Ever since the election, talking heads have discussed how "fake news" could have tipped the election to Donald Trump by disseminating false stories favorable to him or unfavorable to Hillary Clinton. Social media users can spread these fake new stories far and wide, creating an aura of credibility which can make fake stories hard to distinguish from the truth. Social media websites like Facebook have begun to cooperate with human fact checkers to track fake news websites and notify users that a story is likely false, but it is impossible to trace every single news story as they pop up. There is just too much information on the internet for any human mind to process. So maybe an artificial intelligence (AI) can perform better. Facebook along with researchers and hackers are examining whether artificial intelligence and big data can help track down fake news stories faster than humans can.

Public Sector Agencies Must Adopt Emerging Technologies Like Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to Effectively Compete for Talent, Accenture Report Finds ARLINGTON, Va.; Feb. 2, 2017 – Public sector agencies must adopt emerging technologies – including machine learning, artificial intelligence and biometrics – to attract and retain more technically adept employees. This approach is critical to addressing a widening skills gap and strong competition from a better financed private sector, a new report from Accenture (NYSE: ACN) shows. The report, Emerging Technologies in Public Service, examines the adoption of emerging technologies across agencies with the most direct interaction with citizens or the greatest responsibility for citizen-facing services: health and social services, policing/justice, revenue, border services, administration and pensions / social security. As part of the report, Accenture surveyed nearly 800 public service technology professionals across nine countries to identify emerging technologies being implemented or piloted. These technologies include advanced analytics/ predictive modeling, the Internet of Things, intelligent process automation, video analytics, biometrics/ identity analytics, machine learning, and natural language processing/ generation.

Google used the Super Bowl to plug its Google Home connectivity service, but the TV commercial apparently confused the systems in homes of those who already have it. For them, Google Home went whacko. Those who already have Google Home took to Twitter to complain that it interfered with their units. Apparently, the home systems heard the TV broadcasts calling its name, and it became befuddled. "The Google commercial had my Google Home going haywire," complained a Twitter user with the handle CheezusPrice.

The best Super Bowl halftime shows leave indelible memories, be it a notorious wardrobe malfunction, that goofy Left Shark, or every last second of Beyoncé's two appearances. It's too soon to say whether anything Lady Gaga did tonight will resonate, but at least she offered something new: An army of dancing drones, ducking and dodging over the Houston skyline, transforming from stars to a fluttering flag. It's probably first time you've seen 300 drones flying in formation, but it's almost certainly not the last. The technology underpinning the Intel Shooting Star drone system is fascinating in and of itself, but its potential applications are even more so. The same drones that accompanied Lady Gaga will one day revolutionize search-and-rescue, agriculture, halftime shows, and more.

Most people have never heard of a Swiss man called Francisco Fernandez, but tens of millions of us rely on him to look after our money. An unassuming 53-year-old who likes playing the piano in his spare time, he is responsible for the security of $4tn (£3.2tn) of bank deposits around the world. Mr Fernandez is the founder and boss of a company that is as little known as he is - Avaloq. The Swiss business and its 2,500 employees may fly under the radar, but it is one of the world's largest providers of banking software. Its systems are used by more than 450 banks around the world, including the UK's Barclays, HSBC, and Royal Bank of Scotland, plus Deutsche Bank, Societe Generale, UBS and Nomura.

February 5, 2017 --Google's parent company, Alphabet, may have sky-high ambitions, but for now, it looks like they'll be capped at around 60,000 feet. With the sale of recently acquired satellite imaging company Terra Bella, Alphabet trades direct control over its own fleet of satellites – and all the hassles that can bring – for rights to purchase pictures for Google Earth from a third party. This reorganization is the latest in a series of moves focusing on balancing the company's eclectic interests with investors' desire for profits. In 2014, Google, as the company was still called at the time, purchased Terra Bella and its constellation of seven high-resolution satellites for for $500 million. Now, competitor Planet Labs Inc. will purchase Terra Bella for an undisclosed sum, it announced on Friday in a press release. The Terra Bella satellites can provide Google Earth with crisp images resolving features smaller than three feet across, which Planet Labs says is more than 3.5 times the sharpness of their current fleet composed of 60 mid-resolution satellites.

Lady Gaga's Super Bowl 51 halftime show Sunday will light up the sky with a coordinated swarm of several hundred aerial drones -- forming a shapes as they hover above Houston's NRG Stadium. The 12-minute halftime show, sponsored by Pepsi, will feature Lady Gaga performing under a canopy of shimmering drones, CNN reported Saturday citing sources familiar with the production, which Variety can confirm. It's the first time drones will be used in a live TV event, and the first time the robotic aircraft will appear in the Super Bowl. Neither Gaga nor the event's organizers have revealed the set list for the halftime show. According to Twitter, the top four songs that fans tweeting about Lady Gaga's Super Bowl perf are hoping she sings are "Telephone," "Bad Romance," "Poker Face" and "Born this Way."

Oxford philosopher and author Nick Bostrom (left) and DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis (right). Machines will quickly become significantly smarter than humans when they achieve human level intelligence, according to a high-profile panel of artificial intelligence (AI) leaders. A YouTube video released by the Future of Humanity Institute this week shows Elon Musk, the billionaire cofounder of Tesla, SpaceX and PayPal, talking on a panel earlier this month alongside the likes of DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, who sold his company to Google for £400 million in 2014, and Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom. "Once we get to human level-AI, how long before we get to where things start taking off?" asked MIT professor and panel moderator Max Tegmark, citing an "intelligence explosion." Tegmark added: "Some people say days or hours. Others envision it will happen but it might take thousands of years or decades."

Two AI researchers are behind a daring open challenge to fight the spread of outrageous headlines that are completely detached from reality. The Fake News Challenge (FNC) is organized by Dean Pomerleau, an entrepreneur and adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University, and Delip Rao, an employee at Joostware. The aim is to explore how AI – particularly machine learning and natural language processing – might be used to combat the negative effects of false information. The problem of fake news has been bubbling away for some time, but reached a climax as Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States. People were quick to blame dodgy websites for pushing lies – such as the Pope backing Donald – that potentially skewed the election results in the telly celebrity's favor.

Artificial intelligence is an amazing technology that's changing the world in fantastic ways, but anybody who has ever seen the movie Terminator knows that there are some dangers associated with advanced A.I. That's why Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, and hundreds of other researchers, tech leaders, and scientists have endorsed a list of 23 guiding principles that should steer A.I. development in a productive, ethical, and safe direction. The Asilomar A.I. Principles were developed after the Future of Life Institute brought dozens of experts together for their Beneficial A.I. 2017 conference. The experts, whose ranks consisted of roboticists, physicists, economists, philosophers, and more had fierce debates about A.I. safety, economic impact on human workers, and programming ethics, to name a few. In order to make the final list, 90 percent of the experts had to agree on its inclusion. "What remained was a list of 23 principles ranging from research strategies to data rights to future issues including potential super-intelligence, which was signed by those wishing to associate their name with the list," Future of Life's website explains.