Artificial intelligence moves from sci-fi to daily life

Artificial intelligence is creeping into our daily lives in unexpected ways. It is not just transforming online services with innovations such as Apple's Siri voice recognition app, which will send emails when you instruct it to, or Microsoft's Skype translation services, which enable you to communicate online with people whose languages you do not speak. Wider applications of artificial intelligence, such as image and pattern recognition (classifying data or objects based on common features), natural language processing (how computers understand and respond to human speech) and machine learning (when software learns something without being programmed to do so) will soon be featuring in many products and services. Pest control In recent years, pest control company Rentokil Initial has been experimenting with rodent traps equipped with sensors and WiFi. These send data to a command centre, which the company has built with partners Google and PA Consulting.