The tensions spilling over from the war in Gaza to merchant shipping in the Red Sea escalated on Saturday when Britain and the United States said their militaries had shot down more than a dozen attack drones. The Houthis, an armed group that controls much of northern Yemen, have been staging drone and missile assaults on Israeli and American targets since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel. They have said they intend to prevent Israeli ships from sailing the Red Sea until Israel stops its war on Hamas, which rules Gaza. Both the Houthis and Hamas, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, are backed by Iran. The shipping industry was also bracing for potential economic fallout as the Red Sea, a vital sea lane, is increasingly drawn into the regional unrest.

Robotaxis may still be a few years out, but there are other industries that can be transformed by autonomous vehicles as they are today. MIT spin-off ISEE has identified one in the common shipping yard, where containers are sorted and stored -- today by a dwindling supply of human drivers, but tomorrow perhaps by the company's purpose-built robotic yard truck. With new funding and partnerships with major shippers, the company may be about to go big. Shipping yards are the buffer zone of the logistics industry. When a container is unloaded from a ship full of them, it can't exactly just sit there on the wharf where the crane dropped it. Maybe it's time sensitive and has to trucked out right away; maybe it needs to go through customs and inspections and must stay in the facility for a week; maybe it's refrigerated and needs power and air hookups.

Day after day, Walter Diaz, an immigrant truck driver from El Salvador, steers his 18-wheeler toward the giant ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Will it take him a half hour to pick up his cargo? Or will it be as long as seven hours? Diaz is paid by the load, so he applauds the arrival of more waterfront robots, which promise to speed turnaround times at a port complex that handles about a third of the nation's imported goods. "I'm for automation," Diaz says.

Revolutions, it's been remarked, never go backward. Nor do they advance at a constant rate. Consider the immense transformation unleashed by data analytics. By now, it's clear the data revolution is changing businesses and industries in profound and unalterable ways. But the changes are neither uniform nor linear, and companies' data-analytics efforts are all over the map. McKinsey research suggests that the gap between leaders and laggards in adopting analytics, within and among industry sectors, is growing. Some companies are doing amazing things; some are still struggling with the basics; and some are feeling downright overwhelmed, with executives and members of the rank and file questioning the return on data initiatives. For leading and lagging companies alike, the emergence of data analytics as an omnipresent reality of modern organizational life means that a healthy data culture is becoming increasingly important. With that in mind, we've spent the past few months talking with analytics leaders at companies from a wide range of industries and geographies, drilling down on the organizing principles, motivations, and approaches that undergird their data efforts. We're struck by themes that recur over and again, including the benefits of data, and the risks; the skepticism from employees before they buy in, and the excitement once they do; the need for flexibility, and the insistence on common frameworks and tools. And, especially: the competitive advantage unleashed by a culture that brings data talent, tools, and decision making together. The experience of these leaders, and our own, suggests that you can't import data culture and you can't impose it. Most of all, you can't segregate it.

Artificial intelligence is a major driver of value for the enterprise. According to a recent AI study from IBM, 82 percent of organizations are now at least considering AI adoption, and the number of companies that are beyond the AI implementation stage is 33 percent higher than it was in 2016. What's more, by pairing AI with other exponential technologies such as automation, blockchain and the Internet of Things (IoT), companies are redefining their business architectures. The IBM "Cognitive Enterprise" report highlights how these technologies represent the next inflection point for the enterprise comparable in scale and scope to the introduction of the Internet and mobile technology. The cognitive enterprise is a framework for companies to define and pursue a bold vision to realize new sources of value and restructure their industries, missions, and business models. A pioneer in using multiple emerging technologies to reinvent industries -- in this case, the global trade market -- is Maersk, the world's largest container shipping company.

The topic of industry disruption -- "a process whereby a smaller company with fewer resources is able to successfully challenge established incumbent businesses" -- is rife with misconceptions. One of the biggest is that it is a mysterious, random, and unpredictable event. Another is that it happens to you in ways that are beyond your control. Those views may have been valid at one time, but they no longer apply. Industry disruption, as Accenture research has found, is reasonably predictable.

Yes, these are all super popular buzzwords, but they are also significant ideas with an incredible number of applications in many industries. Cybersecurity is just one area where AI and ML are solving many challenges, including worker shortages, increased attacks, and more malware detection than ever before. According to the AV-TEST Institute, over 600 million new malware files were created every month in 2017. How can humans possibly stay ahead of these threats? The idea that AI can do this job better and faster than humans is scary to many, but it does not need to be.

Supply chain functions are moving towards automation and integration. For instance, take the use of cloud computing, robotics and artificial intelligence in improving productivity and customer service. In fact, not a single day goes by when we don't come across headlines about the shipping and logistics industry, like Clearpath or DHL, developing drones and warehouse robots or Uber's efforts to create autonomous vehicles. We could not have fantasized such technological advancements last century. But for all of the pervasiveness and advantages attached to the Internet of Things (IoT), it is observed that IoT actually makes supply chain systems more vulnerable to cyber-attacks and other exploits.

Disruptive technology has had a profound impact on academic institutions. STEM subjects have benefitted hugely from new tech, but technological disruption has also changed the way that social studies and economics is taught. As well as working alongside companies, universities (as well as colleges and schools) train students to navigate the changing world. For example, Ohio State University and Carnegie Mellon University have both opened classes in smart city technology. Academia is a key resource for tech firms, providing hubs of innovation with the knowledge and talent to complete successful projects.

Over 200 years after steamships first began crossing the ocean, wind power is finding its way back into seafaring. Global shipping firm Maersk is planning to fit spinning'rotor sails' to one of its oil tankers as a way of reducing its fuel costs and carbon emissions. The company behind the technology, Finnish firm Norsepower, says this is the first retrofit installation of a wind-powered energy system on a tanker. Global shipping firm Maersk is planning to fit spinning'rotor sails' to one of its oil tankers as a way of reducing its fuel costs and carbon emissions The rotor sail was invented by German engineer Anton Flettner. It is effectively a large, spinning metal cylinder that uses something called the Magnus effect to harness wind power and propel a ship.