LG Electronics will use machine learning technology to offer customized after sales (AS) services for its smartphone users, the company announced. The South Korean tech giant said it will adopt machine learning, big data analytics, and other, latest artificial intelligence technologies sequentially, starting in the first quarter of this year, to offer remote AS services via its apps. Thanks to machine learning, the app's diagnosis will improve over time, data will be processed faster, and LG will be able to offer services customized for the individual customer. The South Korean tech giant said over 80 percent of visits to service centres from its smartphone users were for simple requests or software problems. The remote service will drastically reduce its customers' needs to visit physical service centres, it said Artificial intelligence technology will be put into its "Smart Doctor" app.

Professor Einstein rolls his eyes, sticks out his tongue, and can give a simple explanation of the theory of relativity. With his lifelike rubbery "skin" and bushy mustache, he can almost make you forget he's a robot. The Einstein robot is among dozens roaming the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that can be your companion, educator or babysit your children. While robots have been around for years, advances in technology and artificial intelligence have allowed developers to give them traits that enable the devices to be seen as members of the family. "We make robots that have personality and come to life," said Andy Rifkin, chief technology officer of Hanson Robotics, the Hong Kong-based firm which is bringing the $299 Einstein robot to consumers this year.

Is Nokia the latest tech company to join the growing niche of companies investing in AI voice assistants? By the looks of things, it could be so. The Finnish company has even filed for a trademark that would name its own virtual assistant as "Viki." Just this Sunday, GSMinfo revealed that Nokia has applied for a trademark in the European Union for its very own AI assistant. The EU reportedly received the application a few days ago and per the document, Nokia described its new technology as a "software for the creation and monitoring of mobile and web assistants working with digital knowledge and combining all data sources into a single chat and voice-based interface."

Which authors of this paper are endorsers? Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)

Half of jobs in Japan are at risk of automation.

Chinese internet giant Baidu and state-owned passenger vehicle manufacturer BAIC Motor Corp have formed a strategic partnership that will see the companies produce and promote autonomous vehicle technology in China. Announced on Friday at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2017, Baidu's autonomous driving research and development arm, Baidu Intelligent Vehicle, will work with the automaker on two key projects, the first of which is the launch of a BAIC-built vehicle equipped with Baidu's telematics solutions at the Shanghai auto show in April. Level 3 autonomy still requires human drivers to be present and capable of taking the steering wheel if needed to prevent accidents, however continuous monitoring isn't required. As part of the partnership, the companies will also collaborate on HD maps for use in autonomous driving, and BAIC will provide OEM solutions including CarLife, CoDriver, and MapAuto for Baidu's intelligent vehicle program. CarLife, a smartphone integration application for connected cars, has been deployed in nearly 150 car models from 60 automakers including Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, and Shanghai GM, and counts more than 700,000 car owners as active users.

Silicon Valley is so male-dominated that there's a name for the young, brash men who populate the region's many start-ups and high-tech firms: "brogrammers". Brogrammers are not your standard, introverted computer programmers. They are a more recent stereotype: the macho, beer swilling players who went to top schools and are often hired by their friends or former fraternity brothers in the technology industry. "If there's a group of a hundred candidates and they're from multiple different backgrounds, different races, different genders, we noticed across the board there was a certain type of programmer that would still move forward in interviews," says Iba Masood, the 27-year-old chief executive and co-founder of Tara.ai, an artificial intelligence project manager that aims to change the world by combating bias. "The brogrammer," says Ms Masood when asked what type of candidate she is referring to. "It's a type that's known in the Valley."

Deep neural networks have been developed drawing inspiration from the brain visual pathway, implementing an end-to-end approach: from image data to video object classes. However building an fMRI decoder with the typical structure of Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), i.e. learning multiple level of representations, seems impractical due to lack of brain data. As a possible solution, this work presents the first hybrid fMRI and learnt deep features decoding approach: collected fMRI and deep learnt representations of video object classes are linked together by means of Kernel Canonical Correlation Analysis. In decoding, this allows exploiting the discriminatory power of CNN by relating the fMRI representation to the last layer of CNN (fc7). We show the effectiveness of embedding fMRI data onto a subspace related to deep features in distinguishing two semantic visual categories based solely on brain imaging data.

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has invested $15 million minority stake in the connected car technology firm CloudCar. The stake by JLR on the Palo-Alto based CloudCar firm highlights the British carmaker's plan to continue building high-tech models with connected driver experiences. The first vehicle from JLR to be equipped with this technology will be the upcoming Jaguar I-Pace SUV. The CloudCar car tech firm says that it works to create "an evergreen and intuitive experience for connected-onboard infotainment solutions for the car." The platform from CloudCar uses Natural Language Voice technology, along with innovations in Machine Learning to provide "personalised, distraction-free & predictive driving experiences."

It was actually about when technology goes wrong: In many ways, 2016 was the year of the exploding batteries. A little over a year ago, hoverboards topped many holiday wish lists. By December 2015, they were being recalled by the thousands. According to Popular Science, "…cheaply made hoverboards have exploded and caught fire, forcing Amazon to stop selling specific models and Overstock to discontinue all sales." Rolling into 2016, major computer companies recalled batteries for fire hazards, baby monitors were pulled from shelves and major airlines diverted flights for emergency landings when tablets caught fire onboard.