Artificial intelligence has emerged as the hottest investment sector this year with many Indian start-ups and tech giants betting big on this technology to break into the market. Tech companies are looking forward to new opportunities in AI to transform their daily operations. This year the tech industry has witnessed significant push for AI with investments in this technology related start-ups and companies reaching to new heights. Let's take a look at the investment trends in this domain in 2017 and the major investments made. An Economic Times report stated that Ratan Tata-backed, AI-based conversational chatbot Niki.ai has raised funding this year from a German multinational software corporation SAP.

To meet the growing demand for AI expertise, companies are offering online education courses to prepare the workforce for the future. Increasingly, computers and devices learn and act on their own using software algorithms, the building blocks for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). Getting smartphones to understand voice commands, smart home sprinkler systems to change with the weather and online services to predict what people want requires programmers skilled in AI and ML. Demand for these coding skills is skyrocketing. Making devices smart and proactive remains controversial to anyone who fears that automation will lead to human job loss.

RoboCup, which first started in 1997, was originally established to bring forth a team of robots that could beat the human soccer World Cup champions. Twenty years on, RoboCup is so more than just a soccer competition. In fact, the competition has grown into an international movement with a variety of leagues. Teams compete against each other in four different leagues and many sub-competitions, including home, work, and rescue missions. The complexity of missions in RoboCup requires intelligent, dynamic, sensing robots that can react to chaotic and changing environments.

Talos I is a beautiful nightmare. The privately-owned research facility, suspended in space above the Earth, offers a captivating blend of science and art-deco design. Its offices are filled with tall, geometric art prints, red leather sofas and mahogany desks laced with gold. The station's lobby, large and extravagant, features two winged-lion statues carved from bronze and a huge set of windows overlooking the Moon. It's gorgeous, but there's a problem -- the vessel is overrun with black, wispy aliens that can hide in everyday objects and kill you in a couple of seconds. Welcome to Prey, the latest video game from Arkane Studios.

Microsoft has apologised for accidentally releasing a pair of Windows builds that caused serious problems for customers. The company has admitted it didn't intend to release the dodgy software, which affected both desktop and mobile users. The desktop build exposed people to a high number of usability issues, while the mobile build trapped users in a never-ending loop, forcing them to reset their phones and lose their data. 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.

Apple is about to host WWDC, its biggest developer event of the year. And it might also show off the future of your iPhone. Though WWDC is mostly a software event, because it's a developer conference, it does sometimes use it to show off software. This year that's rumoured to be the premiere of its Siri speaker, alongside updated versions of the iPad and Mac. But one thing will very much be lacking in that lineup: the iPhone.

A new leak has emerged about the Apple iPhone 8, just hours before Tim Cook kicks off the annual developer's conference today in San Jose. Three employees from the Chinese manufacturing firm Foxconn, which builds Apple handsets, allegedly revealed features about the design of the much-anticipated handset. The employees said the phone will use facial detection and a retina scanner on the front facing cameras and suggested the tenth anniversary gadget would be called'iPhone X'. Sources said the new phone (pictured, from previous leak) looked'more like an iPhone 7 with glass' and will use Facial Detection and Retina Scanner on the front facing cameras The unverified employees wrote on Reddit that the new phone looked'more like an iPhone 7 with glass and without the AuthenTec's capacitive touch module.' They said they saw'test units with fingerprint scanners mounted below the glass, but performance and yield rates were not good.'

Two telepresence robots roll into a human-computer interaction conference. Sounds like the beginning of a very nerdy joke, but it really happened (#2017). A few weeks ago in Denver, Colorado, a robot I was piloting over the internet from my computer in Idaho stood wheel-to-wheel with a similar'bot in a pink skirt controlled by a researcher in Germany. We introduced ourselves by yelling at each other's screens. Given the topic of the conference, this particular human-computer interaction was a little too on the HD touch-screen nose.

Palmer Luckey, who recently parted ways with Facebook after funding a controversial Donald Trump-supporting meme group, is now developing advanced border surveillance technology, it has been reported. His system would be cheaper to build than Mr Trump's proposed Mexico border wall, according to people familiar with the plans. PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, an adviser to Mr Trump, reportedly plans to invest in Mr Luckey's new company. 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.

The Apple Store is offline ahead of its big event today. The company is holding its Worldwide Developers Conference where it will show off the software that will power the iPads, Macs and iPhones of the future. But it's also going to start selling some of those new futuristic computers, as well. The biggest new product of the day is expected to be the Siri speaker, Apple's answer to the talking assistants encased in cylinders like the Google Home and Amazon Alexa. But that might not actually make it onto the store today – it's expected to be unveiled during the keynote but not actually made available until later on.