Morning roundup of Artificial Intelligence news for December 14, 2016

To get your morning started right, take a look at the latest stories published since yestereday. Science fiction has moved one step closer to science fact, with Microsoft's launch of a universal translator, an application that allows conversations between groups of people speaking different languages to be translated in real time. Tagged In Smartphone Microsoft Star Trek App Store (i OS) Android (operating System) Artificial Intelligence London Spanish Language Skype German Language Google Play Refugee Afrikaans Chinese Language Welsh Language Human Trafficking Universal Translator Klingon Language Samoan Language Matthew Tostevin/Reuters The Minecraft video game is popular with children; now a version is being used to test artificial-intelligence programs. The Minecraft video game was familiar to José Hernández-Orallo long before he started using it for his own research. The computer scientist, who devises ways to benchmark machine intelligence at the Polytechnic University of Valencia in Spain, first watched his own children play inside the 3D virtual world, which focuses on solving problems rather than... Tagged In Smartphone Minecraft Virtual World Microsoft 3D Computer Graphics San Francisco Web Browser Video Game California Seattle Artificial Intelligence Robotics London Spain University Of Washington Elon Musk Artificial Neural Network Cambridge Microsoft Research Chief Technology Officer Turing Test Visual System Atari Valencia Computing Bloomberg Satya Nadella, chief executive officer of Microsoft Corp., speaks during a keynote session at the Microsoft Developers Build Conference in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Wednesday, March 30, 2016.Microsoft Corp. said it will release a translation app for Windows and other operating systems from rivals Apple Inc. and Google, part of a broader race between the world's largest technology companies for supremacy in the field of artificial intelligence.