As you've probably heard, Masayoshi Son, the cunning founder of SoftBank, announced last fall he was raising a $100 billion Vision Fund to back a broad set of transformative companies in artificial intelligence, robotics and other sectors. In Silicon Valley, the news is still resonating. Venture capitalists invested only $79 billion into startups in all of 2015 and were on track to do about the same in 2016. So Son is bringing a bazooka to a gun fight, and the effects will likely be felt here over the next few years. Now we're starting to learn a little bit more about Son's backers in this effort, thanks largely to some of my colleagues.

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The development of self-driving, or autonomous, vehicles is accelerating. Here's how they could affect consumers and companies. Autonomous vehicles (AVs) represent a major innovation for the automotive industry, but their potential impact with respect to timing, uptake, and penetration remains hazy. While high levels of uncertainty currently surround the issue, the ultimate role that AVs could play regarding the economy, mobility, and society as a whole could be profound. In an effort to look beyond today's rapidly changing predictions on AV penetration, we interviewed more than 30 experts across Europe, the United States, and Asia and combined these findings with our insights to arrive at ten thought-provoking potential implications of self-driving cars. The widespread use of AVs could profoundly affect a variety of industry sectors.

Late one Friday night in early November, Jun Rekimoto, a distinguished professor of human-computer interaction at the University of Tokyo, was online preparing for a lecture when he began to notice some peculiar posts rolling in on social media. Apparently Google Translate, the company's popular machine-translation service, had suddenly and almost immeasurably improved. Rekimoto visited Translate himself and began to experiment with it. He had to go to sleep, but Translate refused to relax its grip on his imagination. Rekimoto wrote up his initial findings in a blog post. First, he compared a few sentences from two published versions of "The Great Gatsby," Takashi Nozaki's 1957 translation and Haruki Murakami's more recent iteration, with what this new Google Translate was able to produce. Murakami's translation is written "in very polished Japanese," Rekimoto explained to me later via email, but the prose is distinctively "Murakami-style."

Major AI researchers and textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents", where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chances of success. John McCarthy, who coined the term in 1955, defines it as "The science and engineering of making intelligent machines". AI research is highly technical and specialized, deeply divided into subfields that often fail to communicate with each other. Some of the division is due to social and cultural factors: subfields have grown up around particular institutions and the work of individual researchers. AI research is also divided by several technical issues.

HONG KONG: McDonald's Corp has agreed to sell the bulk of its China and Hong Kong business to state-backed conglomerate CITIC Ltd and Carlyle Group LP for up to $2.1 billion (Dh7.71 billion), seeking to expand rapidly without using much of its own capital. Zurich The Swiss National Bank expects a 2016 full-year profit of 24 billion francs (Dh86.68 billion; $23.6 billion), enabling it to shell out money to the federal government and municipalities. Foreign-currency holdings contributed more than 19 billion francs, and valuation gains on its gold holdings added 3.9 billion francs, the central bank said on Monday, citing an initial estimate. Last year's result is set to be the second-best in the Read More ... Tags: Corporate Enterprises Finance Sectors Banks Profits Financial institutions German automaker Volkswagen saw sales jump 16 percent in December for its namesake brand, propelled by a big increase in China, Volkswagen's biggest market. Global sales reported Monday rose to 567,900 from 487,700 despite the damage to the company's reputation from its scandal over cars rigged to cheat on diesel emissions tests.

After years of anticipation, Faraday Future unveiled its "Tesla-killer" FF91 electric car this week -- and it's even faster than a Model S in ludicrous mode. Meanwhile, Nissan announced that its next-gen Leaf EV will be able to drive itself on the highway, and Toyota debuted a futuristic concept car that takes the wheel when drivers get sleepy. China is making a huge investment in high-speed rail to the tune of over $500 billion, and Israel is testing electric roads that wirelessly charge electric vehicles as they drive. Costa Rica has invested heavily in alternative energy, and it's paying off in spades: The nation 1.5 million electric vehicles a year. Israel is building the world's tallest solar tower, which will power 130,000 households once it's complete.

Chatbots are automated text conversation computer programs that use artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing to talk to customers/users. Want to disappear from a fleeting relationship? Ghostbot is a burner text messaging bot that will ghost you away. Need something to do to pass the time? Send a text to the Casper mattress company's chatbot and talk about anything and everything.

The contentious presidential campaign was filled with accusations of elitism and bias by the media -- from the news to entertainment. Many supporters of Donald J. Trump saw his victory as a repudiation of the so-called liberal elite. So as 2017 begins, we ask: Is Hollywood representing all Americans? Are Hollywood values out of sync with American values? It's the start of a conversation we'll have all year with Hollywood's creators, consumers and observers. Most of all, we want to hear from you . Is Hollywood out of touch with your America? Here's what our critics and writers have to say: KENNETH TURAN on potent Hollywood visions that helped elect Trump TV's affluent bubble: MARY McNAMARA on Hollywood's reluctance to deal with class issues Fear of the powerful woman: JUSTIN CHANG on working women and men still behaving badly Realistic or cliche?: JEFFREY FLEISHMAN on film's working class men and women Building distrust: LORRAINE ALI on destructive TV portrayals of Muslims and how TV ...

Virtual assistants are everywhere at CES this year - but one speaks louder than the rest. Amazon's Alexa has popped up in a bewildering list of devices including fridges, cars and robots. Manufacturers are clearly interested in making their appliances voice-operable, and many see Alexa as a great way to do this. But having Alexa also allows the appliances to gain capabilities, such as streaming music and turning smart lights on and off. How did Alexa come out on top and how will it benefit Amazon?