Intel is making it extra-clear that computer vision hardware will play a big role in its beyond-the-PC strategy. The computing behemoth has just acquired Movidius, a specialist in AI and computer vision processors. It sees Movidius as a way to get high-speed, low-power chips that can power RealSense cameras in devices that need to see and understand the world around them. Movidius has already provided the brains behind gadgets like drones and thermal cameras, many of which are a logical fit for Intel's depth-sensing tech -- and its deals with Google and Lenovo give nothing to sneeze at, either. However, it shows that Intel is increasingly determined to find new avenues to explore now that it can't count on large jumps in processor performance to maintain the bottom line.

Intel is making it extra-clear that computer vision hardware will play a big role in its beyond-the-PC strategy. The computing behemoth has just acquired Movidius, a specialist in AI and computer vision processors. It sees Movidius as a way to get high-speed, low-power chips that can power RealSense cameras in devices that need to see and understand the world around them. Movidius has already provided the brains behind gadgets like drones and thermal cameras, many of which are a logical fit for Intel's depth-sensing tech -- and its deals with Google and Lenovo give nothing to sneeze at, either.

Robots may not yet have the authority to influence their human masters, according to new research. The study stationed a cyborg guard beside a table of food marked with a'reserved' sign in a student common room. Researchers from New York-based Cornell University used a mObi robot manufactured by Bossa Nova in a simple test. While the robot is not designed to look particularly menacing or authoritative, it has cameras that enable it to'see' what people around it are doing. The behaviour of hundreds of students was captured by a hidden GoPro action camera, reports New Scientist. The results showed that a disappointing seven per cent snaffled reserved food from the table, despite the robot guard's presence.

It certainly has been another long week in cybersecurity. First, news that a third party hacked a group allegedly connected to the NSA and made off with secret "hacking tools" rocked the industry. It was shortly followed by news of cyber attacks in the form of smart email "bombs" raining down upon the mailboxes of .gov News of new ransomware-as-a-service platforms added to the headache, as did news of two big PoS hacks where credit card information may have been stolen from retailers, hotels and restaurants. As summer wanes and stretches towards Labor Day, it will also be hard to forget the hack of the servers at the Democratic National Committee.

Al-Qaida and the extremist Islamic State group have taken advantage of the chaos and lawlessness brought about by Yemen's ongoing civil war to expand their reach in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula nation.

Nairobi, Dec 19 (PTI) The WTO talks entered the fifth day today as a deadlock continued over reducing farm subsidies and on providing protection to poor farmers of developing nations, such as India, in case of import surge. The 10th WTO Ministerial was originally scheduled to end last night but developed and developing countries failed to iron out differences on these issues. "The meeting is still on since last night," sources said, adding that a small group of countries -- India, the US, EU, China and Brazil - are discussing the issues. India has made it clear that it would not compromise the interests of farmers and agri-related sectors. It has also asserted to include the public stockholding issue for food security purposes in the preamble of the Nairobi declaration. It also wants that special safeguard mechanism (SSM) should be delinked from market access.

Mark Palmer is senior vice president and general manager of engineering at TIBCO. Much has been made about the business implications of recent, rapid advancements in cognitive computing -- that is, the possibility of advanced analytics tools to help human knowledge workers glean actionable insight from vast and deep lakes of historical, transactional and machine-generated information. When utilized well, cognitive tools help humans identify patterns and surface previously undetected cyberattack patterns on your company, customer buying behavior or predictive signals of catastrophic equipment failure based on readings from sensor-enabled devices. But as your business inevitably becomes more algorithmic, you're faced with the next problem: Many algorithms, once discovered, have a remarkably short shelf-life. Algorithmic excellence in analytics requires more than just great math; you must also become as agile at killing off weak or vanquished algorithms as a NASCAR pit crew changing worn tires -- you need to be replacing them with promising new ones.

Auto accidents kill more than 33,000 Americans each year, more than homicide or prescription drug overdoses. Companies working on self-driving cars, such as Alphabet and Ford, say their technology can slash that number by removing human liabilities such as texting, drunkenness, and fatigue. But Christopher Hart, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, says his agency's experience investigating accidents involving autopilot systems used in trains and planes suggests that humans can't be fully removed from control. He told MIT Technology Review that future autos will be much safer, but that they will still need humans as copilots. What follows is a condensed transcript.

Protests in the ethnic Russian enclave in Riga, Latvia have NATO on edge. Russian units in the Western Military District are on alert conducting snap exercises involving autonomous ground and air attack systems. The Russian president makes a speech promising to protect ethnic Russians wherever they are with military forces if necessary. In response, a U.S. Army brigade combat team bolstered by intelligence, air defense, and aviation support elements from U.S. Army Europe deploys. Their mission is to reassure Latvian forces, deter Russian aggression, and if necessary conduct a mobile defense.

August saw the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) host its first Cyber Grand Challenge – the first hacking competition not involving people. During this event, teams left their systems alone to single-handedly find, diagnose and fix software flaws in real time. Elsewhere, researchers at MIT are not only developing machine learning systems that automatically mine dark web marketplaces for vulnerabilities and zero-day attacks and reports them back as well as software that automatically fixes buggy code, but also a platform that can predict 85% of cyber-attacks. Machine learning, deep learning, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are hot topics at the moment, and while there's plenty of research going on, there's also some practical applications that can be deployed right now to make life easier for cybersecurity professionals. A glut of new start-ups, from the likes of Darktrace, Cylance, Deep Instinct, and HackerONE, plus established player such as FireEye, IBM, and Forcepoint, are all working on bringing self-learning systems into the world of security.