It was 40 years ago, on April 1, 1976, that three men signed a contract that would go down in history. Stephen G. Wozniak (hereinafter referred to as WOZNIAK), Mr. Steven P. Jobs (hereinafter referred to as JOBS), and Mr. Ronald G. Wayne (hereinafter referred to as WAYNE), all residents of the County of Santa Clara, State of California, have mutually agreed to the formation of a company to be specifically organized for the manufacture and marketing of computer devices, components, and related material, said company to be organized under the fictitious name of APPLE COMPUTER COMPANY." On April 12, however, an amendment was filed. Ronald Wayne was giving up his status as partner, and all of his obligations and responsibilities would be taken over by Jobs and Wozniak. In exchange, he would receive 800. (He later received another 1,500 from the company.)

When UNIVAC--the Universal Automatic Computer--was dedicated a few months later, the New York Times called the machine "an eight-foot-tall mathematical genius" that could in one-sixth of a second "classify an average citizen as to sex marital status, education, residence, age group, birthplace, employment, income and a dozen other classifications." Until then the Bureau's data had been handled with help from an electric counting machine first developed for the 1890 census. Advances in computer technology during the Second World War made for faster processing speeds--a development of particular interest to the Census Bureau, given the volume of data associated with regularly counting the U.S. population. During the war they had designed ENIAC, a large-scale general purpose computer, at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1946 the pair left the university to start a commercial venture and secured a contract with the National Bureau of Standards to study what would be required for a computer for the Bureau of the Census.

Microsoft wants Skype to be more than just a chat app. The company unveiled a significant Skype update that will turn it into a platform for interacting with other apps, similar to what Facebook has done with its Messenger app. This new version will allow Microsoft's virtual assistant Cortana and third-party apps to integrate with Skype. Microsoft is touting the ability to plan trips, shop, and book a hotel all within the Skype app by interacting with virtual bots. "We want all of these conversational tools to become rich canvases for computation," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said on stage at the company's Build conference to preface the announcement.

Tay, the Microsoft Twitter chatbot who was discontinued after she began spouting bigotry, came back to life in the early hours of Wednesday morning -- albeit as a private account. She appears to be making up for lost time, posting dozens of largely nonsensical tweets in a matter of minutes. Her return to sentience comes five days after Microsoft senior executive Peter Lee issued a statement saying Tay would be taken offline, and apologized for her behavior. What had happened was this: Microsoft launched a chatbot to learn communication skills from Internet users (specifically, millennials), but within hours, trolls had exploited the interface to refashion Tay as a white-supremacist mouthpiece. She ventured that the Holocaust was a fiction, blamed 9/11 on President George W. Bush, and described the sitting President as a "monkey."

Looking ahead, we face some difficult – and yet exciting – research challenges in AI design. AI systems feed off of both positive and negative interactions with people. In that sense, the challenges are just as much social as they are technical. We will do everything possible to limit technical exploits but also know we cannot fully predict all possible human interactive misuses without learning from mistakes. To do AI right, one needs to iterate with many people and often in public forums.

Microsoft is pausing the Twitter account of Tay--a chatbot invented to sound like millennials--after the account sent messages with racist and other offensive statements. The company quickly deleted the tweets but not before internet users captured the messages in screenshots. In a statement to the Washington Post, Microsoft said the Tay account was baited into the questionable remarks by folks hoping to stir controversy. "Unfortunately, within the first 24 hours of coming online, we became aware of a coordinated effort by some users to abuse Tay's commenting skills to have Tay respond in inappropriate ways," the statement said. "As a result, we have taken Tay offline and are making adjustments."

Drone maker DJI's latest release, the Phantom 4, makes it easier than ever to capture beautiful aerial photos and videos. But the Chinese firm is working on ways to make the process simpler still. The company is currently building a set of automatic camera maneuvers that could allow Phantom 4 owners to nail complex shots by just pushing a button. "A lot of people, what they'll do is they'll fly around and their first shots aren't that great because they're getting used to it," says Pan. The feature would allow Phantom 4 owners to choose from a selection of camera maneuvers that the drone would be able to execute on its own.