"Especially for us as an indie studio, leaning into gameplay, not wanting to do aggressive paywall mechanics and things like that, we thought a relatively low premium price but with loads of content packed in, will bring in as many people as possible," Guha Bala said. Karthik Bala added that the 10-day trial will help people understand what "Knockout City" is, as it's not purely a shooter, fighting game, nor sports title, but contains elements of all three genres.

The next video game from publisher Electronic Arts started with a simple activity: playing catch. What developed is something far more intense: the dodgeball-inspired action game "Knockout City," which will launch May 21 for PC, PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch. It will be available under a free trial at launch, then cost $19.99. The game, described by its developers as "dodgebrawl," has players compete against each other in a bustling metropolis, working as teams to knock out their opponents with powered-up balls. Even players' characters themselves can become the ball, allowing their teammates to whack an opponent.

As part of his keynote for The Manufacturer's Industrial Data Summit, Bala Amavasai, Head of AI and Lead AI Architect at Stanley Black & Decker, explored the benefits of artificial intelligence for manufacturers and some of the ways it can be implemented into businesses. Stanley Black and Decker are at the forefront of delivering digital solutions to industry and operate across manufacturing verticals, with a vision for digital transformation to bring in cutting-edge technology to solve the hardest problems. The ambition is to build connected factories across the globe using technologies including: AI and machine learning; robotics; digital apps and digital twins. Bala Amavasai Head of AI and Lead AI Architect, Stanley Black & Decker Bala explained, "Among these technologies, AI is at the centre of building connected factories; but when we speak about AI, we are not only referring to deep learning AI, in fact it is much more than deep learning. It is machine learning, statistics and all those technologies that fall within the AI domain".

It would be nearly impossible for one person – or even a dedicated team – to tease out meaningful trends and insights from such an onslaught of visual data. For an AI (properly trained with the right algorithms), it's a piece of cake, according to Kavita Bala, chair of the computer science department at Cornell University. She and her team used artificial intelligence (AI) to create a map of style trends and influencers by analyzing 14.5 million photos of people shared publicly on social media. Bala's StreetStyle project can answer questions like: How many people wear black in Los Angeles today, compared with two years ago? Or, where in the world is the hijab most prevalent?

Christina Fuller was down to the wire. With less than one week to go before the new school year, the Willowbrook mother who works in students services at Santa Monica College still didn't know where her son would start sixth grade. So one night last week, she brought Robert, a quiet 11-year-old wearing a Minecraft T-shirt, to an orientation she stumbled upon online for the district's newest offering: the Boys Academic Leadership Academy. The school, known as BALA, emphasizes science, technology, arts, engineering and math, or STEAM education. Classes at the Washington Prep campus in South L.A. begin Tuesday.

Each day billions of photographs are uploaded to photo-sharing services and social media platforms, and Cornell computer science researchers are figuring out ways to analyze this visual treasure trove through deep-learning methods. Kavita Bala, professor of computer science; Noah Snavely, associate professor computer science at Cornell Tech; and Kevin Matzen, M.S. '15, Ph.D. '16, have released their results in a new paper, "StreetStyle: Exploring world-wide clothing styles from millions of photos." "We present a framework for visual discovery at scale, analyzing clothing and fashion across millions of images of people around the world and spanning several years," Snavely said. Bala said the group used deep learning to detect various attributes – the color or sleeve length of shirts, whether a person is wearing glasses or a hat, and so on – in millions of images. "Using these detected attributes, we can then derive visual insight," Bala said.

One of the things I've always wanted from technology is the ability to point my phone at something or take a screenshot, and have it say, here's what that thing is and here's where you can buy it. Well, my lavish consumerist dream is starting to come true, and Grokstyle is one company working to make it so -- in this case, automatically identifying furniture and home decor from just about any picture or angle. The basic idea is this: you open an app or web interface, and upload or take a picture of, say, a chair or lamp you like. The Grokstyle service immediately returns the closest matches, either including the object itself or ones very like it. That would of course be very handy for any interior decorator, but ordinary shoppers can make it work, too.

One of the things I've always wanted from technology is the ability to point my phone at something or take a screenshot, and have it say, here's what that thing is and here's where you can buy it. Well, my lavish consumerist dream is starting to come true, and Grokstyle is one company working to make it so -- in this case, automatically identifying furniture and home decor from just about any picture or angle. The basic idea is this: you open an app or web interface, and upload or take a picture of, say, a chair or lamp you like. The Grokstyle service immediately returns the closest matches, either including the object itself or ones very like it. That would of course be very handy for any interior decorator, but ordinary shoppers can make it work, too.

Dr. Brad Duchaine, Associate Professor Department of Psychology and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth, says facial recognition is a sophisticated, yet universal skill humans have. "It's really a complicated system and it involves a number of different grey areas (but) visual recognition is something everybody is really good at," Duchaine said. "It comes built-in with the brain. We're capable of doing face processing just minutes after being born." Balas, who has done research on how social interactions can influence face perception and memory, said it's amazing the type of information humans can draw from a quick glance of someone's face.