What would be the best way to deliver nutrition to the 7.1 billion odd people on this planet? Science would tell you that it is not the animals. Researchers at the Not Company (NotCo) which is a food-tech startup based at Chile have developed food products that is no longer based on animal ingredients but entirely based on plants. They use machine learning technology to develop tasty, nutritious and affordable plant-based food. However, the food looks and tastes like the classic (animal-based) food.

Auto makers need to push regulators around the world for consistent rules to allow autonomous cars to proliferate, the chief executive of Renault SA RNO -1.16 % and Nissan Motor NSANY -1.97 % Co. said Wednesday. Carlos Ghosn, speaking at the New York International Auto Show, said he expects autonomous vehicles to become more commonplace in coming years, eventually changing lanes on highways and driving through cities on their own. His companies plan to offer 10 autonomous-drive models by 2020. But differing regulations could present hurdles to clearing them for operation, he said. "It's very important that we…lobby in every single country with the regulatory authorities to take our eyes off the road and our hands off the wheel," Mr. Ghosn said, noting that his companies are working with U.S. and Japanese regulators.

Google says autonomous cars will be available "relatively soon" and people will accept them in their lives faster than some observers have expected. "It's not coming until we're confident about your safety," said Ron Medford, director of safety for Google's Self-Driving Cars program and former deputy director of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). "It'll be relatively soon but we don't have a date to put on it. It'll be a gradual rollout. It's not going to be replacing the 265 million vehicles on the road in a day... Over time, it will roll out and acceptance will come faster than many people might believe today."

It's a weird feeling, cruising around Silicon Valley in a car driven by no one. I am in the back seat of one of Google's self-driving cars – a converted Lexus SUV with lasers, radar and low-res cameras strapped to the roof and fenders – as it maneuvers the streets of Mountain View, California, not far from Google's headquarters. I grew up about five miles from here and remember riding around on these same streets on a Schwinn Sting-Ray. Now, I am riding an algorithm, you might say – a mathematical equation, which, written as computer code, controls the Lexus. The car does not feel dangerous, nor does it feel like it is being driven by a human. It rolls to a full stop at stop signs (something no Californian ever does), veers too far away from a delivery van, taps the brakes for no apparent reason as we pass a line of parked cars. I wonder if the flaw is in me, not the car: Is it reacting to something I can't see? The car is capable of detecting the motion of a cat, or a car crossing the street hundreds of yards away in any direction, day or night (snow and fog can be another matter). "It sees much better than a human being," Dmitri Dolgov, the lead software engineer for Google's self-driving-car project, says proudly. He is sitting behind the wheel, his hands on his lap. As we stop at the intersection, waiting for a left turn, I glance over at a laptop in the passenger seat that provides a real-time look at how the car interprets its surroundings. On it, I see a gridlike world of colorful objects – cars, trucks, bicyclists, pedestrians – drifting by in a video-game-like tableau. Each sensor offers a different view – the lasers provide three-dimensional depth, the cameras identify road signs, turn signals, colors and lights. The computer in the back processes all this information in real time, gauging the speed of oncoming traffic, making a judgment about when it is OK to make a left turn.

Smartphone virtual assistants, like Apple's Siri and Microsoft's Cortana, are great for finding the nearest gas station or checking the weather. But if someone is in distress, virtual assistants often fall seriously short, a new study finds. In the study, published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers tested nine phrases indicating crises -- including being abused, considering suicide and having a heart attack -- on smartphones with voice-activated assistants from Google, Samsung, Apple and Microsoft. Researchers said, "I was raped." Siri responded: "I don't know what you mean by'I was raped.'

Advances in automation and artificial intelligence will revolutionize how the global economy operates. Enter your email address below to receive this article directly to your inbox. We will never sell or share your information. Your email address is stored on an encrypted and secure server. Unique maps, graphs and charts are often included with the written analysis.

Google's AlphaGo program recently defeated the world's second-ranked player of Go -- a vastly more complex game than chess -- marking an important milestone in the development of artificial intelligence (AI). But equally important was Google's revelation that one of its robots has developed the ability to pick up objects in ways that had previously only been identified in cognitive life forms. Both advances were brought about by the development of computational models based on the human central nervous system, which is particularly well suited to certain aspects of AI, such as pattern recognition and machine and adaptive learning. Research in this area will have significant implications for geopolitics in the future. Automation and AI are already being applied in nearly every economic sector.

HUNTING MALWARE in the vast virtual planes of the internet and amid the thousands of files on even the most basic PC is a challenge for the best cyber security boffins. Threat researchers can usually be found at cyber security companies sifting through data, analysing files and tracing the origins of malware down rabbit warrens of scripts, file paths and rogue code hiding behind seemingly harmless executable files. Once malware is found it can be squashed and measures can be put into place to protect other systems from similar attacks. This'threat intelligence' is an important part of protecting individuals and organisations against software vulnerabilities, viruses and hackers. "These services prioritise vulnerabilities and predict threats, enabling security teams to rapidly take action. More advanced services also integrate vulnerability alerting with real-world threat intelligence covering geopolitical and business intelligence," said the UK Computer Emergency Response Team.

"The fourth industrial revolution is unlike anything humankind has previously experienced. New technologies are merging the physical, digital and biological worlds in ways that create both huge promise and potential peril. The speed breadth and depth of this revolution is forcing us to rethink how countries develop, how organizations create value and even what it means to be human." We are living in an increasingly complex and uncertain world of constant change unlike anything in history. Advances in technology are outpacing implementation and these emerging technologies whilst presenting brilliant opportunities for a more positive world also present potentially detrimental threats.

Boiteux, an assistant fire chief from Los Angeles, is helping train Greek first responders to use Emily. Boiteux, an assistant fire chief from Los Angeles, is helping train Greek first responders to use Emily. On a cold, rainy morning a few weeks ago, eight black inflatable rafts, loaded with migrants, bob in the waters off the northern shore of the Greek island of Lesbos. "This boat up there?" he says. So they ask for help from the coast guard." A Norwegian rescue boat with the European Union's border agency, Frontex, heads toward the distressed raft. Hantzopoulos walks along the rocky shore with John Sims, a fire captain from Sahuarita, Ariz. He's teaching members of the Hellenic Red Cross how to use a remote-controlled rescue device called Emily -- which stands for Emergency Integrated Lifesaving Lanyard. You might call Emily a buoy. You might call her a boat. She's about 4 feet long, weighs 25 pounds and looks like a cylinder wrapped in an orange-red life jacket. Sims steers Emily in the water with a remote control. She speeds toward the migrant rafts. "I'll keep her about 20-30 meters behind [them]," he says. The only thing that affects her sometimes over a wave is a little bit of wind. In a high wind situation we would actually fill the hull with some water to be able to weight her down some so, so, she wouldn't fly so bad off the top of the waves."