Samsung dominates the smartphone industry so much so that one in every five handsets sold worldwide come from the South Korean technology giant. But the firm is still reeling from the recall of millions of its big-screen Galaxy Note 7 devices, which suffered from a battery issue that could cause the device to overheat and, in some cases, explode. That recall left Samsung without a flashy new smartphone to go head-to-head with Apple's iPhone 7 and Google's Pixel as the all-important holiday shopping season approaches. "In a market that is otherwise maturing, Christmas has come early for vendors looking to capitalize with large-screened flagship alternatives like the Apple iPhone 7 Plus and Google Pixel," said IDC analyst Melissa Chau in a report accompanying the research firm's latest smartphone sales estimates. With the Note 7 dead and buried, Samsung must look towards the future for salvation.

Zoox Inc., the secretive Silicon Valley startup working to build its own self-driving cars, has quietly raised another round of funding that puts its valuation at $1.55 billion, a big jump from just a few months prior and a sign of increased interest in automotive technology. The Menlo Park, Calif., company founded by Tim Kentley-Klay, an Australian entrepreneur and designer, and Jesse Levinson, from Stanford University's self-driving car program, raised $50 million in October, according to people familiar with the matter. The new round of funding included an investment from Composite Capital, one of the people said. The Hong Kong-based hedge fund was launched over the summer by David Ma, previously a partner at Chinese fund manager Hillhouse Capital Group. Founded in 2014, Zoox had already raised $240 million, including $200 million this past summer at a valuation of $1 billion, said the people familiar with the matter.

SEOUL-- Samsung Electronics Co. is looking to give its Siri-like virtual assistant a big promotion. The South Korean smartphone giant is considering a hardware revamp for its next flagship smartphone that could add a dedicated button for an improved artificial-intelligence feature, people familiar with the matter said, as it seeks to woo smartphone users after a disastrous product recall last month. The latest internal prototypes of the premium Galaxy S8 handset include a button on the side edge of the smartphone that would be used to launch a beefed-up virtual assistant based on artificial intelligence, akin to Apple Inc.'s Siri, according to these people, who cautioned that the prototypes aren't final and could change. Samsung will have more time than usual to tinker with the Galaxy S8 after it was forced to discontinue its premium Galaxy Note 7 smartphone last month, following reports of phones catching fire. The embarrassing fiasco damaged the company's brand and engineers still don't know exactly what caused the devices to overheat.

AN official of a leading Japanese technological company recently said people must prepare for the bearing and consequences of artificial intelligence (AI). Fujitsu Ltd. Vice President Yoshikuni Takashige cited the warning in 2014 by British eminent scientist Stephen Hawking against "thinking machines". He cited for one the employment scenario in First World countries, such as the US, would drastically change as people will be replaced by machines in some areas of the work place. Takashige's warning came before the International Data Corp. (IDC) said the widespread adoption of cognitive systems and AI across a broad range of industries will drive worldwide revenues from nearly $8.0 billion in 2016 to more than $47 billion in 2020. IDC said in a statement on October 26 that the market for cognitive/AI solutions will experience a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 55.1 percent over the 2016-to-2020 forecast period.

Facebook has been forced to end a hugely controversial data sharing agreement with WhatsApp. The decision would have seen WhatsApp hand out information on all of its users to Facebook, letting the latter use data about people's chats to inform its advertising. It would also have gone the other way – allowing companies to send WhatsApp's to people based on things they've bought on Facebook, for instance. But now the UK's Information Commissioner's Office has told the company that it needs to bring that arrangement to an end because it does not have "valid consent" from its users. Facebook had looked to gain permission from its users to have their data used as part of the deal.

In the new video game'Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare,' some combat takes place in zero gravity. The latest Call of Duty video game is out of this world. Previous Call of Duty games have made forays into outer space, but Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (out now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PCs, rated for ages 17-up) takes the first-person shooting franchise fully intergalactic. As a result, Infinite Warfare has a different, but not unwelcome feel from the preceding adventures in the multibillion-selling Call of Duty series. Most fans will likely enjoy embracing their inner space cowboy.

Chat applications are becoming a mainstream trend and our preferred way of interacting with colleagues, friends and family. From the early days of SMS to the favorite snaps of our children, real-time online conversations are everywhere and here to stay. The acquisition of WhatAapp by Facebook in 2014 for a hefty $22 Billion price tag made it clear and promising as TechCrunch noticed it one year later. But although TechCrunch saw messaging apps as the future of mobile portal, they remained more or less next to the Internet, without a direct impact, except their increasing audience. The recent surge of interest in Bots and AI is changing the game and we'll be witnessing the second major fragmentation of the Internet.

Machines contain the breadth of human knowledge, yet they have the common sense of a newborn. The problem is that computers don't act enough like toddlers. Yann LeCun, director of artificial intelligence research at Facebook, demonstrates this by standing a pen on the table and then holding his phone in front of it. He performs a sleight of hand, and when he picks the phone up--ta-da! It's a trick that'll elicit a gasp from any one-year-old child, but today's cutting-edge artificial intelligence software--and most months-old babies--can't appreciate that the disappearing act isn't normal.

Media reports say an artificial intelligence (AI) system called MogIA, developed by Sanjiv Rai, an innovator based in Mumbai, has predicted that Donald Trump will win Tuesday's presidential elections in the United States. Unveiled in 2004, the system apparently got it right in the last three presidential elections. It also predicted that Trump and Hillary Clinton will be the nominees of the Republican and Democratic Parties respectively. Rai is quoted as saying that the algorithm got even better as it has "learnt" from the last few rounds. MogIA is named after Mowgli from The Jungle Book.

By Ashwini Anand When virtually everyone claims to use "artificial intelligence", "big data" or "machine learning" to "disrupt"/ "revolutionize" one industry or the other, I would not blame you for being sceptical about the much-touted AI revolution in Fintech. But, before you throw the baby out with the bathwater, let us delve a little deeper and understand if there is a real problem in lending and if AI can help solve it. Is there really a problem in the banking system? Banks and financial institutions, with some notable exceptions, are struggling with bad loans. According to India Ratings the average Impaired Asset Ratio - the sum of gross NPAs and restructured advances (a measure of the stress on a lender's balance sheet) stands at 12% of advances and is slated to rise to 12.5%.