The 20th International Cloud Expo has announced that its Call for Papers is open. Cloud Expo, to be held June 6-8, 2017, at the Javits Center in New York City, brings together Cloud Computing, Big Data, Internet of Things, DevOps, Digital Transformation, Machine Learning and WebRTC to one location. All major researchers estimate there will be tens of billions devices - computers, smartphones, tablets, and sensors - connected to the Internet by 2020. This number will continue to grow at a rapid pace for the next several decades. With major technology companies and startups seriously embracing Cloud strategies, now is the perfect time to attend @CloudExpo @ThingsExpo, June 6-8, 2017, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY and October 31 - November 2, 2017, Santa Clara Convention Center, CA.

We say this each year, but it's true -- the pace of news around the robotics industry is accelerating! See which robot stories were our most popular for the past year. Thanks to cheaper sensors, new software, and the emerging Internet of Things (IoT), mobile robots are rapidly expanding in supply chain operations. It's just in the nick of time, as robots save money, speed e-commerce order fulfillment, and come from proliferating providers. Germany and China typify central planning for encouraging the adoption of robotics, but that situation is changing worldwide, according to author Søren Tranberg Hansen.

NEW YORK--Nintendo of America President and Chief Operating Officer Reggie Fils-Aime is ready for the question of what went wrong with the company's poor selling Wii U video game console and how the fortunes of the make-or-break Nintendo Switch will be different went it launches March 3 for just under $300. "I would say the greatest challenge we had with the Wii U was being crystal clear in our communication of what the product was and what the product could do. When we first showed off the Wii U for example it was misinterpreted that it was simply a tablet and not a device that truly was connected to your TV and could create two-screen types of gaming experiences. With Nintendo Switch we are being very aggressive and clearly communicating the proposition that it's a home console you can take on the go wherever and whenever you want… We're working hard to make sure it's going to be a success." Indeed, in the house, the tablet-like device slides into a dock that is connected to the television, with players using standard video game controllers to have a go at The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, or other upcoming titles.

With the rise in self-driving technology, the latest automobiles are grabbing more attention at The Consumer Electronics Show. CES showed off some technology (available now or soon) that can make your life easier and/or better. While CES is an acronym for Consumer Electronics Show, the running joke at this annual Las Vegas event is that CES is turning into the Car Electronics Show. Many of the world's biggest auto makers have become a major part of this highly-publicized conference – which serves as a glimpse into the future of technology -- by dominating much of the North Hall at the Las Vegas Convention Center, as well as surrounding facilities. And it doesn't seem to matter this Sin City event falls on the heels of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

Later this month, an insurance firm in Japan will be replacing more than 30 employees on their workforce with artificial intelligence. Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance is set to implement the robotic replacements, with a cost of 200m Yen (more than 1.7 million US dollars) by the end of the month. They estimate that they will have a 140m Yen savings per year using the artificial intelligence program. It can calculate payments to be made to clients 30 percent faster than it's human counterparts. Although the speed and efficiency will rise exponentially using AI, nothing can replace the warmth and compassion that can only come from having a human on the other side of the desk.

From Bhutan's gross national happiness index to new year's resolutions, we are all fascinated with ways to get happier, but is technology getting us any closer? In collaboration with the Royal Society - please join us on 17th January to see the conclusion of 28 hours work on hacking happiness and exploring how machine learning can be used to measure, understand, predict and increase happiness. In this multidisciplinary hackathon, professionals from different disciplines, including machine learning, data science, design and software engineering will come together and develop innovative solutions addressing happiness. We will see ideas that address ways in which new machine learning systems can work together with people in a broad variety of topics such as conversational assistants, interactive AI, active learning, human-agent collaboration, crowd-sourcing or citizen science. We will be looking not just at "pure" machine learning hacks but also those that combine existing techniques with novel interactions with people.

In the Harry Potter films, Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore shows the young wizard memories that he keeps in glass vessels. The franchise portrays memories as things that possess a physical structure that can be moved around. Although they appear to look like wispy bits of fluff, they are given form and structure. Is this in anyway similar to real life? To answer these questions, I spoke to Lila Davachi, who runs the Memory Lab at New York University.

A great weight sits perched on us. It houses our brain and presents our face to the world. It comprises roughly 10 percent of our body weight. Heavy enough at the best of times, it grows heavier as it inclines forward. Held high, it's a 5.5-kilogram burden on the neck of a person who weighs 55 kg.

It may take several years or even decades, but hackers won't necessarily always be human. Artificial intelligence--a technology that also promises to revolutionize cybersecurity--could one day become the go-to hacking tool. Organizers of the Cyber Grand Challenge, a contest sponsored by the U.S. defense agency DARPA, gave a glimpse of the power of AI during their August event. Seven supercomputers battled each other to show that machines can indeed find and patch software vulnerabilities. Theoretically, the technology can be used to perfect any coding, ridding it of exploitable flaws.

SAN FRANCISCO: Microsoft announced on Friday (Jan 13) a deal to buy Maluuba, a Montreal startup focused on making machines able to think the way people do. Bringing on board Maluuba co-founders Kaheer Suleman and Sam Pasupalak, along with their team from the startup, was intended to accelerate Microsoft's "ability to develop software so computers can read, write and converse naturally," the company said. Microsoft did not disclose financial terms of the acquisition. "Maluuba's vision is to advance toward a more general artificial intelligence by creating literate machines that can think, reason and communicate like humans - a vision exactly in line with ours," Microsoft artificial intelligence and research group executive vice president Harry Shum said in a blog post. "I'm incredibly excited about the scenarios that this acquisition could make possible in conversational AI." Tech giants Apple, Samsung, Google and Microsoft are all vying to develop the most sophisticated connected assistant - working to give software the ability to understand what people say and even anticipate desires or needs.