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"Proponents say that it's more than just a matter of probability. The laws of physics don't seem that different from code in a program, according to some, and it's likely that with enough time, a sufficiently advanced civilization could crunch the numbers and produce a simulation that mimics the existence and behavior of every particle in our universe."

How long before this is used without our knowledge in facial recognition systems? "Through the use of the data from this lab study and a formula Kim and Yang applied called "fractal dimension," Kim and Yang discovered a negative relationship between the fractal dimension of pupil dilation and a person's workload, showing that pupil dilation could be used to indicate the mental workload of a person in a multitasking environment."

"Second Life, Thinking Worlds, Unity3D and others were all making inroads into the realm of corporate learning and there was a buzz about it in the L&D market, which, at the time, had a reputation for churning out spectacularly boring and poorly designed compliance-based eLearning. One major mobile phone network with whom I worked back in 2008 had a vision of enlivening their learner experience by providing a 3D avatar-based portal into their learning management system, which at the time hosted solidly 2D page-turner eLearning of a very pedestrian nature."

"Every time I see a news story blaming a selfie for a death, I also see a missed opportunity. If social media was powerful enough to draw a person to that place, and inspire them to take a photo, then surely it can also be powerful enough to reach that person with a powerful message about responsible recreation."

"More than just a poetic metaphor, the butterfly effect says that there are some things that even the most advanced science can never predict. Well, that list of things just got a lot shorter. Scientists from the University of Maryland have used machine learning to predict chaos."

"Neural networks can find telltale patterns in a person's gait that can be used to recognize and identify them with almost perfect accuracy, according to new research published in IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence. The new system, called SfootBD, is nearly 380 times more accurate than previous methods, and it doesn't require a person to go barefoot in order to work. It's less invasive than other behavioral biometric verification systems, such as retinal scanners or fingerprinting, but its passive nature could make it a bigger privacy concern, since it could be used covertly."

"The animal matchmaking program isn't just for gorillas, and it takes some things into consideration that probably aren't on Tinder's radar. It scores every animal on a variety of traits (and when we say "every" animal, we mean there's an entry for each flamingo in each American zoo), including social skills, age, experience, family history, and interpersonal relationships. Oh, and genetic diversity. Animals with rare genes are more valuable to breeding programs because their offspring will introduce more genetic diversity into the dating pool."

"The robot was so popular that the Diligent team programmed superfluous activities for Moxi to do once an hour so that the robot would wander around the floor and flash heart eyes at people. "In between tasks Moxi would make a social lap to talk to her fans," Thomaz says."

"Then came the algorithm, which used automatic speech recognition to detect specific features and patterns in each of the 48 recordings. It was clear from examining the waveforms of the cries that each category had a specific pattern."

"While some experts still disagree, most now believe that Conficker was the work of Ukrainian cybercriminals building a platform for global theft who succeeded beyond all expectation, or desire. The last thing a thief wants is to draw attention to himself. Conficker's unprecedented growth drew the alarmed attention of cybersecurity experts worldwide. It became, simply, too hot to use."

""This study shows that if this algorithm were in place earlier, some materials could have conceivably been discovered years in advance," Jain said."

"Robots engender human sympathy. Seen in the wild, they appear to have agency, feelings, and desires. R2D2's spunk, C3PO's intelligence, Wall-E's charm. When delivery bots get stuck on the sidewalk, good Samaritans help them get unstuck. In light of the attack on K5, then, you may be thinking: Poor guy."

"Once it's verified, the transaction's information, plus both your digital signature and your friend's digital signature, are stored in a block alongside many other transactions like it. Once the block is full, it gets a hash, which is a unique code that sort of acts like its nametag. It also stores its position on the chain and the hash of the previous block on the chain. (Here's an example block to illustrate what kind of information is stored there.) "

"Apart from biases in the training databases, it's hard to know how well face-recognition systems actually perform in the real world, in spite of recent gains. Anil Jain, a professor of computer science at Michigan State University who has worked on face recognition for more than thirty years, told me, "Most of the testing on the private venders' products is done in a laboratory environment under controlled settings. In real practice, you're walking around in the streets of New York. It's a cold winter day, you have a scarf around your face, a cap, maybe your coat is pulled up so your chin is partially hidden, the illumination may not be the most favorable, and the camera isn't capturing a frontal view.""

"With 850 million children worldwide shut out of schools, tech evangelists claim now is the time for AI education. But as the technology's power grows, so too do the dangers that come with it"

"In short, it's not great out there if you're a person who cares about privacy, and it's likely to keep getting worse. In the long run, pressure on state and federal regulators to enact and enforce laws that can limit the collection and use of such data is likely to be the most efficient way to effect change. But in the shorter term, individuals have a conundrum before them: can you go out and exist in the world without being seen?"

"Common-sense reasoning - the ability to make mundane inferences using basic knowledge about the world, like the fact that "matches" plus "logs" usually equals "fire" - has resisted AI researchers' efforts for decades."

"This week, Atlassian's . This follows the trend of more and more high-profile hacks that are waking consumers up - like , , and the that rocked the country when 40 million debit and credit card numbers stolen during the holiday shopping time that year. (See of all the hacks from 2004 - present.)"

"Coding isn't the only job that demands intense focus. But you'd never hear someone say that brain surgery is "fun," or that structural engineering is "easy." When it comes to programming, why do policymakers and technologists pretend otherwise?"

"In quantum cryptography, a sender uses a cryptographic key encoded in a quantum signal to encrypt a message. According to the laws of quantum mechanics, if someone tried to intercept the key, they would destroy it."