To assist a child we must provide him with an environment which will enable him to develop freely. There's a kindergarten I walk past on the way to work, and I can't help but peek inside everyday. The classroom -- packed with toys and puzzles, music and books, flower planters and even an occasional cat -- was obviously crafted to be a rich and bustling world for kids to interact and play in. Contrary to its meaning, child's play is far from simple. Playing in a diverse, exciting universe is how we nurture a child's budding intelligence.

From stopping cyberattacks to operating autonomous vehicles to visually searching through a wine database, 140 startups using AI as a core part of their products raised $1.05B in funding in Q3'16. Since 2012, deals and dollars to AI startups have been on a rise, and this year is extending that trend. Our AI category includes companies applying AI solutions to verticals like healthcare, security, advertising, and finance as well as those developing general-purpose AI tech. Our list excludes robotics (hardware-focused) and AR/VR startups, which we've analyzed separately here and here. Our analysis includes all equity funding rounds and convertible notes.

The 2017 Consumer Electronics Show is set to kick off this week in Las Vegas, with promise to bring new innovations in everything from driverless cars to the'Internet of things.' This year marks the show's 50th anniversary, and the event is expected to have the largest array of virtual reality technology yet. While it doesn't officially begin until Thursday, a number of tech giants will be making announcements earlier in the week, including LG, Panasonic, Samsung, and Sony. And, Faraday Future is expected to finally unveil its first production electric car one year after revealing the futuristic concept it claimed could reach 200 miles per hour. The 2017 Consumer Electronics Show is set to kick off this week in Las Vegas, with promise to bring new innovations in everything from driverless cars to the'Internet of things' Self-driving cars and TV screens that can be bent or rolled up are set to be among the biggest attractions when the CES begins on January 5. Some cars will even be equipped with virtual reality displays, according to AFP, while other devices will incorporate the technology in smart glasses, medicine, and beauty makeovers.

Robots could soon be hiring and firing staff at the world's largest hedge fund under secret plans drawn up to improve efficiency. A team of engineers at US-based Bridgewater Associates is reportedly developing artificial intelligence which can run the firm without emotions getting in the way. Billionaire founder Ray Dalio is seeking to create a new business model where most employees are programmers and decisions are made by a computer, according to the Daily Mail. He appointed a clandestine team, called the Systemised Intelligence Lab, to work on the project early in 2015. It is overseen by David Ferruci, a renowned developer who created IBM's Watson supercomputer.

Silicon Valley and Washington are gearing up for an important year on tech policy. President-elect Donald TrumpDonald TrumpScarborough Twitter storm over New Year's Eve party stretches into second day Spicer: 'Zero evidence' Russia influenced election Bolton: Putin needs to change before relations with Russia can improve MORE and a GOP Congress are taking power and could revisit a number of controversial regulations, with net neutrality high on that list. Silicon Valley had high hopes for comprehensive immigration reform in the coming year, with the tech-backed lobbying group FWD.us pushing for action. But those hopes were dashed with Trump's election. The president-elect vowed to build a wall on the Mexican border and floated a ban on Muslims entering the U.S. Tech groups have long pushed for policies that would make it easier for companies to attract workers.

Robots could soon be hiring and firing staff at the world's largest hedge fund under secret plans drawn up to improve efficiency. A team of engineers at US-based Bridgewater Associates is reportedly developing artificial intelligence which can run the firm without emotions getting in the way. Billionaire founder Ray Dalio is seeking to create a new business model where most employees are programmers and decisions are made by a computer. He appointed a clandestine team, called the Systemised Intelligence Lab, to work on the project early in 2015. It is overseen by David Ferruci, a renowned developer who created IBM's Watson supercomputer.

On October 4, 1986, the University of Alabama hosted Notre Dame in a game of football. Notre Dame had won the previous four contests, but this time Alabama was favored. It had a stifling defense and a swift senior linebacker named Cornelius Bennett. Ray Perkins, Alabama's head coach, said of him, "I don't think there's a better player in America." Early in the game, with the score tied, Bennett blitzed Notre Dame's quarterback, Steve Beuerlein. "I was like a speeding train, and Beuerlein just happened to be standing on the railroad track," Bennett told me recently. Football is essentially a spectacle of car crashes. In 2004, researchers at the University of North Carolina, examining data gathered from helmet-mounted sensors, discovered that many football collisions compare in intensity to a vehicle smashing into a wall at twenty-five miles per hour. Bennett, who weighed two hundred and thirty-five pounds, drove his shoulder into Beuerlein's chest and heard what sounded like a balloon being punctured--"basically, the air going out of him." Beuerlein landed on his back. He stood up, wobbly and dazed. "I saw mouths moving, but I heard no voices," he later said. After Bennett's "vicious, high-speed direct slam," as the Times put it, Alabama seized the momentum and won, 28–10. Following college, Bennett was drafted into the National Football League. Between 1987 and 1995, he played for the Buffalo Bills, and appeared in four Super Bowls. During his pro career, he made more than a thousand tackles, playing through sprains, muscle tears, broken bones, and concussions. I asked him how many concussions he'd had. "In my medical file, there are probably six." "I couldn't even begin to tell you." "I played a long time," he said. "Every week after a game, I got some sort of headache." In 1996, he signed a thirteen-million-dollar contract with the Atlanta Falcons. He received weekly injections of Toradol, an anti-inflammatory drug. "It was magic--it made me feel like I was twenty-four again," Bennett said. He helped carry Atlanta to the Super Bowl--his fifth. In 2000, at the age of thirty-five, Bennett retired and moved to Florida. He lived in a hotel in Miami's Bal Harbour area, worked on his golf handicap, and vacationed with his wife and friends in Europe and in the Napa Valley. Several of Bennett's football peers were having a far tougher time. Darryl Talley, a former Bills teammate, suffered from severe depression. Mike Webster, a Hall of Fame center for the Pittsburgh Steelers, had become a homeless alcoholic; he died, of a heart attack, in 2002. Three years later, Terry Long, another former Steeler, committed suicide by drinking antifreeze. Andre Waters, a former Philadelphia Eagles safety, killed himself with a gunshot to the head. A neuropathologist named Bennet Omalu autopsied Webster, Long, and Waters, and detected a pattern: each had a high concentration of an abnormal form of a protein, called tau, on his brain.

Pretty much all of the tech giants attend the vast Vegas expo - either to unveil new products or to clinch deals behind the scene. But in recent years it's been start-ups that have had many of the most eye-arresting and sensational reveals. There are more at this year's show than ever before, thanks in part to crowdfunding. They now have to convince retailers - hunting through the halls for the next bestsellers - that the promise of their concept videos has been delivered upon. Dozens of start-ups are also there thanks to help from governments and other national bodies - France, Israel, Ukraine and the Netherlands all have stands where they'll fly the flag for local talent.

Whether it was a billion compromised Yahoo accounts or state-sponsored Russian hackers muscling in on the US election, this past year saw hacks of unprecedented scale and temerity. And if history is any guide, next year should yield more of the same. It's hard to know for certain what lies ahead, but some themes began to present themselves toward the end of 2016 that will almost certainly continue well into next year. And the more we can anticipate them, the better we can prepare. Here's what we think 2017 will hold.

This is the second installment in a three-part review of 2016 in machine learning and deep learning. Part One, here, covered general trends. In Part Two, we review the year in open source machine learning and deep learning projects. Part Three will cover commercial machine learning and deep learning software and services. There are thousands of open source projects on the market today, and we cannot cover them all. We've selected the most relevant projects based on usage reported in surveys of data scientists, as well as development activity recorded in OpenHub. In this post, we limit the scope to projects with a non-profit governance structure, and those offered by commercial ventures that do not also provide licensed software. Part Three will include software vendors who offer open source "community" editions together with commercially licensed software.