władziu Valentino Liberace himself, but the piano is being played by a robot. Arpeggio, the'Piano SuperDroid', is designed to roll up to any piano and align itself on the right keys and foot pedals. The machine is capable of playing with over 1,000 levels of individual keynote expressions and 256 pedal positions – and it reproduces human piano performances just as they were recorded. Arpeggio, the'Piano SuperDroid', is designed to roll up to any piano and align itself with the right keys and foot pedals. Arpeggio is a piano SuperDroid that can roll up to any piano and set itself up so its'fingers' are on the right keys. It also has extensions at the bottom that lets it press the necessary pedals.