Binary, or one-bit, representations of data arise naturally in many applications, and are appealing in both hardware implementations and algorithm design. In this work, we study the problem of data classification from binary data and propose a framework with low computation and resource costs. We illustrate the utility of the proposed approach through stylized and realistic numerical experiments, and provide a theoretical analysis for a simple case. We hope that our framework and analysis will serve as a foundation for studying similar types of approaches.

We describe the Customer LifeTime Value (CLTV) prediction system deployed at ASOS.com, a global online fashion retailer. CLTV prediction is an important problem in e-commerce where an accurate estimate of future value allows retailers to effectively allocate marketing spend, identify and nurture high value customers and mitigate exposure to losses. The system at ASOS provides daily estimates of the future value of every customer and is one of the cornerstones of the personalised shopping experience. The state of the art in this domain uses large numbers of handcrafted features and ensemble regressors to forecast value, predict churn and evaluate customer loyalty. Recently, domains including language, vision and speech have shown dramatic advances by replacing handcrafted features with features that are learned automatically from data. We detail the system deployed at ASOS and show that learning feature representations is a promising extension to the state of the art in CLTV modelling. We propose a novel way to generate embeddings of customers, which addresses the issue of the ever changing product catalogue and obtain a significant improvement over an exhaustive set of handcrafted features.

Google's DeepMind artificial intelligence team has been based in the UK ever since it was acquired in 2014. However, it's finally ready to branch out -- just not to the US. DeepMind has announced that its first international research lab is coming to the Canadian prairie city of Edmonton, Alberta later in July. A trio of University of Alberta computer science professors (Richard Sutton, Michael Bowling and Patrick Pilarski) will lead the group, which includes seven more AI veterans. As Recode observes, you can chalk it up to a combination of familiarity and political considerations.

An Australian startup revealed its flagship product, an earpiece that can interpret 8 different languages in real-time, at a United Nations event in Switzerland on Friday. Lingmo International, a startup based in West Gosford north of Sydney, launched its TranslateOne2One earpiece at the UN's Artificial Intelligence for Good Summit in Geneva, revealing that IBM Watson machine learning technology had been used for its algorithms. Traditionally, converting one language to another orally in real-time is called "interpreting" whereas the term "translation" is reserved for processing text across languages with some delay. Lingmo founder Danny May, however, describes his product as performing "translation in real-time". And what I mean by independent is that it doesn't require any connectivity to your phone by Bluetooth or wi-fi.

In a fascinating new book, the Financial Times's economics expert Tim Harford chooses his favourite inventions that changed our world -- and many of them will surprise you. Just imagine, for a moment, the end of civilisation. Perhaps it was swine flu or nuclear war, or maybe even killer robots. And now imagine that you -- lucky you -- are one of the few survivors. Surrounded by the wreckage of modernity, without access to the lifeblood of modern technology, where do you start again?

The issue of Artificial Intelligence (AI), which will replace human employees, has become one of the hottest topics in the news, and studies continue to praise the growth and wealth potential of the AI due to increased productivity. At the same time, other reports warn of threats to employment and worsening wage inequality between skilled and less skilled workers. Despite these alerts, nothing seems to stop technological progress. According to the latest study published by the prestigious Yale and Oxford universities, AI should surpass humans in all areas in less than 50 years. To arrive at this prediction, The two universities turned to specialists in artificial intelligence from around the world.

The UK is seen as a hotbed of technology talent which the giants of Silicon Valley are fighting to recruit. Areas where the UK is ranked highest include artificial intelligence and data science coming out of leading universities, and the financial technology community, engendered by the marriage of fintech startups and London's financial expertise. On the AI side, this hunt for talent was kicked off in 2014 by Google's acquisition of DeepMind, a relatively small team from Imperial College, for $400m. This was followed by Apple buying Cambridge-based natural language processing firm VocalIQ and more recently Twitter bought video AI startup Magic Pony. This is something of double edged sword, notes Hazel Moore, chairman and co-founder of FirstCapital, an investment bank based in London and Silicon Valley.

Google's high-profile artificial intelligence unit has a new Canadian outpost. DeepMind, which Google bought in 2014 for roughly $650 million, said Wednesday that it would open a research center in Edmonton, Canada. The new research center, which will work closely with the University of Alberta, is the United Kingdom-based DeepMind's first international AI research lab. DeepMind, now a subsidiary of Google parent company Alphabet (goog), recruited three University of Alberta professors from to lead the new research lab. The professors--Rich Sutton, Michael Bowling, and Patrick Pilarski--will maintain their positions at the university while working at the new research office.

Thomson Reuters has launched a start-up incubator in Switzerland to host early-stage entrepreneurs working on big data, advanced analytics, distributed ledgers, artificial intelligence, machine learning and other transformational technologies. Thomson Reuters Labs – The Incubator, as its called, will furnish its cohort with access to Thomson Reuters data and content sets, as well as mentoring from executives and networking opportunities for investment and commercialisation. The Incubator is the next horizon of the company's investment in the Thomson Reuters Labs network, said a statement. TR's Innovation Labs collaborate with customers, universities and startups around the world. Mona Vernon, chief technology officer for Thomson Reuters Labs, said: "Technology is evolving at an unprecedented rate and corporations need to keep pace. Partnering with startups and other market disruptors is essential for us to be agile and responsive to our customers. The Incubator will become an essential part of our corporate strategy to drive organic growth through innovation."

These days, you can find capable and confident robots driving, flying, swimming, diving, out in space, and even boring through ice. What we haven't seen a lot of are robots designed to dig underground. There have been a few self-burying robots that use digging to their advantage, but they're not designed for underground locomotion. This is slightly strange, to be honest, considering how many animals make their living by digging tunnels, and also considering how often we humans need to do useful things underground. The European Union is sponsoring a project to make underground robotics happen through the development of a "robotic system that will be able to drill, maneuver, localize, map and navigate in the underground space, and which will be equipped with tools for constructing horizontal and vertical networks of stable bores and pipelines."