Existing threat-detection systems broadly fall into two categories: a software bot that can detect patterns and human analysis. AI2's gimmick is that it mashes together a handful of different machine learning tools and asks its flesh-and-blood counterparts for help. When it thinks it's found a pattern amongst the noise of data, it offers it up to a person for a second opinion. After a short period of time, AI2 will learn from its errors and what the human experts are telling it. As Arnaldo says, "it continuously generates new models that it can refine in as little as two hours."

Moves to tighten rules on drones have been promised by the government after Labour and pilots unions called for urgent action, including a possible register of drone users and "geo-fencing" of airports, after a British Airways plane was struck on its descent into Heathrow. Sunday's incident is believed to be the first such collision between a passenger plane and a drone, after a series of near misses that led pilots to warn that a strike could be disastrous. The Air Accidents Investigations Branch said it would launch an inquiry. The Department for Transport (DfT) said it would hold a public consultation before a government strategy is published later this year. Labour has accused ministers of dragging their feet after aviation authorities confirmed a number of potentially serious incidents in 2015, including 23 near misses between aircraft and drones in six months investigated by the UK Airprox Board.

Finding evidence that someone compromised your cyber defenses is a grind. Sifting through all of the data to find abnormalities takes a lot of time and effort, and analysts can only work so many hours a day. But an AI never gets tired, and can work with humans to deliver far better results. A system called AI2, developed at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, reviews data from tens of millions of log lines each day and pinpoints anything suspicious. A human takes it from there, checking for signs of a breach.

A silver BMW 5 Series is weaving through traffic at roughly 120 kilometers per hour (75 mph) on a freeway that cuts northeast through Bavaria between Munich and Ingolstadt. I'm in the driver's seat, watching cars and trucks pass by, but I haven't touched the steering wheel, the brake, or the gas pedal for at least 10 minutes. The BMW approaches a truck that is moving slowly. To maintain our speed, the car activates its turn signal and begins steering to the left, toward the passing lane. Just as it does, another car swerves into the passing lane from several cars behind. The BMW quickly switches off its signal and pulls back to the center of the lane, waiting for the speeding car to pass before trying again.

The Metropolitan Police have opened an investigation into reports that a drone struck a commercial passenger plane as it approached London's Heathrow airport. On Sunday, the pilot of a British Airways flight from Geneva, Switzerland, reported that a drone had struck the front of the Airbus A320, which was carrying 132 passengers and five crew members. British Airways inspected the plane but found it was undamaged and deemed safe for its next flight. No one has been arrested following the incident and it is not known who owned the drone or why it was being flown in an area with so many passenger planes. In the U.K., airports and their surrounding areas are controlled airspace where the flying of drones is prohibited.

The threat from such machines is real enough for 100 states to come together and debate the matter of their ban for three consecutive years now. The use of autonomous machines could potentially change the vocabulary of warfare, just like gun powder and nuclear arsenal upon their entry into the battlefield. In April 2013, NGOs associated with successful efforts to ban landmines and cluster munitions got together in London and issued a call to governments urging the negotiation of a treaty preventing the development, deployment and use of what are known as'Killer Robots' in popular parlance. In July 2015, some of the world's leading Artificial Intelligence (AI) scientists including Apple co-founder Steven Wozniak, Skype co-founder Jaan Tallin and Professor Stephen Hawking signed a letter with nearly 21,000 signatures asking for an outright ban on these autonomous weapons systems (AWS). "Autonomous weapons will become the Kalashnikovs of tomorrow," states the letter.

Adrianne Haslet heard all the talk about taking back Boylston Street in the years after the Boston Marathon bombings. After losing her left leg in the 2013 finish-line explosions, Haslet decided that she would return to the course -- this time as a runner. When the race leaves Hopkinton on Monday, Haslet will be one of 31 members of the One Fund community -- survivors of the attacks, their families and supporters-- who will be in the field. "A lot of people think about the finish line," she said. "I think about the start line."

You'd think that after its last AI chat bot fiasco, Microsoft would've learned its lesson -- or at least waited a bit longer before introducing another monster to the world. Luckily for us, history has a tendency to repeat itself, and the company's latest creation is a sometimes hilarious entity known as Captionbot. The premise is simple -- recognize the contents of a photo, and come up with an appropriate caption. But alas, while the concept may be straightforward, the execution isn't always so cut and dry. And social media has been quick to point out all of Captionbot's faux pas.

Two more near-misses between drones and passenger planes at UK airports have been reported by aviation authorities, including one a "wingspan away" from a jet landing at Heathrow. Pilots have called for a clampdown on drone use after a spate of incidents. Among the latest six to be investigated and verified by the UK Airprox Board, which monitors the threat of midair collisions, three were in the most serious bracket of risk, one involving a small light aircraft and two involving larger passenger planes. The closest calls came in late September as an Airbus A319, which typically carry up to 180 passengers, landed at Heathrow, and two days later as a turboprop commuter plane, believed to be a LoganAir flight to Scotland, left Manchester airport. The pilot at Heathrow reported a drone helicopter hovering close to his flight path, and was unable to take evasive action as the drone passed less than 30 metres away from his A319.

In this special guest feature, Karthik Krishnan, Vice President of Product Management at Niara, discusses how machine learning is an option that's gaining popularity to detect cyber attacks given its effectiveness in classifying and clustering attack activity, even within large event data streams. Karthik is responsible for driving product strategy and direction as well as customer engagements. He helped to drive the initial framework for the Niara Security Analytics Platform. Before joining Niara, he served as vice president of product management at Embrane, acquired by Cisco in 2015, and senior director of product management at PGP, acquired by Symantec in 2010. Karthik also spent five years at Juniper as the director of product management, driving product strategy, sales and customer engagements for Juniper's Access Control products.