The little striker wearing a crescent moon and star jersey lines up his penalty and kicks right, netting his goal as the keeper dives the wrong way and hits the ground yelping in pain. Both players are teammates practising to represent Pakistan in a major world football tournament. Unlike their low-ranked flesh-and-blood counterparts, however, these are advanced robots whose programmers are set to compete against students from the world's top universities as they look to showcase what their country can do in the world of Artificial Intelligence. Students at Pakistan's National University of Science and Technology (NUST) will this year for the first time send a team to the annual RoboCup, an event featuring 32 universities that will be held in Leipzig, Germany from June 27 to July 4. The six machines are NAO humanoid robots purchased from France's Aldebaran Robotics at a cost of roughly 17,000. It is in fact the third year that NUST, Pakistan's premier engineering institute, has qualified for the prestigious cup.

TapReason is coming out of stealth today with a unique twist on monetization. The company uses artificial intelligence to determine the "magic moment" to recommend an app or game to friends and colleagues. The word-of-mouth recommendation platform from the Caesarea, Israel-based startup is a response to the problem of the growing ineffectiveness of advertising, either through saturation or ad blocking. The A.I. has been tested over the last 18 months on more than 300 registered apps and 23 million devices. When the technology judges one of these right moments, TapReason sends an in-app message from a friend to another friend via messaging platforms, such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Slack, LinkedIn, Skype, WeChat, Line, or one of 20 other services. "With mobile-ad click-through rates spiraling downward as users adopt ad blockers to combat overly aggressive advertising, TapReason delivers an ad-free app growth solution based on advanced A.I., marketing automation, and the most trusted form of advertising -- a recommendation from a trusted friend," said Nimrod Elias, CEO and cofounder of TapReason, in a statement.

Machine learning is often used to build predictive models by extracting patterns from large datasets. These models are used in predictive data analytics applications including price prediction, risk assessment, predicting customer behavior, and do... read more

NVIDIA unveiled a comprehensive global program to support the innovation and growth of startups that are driving new breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and data science. The NVIDIA Inception Program provides unique tools, resources and opportunities to the waves of entrepreneurs starting new companies, so they can develop products and services with a first-mover advantage. "Startups worldwide are taking advantage of deep learning for its superhuman speed and accuracy in applications like radiology, fraud detection and self-driving cars," said Kimberly Powell, senior director of Industry Business Development at NVIDIA. "We're committed to helping the world's most innovative companies break new ground with AI and revolutionize the industry. The Inception Program provides innovative startups with key support to help grow their businesses and bring revolutionary products to market faster.

Turning to his globally watched face-off with AlphaGo, created by artificial intelligence firm Google DeepMind, Lee said a rematch in future is unlikely, as he did not enjoy the experience of playing against the software. "If I were to play again, with the knowledge and experience I gained from that match, I would have more opportunities to win. But I don't think I will play with AlphaGo again. There was no exchange of emotions when I played against it. However, in the game, the level of pressure was out of my imagination. It's very difficult to play without feeling and emotion."

Robots are predicted to steal the jobs of millions of workers across the world over the next few years, as technology replaces human shop assistants, teachers, accountants and potentially even taxi drivers. Artificial intelligence and automation are also expected to revolutionise the investment industry, especially in the area of robo-advice. This is where algorithms are used to suggest funds to investors, replacing some human financial advisers in the process. Less spoken about is the impact robotics and artificial intelligence could have on the role of the portfolio manager. But commentators believe many fund managers' jobs could come under threat as developments are made in technology.

It took millennia for Humanity to advance from the Stone Age to the Industrial Revolution. The pace of Human development continues to rapidly accelerate. The next Revolution is already overtaking society before many are ready for- or even aware of it. Both diametrically opposed predictions curiously are based on the premise that Humans will blithely give up control to either benevolent or diabolical machine'overlords'. There are arguments for both extremes, and both sides raise enough valid questions provoke meaningful dialogue on AI ethics and control. While History reminds us that extreme people and ideas often provide valid counterweight to over-enthusiasm and even zealotry from opposing people and views, they usually tend to be mere lane markers for History's true road.

Fujita Health University in Toyoake, Aichi Prefecture, is partnering with Toyota Motor Corp. to open a Robotic Smart Home -- a base for nursing robots at the Toyoake apartment complex -- next spring. As the nation approaches a "superaging" society when the baby boomer generation turns 75 years old and above, the project aims to develop small robots that can be easily installed in small Japanese houses, with the cooperation of residents. The Toyoake housing complex opened in 1971 and currently has some 4,500 residents. But 45 years after its completion, the facility's occupants are now predominantly elderly with 26.2 percent aged over 65. In 2014, the university signed a comprehensive agreement on nursing care and medical services with the city of Toyoake and the Urban Renaissance Agency.

A half-dozen young, mostly male engineers sit in a bright, open office digging through a mountain of code. Multi-monitor work stations sit on desks strewn with laptops, tablets, and headphones. This is not a tech startup, however. Today these factory workers are culling immediate production inefficiencies and developing systems that they hope will, by next year, allow the factory's machines to diagnose their own problems, order replacement parts, and anticipate necessary maintenance hours or even weeks in advance. Through a bank of large windows opening from the computer room onto the shop floor, row after row of machines hum a percussive melody as they turn out small parts--fuel injection nozzles, electronic safety control systems, mechanical brake systems--destined for car companies including BMW, Volkswagen, and Tesla.

Typography has its roots in the earliest days of machines, yet type design is deeply personal. Or even understand the basic qualifications of a typeface? It's not a ridiculous question; the past year has seen a huge influx of developers and artists experimenting with machine learning and computer vision, training artificial neural networks to do everything from caption New Yorker cartoons to describe what's happening in the intro to Star Trek. Erik Bernhardsson, a former Spotify engineer who now works at Better, recently published the results of one such experiment online. In a blog post, he explains that he--or more specifically, a script he wrote--collected some 50,000 fonts from around the web.