We have discussed some AI topics in the previous posts, and it should seem now obvious the extraordinary disruptive impact AI had over the past few years. However, what everyone is now thinking of is where AI will be in five years time. I find it useful then to describe a few emerging trends we start seeing today, as well as make few predictions around machine learning future developments. The following proposed list does not want to be either exhaustive or truth-in-stone, but it comes from a series of personal considerations that might be useful when thinking about the impact of AI on our world. Companies like Vicarious or Geometric Intelligence are working toward reducing the data burden needed to train neural networks.

Chatbots are programs that mimic conversation with people using artificial intelligence. With recent advances in AI these have become much more accurate, especially when focused on a specific domain. Combine these advances with the consumer trend towards messaging -- people are now spending more time in messaging apps than in social media -- and it seems we might be about to enter the age of the chatbot. We decided to take a closer look at the top emerging chatbot start-ups in text chat, across a range of industries, and pick out the most promising. You can find out more about the 25 companies below, or discover more chatbot startups on our search engine.

Pitango is a specialist in financing very successful FX industry ventures. Now the VC firm has launched a $175 million fund for machine learning and artificial intelligence. The cost of operating a retail FX brokerage has been a major concern for many executives over recent years, and during the course of 2016, many methods of automating specific practices and operational aspects are now under development and consideration. This month, the ability to be able to assign R&D budget to such automation gains further ground as Israeli venture capital firm Pitango has launched an early-stage fund with $175 million under management, that will be used to invest in companies at seed level and upwards. Aside from various'trendy' sectors such as life sciences, the new fund will specialize in interesting technological innovation such as Internet of Things, enterprise infrastructure and artificial intelligence.

This by itself is of course nothing new, as Israel keeps attracting the attention of top global funds looking for great deal flow outside of Silicon Valley, NYC and Boston; large corporates interested in tapping into innovation coming out of Israel; and large scale startups acquiring smaller Israeli startups as a strategy to get a foot in the Startup Nation door. Given all that, it is no surprise that funding for Israeli startups has reached a record high in 2016 with Israeli tech companies raising $4.6 billion this year, up from $4.4 billion in 2015. The growth in funding is supported in part by massive influence of Chinese investors who "want a piece" of Startup Nation too and invest directly in companies as well as in Israeli VC funds. On the flip side, 2016 was the year we saw a major decline in exits of Israeli companies which took a plunge of 67% compared to the previous year, with no huge, billion dollar Waze-type exits. While global market dynamics definitely played a role here, this is also a sign of maturity of the Israeli tech ecosystem where startups are less excited to sell early and strive to grow bigger companies.

Amazon has filed for a patent on a flying warehouse equipped with drones to deliver goods. The warehouse would be carried by an airship and would visit places where Amazon expects there to be high levels of demand. The patent also covers support vehicles designed to restock the structure, which would hover 45,000ft (14,000m) in the air. Documents show Amazon believes the combination of the flying warehouse and drones would deliver goods considerably faster than ground-based warehouses, the BBC reported. There are suggestions the warehouses would be located above festivals or sporting events and smaller airships could act as shuttles taking drones, people and supplies to the warehouse.

Set to become a $165 Billion dollar industry by 2020, there's still a common question that lingers among many newcomers trying to understand this fast moving digital phenomena we are just beginning to watch evolve; What's the difference between them and how will it impact the digital world as I currently know it? Before we jump into the mind-blowing future Mixed Reality is set to usher in over the course of 2017, let's first discuss the distinctions between Virtual & Augmented Reality – Their technologies are very similar but have some fundamental differences. Virtual Reality is a digital environment that shuts out the real world. VR is able to transpose the user. In other words, bring us someplace else.

Data is the fuel that drives the machine learning algorithmic engines and ultimately provides the business value. In his session at Cloud Expo, Ed Featherston, a director and senior enterprise architect at Collaborative Consulting, discussed the key considerations around quality, volume, timeliness, and pedigree that must be dealt with in order to properly fuel that engine. Speaker Bio Ed Featherston is a director/senior enterprise architect at Collaborative Consulting. He brings 35 years of technology experience in designing, building, and implementing large complex solutions. He has significant expertise in systems integration, Internet/intranet, and cloud technologies, Ed has delivered projects in various industries, including financial services, pharmacy, government and retail.

Being a scientist can be like willingly entering into a Roman gladiatorial contest. The hours are long, there's a rank smell of indentured servitude, and at any minute your colleagues may attempt to eviscerate you for the pleasure of the crowds. A lot of the time we can look beyond these challenges because we have an innate need to explore our curiosity. Or perhaps (shockingly) because we feel that a life spent in pursuit of knowledge is still a noble and useful thing. At other times I suspect we only stick around because we're playing the real-world equivalent of a video game--conditioned to crave the chemical release from a momentary discovery, or a satisfactory fitting of a curve to data points.

Robots can be terrifying all on their own, but stick a human being inside and give them control of the mechanical muscles that provide superhuman strength and you've got a recipe for a horror movie. South Korean robotics firm Hankook Mirae Technology has done exactly that, and its Method-2 robot just took its first steps towards world domination this week. "METHOD-1" large manned robot project for which I had a pleasure to make the design. Very fortunate to be part of the incredible Hankook Mirae Technology team. The robot is just one year into development, but it's already a hulking beast that could give anyone nightmares. The bot stands over 13 feet tall and weighs over one and a half tons.

Remark Media's image and video recognition technologies are based on Deep Learning, a type of algorithm-based machine learning that is used to model high-level abstractions in data. In developing its technologies, Remark Media leveraged its extensive KanKan data platform to train its AI with tens of millions of supervised and unsupervised samples, developing models that extract facial features and recognize objects in images or videos such as branded logos, animals, airplanes, license plates, etc., with high precision. The KanKan Data Intelligence Platform is a growing global platform of over 1.3 billion socially active user profiles, over 15 billion posts, more than 10 billion images, and over 50 billion comments and reviews. In addition to providing its technology to Alibaba Cloud, Remark Media will provide its turnkey AI platform as a service to companies or individuals requiring assistance with integrating the technology into their own models. Additional information on this partnership can be found on Alibaba Cloud's website.