The act of artificially intelligent beings taking over complex tasks typically reserved for human hands is no longer a fantasy of Hollywood fiction. In collaboration with 20th Century Fox, scientists at IBM Research have created the first-ever "cognitive movie trailer" for the upcoming science fiction thriller Morgan by utilizing experimental Watson application program interfaces -- in simpler terms, they used a complicated technological system which analyzed hundreds of horror movie trailers to gather information on scenes that keep audiences on-edge. After sifting through Morgan's finished cut, the program selected its 10 most appealing moments, which a (human) editor then crafted into a trailer for the movie. Directed by Ridley Scott's son, Luke, and starring Kate Mara, Paul Giamatti, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Michelle Yeoh, and Brian Cox, Morgan revolves around a risk-management consultant who must decide whether to terminate a self-sufficient, humanesque robot after it grows increasingly hostile. In July, Greenlight Essentials' Jack Zhang released a sneak peek at his new project, Impossible Things, an indie horror flick he wrote with help from an augmented intelligence software tool, which also crafted the film's trailer.

Artificial intelligence (AI) will not reduce the amount of hours you work as higher productivity will boost demand for the services you're offering, a senior UBS Wealth Management executive, told CNBC on Tuesday. Talking to CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe," Jamie Broderick, head of UBS Wealth Management U.K., said he wasn't convinced that AI would bring about the combination of higher productivity and fewer working hours. "The evidence is no, you don't actually get to that," Broderick told CNBC. "I think part of what's driving that is the fact that the consumer becomes more and more demanding about what it is we actually deliver to them…the consumer continually upgrades his demands and is requiring more specificity, more customization, and I think that's really what explains it." Broderick gave the example of financial regulators constantly upping their requirements from investment banks.

Kimera Systems Inc. announced its Nigel artificial general intelligence (AGI) technology became a commercially deployable artificial intelligence technology to observe user behavior, comprehend context, and derive a common sense set of actions to apply under specific circumstances. Nigel was able to observe that a movie theater is a type of location, and that people share common behaviors with respect to their phones when they visit this type of location. Through these observations, Nigel learned to proactively dim screens and silence smartphones when people enter a cinema. As an artificial general intelligence technology, Nigel represents a new approach that fuses together a broad range of hard and soft sensor data, resulting in continuous observation, moment-to-moment contextual awareness and soon, complete comprehension.

"Star Trek" first took viewers on a voyage to the Final Frontier 50 years ago on Sept. 8, 1966. That's when the original television show aired on NBC, introducing pop culture to a crew that would become iconic over the following half-century. But "Star Trek's" vision of the future didn't just inspire adoration for the swashbuckling Captain James T. Kirk or his logically inclined first officer, Spock. It also helped spur innovators to create technologies that have changed the way people live in the real world. Here are a few examples of the "Star Trek" tech that's now reality.

It is something that many companies are trying at the moment, with Google, Microsoft and Facebook all introducing personal assistants that are equivalents of Apple's Siri, originally created in 2010. Since then, with the introduction of technologies and collaborations with companies like Wolfram Alpha (who also work with several other companies), Siri has improved, but not to the extent that its potential is crying out for. One of the clearest examples of this was their move to a neural net based system in 2014, which significantly improved the virtual assistant, but still didn't allow it to achieve what many expected. In fact, few even noticed a difference.

No, this is not the beginning of a Terminator-esque world. But yes, it certainly is a start of major developments in computer vision and machine learning technology. Intel is intent to boost its RealSense platform by acquiring Dublin-based computer vision startup Movidius. With Intel's existing framework, coupled with Movidius' power-efficient system on chip (SoC), the pairing is bound to lead to major developments in consumer and enterprise products. "As part of Intel, we'll remain focused on this mission, but with the technology and resources to innovate faster and execute at scale. We will continue to operate with the same eagerness to invent and the same customer-focus attitude that we're known for," Movidius CEO Remi El-Ouazzane writes in a statement posted in their site.

SAN FRANCISCO – September 8, 2016 – TechCode, a global network of startup incubators and entrepreneur ecosystems, today announces its new accelerator program called the Global AI Accelerator. This new accelerator program is now accepting applications and is open to startups across all industry verticals who are utilizing artificial intelligence in their technology, such as voice recognition, machine learning, natural language processing and more. Applications for the accelerator program are due no later than October 10, 2016. "This program is unlike any other, as it not only has a niche focus on artificial intelligence, but is also the first global accelerator program, which means startups can participate from a number of different locations all over the world," said Luke Tang, General Manager of TechCode's U.S. Accelerator program. "Our global presence puts us in a unique position to offer this type of accelerator and help startups in the fields of robotics, virtual and augmented reality, smart home, IoT, medical devices, wearables and more, to build international relationships."

There is a new generation of companies exerting such great influence on society that they're essentially becoming utilities. Google, Amazon, Facebook and Uber are near monopolies that provide services as integral to our modern life as power, telephone and transportation systems were a century ago. But there is a key difference between last century's utilities and today's: Instead of simply delivering a service, today's utilities use algorithms to shape our entire life experience. From the news we see and the routes we drive, to the price we pay for goods and services, algorithms influence them all. Uber efficiently dispatches its drivers during rush hour, Facebook displays the most relevant stories to its users and Amazon can suggest the right product at the optimal time to drive a purchase.

At Apple's iPhone 7 unveiling in San Francisco on Wednesday, the tech powerhouse revealed a host of new and updated hardware and software, including a new type of headphone jack and souped-up camera. As expected, iPhone is removing the standard analog headphone jack and forcing headphones to use its "Lightning" connector, which plugs into the phone's charging port. The iPhone 7 will come with an adapter so older earphones can still be used. But Apple is pushing Apple AirPods, which CEO Tim Cook says are a "breakthrough design," wireless headphones that sync across all Apple devices and respond to touch that can access Siri. The AirPods are shipping in late October and cost 160.