Technology has a long and uneasy relationship with gender and identity. On one hand, technologies like social media allow people to connect across large distances to share their personal stories, build communities and find support. Yet there have also been troubling cases, such as Facebook's'Real Names' policy where users have been locked out of their accounts and left without recourse. As technology gets more complex and ubiquitous, these cases will continue to get worse. Widespread implementation of seemingly "objective" technology means less accessibility for those who do not fit developers' conceptions of an "ideal user" – usually white, male and affluent.

One of the most frustrating elements of the current healthcare environment is the administrative burden of prior authorizations for medications and procedures. It is a frustration for providers, for patients, and for payers. Is there any way to solve this dilemma? For physicians, an estimated 20 hours per week is spent in prior authorization activities, costing an average of 83,000 in excess annual overhead per physician. Is there an actual benefit for this effort?

When Zinedine Zidane, the then French captain, headbutted Italy's Marco Materazzi during the 2006 World Cup final, the clash quickly became one of the most infamous incidents in football history. What was not clear was what sparked the Frenchman's ire – Zidane said his mother had been insulted, a charge that Materazzi vigorously denied. The head-butt got Zidane sent off and Italy won the game. However, had there been technology there to identify what was said, the result could have been very different, Helen Bear believes. "If a machine lip-reader was in existence, the other player [could] have got sent off too so it would have been 10 men against each other in a World Cup final," she argues.

KPMG's recent announcement was particularly noteworthy from my perspective, because it indicated that the audit firm would be deploying IBM's Watson "cognitive computing technology" to KPMG's professional services offerings.--According "One current initiative is focused on employing supervised cognitive capabilities to analyze much larger volumes of structured and unstructured data related to a company's financial information, as auditors'teach' the technology how to fine-tune assessments over time. This enables audit teams to have faster access to increasingly precise measurements that help them analyze anomalies and assess whether additional steps are necessary." IBM is, of course, one of KPMG's biggest software-auditing clients. All of these recent reports mention that the AI technologies currently are being contemplated for use in connection with financial audits.

The finance world is cautiously optimistic about the future of artificial intelligence and how it can be used, but, there is more work needed on regulating the technology when it comes to world markets. "Financial institutions have been fined billions of dollars because of illegality and compliance breaches by traders. A logical response by banks is to automate as much decision-making as possible, hence the number of banks enthusiastically embracing AI and automation," said Baker and McKenzie head of financial services regulation Arun Srivastava. "But while conduct risk may be reduced, the unknown risks inherent in aspects of AI have not been eliminated." The law firm's research found more than 400 senior executives working in finance and fintech believe artificial intelligence (AI) will have the most impact on trading, financial analysis and IT over the next three years.

Dubai's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, announced plans Monday to have 25 percent of all car trips in this city-state in the United Arab Emirates to be driverless by 2030. In a statement carried by the state-run WAM news agency, Sheikh Mohammed said it would cut down on costs and traffic crashes. He said the project would be a joint venture by Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority and the Dubai Future Foundation. Already, Dubai is home to a driverless Metro rail system. It also has a number of taxi companies, driven by a large foreign labor force.

These "20 percent time" efforts have resulted in Google News, Gmail and AdSense, but it can be difficult for Googlers to find spare time for such projects. Meanwhile, successful examples of Google employees who have parted ways with the company include Pinterest co-founder Ben Silbermann and Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom. Area 120 reportedly will have a space inside one of the tech giant's San Francisco offices, and teams at Google can apply to join it full time for several months by pitching a business plan. These employees will then have a chance to establish a new company with Google as an investor. Google also has increased its focus on entrepreneurial efforts by splitting its core search engine business away from its new parent entity Alphabet, which nurtures moonshot projects like the Google self-driving car and acquisitions like smart thermostat maker Nest.

The U.S. government believes the Internet of things (IoT) has enormous economic potential across all industries. Its machine-to-machine technologies can reduce automobile-related injuries, usher in an era of precise weather forecasting and automate all types of processes. But what impact will IoT have on jobs? Will it create more than it destroys? And what happens to all the data devices generate?

Professor Toby Walsh, Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of New South Wales will be giving a lecture on the future of robotics tomorrow at UCT. Professor Walsh is currently on the Executive Council of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, and an advocate of the'Campaign to Stop Killer Robots'. He is also Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research. John Maytham speaks to Professor Walsh to find out more about the lecture he will be delivering, and the interesting subject of artificial intelligence. AI is trying to build computers to do things that we would normally think of as intelligent and its starting to pervade our lives. He says artificial intelligence is starting to take over more aspects of the things humans do.

A team of computer scientists may have developed a surprising way to curb wildlife poaching. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), a team of computer scientists at the University of Southern California (USC) have developed a model for "green security games" that use game theory to protect wildlife from poachers. Game theory uses mathematical equations "to predict the behavior of adversaries and plan optimal approaches for containment," explains NSF, which would allow park rangers to patrol parks and wildlife sanctuaries more effectively. "In most parks, ranger patrols are poorly planned, reactive rather than pro-active and habitual," Fei Fang, a Ph.D. candidate in the computer science department at USC and a researcher involved with the project, tells NSF. "We need to provide actual patrol routes that can be practically followed."