Move over, managers, there's a new boss in the office: artificial intelligence. The same technology that enables a navigation app to find the most efficient route to your destination or lets an online store recommend products based on past purchases is on the verge of transforming the office--promising to remake how we look for job candidates, get the most out of workers and keep our best workers on the job. These applications aim to analyze a vast amount of data and search for patterns--broadening managers' options and helping them systematize processes that are often driven simply by instinct. And just like shopping sites, the AIs are designed to learn from experience to get an ever-better idea of what managers want. A company can provide a job description, and AI will collect and crunch data from a variety of sources to find people with the right talents, with experience to match--candidates who might never have thought of applying to the company, and whom the company might never have thought of seeking out.

A Facebook tool that helps students be more productive and keep track of assignments developed by a Victoria teen has gone viral in an unexpected place. Alec Jones, 14, says his chatbot, Christopher Bot, that helps students stay on top of their homework has garnered more than 3,000 subscribers, with many of them based in Thailand. Chatbots are automated software programs, which Alec compares to iPhone's Siri, that respond to users in a conversational manner. The bot that he developed works through Facebook's Messenger platform. For students who forget to write down their assignments or deadlines when they are handed out or struggle to keep track of it all, Christopher Bot is designed to do the remembering for them.

More investors are setting their sights on the financial technology (Fintech) arena. According to consulting firm Accenture, investment in Fintech firms rose by 10 percent worldwide to the tune of $23.2 billion in 2016. China is leading the charge after securing $10 billion in investments in 55 deals which account for 90 percent of investments in Asia-Pacific. The US came second taking in $6.2 billion in funding. Europe, also saw an 11 percent increase in deals despite Britain seeing a decrease in funding due to the uncertainty from the Brexit vote.

With the progressing year, the technology diversified ways in which we could communicate and retrieve the information from the pocket fitting devices. Technologies such as IoT, automation, and cognitive computing moved beyond the conceptual stages in 2016. As the year takes up, companies throughout the world are developing their business strategies. In order to move forward in the competition, companies are turning towards major investments in technology. The world's biggest consumer technology convention, CES is one of the best places to find a handful of key technologies. CES 2017 finished another spectacular year with pioneering technology trends including smart homes to self-driving cars. This year is assumed to bring transformative technology trends for us to explore and invest in. AI, also known as Artificial Intelligence has been studied for decades and now the vision of transforming insentient objects into intelligence is gradually becoming a reality. AI based Innovations are now pondering into the market and becoming part of our daily lives with quick adaptability. Artificial intelligence assists humans and handles the tasks flawlessly, without interrupting your comfort. Whether to set an alarm, or remind you of something important, or to play your favorite music or to read out general news for you or to find your phone, AI can make the task more convenient and smart. Sit back and relax while you command your device to do things for you.

In today's so-called smart home, you can dim the lights, order more toothpaste or tell the kids to go to bed simply by talking to a small Wifi-connected speaker, such as Amazon's Echo or Google's Home. This voice-first market – combining voice with artificial intelligence (AI) – barely existed in 2014. This year, Voice Labs, a consultancy, expects 24.5 million appliances to be shipped. Other big tech firms have their own plans: Apple is taking its Siri voice assistant beyond its mobile devices to PCs, cars, and the home; Baidu last month bought Raven, billed as China's answer to Amazon's Alexa intelligent personal assistant; and Samsung Electronics plans to incorporate Viv, its newly acquired virtual assistant, into its phones and home appliances. But not everyone thinks the future of communicating with the Internet of Things needs to be vocal.

In 2015, ad agency McCann Japan's creative planner Shun Matsuzaka set himself a task he called the "creative genome project": he wanted to create the world's first AI creative director, capable of directing a TV commercial. And last week, Matsuzaka showed off his creation at the UK advertiser trade body ISBA's annual conference in London. The creative brief: The type of brand, the campaign goal, the target audience, and the claim the ad should make. Confectionery giant Mondelez was the first client willing to put the AI creative director to the test. McCann pitted the robot against human creative director Mitsuru Kuramoto to create an ad for Clorets Mint Tab that conveyed the message: "Instant-effect fresh breath that lasts for 10 minutes."

The self-driving car space is getting increasingly more cutthroat. The sheer number of lawsuits filed recently are a testament to that. Tesla, for example, is suing its former Autopilot director Sterling Anderson. The lawsuit claims Anderson stole data for a competing venture, Aurora Innovations, that hasn't even come out of stealth mode yet. "In their zeal to play catch-up, traditional automakers have created a get-rich-quick environment. Small teams of programmers with little more than demoware have been bought for as much as a billion dollars. Cruise Automation, a 40-person firm, was purchased by General Motors in July 2016 for nearly $1 billion. In August 2016, Uber acquired Otto, another self-driving startup that had been founded only seven months earlier, in a deal worth more than $680 million."

Don't expect to watch "Mr. While the past two seasons were given June and July release dates, the third season will not be shown on USA Network until fall. Robot" Season 3 will premiere in October. Unlike the summer, the fall is packed with new TV shows. USA Network obviously trusts that the hacker drama's dedicated fan base will stick with it.

Machine Learning is the new buzz word and AI is the slang word these days. What does happen in this exiting field in Europe? Is AI common ground for all businesses or the exclusive territory for a few? Who has managed to validate a business model for autonomous vehicles or chatbots?Whatdoesdata-drivenor API-firstbusinessmodelslook like? With this report we want to provide a comprehensive review of investment in startups and high-growth AI and Data Analytics companies across 22 countries in Europe.

One of the big breakout manga hits of the past five years or so is definitely Yasuo Ohtagaki's grittier take on the original Mobile Suit Gundam. Set as a sidestory to the main conflict, Gundam Thunderbolt is a fascinating and very different approach to the saga. I was lucky enough to catch up with its author and find out how the manga came about. Considering the huge success of Gundam Thunderbolt, I was curious as to how Ohtagaki had gotten into making manga in the first place. Thankfully, he was more than happy to explain, "I am from Osaka originally and I've really enjoyed manga since I was a child. My father used to buy two volumes of the latest release, although at that time there were already 30 volumes on the market. He would buy the volumes like souvenirs and I would look forward to them. This is how I got into Dokaben and the first thing I copied was the art of Dokaben. I liked manga for a long time but when I was in high school, the romantic comedy boom arrived. I started to look at Akira Oze sensei's work, as he was at the time drawing romantic comedy manga. I realized then that I wanted to create manga like Oze sensei. "At the time when I was drawing manga, there was the romantic comedy boom and I liked this type of manga, the kind where a boy and girl flirt.