A robot assistant lifeguard called EMILY is making waves by helping migrants cross the Mediterranean Sea safely. In the wake of unrest, over 500 refugees have drowned attempting to cross the Mediterranean from Turkey to Greece. Members from the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station's (TEES) Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR) and Roboticists Without Borders gathered at the Greek island of Lesvos to assist the local Coast Guard and lifeguard organizations to prevent this from happening in the future. Dr. Robin Murphy, Raytheon Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University, aided authorities in Lesvos alongside CRASAR, of which she is an active member. She is working with students to continually improve the lifesaving device, which can carry up to eight people at once.

The world is on the precipice of an artificial intelligence revolution, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says. Mr Wozniak told the Advance Queensland Innovation and Investment Summit in Brisbane on Thursday, via a live feed from Orlando in Florida, machines were closer than ever to emulating the human brain. "I looked at the brain my whole life thinking we would never understand how it's wired, never know what consciousness is, we would never know what intuition is," he said. "And now we're seeing so many signs that are getting so close - we speak to our phones, we can get answers." Mr Wozniak said the artificial intelligence revolution would be separate from, and have just as big an influence on the world, as the digital revolution that proceeded it.

Eric Horvitz, managing director of Microsoft's Redmond, Washington, research lab was awarded the ACM – AAAI Allen Newell Award for groundbreaking contributions in artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction. Horvitz's work has primarily been focused on exploring the interrelationships between artificial intelligence and fields like decision science, cognitive science and neuroscience. The Newell award is given to a researcher whose work falls within the field of computer science or spans multiple disciplines. Horvitz's coworkers describe his impact as "immeasurable", and describe him as "an epic example of those brilliant researchers who have this huge confidence -- not over-confidence, but just confidence -- to keep pushing forward,". His research is described as delving into the ideas of how artificial intelligence can help to augment human intelligence, focusing on concept such as the principles of bounded rationality, and how computing systems immersed in the real world could make the best decisions in time-critical situations.

When we were born, the idea of such a small, powerful computer was a sci-fi dream, and now these smart-devices are everywhere, transforming personal health, relationships and business transactions so completely that life without these seems impossible. We're entering a new era of technology that's bound to reshape the lives of our children predominantly. Yes, this is the era of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is one of the most talked subjects these days, and recent advances in technology have made AI even closer to reality than most of us can imagine. What was once just a figment of the imagination of some our most famous science fiction writers, artificial intelligence (AI) is taking root in our everyday lives. Binge-watching television shows and online shopping carts full of suggested add-ons are commonplace, even though most consumers aren't aware of what's powering the recommendations.

Right now, someone somewhere is live-streaming something interesting. Thanks to technology being developed by a team of artificial intelligence researchers at Twitter, you may soon be able to find it. Live-streaming is becoming ever-more popular through smartphone apps such as Periscope from Twitter, Meerkat, and, most recently, Facebook Live. But live video content usually isn't tagged or categorized well, often because people don't know what they'll record until the camera begins rolling. Twitter's AI team, known as Cortex, has developed an algorithm that can instantly recognize what's happening in a live feed. The algorithm can tell, for instance, if the star of a clip is playing guitar, demoing a power tool, or is actually a cat hamming it up for viewers.

Machine Learning (ML) is a field of computer science that came out of research into Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data analytics. ML focuses on the creation of models that have been defined by the deduction of algorithms during the analysis of data by a computer system. The resultant model has utility in its ability to be applied to new datasets and thus the potential for valuable insights to be gleaned from the data. Supervised Learning Supervised learning uses a pre-labelled dataset as an input to the system and the resultant model is the result of mapping the inputs to the outputs. Labels are used to identify the correct answers to the question that is to be posed to the system on a historical dataset.

To coincide with the announcement, Zoomi released details on the success of VelocityChess' education portal since implementing Zoomi's technology platform last January. The course, which includes a series of videos, presentations and infographics, caters to a wide variety of skill levels – from novice to chessmaster. Using predictive analytics and machine learning, the Zoomi platform adapts course content in real-time based on an initial diagnostic quiz, as well as data collected as the user moves through the course. Zoomi's proprietary algorithms and learning analytics allow VelocityChess to interpret the user's behavioral, performance and social patterns, adapt the content to their skill level, and even predict whether or not they'll get the next question right. To date, more than 1,400 users have taken the course.

While both HPE and Microsoft machine learning platforms offer numerous possibilities for developers and data scientists, HPE Haven OnDemand is a diverse collection of APIs for interacting with data designed with flexibility in mind, allowing developers to quickly perform data tasks in the cloud. Data is big, complex, and growing exponentially in volume. Perhaps most importantly, data is not a fad, and the challenges associated with it are not going anywhere. With organizations inundated with data these days, turning it from liability to asset can be a challenge, with the greatest potential asset being insight. With such a wide availability of data-related tools today, it can be difficult to know where to begin looking for help.

This is your brain on stories. By tracking the blood flow in people's brains as they listened to a storytelling radio show, scientists at UC Berkeley have mapped out where the meanings associated with basic words are encoded in the cortex, creating the first semantic atlas of the brain. The findings, described in the journal Nature, provide an unprecedented view of language and meaning as it plays out on our neural terrain, and could potentially offer a road map for those looking to help patients with certain types of aphasia or other neurological disorders. For a long time, researchers thought about language as a primarily left-hemisphere function that took place in specific spots of the brain, such as Broca's area and Wernicke's area. But those areas aren't associated with understanding language but producing it – speech, in short.

Artificial intelligence has revolutionized information technology. The new economy of information technology has shaped the way we are living. Google led the way, showing the power of data-driven artificial intelligence delivered over the cloud, not only in search but also in tasks like language translation and computer vision. Artificial intelligence run through the cloud is now the dominant approach used by researchers at technology companies, universities and government labs. We're seeing a rebirth of artificial intelligence driven by the cloud, huge amounts of data and the learning algorithms of software.