The accuracy and flexibility of facial recognition technology has seen it securing everything from smartphones to Australia's airports, but a team of security researchers is warning of potential manipulation after finding a way to trick the systems using deepfake images. Researchers within the McAfee Advanced Threat Research (ATR) team have been exploring ways that'model hacking' – also known as adversarial machine learning – can be used to trick artificial intelligence (AI) computer-vision algorithms into misidentifying the content of the images they see. This approach has previously been used to show how autonomous-car safety systems, which can read speed-limit signs and adjust the car's speed accordingly, could be tricked by modifying street signs with stickers that were misread by the systems. Subtle modifications to the signs would be picked up by the computer-vision algorithms but might be indiscernible to the human eye – an approach that the McAfee team has now successfully turned towards the challenge of identifying people from photos, as in the screening of passports. Starting with photos of two people – called A and B – ATR researchers used what they described as a "deep learning-based morphing approach" to generate large numbers of composite images that combined features from both.

In 2018 there were so many discussions about Ai, and its infusion into the world around us, that it all blurred into one big online narrative on the topic. We started to accept that Data was the driving force behind huge technical changes, and challenges, and we also began to normalise references to Ai as if it was just the next logical advancement of the internet, and app economies. But let's leave that all behind. I believe that 2019 is the year that Ai is well and truly'here'. This is the year that the conflict and negotiation of this technology will legitimately change the way we comprehend what it means to be human in the modern world.

As data becomes the new oil driving the world economy, hackers will go after it more than ever before, spurring demand for professionals to skillfully thwart their efforts aimed at licking away all the digital grease. Cybersecurity analyst John Mason sees 3.5 million new, unfilled cybersecurity jobs being created by 2021 as compared to the one million openings seen in 2016 – a whopping increase of 350% over five years. Last year, Mason saw $86.4 billion being poured in cybersecurity. What will be the top cybersecurity trends for 2018? The year 2018, Mason believes, will see the evolution of ransomware.

The proposal to open Café fellatio, an establishment in Geneva, Switzerland where men would be able to get oral sex while drinking their coffee, was met with no uncertain outrage. And city authorities have decided it's also against Swiss law. It's not clear what the robots would look like or what they'd be able to do. The Geneva authorities have also yet to make up their mind whether that's an acceptable solution. On the one hand, you could argue that these sorts of robots, presumably looking as human-like as possible, are nothing more than technologically advanced sex toys--the dildos and fleshlights of the digital age.

With driverless cars on the horizon, the government is adding its two cents on the matter. On Tuesday, the U.S. Transportation Department (DOT) released a four-part policy outlining safety measures to ensure all vehicles are ready to be on the road. The four sections of the policy--created in consultation with experts in the field, state governments, safety advocates and more--include a 15 point safety assessment, a Model State policy, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) current regulatory tools and modern regulatory tools. According to the DOT, the goal of the policy is to provide car makers with a framework. "Automated vehicles have the potential to save thousands of lives, driving the single biggest leap in road safety that our country has ever taken," said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx in a statement.