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  Bloomberg Google’s DeepMind AI unit, which earlier this year achieved a breakthrough in computer intelligence by creating software that beat the world’s best human player at the strategy game Go, is turning its attention to the sci-fi video game Starcraft II. The company said it had reached a deal with Blizzard Entertainment Inc., the Irvine, California-based division of Activision ...

  Bloomberg How big a threat are the new batch of robo-advisors to traditional active fund managers?Are they, as Sanford C. Bernstein & Co LLC put it in a new research note, an “innocuous robot like R2-D2 or are they Terminator?” To answer the question, Bernstein analysts opened multiple accounts at two prominent European based robo-advisors, Nutmeg Saving and Investment ...

  AFP BlackBerry Ltd. said it will work directly with Ford Motor Co. to develop automotive software, a move BlackBerry says will help it move into self-driving technology as the company looks beyond the smartphone market. Ford has been using software built by BlackBerry’s QNX unit for its Sync3 in-car infotainment system, but previously bought it through Panasonic Corp., QNX ...

  AP Ronald De Feo has watched robots take factory jobs for years. Now he sees them threatening a new class of worker: People who drive for a living. “I am in Pittsburgh; it’s a test market for Uber’s autonomous vehicle,” says De Feo, CEO of the industrial materials firm Kennametal. “We see all these (automated) Ubers running around the ...

  Frankfurt / DPA Joerg Mewes is down at the paper-recycling collection with another 20 banana boxes of old books. As far as Mewes is concerned, these are mass-market titles of the past which are now unsellable and just take up space in his bookshop. It’s best to just get rid of them. For pulp. It’s getting harder and harder ...

  Bloomberg Protein, protein, protein. We can’t seem to get enough. Have a strawberry-banana protein smoothie for breakfast, a cookies ‘n’ cream protein bar for lunch, some chili nacho cheese protein chips for a snack, and a high-protein frozen pizza for dinner. And don’t forget your kids. There are protein products made just for them, too. For many consumers, “protein” ...

  Ain Issa/ AFP A US-backed Kurdish-Arab alliance launched an offensive on Sunday on the IS group’s de facto Syrian capital Raqa, upping pressure on the extremists after Iraqi forces entered their Iraqi bastion Mosul. “The major battle to liberate Raqa and its surroundings has begun,” Jihan Sheikh Ahmed, a spokeswoman for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), said at a press ...

  Kirkuk /AFP Suicide bombings claimed by the IS group killed at least 18 people and wounded more than 30 in two cities north of Baghdad on Sunday, officials said. One bomber detonated an explosives-rigged vehicle at the southern entrance to Tikrit, while the other blew up an ambulance in Samarra, the officials said. Jassem Al-Jbara, the head of Salaheddin ...

  Aden / AFP Fresh clashes in two different parts of Yemen on Sunday killed 14 pro-Iran rebels and six fighters loyal to the internationally recognised government, military officials said. Among them was loyalist General Yehia al-Khayati who died at a Saudi hospital where he was taken after being wounded in clashes in Midi, a northwestern town close to the Saudi ...

  Mosul / AFP Iraqi forces battled extremists inside Mosul for the third day running on Sunday while civilians risked their lives dodging bombs and snipers to slip out of the city. The IS group put up fierce resistance to defend the city it seized more than two years ago and also claimed responsibility for deadly suicide attacks further south. ...