Artificial intelligence – fuelled by big data – and blockchain tech, are some of the technologies that could impact our world, according to Sarwant Singh, senior parter at Frost & Sullivan. Speaking at the Global Community of Growth, Innovation and Leadership (GIL Europe) conference, held in London today, Singh discussed mega trends in the technological world in an attempt to examine their implications on businesses and societies. "I believe we are now entering the cognitive area," said Singh in reference to artificial intelligence, adding: "We'll move towards super intelligence [in the future]. It is not available today". By super intelligence, Singh was referring to the possibility that computers may eventually be able to function similarly to the human brain.

Chicks born with a bit of quail brain spliced in. Rats with their brains synced to create a mind-meld computer. For two days in June, some of neuroscience's most extraordinary feats were debated over coffee and vegetarian food at the Institute for Research in Cognitive Science in Philadelphia. The idea wasn't to celebrate these accomplishments but to examine them. Martha Farah, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania, assembled a group of scientists, philosophers and policy-makers to discuss the moral implications for the animals involved.

The use of MRI as a diagnostic tool for mental disorders has been a consistent goal of neuroimaging research. Despite this, the vast majority of prior work is descriptive rather than predictive. The current study examines the utility of applying support vector machine (SVM) learning to MRI measures of brain white matter in order to classify individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD). In a precisely matched group of individuals with MDD (n 25) and healthy controls (n 25), SVM learning accurately (70%) classified patients and controls across an unselected brain map of white matter fractional anisotropy values (FA). Using a feature selection approach, where maximal discriminative voxels were selected, classification accuracy increased to over 90%.

You don't hear many people bellyaching about the servant problem these days. In 1904, when Saki wrote, "The cook was a good cook, as cooks go, and as cooks go, she went," this lapidary witticism would have fallen on kind ears. The bourgeoisie of that era talked about the unreliability of hired help with the same willed petulance that we reserve today for conversations about how it takes three remotes to turn on our TV. Indeed, in today's world, it seems as if you'd be less likely to hear about a domestic walking out than you would someone falling in love with his virtual assistant. I recently used a virtual assistant named Amy for 10 days. We did not fall in love, but I should point out that Amy is underage because she is still in beta.

Some people finish a marathon, or climb Mt. Whitney, or get down to a certain weight, and that's it. They view that particular challenge as a sort of bucket-list accomplishment, and when they cross that finish line, they all but cross out fitness as a priority in their lives. They stop doing the things that helped them attain their goal and revert to poor habits. Soon enough, they're out of shape again (or have gained back all the weight).

Whether exchanging dialogue with our smartphones or scribbling characters on touchscreens, the Human-Machine Interfaces (HMI) we interact with today are intuitive and foster'easy to use' input methods. Driven by speech, handwriting and touch, our technologies are continually progressing towards intuitive communication between humans and machines, and we are continuing to march forward. However, several advancements in artificial intelligence technology, such as machine and deep learning capabilities, have paved the way for the humanistion of our machines and devices. And there's one particular development in the AI space which has pioneered the ability for seamless human-to-machine interaction - cognitive ergonomics. Through cognitive ergonomics, system designs that allows machines to adapt and operate considering mental workloads and other factors, we are able to communicate with our devices as easy as writing a note on paper.

On the app's home page (above), Google has replaced the single activity dial graph with individual cards and dials for each goal, showing what you've done and how days you have left to meet it. Scrolling down will reveal a chart of your weight, recent workouts (complete with a map), and more (below). Hitting the floating action " " button lets you set new goals, log your weight, add an activity and more. As for the new goals, you can now get a lot more specific than before. It has more activities and more specific metrics, like steps, duration or times per week, day or month.

During the recent Consumer Goods Forum global summit here in Cape Town, I had the opportunity to briefly chat with Vivienne about some of the issues confronting the digital disruption of this industry sector. [The original transcript has been edited for clarity and space.] Named one of 10 Women to Watch in Tech in 2013 by Inc. Magazine, Vivienne Ming is a theoretical neuroscientist, technologist and entrepreneur. She co-founded Socos, where machine learning and cognitive neuroscience combine to maximize students' life outcomes. Vivienne is a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley's Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, where she pursues her research in neuroprosthetics. In her free time, Vivienne has developed a predictive model of diabetes to better manage the glucose levels of her diabetic son and systems to predict manic episodes in bipolar suffers. She sits on the boards of StartOut, The Palm Center, Emozia, and the Bay Area Rainbow Daycamp, and is an advisor to Credit Suisse, Cornerstone Capital, and BayesImpact. Dr. Ming also speaks frequently on issues of LGBT inclusion and gender in technology. Every once in a while I have the opportunity to discuss wide-ranging topics with an intellect that stimulates, is passionate and really cares about the bigger picture. Those opportunities are more rare than one would think. Although set in a somewhat unexpected venue (the elite innards of consumer capitalism) her observations on the inescapable disruption that the new wave of modern technologies are prescient and thoughtful. Ed: In a continent where there is a large focus on putting people to work, how do you see the challenges and disruptions resulting from AI, robotics, IoT, VR and other technologies playing out? These technologies, as did other disruptive technologies before them, tend to replace human workers with machine processes. Vivienne: There is almost no domain in which artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and automation will not have a profound and positive impact. Medicine, farming, transportation, etc. will all benefit. There will be a huge impact on human potential, and human work will change. I think this is inevitable, that we are well on the way to this AI-enabled future.

The tsunami of innovation and waves of disruption are not slowing down,

World of fitness trackers is still in its infancy. While there are endless fitness tracking devices out there, a smart coach that can entice you to push that extra bit for fitness is still not where it should be. You know we all need to be pushed for fitness, else we are too lazy. This is where wireless Vi headphones comes in. Developed by LifeBEAM, that considers picking data from the ear more accurate than from the wrist, Vi is a pair of biosensing earbuds bundled with logic artificial intelligence app, fitness tracking and coaching ability.