After raising $55 million last year to build its business beyond its existing help desk services, today Freshworks (the parent company of Freshdesk) has made an acquisition to help it fill out that strategy. The company has acquired Joe Hukum, a startup out of India that offers a platform for businesses to build their own chatbots. I've asked, but the companies are not revealing any terms of the deal. Joe Hukum, formerly known as Speedy, was originally focused more on building its own personal assistant / concierge app to help people order goods and services before pivoting to present the service as a platform for building bots for other businesses. "Joe Hukum" is a reference to its pre-pivot incarnation: it is a phonetic transliteration of a Hindi phrase that translates as "as you wish."

Sears will begin selling its appliances on Amazon.com, The announcement Thursday sent shares of Sears soaring more than 18% at the opening bell. The tie-up with the internet behemoth could give shares of the storied retailer one of its biggest one-day percentage gains ever. Sears, which also owns Kmart, said that its Kenmore Smart appliances will be fully integrated with Amazon's Alexa, allowing users to use voice commands for air conditioners and other controls. "The launch of Kenmore products on Amazon.com will significantly expand the distribution and availability of the Kenmore brand in the U.S.," Chairman and CEO Edward Lampert said in a company release. Sears has struggled with weak sales for years, and announced more store closings earlier this month, partly due to the emergence of Amazon and other Internet operators.

If you've ever seen a tasty-looking meal and wanted to know the recipe to make it, then help could be at hand. Scientists have created an AI, dubbed Pic2Recipe, that can find a recipe for you based a single picture of the finished dish. The AI was trained by looking at more than a million different recipes collected from various recipe websites. Its image recognition software was then taught to identify the type of food in a photo and match it with a recipe and ingredients list. You can test the system for yourself by uploading an image of a dish below or on this demo page to see how to make it.

Officials say that Turkish security forces have used an armed drone to locate and kill six Kurdish militants who allegedly were responsible for kidnapping and killing a school teacher in southeast Turkey.

Security on Android has always been a challenge for Google due to the operating system's open nature. But in recent years, the company has been gaining ground in its fight against malware and exploits, thanks in part to the use of machine learning and AI to spot problem apps before users install them. Today, the company has described in detail how it's using one technique -- known as peer grouping -- to help keep the Play Store purely playful. Peer grouping is a pretty simple idea. By comparing data about apps that perform similar tasks, say Google's engineers, they can identify the ones with something to hide.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China unveiled a national artificial intelligence (AI) development plan on Thursday, and said it expects the value of its core AI industries to exceed 150 billion yuan by 2020 and 400 billion yuan ($59.07 billion) by 2025. China will look to be an international leader in AI technology by 2025 and will encourage cross-border cooperation as part of the strategy, China's State Council said in a notice on its website on Thursday. It follows the release of a similar national AI development plan released by the United States in October last year.

A number of PCs have been blocked from installing all future Windows 10 updates, Microsoft has confirmed. In order to access any new features Microsoft creates and releases to improve the operating system, affected users will need to purchase new computers. It's a major blow, which essentially places users in limbo. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar.

Masayoshi Son, chief executive of SoftBank Group Corp., says artificial intelligence combined with data gathered by billions of sensors will bring on an "information revolution," that will benefit people more than the 19th Century Industrial Revolution. Son, Japan's richest person, told SoftBank customers and partners gathered at a Tokyo hotel on Thursday that he believes massive data will help treat cancer, deliver accident-free driving and grow safer food. SoftBank, the first carrier to offer the Apple iPhone in Japan, has bought leading British semiconductor company ARM, and its acquisition of U.S. robotics pioneer Boston Dynamics, announced last month, is undergoing regulatory approval. Its investments have included Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba and Yahoo Japan. Son set up a private fund last year for global investments in the technology sector, called Vision Fund, with the potential to grow to as much as $100 billion.

In fact, it looks helpful. But potentially millions of people are wasting time, battery and finger energy on an entirely unnecessary and perhaps unhelpful exercise, every single day. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar. Japan's On-Art Corp's CEO Kazuya Kanemaru poses with his company's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot'TRX03' and other robots during a demonstration in Tokyo, Japan Japan's On-Art Corp's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot'TRX03' performs during its unveiling in Tokyo, Japan Singulato Motors co-founder and CEO Shen Haiyin poses in his company's concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China A picture shows Singulato Motors' concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China Connected company president Shigeki Tomoyama addresses a press briefing as he elaborates on Toyota's "connected strategy" in Tokyo.

A "gaping hole" in Facebook's account recovery feature lets anyone easily break into an account, says a security researcher. They don't need to know your password to gain access, and can do it without you ever noticing. However, if they wanted to, they could also choose to lock you out of your own account. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar.