An American man who murdered and beheaded a Japanese woman he met on an online dating app has been sentenced to eight years in prison, according to reports. Yevgeniy Vasilievich Bayraktar, of Long Island, New York, was sentenced on Tuesday in a Japanese court after reportedly admitting to strangling Saki Kondo, 27, in February 2018 at an apartment he'd rented while sightseeing in Osaka. Bayraktar strangled the young woman and then used a saw to dismember her, and buried her body parts across different cities, the New York Post reports. Bayraktar, 27, was not indicted for murder in the case, because prosecutors could not prove that he had set out with the intention to kill Kondo. He was instead charged and found guilty of manslaughter and abandoning a body.

A non-league football club have employed artificial intelligence to try to get the edge over their opponents. Seventh-tier side Wingate and Finchley FC will be using an Amazon Echo system to help choose their team formations and make pre-game and in-game tactical decisions. The smart speaker will be linked to a computer and use information spoken to it by coaches to make tactical suggestions and even provide Kevin Keegan-style inspirational quotes. The manager could, for example, ask Alexa what the best formation would be. The AI would then ask a series of questions about the team and the opponents before proposing an answer.

SAN FRANCISCO - YouTube said Friday it will stop recommending specious videos such as those claiming the Earth is flat or promoting bogus theories about the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The global video streaming service planned to modify its viewing recommendation system gradually, starting in the United States and later expanding to other countries. Google-owned YouTube, part of the Alphabet holding, said it is scrutinizing how to reduce the spread of content that comes close to but doesn't quite cross the line of violating its community guidelines. "To that end, we'll begin reducing recommendations of borderline content and content that could misinform users in harmful ways," YouTube said in a blog post. "Such as videos promoting a phony miracle cure for a serious illness, claiming the earth is flat, or making blatantly false claims about historic events like 9/11."

For Christmas this year, we got an Echo. OK, technically it was a gift for my husband, but he knows it's really for the whole family. Once we freed it from the box, we excitedly gathered around to test our new robot friend. I started with a little small talk: "Hi Alexa. My 5-year-old jumped in to try a skill he must have seen in a commercial: "Alexa, play'It's Raining Tacos.' " Soon, we were all dancing to the silly techno song. Finally, my husband took a turn, "Alexa, cómo estás?" Then he decided to try something simpler, "Alexa, hola." But even the simplest and most known Spanish word was beyond Alexa in English mode. We were surprised and sad to learn that Alexa may not work for our bilingual home. Alexa has a Spanish mode. But that's not what we need. My husband's first language is Spanish--specifically Argentine Spanish--and he speaks English fluently. My first language is English and my Spanish is OK. He and I communicate in Spanglish and are trying to raise our children to be bilingual. When texting on our iPhones, we used to switch the language setting back and forth, but were thrilled when we discovered that the adaptable iOS had quickly learned to accommodate our Spanglish. I naively thought Alexa would learn, too. But here we are a few weeks later, and it responds to any Spanish instructions with a sad "whoomp" sound or with, "I'm sorry.

The idea of artificial intelligence is relatively familiar to many, but popular representations are actually misleading. In practice, there exist two different types of A.I. -- strong and narrow. Strong artificial intelligence mimics the human brain. The term is strictly a theory-- there has never been a real implementation of strong A.I.; nevertheless, strong A.I. is perhaps most commonly familiar due to popular entertainment. Master Chief's partner Cortana from the Halo video game series is one such representation -- a virtual, intelligent software with full ranges of human logicality, emotions, and self-consciousness.

This blog post was authored by Peter Cooper, Senior Product Manager, Microsoft IoT. From smart factories and smart cities to virtual personal assistants and self-driving cars, artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) are transforming how people around the world live, work, and play. But fundamentally changing the ways people, devices, and data interact is not simple or easy work. Microsoft's AI & IoT Insider Labs was created to help all types of organizations accelerate their digital transformation. Member organizations around the world get access to support both technology development and product commercialization, for everything from hardware design to manufacturing to building applications and turning data into insights using machine learning.

YouTube said Friday it is retooling its recommendation algorithm that suggests new videos to users in order to prevent promoting conspiracies and false information, reflecting a growing willingness to quell misinformation on the world's largest video platform after several public missteps. In a blog post that YouTube plans to publish Friday, the company said that it was taking a "closer look" at how it can reduce the spread of content that "comes close to -- but doesn't quite cross the line" of violating its rules. YouTube has been criticized for directing users to conspiracies and false content when they begin watching legitimate news. The change to the company's recommendation algorithms is the result of a six-month-long technical effort. It will be small at first -- YouTube said it would apply to less than 1 percent of the content of the site -- and affects only English-language videos, meaning that much unwanted content will still slip through the cracks.

Inching down the freeway, a driver realizes she's forgotten her weekend plans and asks her digital copilot to check her calendar. Within seconds, a voice emanates from the car's speakers telling the driver that she has RSVP'd to a friend's birthday party and then suggesting a gift--a Detroit Lions jersey. The entire process ends less than two minutes after the driver asks the digital assistant to order the jersey. Meanwhile, the dialogue inside the car is sent to a distant data center, ready to be mined for ads pitching an NFL game, even though the driver dislikes football. Once clunky and buggy, voice-recognition technology is improving and quickly spreading to the dashboard, allowing drivers to issue a wider range of commands using natural speech.

Apple's new AirPods might have been accidentally confirmed – but its own iPhone update. The latest beta version of the iOS software appears to not only suggest that new versions of the wireless earphones are coming soon, but also what one of their main features might be. The leak comes from a hidden part of the iOS 12.2 update which is currently available for developers. Inside a pop-up that is not visible without digging around is a suggestion about how those nearphones might work. While a user is setting up the option to speak to the phone's digital assistant just by saying "Hey, Siri", the message suggests that people will be able to do so just by speaking into their AirPods, rather than into their phone.

Woolworths is working on a "green field" conversational AI platform that it expects to run "at enterprise scale" in its operations. The project forms part of what the supermarket giant says is "a roadmap of solutions powered by leading edge AI and ML" - artificial intelligence and machine learning - that will be used to create "future shopping" experiences. It is being run under the auspices of Woolworths combined loyalty and digital arm, WooliesX. The project came to light in a recent recruitment advertisement for a technology lead for conversational AI. It appears the role could have input into some of the other virtual assistant and voice-enabled experiences that Woolworths has already built.