Non-stationary continuous time Bayesian networks are introduced. They allow the parents set of each node to change over continuous time. Three settings are developed for learning non-stationary continuous time Bayesian networks from data: known transition times, known number of epochs and unknown number of epochs. A score function for each setting is derived and the corresponding learning algorithm is developed. A set of numerical experiments on synthetic data is used to compare the effectiveness of non-stationary continuous time Bayesian networks to that of non-stationary dynamic Bayesian networks.

In every area of technology, people are discussing machine learning and deep learning, especially for the Internet of Thing (IoT) market. This week's announcements from Google and Salesforce also focused heavily how machine learning and artificial intelligence will be used to improve how we live, work and play. It's clear that machine learning will become part of new products and leading SaaS offerings. As companies look to build data-driven business processes, this functionality is critical. The question is how will companies unlock data and insights from existing products and how should business leaders approach this new concept of machine learning?

A robotics firm has built an Artificial Intelligence minibot that talks, walks and even looks like famed theoretical physicist Albert Einstein. The firm, Hanson Robotics, specializes in designing human-like robots that are capable of displaying facial expressions and understanding speech. The Professor Einstein robot can solve math problems, recognize your voice and even hold a conversation. The robotics firm launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter this month to fund the production of the Einstein bot. The firm is aiming to begin production of the bot in March this year, with rewards sent to backers in April.

Metrics and Key Performance Indicators come from a shared past and will continue to be interlinked. The future of KPI's is more likely to appear as distant cousins from our current standard dashboards. We already have come a long way from the early days of production tally's and financials only reporting. One of the most significant shifts in business performance reporting has been the introduction of the BSC (Balanced Score Card). I have already made a case for what I call the Biased Score Card for business performance.

In 1994, Amazon set out to change the world. Its initial public offering three years later valued the company at just $461 million. Is it possible, though, that the company is just getting started? He believes the Seattle retailer is on the verge of explosive growth as it transforms its fast-growing Prime subscription service into the perfect, frictionless omni-channel retail experience. As investors realize the potential scale, Galloway posits Amazon shareholders will be rewarded with the first $1 trillion market valuation.

What would be your legal rights when coming up against a robot? Who would you sue if artificial intelligence denied you promotion, or even a job in the first place? What if your neighbour's future house-cleaning robot blew a fuse and crashed through your hedge or front window? A legal team from Otago University is going to try to find the answers to these questions. Robot'Nao' addresses the opening ceremony of the 2016 RoboCup China Open in Hefei, China.

Not so long ago, the consumer electronics show (CES) was the place to exhibit the latest in computers, mobile devices and other electronic gadgets. It still is although the accent is changing. Every year, this Las Vegas tech fest attracts a rising tide of automotive suppliers taking space both inside and outside the convention centre halls. This month's management briefing turns the spotlight on some of those exhibitors operating in the brave new auto world of voice control, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Among those unveiling autonomous driving concepts at CES included Chrysler, Toyota, Honda and Faraday Future.

Sometimes things work out of the box. Such occasions present an opportunity to get better. Object detection using Haar feature-based cascade classifiers is more than ax decade and a half old. OpenCV framework provides a pre-built Haar and LBP based cascade classifiers for face and eye detection which are of reasonably good quality. However, I had never measured the accuracy of these face and eye detectors.

Have you ever been attacked by trolls on social media? In December a mocking tweet from white supremacist David Duke led his supporters to turn my Twitter account into an unholy sewer of Nazi ravings and disturbing personal abuse. It went on for days. Faced with a torrent of hate and abuse, people are giving up on social media, and websites are removing comment features. Who wants to be part of an online community ruled by creeps and crazies?

There are plenty of articles out on the internet talking about how 2017 will be the year of AI and how it will change the way in which we drive our cars, organize our homes with the internet of things (IoT), and live our lives. But much of the progress made in developing AIs could never have been made had it not been for video games spurring developers on. Video game AIs have come a long way from when Nintendo sent Goombas marching at Mario in a set path and are certainly now capable of carrying out complex commands. But AI developers are now trying to create AIs that can actually think, learn and develop their own personalities as opposed to following a script with branching paths. This can not only affect how we interact and play video games, but help create better AI to change how we live our day to day lives. Of course, we have already managed to create AI which can learn.