A teenager is suing Apple in the US for $1bn, claiming he was misidentified as a thief by a mysterious facial-recognition system in the iGiant's stores. Ousmane Bah, 18, filed suit against Cook & Co this week after he was falsely identified as a shoplifter by, it is claimed, a facial recognition system Apple is apparently …

IBM Watson Health is tapering off its Drug Discovery program, which uses "AI" software to help companies develop new pharmaceuticals, blaming poor sales. The service isn’t completely shutting down, however. IBM spokesperson Ed Barbini told The Register: “We are not discontinuing our Watson for Drug Discovery offering, and we …

Chinese IT leviathan Huawei has launched a range of hardware for machine learning applications based on its own specialised silicon. The range includes a tiny accelerator module for end-user devices, a PCIe accelerator card for servers, an AI developer kit and a self-contained, ruggedised "edge station". Separately, the …

Reader StudyWe're all getting a bit fed up with marketeers who tag pretty much anything they can with "AI-enabled" or "powered by AI". But we also know that AI is more than just pure hype – yes, it's a bandwagon, but it can also be both a fundamental technology shift and a deep operational transformation. As of today, AI most commonly …

Microsoft president Brad Smith has revealed that the company turned down an order from California cops for its facial recognition technology over human rights concerns. Speaking at Stanford University this week, Smith said Microsoft had concluded that its technology would probably lead to innocent women and minorities being …

American researchers are working to introduce the laws of physics into machine learning models to improve the way algorithms understand the real world. And if that wasn't unsettling enough, the effort is sponsored by DARPA – the spooky government agency primarily interested in defence matters. The project is a collaboration …

Artificially intelligent software could help doctors treat a problem that is, quite literally, a pain in the arse: prostate cancer. A team of radiologists at the University of California, Los Angeles, built a convolutional neural network to analyse MRI scans of male nether regions and detect signs of the cancer. These types …

Sponsored webcastMost companies today are aware that artificial intelligence and machine learning are set to play an ever more important role within businesses, from anticipating customers' needs to automating and streamlining processes. But look behind the glowing hype surrounding AI's potential, and you find delivering it is not as simple as …

OpenAI’s video game playing bots OpenAI Five thrashed team OG, the reigning human champions of Dota 2, on Saturday in matches that were live-streamed from San Francisco. The non-profit recently turned for-profit research hub has been honing OpenAI Five’s skills for Dota 2, an online strategy game, for a while now. In fact, the …

RoundupAnother week has passed in the AI world, with military shenanigans, US government regulation and new chips from Qualcomm. Here's the best of the rest. Are facial recognition coming to police body cams soon?:Axon, the largest supplier of body cameras to US police, has filed patents to develop, surprise, surprise, facial …

IBM shared its controversial Diversity in Faces dataset, used to train facial recognition systems, with companies and universities directly linked to militaries and law enforcement across the world. The dataset contains information scraped from a million images posted on Flickr, a popular image sharing website, under the …

US senators introduced a bill on Wednesday that will allow the Federal Trade Commission to inspect if corporations are using algorithms that are biased, discriminatory, and insecure. The bill, known as the Algorithmic Accountability Act of 2019, was backed by Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), and …

AI DayQualcomm has dropped the veil on a trio of new chips today, including two Snapdragon processors for smartphones and one AI accelerator for cloud services. The chips were confirmed at Qualcomm's AI Day keynote speech in San Francisco. While the new Snapdragons are logical evolutions of the processor line, what's more …

The UK's taxman is attempting to reposition itself as user-friendly, advertising a set of "customer experience" roles – including AI and voice – in its tech group as part of an overhaul of its operating model. HMRC isn't exactly renowned for a glowing customer service record and its attempts at digitising services have …

Writers looking to make their names typing impenetrable technical tracts be warned: the machines have arrived and they're already penning scholarly books few will ever read. On Monday, Springer Nature published what it claims is the first machine-generated book from an academic publisher, titled "Lithium-Ion Batteries, A …

RoundupHello, here's a quick lowdown on what's been happening in the machine learning this week. Shareholders want a piece of Amazon Rekognition: Amazon investors will be allowed to vote if the company should be allowed to sell its facial recognition software to the US government, and if the technology should be subjected to an …

Google has canned its AI ethics board after just a week due to outcry over its choice of panel members, claiming it would find "different ways" to bring in outside opinions. The Advanced Technology External Advisory Council (ATEAC) was announced on 26 March and immediately inundated with complaints over the inclusion of Kay …

It seems the answer to every problem these days is artificial intelligence. Want to reduce traffic congestion? You need AI. Cut down on fake news? AI. Understand your business better? AI. Create next-generation sliced bread? AI. But as has become repeatedly and painfully transparent – most recently with a live video of people …