AI advances can use predictive image processing tools to restore ancient texts and glyphs that have been erased. Likewise, machine learning algorithms can match myriad characters to identify specific handwriting, similar to how digital signatures are verified. "The medium is very deteriorated and so is the writing," Arie Shaus, a Tel Aviv University mathematician, told Gizmodo. Shaus is studying biblical artifacts using AI-aided tools to determine the extent of literacy in ancient times. In fact, Shaus is just one of the growing number of researchers who use machine learning software to plot the timeline of the Bible's compilation.

People have an upper hand over artificial intelligence (AI) when it concerns intuitive thinking and solving complex science problems, according to a new study. In the past few decades, the progress in science and technology have enabled scientists to develop AI that beats people at their own games, however the new discovery reveals a different angle. Associate Professor Jacob Sherson from the Aarhus University (AU) in Denmark led a team of researchers to create a quantum computing game based around complex theoretical science. Later on, it was found that computerized numerical optimization failed to find solutions for the tough problems associated with quantum computing tasks, whereas the human players were successful at it. "The big surprise we had was that some of the players actually had solutions that were of higher quality and of shorter duration than any computer algorithms could find," Jacob Sherson said.

Speculating what will cause our ultimate demise has been the stuff of science fiction for years--if it's not aliens wiping out the human race, it's probably robots. This is a proven trope that keeps moviegoers flocking to the likes of Independence Day, Ender's Game, The Terminator, or The Matrix. To deviate from the norm takes a little extra work, but one way directors can suggest a different route is with a short format proof-of-concept sales pitch. Created with nearly 40,000 in Kickstarter funding, "Rise" is a short film aspiring to feature length. Its central theme is to Terminator what District 9 was to Independence Day.

In a milestone for artificial intelligence, a computer has beaten a human champion at a strategy game that requires "intuition" rather than brute processing power to prevail, its makers said Wednesday. Dubbed AlphaGo, the system honed its own skills through a process of trial and error, playing millions of games against itself until it was battle-ready, and surprised even its creators with its prowess. "AlphaGo won five-nil, and it was stronger than perhaps we were expecting," said Demis Hassabis, the chief executive of Google DeepMind, a British artificial intelligence (AI) company. A computer defeating a professional human player at the 3,000-year-old Chinese board game known as Go, was thought to be about a decade off. The clean-sweep victory over three-time European Go champion Fan Hui "signifies a major step forward in one of the great challenges in the development of artificial intelligence--that of game-playing," the British Go Association said in a statement.

Facebook now wants to expand your social circle in its messaging app, Messenger, beyond friends to include robots -- or chatbots -- that are powered by artificial intelligence, and designed to shop, search and generally just get things done for you. Facebook wants you to talk to robots. It's certainly a leap to think we, humans, want to connect with computer programs in the same space where we spill our guts to our closest pals, gossip with our co-workers and coordinate with family members to arrange life's most sacred events (weddings, funerals etc.). "It's not completely weird for people 35 or younger to interact with machines," said eMarketer analyst Yory Wursmer. "The freakout factor is gone."

At Geneia, a health care technology and consulting company, they use big data along with machine learning to help health care organizations deliver better patient care at a lower cost. "Geneia brings data in from a lot of different sources," said Lavoie. We've built Theon, a unified platform to integrate the data and allow us to apply machine learning techniques." Using machine learning, Geneia can match and determine missing values, as well as perform principal component analysis and look at patterns in the data – clusters that help them see trends and causality. "Machine learning allows us to see patterns in the data that we couldn't see before.

I am struggling a bit with docker. The official tensorflow image automatically runs the jupyter notebook upon start. I don't want that, since I'd like to do some additional installs of tools I am using. And when I do Ctrl-C to shut down the notebook, the entire container shuts down...

At the annual NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) show in Las Vegas, Microsoft announced that Azure Media Services will be receiving a host of new features and will even be taking advantage of its machine learning services. Azure Media Services is a collection of cloud-based tools for video workflows and the company intends to make these tools smarter to help users create premium video content more easily. Microsoft will be adding face detection to Media Services through its Face API. The company has decided to go a step further though and will also use the Emotion API from Cognitive Services to detect the emotions of the people who appear in a video. This feature will be useful when it comes to discerning the level of interest of an audience during debates or keynotes.

UCLA researchers have developed a new laser-based technology to rapidly screen blood samples for the presence of cancer cells. The label-free system measures 16 different physical characteristics of each cell and analyzes the data to identify whether the cell is cancerous. Not having to introduce any labeling chemicals and being gentle on the cells, the technique leaves the cells alive and available for further inspection using other means. It relies on a photonic time stretch microscope and a computer that runs deep learning artificial intelligence algorithms. The microscope can take millions of images per second thanks to unusual optics that produce high quality shots even at this speed.

I recently talked about the oncoming internet developments that follow the Internet of Things, from the internet on demand (3D and 4D printing) to the internet of robots. A colleague came up afterwards and said I was daft to talk about robots. "It's science fiction," he claimed. I disagreed, as science fiction is rapidly becoming fact. I was reminded of this while listening to some guy called Brett King talking about his new book Augmented at the Meftech conference this week.