Whether your interaction with artificial intelligence (AI) is limited to science-fiction or you spend more time in your day talking to Siri and Alexa than actual humans, you can't hide from the fact AI is changing the world. This week, the UK's new digital strategy was launched, which dedicated £17.3m to research and development of robotics and AI. Out of the industries welcoming this technology with open arms, finance and banking is one of the biggest. It's not hard to see why: when companies are dealing with large amounts of data, handing over control to a machine learning system that can analyse and understand information much faster than a human being is an obvious benefit. Where is this new technology having an impact in the finance sector?

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Bloq, a provider of blockchain technology solutions for global enterprises, announced that it has acquired Skry (formerly Coinalytics), a pioneer in blockchain analytics, to accelerate the development of its analytics capabilities and open the door for Artificial Intelligence (AI) on its platform. With the acquisition, Bloq wants to enhance its suite of analysis tools and position itself to maximize the value of blockchain data sets through AI and machine learning. The Chicago-based company focuses on solving key business issues surrounding security, provenance, authentication and reconciliation. The new acquisition, whose detailed terms haven't been disclosed, includes Skry's intellectual property and team, which seems a perfect fit for Bloq's focus on empowering better visibility and decision-making in a multi-blockchain, multi-network world. "Financial institutions will need a full suite of tools to take blockchain [technology]'s role from high-tech database to business-driver," Bloq's Co-Founder and Chairman Matthew Roszak explained to Bitcoin Magazine.

Ride hailing company Uber Technologies has for years used a secret tool to deceive the authorities in markets where its service faced resistance by law enforcement or was banned, the New York Times reported, citing sources. An Uber tool called Greyball used data collected from the Uber app and other methods to find and circumvent officials, the NYT reported on Friday. The service was able to show them a fake app populated with'ghost' cars and cancel their rides. Uber has for years used a secret tool to deceive the authorities in markets where its service faced resistance by law enforcement or was banned, the New York Times has claimed. In one example, Uber was able to create a'fake' service to fool investigators.

The feature, which was first showcased at Google I/O last spring, was initially made available only to Google Pixel phone users, but as of this week, Google announced that many more Android users will be enjoying Google Assistant. The feature began rolling out to Nougat and Marshmallow devices the week of February 26 and continues to become available to more users every day. If you have an Android device and want to get Google Assistant working on it but aren't sure how, we've put together a comprehensive guide of everything you need to know to activate and begin using Google Assistant on your device. Google's virtual assistant has begun rolling out to more users this week. Find out if your device is compatible.

In this post, we are going to introduce you to the Support Vector Machine (SVM) machine learning algorithm. We will follow a similar process to our recent post Naive Bayes for Dummies; A Simple Explanation by keeping it short and not overly-technical. The aim is to give those of you who are new to machine learning a basic understanding of the key concepts of this algorithm. A Support Vector Machine (SVM) is a supervised machine learning algorithm that can be employed for both classification and regression purposes. SVMs are more commonly used in classification problems and as such, this is what we will focus on in this post.

If you have an Android phone running Android 6.0 Marshmallow OS and above, check it, you might have a new feature available -- the Google Assistant is now rolling out to all such devices. It is different from Google's previous voice offerings such as Google Now since it not only lets user conduct conversations with it, but also evolves according to usage. The rollout, which will occur in the form of a Google Play Services update, was announced last week. Gummi Hafsteinsson, Google Assistant product lead, said in the company's official press release issued on Sunday: "Our goal is to make the Assistant available anywhere you need it. It came to Android Wear 2.0--via new smartwatches--just a few weeks ago and, as we previewed in January, the Assistant is also coming to TVs and cars. With this update, hundreds of millions of Android users will now be able to try out the Google Assistant."

Kaplan Professional has announced it acquired an artificial intelligence company in an effort to create new tools for financial advisers amid a changing environment. In a new announcement yesterday, Kaplan said it has now acquired Red Marker. Kaplan Australia and New Zealand managing director Rob Regan said the acquisition would enable Kaplan to broaden its compliance solutions to the financial services sector through artificial intelligence. "We are investing in real-time learning with the aim of further equipping advisers with the tools they need to maximise their success in a rapidly changing landscape," he said. "By enabling advisers to confidently embrace compliance, it will allow them to continually increase their knowledge in a reportable manner. "Adding Red Marker to the Kaplan portfolio will accelerate the development of personalised and adaptive learning engines in the financial services sector." Red Marker principals and staff will continue with the business, the statement said. Red Marker managing director Matt Symons said, "Our clients are really enthusiastic about Artemis.

Google is about to make more Androids even smarter. The tech giant is rolling out its Google Assistant to devices running on the Nougat and Marshmallow versions of its Android software. The firm first revealed the expansion at the Mobile World Congress and users in the US will be the first to receive the update – Australia, Canada, the UK and Germany are set to follow. Google is rolling out its Google Assistant to devices running on Nougat and Marshmallow. The firm first revealed the expansion at the Mobile World Congress and users in the US will be the first to receive the update – Australia, Canada, the UK and Germany are set to follow. Google has yet to reveal a detailed list of Android devices that are eligible to download Google Assistant.

Beginning today, Google Assistant is opening up to new devices around the world. Both Nougat and Marshmallow-powered phones are gaining access to the artificial intelligence platform. Google is making the feature live in select countries to start, so you may not get to use Google Assistant for a couple of days, weeks, and or even months. The first set of people get it are English-speaking users in the United States. After that, English-speaking users in Australia will be next.