This is an eclectic collection of interesting blog posts, software announcements and data applications I've noted over the past month or so. ONNX Model Zoo is now available, providing a library of pre-trained state-of-the-art models in deep learning in the ONNX format. In the 2018 IEEE Spectrum Top Programming Language rankings, Python takes the top spot and R ranks #7. Julia 1.0 has been released, marking the stabilization of the scientific computing language and promising forwards compatibility. Google announces Cloud AutoML, a beta service to train vision, text categorization, or language translation models from provided data.

In our prior The World's Most Disruptive Technology (That No One Is Talking About) post we portrayed the promise and peril of a potent new gene-altering technology. Since our CRISPR post, we've been tracking another technology development equally deserving of legal scrutiny, due to it's potential to "change everything" according to one prominent thinker who knows a thing about disruptive technology. However, unlike CRISPR's promise to fundamentally alter the basic structures of human life (i.e. Deep dive with me, if you dare, into the subzero world of quantum computers. How Cold Is Quantum Computing? Imagine a computer so powerful it could instantly crack any level of data encryption.

The US Department of Defense's recently established Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) has finally debuted and will oversee the Pentagon's AI strategy. After a couple of years' worth of paperwork drills, Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan released a document at the end of June establishing the JAIC, and stating it would take the next 30 days to figure out what its national mission objectives and personnel needs are. The specifics of how the center will carry out its duties going forward haven't been publicly released, but that's par for the course when dealing with military strategy. Let's just all keep our fingers crossed that whatever defense strategy the Pentagon eventually comes up with is comparable to those of other countries, such as China and Russia, who are all-in on AI at the state level. Because the White House, so far, has dealt with artificial intelligence (and STEM programs in general) by letting big tech do whatever it wants.

A new internet game called Momo is challenging users to commit suicide. The game originated on Facebook and is now circulating on WhatsApp. Microsoft is clamping down on the sick "Momo suicide challenge," which recently infiltrated the wildly popular online game "Minecraft." The tech giant owns "Minecraft" developer Mojang. The vile "Momo suicide game" has been garnering attention after spreading on WhatsApp, prompting police warnings.

Chqbook is India's largest market place for AI based personalized financial services. Chqbook uses its proprietary TARA AI journey which provides instant and personalized recommendations of products best suited to their credit score, profile and demographics. It also pulls in data from card issuers, banks and credit bureaus to fine-tune recommendations in real time. Chqbook has built the next generation marketplace and provides comparisons, eligibility and a seamless application process across 40 banks and credit card companies. It's rapidly expanding marketplace brings pre-approved loans, credit cards, insurance and mutual funds to the country's gen next with a sharp focus on a magical customer experience each and every time. Vipul has a deep understanding of finances & ideas with the ability to distill them into user friendly interfaces.

These artificial cities and towns were built for all kinds of reasons. One example in Russia was dressed up with faux facades for a visit from Putin in 2013, closely following the mold of the Potemkin villages of yore. Some, like China's replica cities, were built by developers to architecturally mimic Western cities like Paris. Others were constructed by the military or self-driving car companies to provide realistic urban environments in which to practice maneuvers or test new tech. "These Potemkin villages are for me an interesting symbol of the sometimes absurd developments of our society," Sailer says, referring to the illusions, fakes, and manipulations that governments and companies employ to maintain and extend their power.

An analytical model is a statistical model that is designed to perform a specific task or to predict the probability of a specific event. In layman terms, a model is simply a mathematical representation of a business problem. A simple equation y a bx can be termed as a model with a set of predefined data input and desired output. Yet, as the business problems evolve, the models grow in complexity as well. Modeling is the most complex part in the lifecycle of successful analytics implementation.

There are actually two frontiers when it comes to improving customer experience in an enterprise, namely the voice of your customer and the voice of your employees. Customer feedback is integral to optimizing service offerings, improving products, and increasing operational efficiency. Yet a lot of feedback is misplaced, irrelevant, or even vicious. Disgruntled customers with unrealistic expectations do not offer the feedback that makes your company any better, more efficient, or more profitable. Employee feedback is probably the most overlooked source of improvement ideas in any corporation.

Foxconn said it is developing plans within the partnership, which includes "other stakeholders" in the city. "We will be prepared to announce these plans when they have been finalized in the coming months," the Taiwan-based company said. The initiative comes at a time when China is spending billions of dollars to nurture its own semiconductor industry and reduce its reliance on foreign technology, an effort that has grown more urgent as its attempts to acquire U.S. chip companies have met opposition from the U.S. over national-security concerns. Foxconn, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. 2317 -0.12%, is the world's biggest contract manufacturer, best known for assembling Apple Inc.'s iPhones. Other products it assembles--many in China--include Dell desktop computers and Nintendo game consoles.

Researchers from the Institute of Cyber Intelligence Systems at the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Russia) have recently developed a new learning model for the restricted Boltzmann machine (a neural network), which optimizes the processes of semantic encoding, visualization and data recognition. The results of this research are published in the journal Optical Memory and Neural Networks. Today, deep neural networks with different architectures, such as convolutional, recurrent and autoencoder networks, are becoming an increasingly popular area of research. A number of high-tech companies, including Microsoft and Google, are using deep neural networks to design intelligent systems. In deep learning systems, the processes of feature selection and configuration are automated, which means that the networks can choose between the most effective algorithms for hierarchal feature extraction on their own.