Meta is shutting down Facebook's controversial face recognition feature and deleting the face data collected from users through the social media network, citing "growing societal concerns". But privacy campaigners are concerned that the company hasn't been clear on whether the algorithms trained on that data will be deleted. Images uploaded to Facebook have been scanned by artificial intelligence (AI) tools since 2010, giving the uploader the option of "tagging" people in the image. Meta, then known as Facebook itself, attracted criticism when the feature first launched for failing to ask permission from users, and has since struggled to align it with local privacy laws. In 2012, the company switched off face recognition for people in the EU after a German data protection commissioner said that it violated European Union law – it returned in 2018 with an explicit opt-in requirement.

In rural areas, basic health care can be out of reach. Keller Rinaudo founded Zipline, a delivery company that uses drones to deliver necessary medical supplies within hours, even minutes. Keller Rinaudo is the CEO and co-founder of Zipline, a drone delivery company that delivers life-saving medicine to remote places. The company began by focusing on delivering blood for urgent medical situations. Previously, Rinaudo was also the CEO and a co-founder of Romotive, a former company established in 2011 that made inexpensive small robots that use mobile phones as their computing system, machine vision system, and wireless communication system.

For the last two years, Facebook AI Research (FAIR) has worked with 13 universities around the world to assemble the largest ever data set of first-person video--specifically to train deep-learning image-recognition models. AIs trained on the data set will be better at controlling robots that interact with people, or interpreting images from smart glasses. "Machines will be able to help us in our daily lives only if they really understand the world through our eyes," says Kristen Grauman at FAIR, who leads the project. Such tech could support people who need assistance around the home, or guide people in tasks they are learning to complete. "The video in this data set is much closer to how humans observe the world," says Michael Ryoo, a computer vision researcher at Google Brain and Stony Brook University in New York, who is not involved in Ego4D.

What do Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla CEO Elon Musk have in common? Both are grappling with big problems that stem, at least in part, from putting faith in artificial intelligence systems that have underdelivered. Zuckerberg is dealing with algorithms that are failing to stop the spread of harmful content; Musk with software that has yet to drive a car in the ways he has frequently promised. There is one lesson to be gleaned from their experiences: AI is not yet ready for prime time. Furthermore, it is hard to know when it will be.

Juan Carlos Augusto, Philippe Lalanda, Massimo Mecella Intelligent Environments are populated with numerous devices and have multiple occupants, inherently exhibit increasingly intelligent behaviour, support consistent functionality and human-centric operation (humans, as opposed to mere users, have increased requirements from a system, including, for example, intuitive interaction, protection of privacy, fault-tolerance etc.), and provide optimized resource usage. The development of Intelligent Environments is considered the first and primary step towards the realization of the Ambient Intelligence vision and requires input from research and contributions from several scientific and engineering disciplines, including computer science, software engineering, artificial intelligence, architecture, social sciences, art and design. The series of IE conferences have been consistently creating a unique blend of researchers in these disciplines, fostering cross-disciplinary discussions, debate and collaborations.

Karl Aberer, Ebrahim Bagheri, Marya Bazzi, Rumi Chunara, Ziv Epstein, Fabian Flöck, Adriana Iamnitchi, Diana Inkpen, Maurice Jakesch, Kyraki Kalimeri, Elena Kochkina, Ugur Kursuncu, Maria Liakata, Yelena Mejova, George Mohler, Daniela Paolotti, Jérémie Rappaz, Manon Revel, Horacio Saggion, Indira Sen, Panayiotis Smeros, Katrin Weller, Sanjaya Wijeratne, Christopher C. Yang, Fattane Zarrinkalam The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence’s 2021 International Conference on Web and Social Media was held virtually from June 8-10, 2021. There were 8 workshops in the program: Data for the Wellbeing of Most Vulnerable, Emoji 2021: International Workshop on Emoji Understanding and Applications in Social Media, Information Credibility and Alternative Realities in Troubled Democracies, International Workshop on Cyber Social Threats (CySoc 2021), International Workshop on Social Sensing (SocialSens 2021): Special Edition on Information Operations on Social Media, Participatory Development of Quality Guidelines for Social Media Research: A Structured, Hands-on Design Workshop, Mediate 2021: News Media and Computational Journalism, Mining Actionable Insights from Social Networks: Special Edition on Healthcare Social Analytics.

SpaceX will attempt to catch a massive rocket using "robot chopsticks", according to Elon Musk. The audacious plan could be carried out later this year during a major test of the Mars-bound Starship craft, which will see it blasted into orbit by a Super Heavy booster rocket. The so-called chopsticks refer to mechanical arms attached to SpaceX's launch tower – named'Mechazilla' by Mr Musk – which will help guide the booster rocket back down onto the pad. This system could eventually allow for rapid reusability and allow for multiple Starship launches in a single day, though chances of early success are far from guaranteed. "SpaceX will try to catch largest ever flying object with robot chopsticks," Mr Musk tweeted on Monday.

Artificial intelligence leads the top tweeted terms are the trending industry discussions happening on Twitter by key individuals (influencers) as tracked by the platform. The steps being taken to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into healthcare and the use of AI techniques in the detection and management of various diseases were popularly discussed in Q2. Rafael Grossmann, a surgeon and clinical innovator, shared an article on two new companies namely Anumana and Lucem Health being launched by healthcare company Mayo Clinic that will collect and analyse patient data gathered from remote monitoring devices and tools to enable early detection and diagnosis of diseases. Mayo Clinic will launch a remote monitoring platform that will enable clinicians and physicians to make quicker and better decisions with the help of the collected and analysed patient data thereby speeding up the diagnosis before symptoms appear. It will also allow patients to take more control of their health and related decisions.

The robots are coming, and Elon Musk wants to usher in their arrival. The Tesla CEO revealed the Tesla Bot this week during an event devoted to advances in artificial intelligence. Described as "the next generation of automation" on the Tesla website, the humanoid robot is "capable of performing tasks that are unsafe, repetitive or boring." That makes sense as there are many jobs needing done but humans don't want to do, Musk says. At the foundation it is labor," he said during the event.

An eerie four-legged robot is shown pacing through the woods with relative ease. But when brought inside and tested in other situations, such as slippery surfaces, it had balance issues and difficulty walking. In one example, when weighted bags were placed on its back, the robot fell over. With Facebook's AI software enabled, it wobbled but managed to stay upright and keep walking when the bags were tossed onto it. There are no cameras on the device. All of the robot's movements were guided by sensors in its feet and various joints, which allow it to experience the world through "touch."