Last year, FORBES MIDDLE EAST launched its first ever list of promising U.A.E. We have expanded it from 25 to 50, with an additional 50 to watch. Despite a tougher economic environment, venture capitalists are not holding back.

Editor's note: We're proud to bring NextDraft--the most righteous, most essential newsletter on the web--to WIRED.com. Every Friday you'll get a roundup of the week's most popular must-read stories from around the internet, courtesy of mastermind Dave Pell. Millions of homes now have guests who never leave. With names like Cortana, Siri, and Alexa, these always-listening, all-knowing, just about always female-voiced assistants have become like members of the family. They're selling like crazy, they're interacting with your children (maybe more than you are), and a new suite of artificially intelligent assistant bots are being built into baby monitors so they can have an influence on your kids right from the start. WaPo's Michael S. Rosenwald wonders if anyone is focused on how millions of kids are being shaped by know-it-all voice assistants.

Flippy the robot is starting its culinary career with one simple task, but just like any rookie, it is learning on the job. With some practice and training, Flippy will be able to do everything from chopping vegetables to plating meals like a pro. Miso Robotics created the robot, which debuted in a kitchen at the restaurant chain CaliBurger in Pasadena this week. "Flippy will initially only focus on flipping burgers and placing them on buns," David Zito, CEO of Miso Robotics tells ZDNet. He adds, "But since Flippy is powered by our own cooking AI software, it will continuously learn from its experiences to improve and adapt over time. This means Flippy will learn to take on additional tasks including grilling chicken, bacon, onions, and buns in addition to frying, prepping, and finishing plates. Eventually, Flippy will support CaliBurger's entire menu."

A recent study led by a Tallahassee-based Florida State University psychology researcher investigated whether artificial intelligence can assist in suicide prevention. The researchers, led by Jessica Ribeiro, PhD, identified the EHRs of 2 million Tennessee patients, more than 3,200 of whom had attempted suicide. The researchers used machine learning on these patients' medical histories to determine which combination of risk factors most accurately predicted future suicide attempts. The machine learning algorithm could predict suicide attempts with between 80 percent and 90 percent accuracy as far as two years into the future. The algorithm's accuracy increased based on closeness to the time of the suicide attempt; accuracy was as high as 92 percent when identifying general hospital patients at risk for a suicide attempt within one week.

Each year in the United States, more than 40,000 people die by suicide, and from 1999 to 2014, the suicide rate increased 24 percent. You might think that after generations of theories and data, we would be close to understanding how to prevent self-harm, or at least predict it. But a new study concludes that the science of suicide prediction is dismal, and the established warning signs about as accurate as tea leaves. There is, however, some hope. New research shows that machine-learning algorithms can dramatically improve our predictive abilities on suicides.

Here are four case studies on how machines can perform tasks that previously required human intelligence across various industries. The rise of artificial intelligence is the great story of our time. Leaving the laboratory after decades in the making, artificial intelligence, or AI, is infusing itself into many aspects our daily lives – from homes and phones to cars and offices. Machines are now able to perform tasks that previously required human intelligence across various industries. Insurance, once perceived as highly resistant to change, has now accelerated the race for innovation.

Facebook has announced the addition of new resources -- aided by artificial intelligence -- to help identify and support at-risk users, specifically those who may be suicidal. In a post on the Facebook newsroom blog, product manager Vanessa Callison-Burch, researcher Jennifer Guadagno and head of global safety Antigone Davis note, "There is one death by suicide in the world every 40 seconds, and suicide is the second leading cause of death for 15–29 year olds. Experts say that one of the best ways to prevent suicide is for those in distress to hear from people who care about them." Facebook already provides suicide prevention tools -- rolled out over 10 years ago -- such as offering tips on how to find support and the option for users to report posts that contain self-harm or suicide-related content. The company is testing a new tool to aid this process: artificial intelligence.

It has become an undeniable fact of life that people are going to Google their health symptoms. However, as most physicians are reminded every day by patients who come to the hospital or office armed with their smartphones or printouts of their search results, the internet often leads people to draw erroneous or even harmful conclusions about their health. Fed up with the confusion and misinformation of patients he was encountering as a third-year medical resident in 2014, Harvard Medical School student Andrew Le thought there had to be a better way. Over the past three years, Le and his colleague Eddie Reyes worked with a team at the Innovation Laboratory at Harvard to develop a digital health tool that would function as a health-specific search engine while also giving patients pointers and compassion along the way. "Right now, the status quo is Googling symptoms and getting scared. That is the front door of healthcare," Le told MobiHealthNews in an interview.

As the ancient Roman orator Cicero once put it, "The face is the index of the soul." In 2017, our faces are more index.html Nearly 250 million video surveillance cameras have been installed throughout the world, industry researcher IHS Insight estimated, and the global video surveillance market revenue is estimated to triple over a seven-year period, increasing to $42 billion in 2020 from $14 billion in 2013, according to industry predictions. Add to that surreptitious recording technology like drone cameras, Google Glass, Snapchat video glasses. Market researcher IBISWorld estimated the revenue for advertising agencies last year reached $44 billion, up 4% on the previous year. Face-reading technology can also now detect your emotions -- even those you don't realize you're projecting.

Flippy was developed by Miso Robotics and CaliBurger's owner, Cali Group. It uses cameras, sensors and deep learning software to locate ingredients in a kitchen without needing to reconfigure existing equipment. Not only does it position and flip the patties, it tracks their temperature and cooking time too. When the burgers are done, it alerts a human cook, who applies the cheese and other toppings. "Much like self-driving vehicles, our system continuously learns from its experiences to improve over time," said David Zito, CEO of Miso Robotics, in a statement.