Medical Mysteries and Marvels: A 48-year-old man who can walk, talk and breathe air thinks he's dead. The patient suffers from Cotard's syndrome, also known as'walking corpse syndrome,' a rare psychiatric condition that involves a person denying the existence of his own body or body parts. When a doctor hears his patient say he thinks his brain is dead, he knows something is seriously wrong. That's what happened when 48-year-old Graham went to see his general practitioner to prove his brain was "dead," according to a 2013 case study in the journal CORTEX. According to the case study, Graham knew he had the ability to think, recall and interact with people.

The convergence of major trends in the digital landscape is a phenomenon that redefines the future of the IT industry. However, these changes must be embraced with agility and diligence. Artificial Intelligence or AI is the most intriguing development ever made in this field. It is a vast concept that involves many disruptive technologies including machine learning. Now, the researchers are eyeing an iconic change to evolve by the combination of big data and AI. AI has become pervasive in every industry.

Airline passengers are suffering major disruption at airports around the world after a computer programme which handles passenger check in systems crashed. Queues formed at check-in desks worldwide this morning after the computer system used by more than 100 airlines crashed. Problems have been reported at London's Heathrow and Gatwick airports, as well as Charles de Gaulle Paris, Washington DC, Baltimore, Melbourne, Changi in Singapore, Johannesburg and Zurich. The check-in system which went down is run by Amadeus Altea, which services 64% of the Star Alliance flights, 75% of One World and 53% of the Sky Team, including BA, AirFrance, KLM and Lufthansa. The company behind the programme confirmed a'network issue' is causing the problems, but insisted'services are gradually being restored'.

Chatbots have been one of the stand out technologies of the last couple of years, and have brought major disruption to businesses. The AI powered conversational interfaces live inside apps, usually interacting with users via text and infographics. They are currently used in a plethora of industries from retail to healthcare, as well as simply for entertainment. Within business, chatbots serve a number of different purposes. This includes handling customer queries, helping employees themselves and relaying important data analysis.

With reports in American Banker this week that Amazon is rumored to be exploring the potential acquisition of Capital One, an innovator in financial services marketing, is it too far-fetched to ask whether the financial services industry may be on the cusp of the next wave of disruption? As unheard of as this notion might have seemed a few years ago, financial services firms are facing important questions about their future, driven by disruptive technologies, ranging from big data to artificial intelligence and machine learning to fintech solutions and blockchain. The prospect of disruptive change looms large in the minds of senior financial services industry executives who participated in a recent survey focused on Big Data Business Impact: Achieving Business Results Through Innovation And Disruption, which was conducted by strategy advisors NewVantage Partners and published in January. The survey comprised senior business and technology leaders, and was heavily represented by leading financial services firms, which accounted for 75.8% of the survey respondents. Financial services industry participants included industry giants such as AIG, American Express, Bank of America, Blackrock, Capital One, Charles Schwab, CitiGroup, Fidelity Investments, Freddie Mac, JP Morgan Chase, Lincoln Financial, MetLife, Morgan Stanley, State Street, and Wells Fargo among others. One of the most provocative findings of the survey is that a substantial percentage of the financial services industry executives that were surveyed – 40% -- were concerned that their firm and their industry was at risk of major disruption in the coming decade, with a segment of these executives expressing the viewpoint that "it's transform or die".

The convergence of major trends in the digital landscape is a phenomenon that redefines the future of the IT industry. However, these changes must be embraced with agility and diligence. Artificial Intelligence or AI is the most intriguing development ever made in this field. It is a vast concept that involves many disruptive technologies including machine learning. Now, the researchers are eyeing an iconic change to evolve by the combination of big data and AI. AI has become pervasive in every industry.

The co-founder of AI startup Vicarious predicts that the tech industry is on the cusp of a major breakthrough in AI, CIO reports. D. Scott Phoenix said the availability of huge amounts of data and cheap storage, memory and computing power will enable AI to make a major leap as soon as this summer. A Bank of America report citing IDC research recently predicted that the AI industry will grow to 70 billion by 2020 from just 8.2 billion in 2013. "We saw something similar in the early days of software -- and the early days of the Internet," Phoenix told CIO. "We're entering that era of rapid improvement." Vicarious hasn't revealed much about what it plans to unveil next, but the company has been working hard to make AI more "general-purpose."