Nadine, a robot receptionist at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), is staring at the visitor in front of her. "I remember you," she says. "You were here last Saturday." The long-haired, uncannily human-looking robot pauses as her software runs through past interactions to figure out the most appropriate thing to say. Finally, she settles on: "We talked about your job." At the National University of Singapore campus, a driverless cart attempts to navigate along a crowded walkway.

It's critical that leaders realize the world of recruiting is now changing at the fastest pace in its history. I estimate that in the past, a corporate recruiting function could go for nearly five years without a major transformation. Today, your corporate recruiting function could become obsolete within as few as 18 months. In addition, if you don't continually jump on emerging trends, your competitors may be ahead of you before you have time to react.Not only is the rate of change blistering, but much of the change is coming to completely new areas. As a result, if you don't want to get blindsided, you need to constantly monitor new industry movements, emerging trends, and their associated (and rapidly developing) "next practices."

With the latest breakthroughs in artificial intelligence a whole new concept of food may soon radically change what we eat. And at the same time, some experts believe it could reduce global warming. If we were to start from scratch, and we want to figure out the most efficient way to deliver nutrition to the 7.1 billion people on this planet, the answer wouldn't be animals. Science would tell you to do something different. No longer based on animal ingredients, this is a food entirely based on plants - although it looks and tastes like the classic food.

In 2025, in accordance with Moore's Law, we'll see an acceleration in the rate of change as we move closer to a world of true abundance. Here are eight areas where we'll see extraordinary transformation in the next decade: In 2025, 1,000 should buy you a computer able to calculate at 10 16 cycles per second (10,000 trillion cycles per second), the equivalent processing speed of the human brain. The Internet of Everything describes the networked connections between devices, people, processes and data. By 2025, the IoE will exceed 100 billion connected devices, each with a dozen or more sensors collecting data. This will lead to a trillion-sensor economy driving a data revolution beyond our imagination. Cisco's recent report estimates the IoE will generate 19 trillion of newly created value. With a trillion sensors gathering data everywhere (autonomous cars, satellite systems, drones, wearables, cameras), you'll be able to know anything you want, anytime, anywhere, and query that data for answers and insights. SpaceX, Google (Project Loon), Qualcomm and Virgin (OneWeb) are planning to provide global connectivity to every human on Earth at speeds exceeding one megabit per second. We will grow from three to eight billion connected humans, adding five billion new consumers into the global economy. They represent tens of trillions of new dollars flowing into the global economy. And they are not coming online like we did 20 years ago with a 9600 modem on AOL. Existing healthcare institutions will be crushed as new business models with better and more efficient care emerge. Thousands of startups, as well as today's data giants (Google, Apple, Microsoft, SAP, IBM, etc.) will all enter this lucrative 3.8 trillion healthcare industry with new business models that dematerialize, demonetize and democratize today's bureaucratic and inefficient system. Biometric sensing (wearables) and AI will make each of us the CEOs of our own health. Large-scale genomic sequencing and machine learning will allow us to understand the root cause of cancer, heart disease and neurodegenerative disease and what to do about it. Robotic surgeons can carry out an autonomous surgical procedure perfectly (every time) for pennies on the dollar. Each of us will be able to regrow a heart, liver, lung or kidney when we need it, instead of waiting for the donor to die. Billions of dollars invested by Facebook (Oculus), Google (Magic Leap), Microsoft (Hololens), Sony, Qualcomm, HTC and others will lead to a new generation of displays and user interfaces.

The following interview is one of many included in the report. As part of my ongoing series of interviews surveying the frontiers of machine intelligence, I recently interviewed Yoshua Bengio. Bengio is a professor with the department of computer science and operations research at the University of Montreal, where he is head of the Machine Learning Laboratory (MILA) and serves as the Canada Research Chair in statistical learning algorithms. The goal of his research is to understand the principles of learning that yield intelligence. Yoshua Bengio: I have been researching neural networks since the '80s.

The consumer drones that opened the skies to the public may one day be giving a bird's eye view to Chinese authorities. Chinese drone maker DJI -- the world's largest maker of small drones -- said it was in talks with Chinese officials who want access to the data collected by its products, Bloomberg reports. That data could include flight records, GPS information and even video. Whether this applied to Chinese customers only, or customers in Europe and the U.S., has not been made fully clear. "Should DJI receive a valid legal request from a government agency," spokesperson Oliver Wang said in a statement to media, "we may provide user information to that agency, just as other companies do. That is the case in the U.S., China or anywhere in the world."

In the US, over one million children suffer from autism. These children find it difficult to recognize emotions through facial expressions, making social interactions very challenging. While patients can gain an understanding through behavioral therapy, this can be both time-consuming and expensive. Now, Autism Glass is a wearable aid from researchers at Stanford University, that uses Google Glass, machine learning and real-time social cues to provide those on the autism spectrum with another option. To use, patients put on the wearable glasses, which incorporate an outward-facing camera.

Computers and digital technology have become an essential part of everyday life. But alas, each new gadget and application meant to make life easier seems to make people withdraw into the virtual world even further. A day spent with more screen time than face-to-face time is becoming normal.

FANUC Corp. is teaming up with Cisco, Rockwell Automation and Preferred Networks (PFN) to develop and deploy the FANUC Intelligent Edge Link and Drive (FIELD) system for major automotive manufacturers. The new Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) platform will expand upon the FANUC ZDT (Zero Downtime) project to connect not only CNC machines and industrial robots, but also peripheral devices and sensors for greater analytical data to improve overall equipment efficiency (OEE) and increase profitability. "With a secure scalable compute approach to analyze this data--from device to the enterprise--users can improve operations and make more informed decisions tailored to meet the needs of their organizations," said Sujeet Chand, CTO of Rockwell Automation. The Allen-Bradley Stratix Ethernet switches from Rockwell Automation will be used to connect FANUC robots to Cisco's ZDT Data Collection software. PFN provides the FIELD system with an open deep-learning framework (Chainer), an IoT Stream Engine (SensorBee) and other machine learning libraries within its Deep Intelligence in-Motion (DIMo) platform.

A team of researchers at Ohio State University pinpointed the area of the brain that recognizes human facial expression. Their recent study reveals that this region - the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) - is on the right side of the brain behind the ear. The study utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify the pSTS as the region that is activated when their test subjects viewed images of people making various kinds of facial expressions. Using the subjects' fMRI images and comparing them to facial muscle movements in test photographs, the team created a map of pSTS regions that activate for specific facial muscle groups In addition, the study revealed that particular neural patterns within the pSTS are used for specific facial movements, such as a furrowed brow. "That suggests that our brains decode facial expressions by adding up sets of key muscle movements in the face of the person we are looking at," said Aleix Martinez, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Ohio State and senior author of the study.