Nowadays, recommender systems are used to personalize your experience on the web, telling you what to buy, where to eat or even who you should be friends with. People's tastes vary, but generally follow patterns. People tend to like things that are similar to other things they like, and they tend to have similar taste as other people they are close with. Recommender systems try to capture these patterns to help predict what else you might like. E-commerce, social media, video and online news platforms have been actively deploying their own recommender systems to help their customers to choose products more efficiently, which serves win-win strategy.

Westworld's intriguing new teaser trailer, released before Game of Thrones last night, is certainly a tease. While the original film was set in a futuristic attraction full of robotic brothels and malfunctioning gunfighters, Westworld the series is populated by sentient artificial intelligence (and possibly set in virtual reality). It has been called "a dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the future of sin" by The Hollywood Reporter. Anthony Hopkins plays the genius at the helm of this digital Dodge City, and it looks like he will not be as adorable as Richard Attenborough's grandfatherly architect of Jurassic Park. This is familiar territory for EP Jonathan Nolan, who has co-written and contributed to reality challenging films like Memento, Interstellar, and Terminator Salvation.

Who knew Han was so self-conscious?Lucasfilm screencap One of IBM Watson's many talents is analyzing personality traits by looking at written text. The supercomputer assesses traits based on the popular Big Five test, which rates subjects for extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience. It can also identify different tones such as fear, joy, confidence, and openness. These skills have been used to do everything from assist customer service agents in analyzing how their phone calls went to providing dating tips. We tested out Watson last week on the "Harry Potter" universe and were wowed by its conclusions. This week, we worked with IBM researcher Vinith Misra to analyze the "Star Wars" original trilogy screenplays.

Hollywood fantasy: The reality of AI development is a little more nuanced and a lot less advanced than movies might have us believe. It's the theme of so many dystopian sci-fi books and movies: a super intelligent machine in charge of lethal military hardware becomes self-aware and decides to wreak havoc. But could it actually happen? At the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence's annual conference in Texas last month, a workshop was held on the ethics of AI development and a panel discussed whether or not so-called'lethal autonomous weapons' should be banned. "There are many arguments, legal, ethical, political and technical for a ban," Toby Walsh, head of the Optimisation Research Group at Australia's research body NICTA and chair of the proceedings, told Fairfax Media.

The dating app has rolled out verified profiles, which means now you'll know if "celebrity" profiles on the app are for real – instead of having to rely on whether or not the profile picture is a heavily pixellated crop from a website, complete with watermark still attached. Tinder announced the move on its blog: "Now when notable public figures, celebrities and athletes appear in your recommendations, you'll know it's for real." Verified profiles for celebrities have long been in development, and were first mooted back in March 2014, when Tinder's chief executive, Sean Rad, said: "This will allow celebrities to enter Tinder in a different way." The app's chief marketing officer, Justin Mateen, added: "Tinder gives them [celebrities] the control to filter through the noise and communicate with people they want to know." Back in May 2014, singer Ed Sheeran said he believed he was the first celebrity to be approached by Tinder for a verified profile.

Netflix does not usually jump to the top of the list when one thinks of leaders in artificial intelligence, but Netflix's VP of Product Innovation, Carlos Uribe-Gomez, and Chief Product Officer Neil Hunt published a paper informing investors that some of its algorithms help them save 1 billion each year. In the paper, the two executives detailed how the company's recommendation engine impacts its churn rate. The video streaming giant does not report its churn rate, but the paper mentions that the Netflix's retention rates "are already high enough that it takes a very meaningful improvement to make a retention difference of even 0.1%." This year, the streaming giant plans to spend 6 billion on content. With such a big investment, it could get all sorts of TV series and movies, but if it just presents the most popular selections to everyone, many titles would remain unseen.

Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae -- or dark patches -- on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts. Several hundred camped outside the London store in Covent Garden. The 6s will have new features like a vastly improved camera and a pressure-sensitive "3D Touch" display

Tekstum provides real-time scientific analysis of the opinions and feelings that readers are expressing online. Using a state-of-the-art algorithm built with big data and artificial intelligence, the company promises to revolutionise how publishers market, and how customers search for and buy books, by synthesising, analysing and visualising readers' moment-to-moment emotions and experiences. Spanish founder and CEO Marc Santandreu worked for international publishing companies such as Author Solutions and Regió7. Lauren Romeo (PhD in Computational Linguistics) is the Lead Scientist, pioneering the Natural Language Processing research and development of the engine, while Juanjo Fernandez is the engineer responsible for the development of the software. Every year the number of new books in the market grows exponentially, generating huge amounts of data at ever-faster rates.

When you think of leaders in artificial intelligence, Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) doesn't usually jump to the top of the list. But the streaming video service's VP of Product Innovation Carlos Uribe-Gomez and Chief Product Officer Neil Hunt published a paper that says some of its AI algorithms save Netflix 1 billion each year. In their paper, the two Netflix execs detail how the company's recommendation engine impacts its churn rate. Netflix no longer reports its churn rate, but the paper notes that Netflix's "retention rates are already high enough that it takes a very meaningful improvement to make a retention difference of even 0.1%." Let's dive into how the recommendation engine saves Netflix money -- and what the return on investment looks like.

In the midst of a continuing refugee crisis across much of the globe, June 20 marks World Refugee Day, an occasion that seeks to raise awareness for the plight of refugees across the world. And thanks to a partnership between Blippar, the augmented reality and artificial intelligence company, and UN refugee agency UNHCR, that awareness is going digital. Currently, the Blippar app allows people to "blipp," or scan objects they want to learn more about, thereby accessing informational or entertaining content about the world around them. As part of the new campaign, Blippar is asking users to show their support for refugees by blipping their hands. This scan of support translates into an instant signature on the UNHCR #WithRefugees petition, which requests that national governments act with solidarity and shared responsibility when it comes to the migrant crisis.