Employee Benefits Connect 2017: HR and benefits professionals should understand the human value of their work and that of employees as technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) and automation advances. Delivering the closing keynote address'Innovation now and in the future' at Employee Benefits Connect 2017, Mark Brill, senior lecturer and consultant in digital media, innovation, Internet of Things (IoT) and futurology at the University of Birmingham (pictured), discussed technological innovations and the impact these could have on our personal and working lives. Advancements in AI mean that robots are becoming more adept at cognitive thinking and problem solving, moving beyond simple processes and repetitive functions. This is expected to fundamentally change ways of working across a range of industries, from sectors such as transport and accounting to potentially the creative professions. Brill said: "Don't assume that just because your job requires some intellectual processing robots can't do that, because they are able to do that and they are able to learn."

Kay Firth-Butterfield: One of the things that stick out in my mind is some research that McKinsey did recently, where they describe AI as a contributing factor to the transformation of society. And I just want to quote what they're saying about the transformation of our society: that it's happening ten times faster, and at three hundred times the scale, or roughly three thousand times faster than the impact of the industrial revolution. And you know, a lot of people compare this revolution to the industrial revolution. But, I think it's the speed and the real, core underpinning that AI is contributing to that transformation of our society that makes these discussions so important. David Bray: It's not just about handing over judgment and decisions to a machine that a human would do otherwise.

Advertising is all about tapping into consumer markets, finding out what makes them tick, and using that info to create convincing ad campaigns. This is much harder than it sounds, especially when entire demographics are proving impossible to reach. For example, millennials are notoriously difficult to connect with – and there's a lot of them. In the U.S., they make up 25% of the population. How can marketers make the most of market research and come up with captivating campaigns? This is where Artificial Intelligence comes in.

Google's cryostats reach temperatures of 10 millikelvin to run its quantum processors. From aspects of quantum entanglement to chemical reactions with large molecules, many features of the world cannot be described efficiently with conventional computers based on binary logic. The solution, as physicist Richard Feynman realized three decades ago1, is to use quantum processors that adopt a blend of classical states simultaneously, as matter does. Many technical hurdles must be overcome for such quantum machines to be practical, however. These include noise control and improving the fidelity of operations acting on the quantum states that encode the information.

Wooed by the promise of faster innovation, lower TCO, and greater agility, businesses of every shape and size have embraced the cloud at every layer of the IT stack - from apps to file sharing to infrastructure. The typical organization currently uses more than a dozen sanctioned cloud apps and will shift more than half of all workloads to the cloud by 2018. Such cloud investments have delivered measurable benefits. But they've also resulted in some unintended side-effects: complexity and risk. End users now struggle to navigate multiple environments with varying degrees of performance.

Microsoft Azure is a Cloud computing platform and infrastructure created by Microsoft for building, deploying and managing the Applications and Services through a global network of Microsoft-managed data centers. Microsoft Azure is a growing collection of integrated Cloud Services--analytics, computing, database, mobile, networking, storage, and Web--for moving faster, achieving more and saving money. Microsoft Azure is a Cloud computing platform and infrastructure created by Microsoft for building, deploying and managing the Applications and Services through a global network of Microsoft-managed data centers. Microsoft Azure is a growing collection of integrated Cloud Services--analytics, computing, database, mobile, networking, storage, and Web--for moving faster, achieving more and saving money.

Symantec has announced the formation of a new venture arm, Symantec Ventures, to help cybersecurity startups make the transition from ideas to profits. On Thursday, the antivirus software provider said Symantec Ventures will not only provide funding to startups, but will aim to "help the startup community reduce expenses and accelerate time to market." Entrepreneurs tapped by the new venture capital arm will be given not only cash but access to Symantec technology including the Integrated Cyber Defense Platform for enterprises and the Digital Safety Platform for consumers, depending on the focus of the startup. The cybersecurity firm has also promised startups access to threat intelligence data which can be used for product testing, validation, machine learning algorithm training and AI system creation. "This kind of data can be expensive and sometimes impossible for a startup to obtain access," Symantec notes.

Facebook has started using a new artificial intelligence (AI) system to identify users showing warning signs of suicide. The AI has been trained to spot status updates and subsequent comments that could indicate someone was at risk. The algorithm would immediately send a report to a real reviewer, who could then contact the user with suggestions and resources to help if appropriate. At the moment, Facebook relies on a human reporting system regarding potential suicides, where friends of users can click a button to tell the company about concerning updates. But it is hoped more people will be helped by an automated system.

First there was "open washing," the marketing strategy for dressing up proprietary software as open source. Next came "cloud washing," whereby datacenter-bound software products masqueraded as cloud offerings. The same happened to big data, with petabyte-deprived enterprises pretending to be awash in data science. Now we're into AI-washing -- an attempt to make dumb products sound smart. Judging by the number of companies talking up their amazing AI projects, the entire Fortune 500 went from bozo status to the Mensa society.

The Nintendo Switch is finally on sale across the world. The much-hyped – and risky – mixed-use console appeared to immediately sell out and only people who queued at midnight or pre-ordered long in advance were able to actually get their hands on one. The console is unusual because it is made to be used in a variety of different ways. It can be used either on the move or plugged into a TV, for instance, and its controllers snap off the side so that they can be used by one or two players. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar.