In this Vlog, Adrian Bowles, PhD provides an overview of MicroStrategy, an enterprise software platform vendor that offers Analytics capabilities and mobile access. MicroStrategy's vision is to make every enterprise an Intelligent Enterprise. For more information on MicroStrategy's approach, watch the rest of the video below: Your email address will not be published.

As J.J. Kardwell, founder and CEO of predictive marketing software company EverString, puts it: "Growth-focused sales organizations of every size and stage cannot afford to ignore the benefits of AI-assisted sales." According to research done by Accenture, artificial intelligence is projected to improve labor productivity by as much as 40 percent. It is no surprise that investment in artificial intelligence has increased to $14.9 billion, as of 2014, according to a study conducted by the Bank of America Merrill Lynch. This is projected to increase further by at least 50 percent per year. The same study claims that the innate limitations of humans will make AI the core technology of the so-called "internet of things."

LISBON, PORTUGAL - NOVEMBER 07: John Krafcik, CEO, Waymo, describes the company's project on'A new way forward for self-driving cars' during the second day of Web Summit in Altice Arena on November 07, 2017 in Lisbon, Portugal. Web Summit (originally Dublin Web Summit) is a technology conference held annually since 2009. The company was founded by Paddy Cosgrave, David Kelly and Daire Hickey. The topic of the conference is centered on internet technology and attendees range from Fortune 500 companies to smaller tech companies. This contains a mix of CEOs and founders of tech start ups together with a range of people from across the global technology industry, as well as related industries.

The opportunities for chatbots are massive, but there is still a great deal of effort needed to raise awareness and make the public comfortable with them. Figures revealed by the results of one of the first major surveys into the topic highlight key issues that need addressing. The key stats are that over 50% of people (the survey was taken in the United Kingdom from Ubisend) are aware of chatbot as a concept. However, over 75% of those surveyed have yet to interact with one. Of those, 40% would not, are not confident enough, or do not know how to use one.

Hugs make us feel warm and safe and comforted and loved. If we need a hug and another human isn't available, we can sometimes get a little bit of satisfaction from hugging inanimate objects like stuffed animals, but it seems like robots (that can hypothetically hug us back) might be able to be somewhat more fulfilling. While we've seen robots that are actively huggable before, and even a few that can hug you back, it's not clear exactly how a robot hug compares to a human hug, and whether hugging a robot can confer any of the benefits that we get from hugging people. At the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human Robot Interaction (HRI) earlier this year, Alexis E. Block and Katherine J. Kuchenbecker from the Haptic Intelligence Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Germany, presented a paper on "Emotionally Supporting Humans Through Robot Hugs." Their work explores how robots can be more effectively designed and taught to give the kinds of hugs that humans will love.

The day I'm scheduled to appear on his show, the television physician and Oprah protege has assembled a cast of victims and villains that includes a college communications major who caught chlamydia from a Tinder date; a 24-year-old woman who was stabbed 21 times by the fiance she met online; and Douglas Hines, a cartoonish engineer donning a white lab coat and outsize bowtie, who claims to have created the world's first sex robot. NSFW Warning: This story may contain links to and descriptions or images of explicit sexual acts. I'm here, presumably, to act as a voice of reason in a segment called "Rise of the sex robots: Why experts are issuing warnings!" My co-panelists, a sex therapist and a psychologist, are well-trained in the art (or is it science?) of near-scripted debate. While one is slightly more optimistic, their arguments are essentially two sides of the same coin: Sex robots either can or will pose a threat to human relationships, or worse. As TV doctors do, they've both developed firmly planted opinions on the subject without any first-hand experience. It's not lost on me that I'm the only one in the room who's actually seen a sex robot IRL. After the doctors deliver their warnings, Oz turns to me, a look of concern written in deep lines across his forehead. He wants to know if people can have real, intimate relationships with robots.

The U.S. military is increasing spending on a secret research effort to use artificial intelligence to help anticipate the launch of a nuclear-capable missile, as well as track and target mobile launchers in North Korea and elsewhere. The effort has gone largely unreported, and the few publicly available details about it are buried under a layer of near impenetrable jargon in the latest Pentagon budget. But U.S. officials familiar with the research told Reuters there are multiple classified programs now under way to explore how to develop AI-driven systems to better protect the United States against a potential nuclear missile strike. FILE PHOTO: A serviceman walks past anti-aircraft defence mobile missile systems during the Keys to the Sky competition at the International Army Games 2017 at the Ashuluk shooting range outside Astrakhan, Russia August 5, 2017. The computer systems would be able to think for themselves, scouring huge amounts of data, including satellite imagery, with a speed and accuracy beyond the capability of human.

Today Cray announced that it has partnered with Digital Catapult and its Machine Intelligence Garage in the UK to help organizations of all sizes speed the development of machine intelligence systems. This partnership enables the Machine Intelligence Garage to offer companies the supercomputing power and expertise required to develop and build machine learning and AI solutions. Our partnership with Cray opens a new door for UK machine intelligence businesses," said Anat Elhalal, Head of Technology and AI/ML Lead Tech at Digital Catapult. "Cray's expertise in high-performance computing will give startups much-needed resources to continue the amazing work already underway in the UK for AI and machine learning solutions." The Machine Intelligence Garage is a program delivered by Digital Catapult, which supports and promotes advanced digital technology and transformation to drive growth in the UK economy. The effort takes its name from the mythical place garages have in the history of technology. The Machine Intelligence Garage holds an open call every six to 12 weeks to select startups that can benefit most from the computational resources the Machine Intelligence Garage can offer from within the organization or through its partners. It then selects about 30 startups and develops for each a tailored program offering supervision, feedback and a case study of each startup's corresponding results. Based on research conducted by the Machine Intelligence Garage, startups in the UK have identified that one of their biggest obstacles to progress in AI is access to exceptionally powerful and fast computational systems," said Per Nyberg, vice president of market development, artificial intelligence and cloud at Cray. "We're seeing a convergence between AI and supercomputing as organizations work toward taking AI projects out of beta and into production. The number of AI models that must be trained will only increase and organizations are coming to realize the performance and I/O challenges that will arise. Cray's innovative architectures and robust compute resources, as well as access to our Cray Accel AI Lab, can help address these challenges and give startups the fundamental tools they need to develop successful machine learning systems and initiatives."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military is increasing spending on a secret research effort to use artificial intelligence to help anticipate the launch of a nuclear-capable missile, as well as track and target mobile launchers in North Korea and elsewhere. The effort has gone largely unreported, and the few publicly available details about it are buried under a layer of near impenetrable jargon in the latest Pentagon budget. But U.S. officials familiar with the research told Reuters there are multiple classified programs now under way to explore how to develop AI-driven systems to better protect the United States against a potential nuclear missile strike. If the research is successful, such computer systems would be able to think for themselves, scouring huge amounts of data, including satellite imagery, with a speed and accuracy beyond the capability of humans, to look for signs of preparations for a missile launch, according to more than half a dozen sources. The sources included U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the research is classified.

That plastic cup you've got sitting on your desk looks pretty harmless on its own. However, add it to the rest of the plastic that humanity throws away on a daily basis and you have the makings of the estimated 5 to 13 million metric tons of plastic trash which reportedly wind up in the world's oceans every year. U.K.-based Plastic Tide founder Peter Kohler got a glimpse of the scale of this problem a decade ago -- and it changed the course of his life. "About ten years ago, I went out to the South Pacific," he told Digital Trends. "I've always been fascinated by oceans, and this was pure paradise. But it was a paradise under siege. One of the most visible ways this paradise was being besieged was with litter. It was everywhere, although we were miles from anyone. When you're sailing in the middle of nowhere, it really gets you wondering where this litter comes from and how it gets here. I came back to England and spent the next few years puzzling over how best to answer that question."