When Starbucks (SBUX) announced the closure of all of its 379 Teavana stores by the spring of 2018, it came as a warning signal to many analysts. But for long-term investors, Starbucks future growth prospects could look more promising. Acquired in 2012 for $620 million, Teavana stores are set to close due to declining foot traffic in malls. As a result of this retrenchment, Starbucks incurred asset impairment and goodwill charges of roughly $100 million during the third quarter. Following the news, Starbucks shares fell 1.2% to $58.80 in after-hours trading.

THE disruption of the financial services industry, which began as a trickle, is quickly turning into a flood as start-ups introduce innovative products and services designed for a new generation of consumers, and the established providers are forced to reinvent themselves. Robo-advice and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, which use algorithms and machine learning to do the job of financial advisers, analysts and active fund managers, are expected to grow significantly in the coming decade. It is forecast that robo-advisers could manage about 10% of total global assets under management by 2020, according to a study by BI Intelligence. Gavin Smith, the head of Africa for deVere Acuma, an independent financial advisory firm, says: "Algorithmic trading automatically and immediately adjusts to new developments. Theoretically, robo-advisers should be able to constantly act to perform according to an investment mandate. "There are many advantages to the introduction of robo-advisers and AI into the financial services sector," Smith says. "It brings down fees, speeds up administration and saves time." However, what automated systems lack, he says, is the ability to liaise with you and understand the nuances of your requirements and changing circumstances. "When it comes to understanding your goals, specific circumstances, and blending these with your retirement, tax and estate planning, robo-advisers are nowhere near to replacing good financial advice," Smith says. As a result, some financial services providers are trying to marry the automated and personal approaches in an effort to get the best of both worlds. Last week, Personal Finance highlighted OUTsurance's new investment product, OUTvest, which relies on semi-automated investment advice. Below are four more recent innovations that are likely to contribute to the shake-up of the industry. NMRQL Research, the fintech company co-founded by Michael Jordaan, the former chief executive of First National Bank, this week launched South Africa's first unit trust fund powered by machine learning. The NMRQL SCI Balanced Fund, administered by the Sanlam Collective Investments platform, is a regulation 28-compliant collective investment scheme that invests in a diversified portfolio of domestic and international assets, where the asset allocation and stock selection are systematically managed using machine learning algorithms. The process looks for hidden patterns in underlying big data. These patterns can be exploited to forecast returns across asset classes and markets. Jordaan says: "As humans, we suffer from various cognitive biases.

"Humans were are not built to spend more than two hours looking at a screen or scrolling through excel sheets. Humans are best at being human. Artificial Intelligence will do the rest." Kind of an employment company run by three humans overseeing 59 robots (actually computers working on algorithms created at the University of Amsterdam to solve problems). Stolze was addressing reporters in StartUp Village at the Amsterdam Science Park on the sidelines of the first World Summit AI in Amsterdam October 11-12.

Can artificial intelligence replace the human brain?Will it? "Humans were are not built to spend more than two hours looking at a screen or scrolling through excel sheets. Humans are best at being human. Artificial Intelligence will do the rest." Kind of an employment company run by three humans overseeing 59 robots (actually computers working on algorithms created at the University of Amsterdam to solve problems).

The launch ceremony of 2017 Canton Tower Science & Technology Conference -- Global Mobile Developer Conference and AI Summit Forum, which drew much attention from many industries, was held at the Four Seasons Hotel, Guangzhou on October 12, 2017, making the strongest voice of global science and technology from Guangzhou, China. Supported by the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and Guangzhou Municipal Government, the conference is hosted by International Data Group (IDG), co-hosted by Guangzhou Science Technology and Innovation Commission, co-organized by the Publicity Department of Guangzhou Municipal Party Committee, the Foreign Affairs Office of Guangzhou Municipal Government, the Industry and Information Technology Commission of Guangzhou Municipality, organized by IDG World Expo, and also supported by ChinaSF, an economic initiative of San Francisco. The Mayor of Guangzhou, Wen Guohui said: "Guangzhou is a powerful city of national science and technology. The'IAB' (information technology, artificial intelligence and bio-pharmaceuticals) plan is being fully implemented, with artificial intelligence achieving the most important development." As the organizer of the conference, Hugo Shong, Global Chairman of IDG Capital Partners put forward: "We want to converge ideas and talents for China, Guangdong and Guangzhou in the field of AI through the platform of Canton Tower Science & Technology Conference." Here!" the conference featured a main forum, 13 parallel forums, Guangzhou Internet Technology think tank closed meeting, "Canton Tower the Best" appreciation dinner, an awards ceremony and many other activities.

Facebook recently caused a bit of a commotion as rumours circulated that it had to shut down two of its chatbots after they started talking gibberish to each other, as if inventing and learning a new language or a secretive way to communicate. Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk have also publicly wrangled over the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning, while the Western tabloid media continues to try to generate mass panic about robots pinching our jobs. Sadly, the "Facebots" in question were in fact using verbal shorthand to better compute tasks. They weren't planning to take over the world (just yet, anyway!) but finding a more efficient route to task completion. Let's have less of the doom-mongering, more about the opportunities that AI, machine learning and automation can offer us in the real future of work.

We've introduced machine learning concepts and approaches in some of our earlier blog posts, we've also discussed how some of these can be applied to your business to drive business efficiencies and to identify actionable data. Inc.com offers a quick read to bring you up to date. In this post, we look ahead throughout the remainder of 2017, highlight trends that we're noticing and what 2018 may bring from a machine learning perspective. Some of the key topics we'll cover include: In the past, chatbots were often implemented as crude Q and A mechanisms that identified specific phrases or keywords and returned a specific response. They had limited use and weren't very flexible.

A few days after a 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck Mexico City last month, Carnegie Mellon University roboticists were contacted to see if their snake robots could help with search-and-rescue efforts. Mexican rescuers were still trying find people in the rubble of collapsed buildings, and even though several days had passed, they thought it'd be worth trying to bring in the snakebots. Within 24 hours, a team of CMU roboticists had packed their gear and headed out to the disaster site. We spoke with Matt Travers, who was on the ground in Mexico City operating the robots, along with Howie Choset, who heads CMU's Biorobotics Lab where the snake robots are developed, about their experience with using robots in a real disaster and how, although no survivors were found during the rescue missions they assisted with, they learned an enormous amount being on-site. IEEE Spectrum: Were you and your robots ready for a real disaster? Howie Choset: Since the beginning of my adventure into snake robots, I've been interested in search and rescue.

The front-line of the stuggle to take out ISIS' most deadly fighters and recruiters like the infamous'White Widow' Sally Jones isn't waged on the battle fields of Syria or Iraq but from an air-conditioned trailer in the middle of the Nevada desert. Seven thousand miles from the war in Syria, pilots sit in a sun-bleached desert base 45 miles north of the bright lights of Las Vegas guiding the lethal Predator drones that have revolutionized modern combat. From cool, dark booths at Creech Air Force Base in Indian Springs, Nevada, pilots and sensor operators work closely with large teams of intelligence analysts who sift streams of real-time data transmitted by the drones on the other side of the planet. The front-line of the stuggle to take out ISIS' most deadly fighters and recruiters isn't waged on the battle fields of Syria or Iraq but from an air-conditioned trailer (pictured) in the middle of the Nevada desert And it is a pilot at this base who is said to have remotely taken out the British ISIS recruiter Sally Jones. Jones, from Chatham in Kent, fled to Syria with her son in 2013 before becoming a recruiter for the terror group.