A timeline outlining the evolution of Windows 10 has confirmed that two major updates are in the pipeline for 2017. The company is known to be working on a drastically different-looking user interface for the operating system, known as Project Neon, which is likely to arrive with the second update. The timeline, which doesn't reveal any specific dates, was spotted by onMSFT at Microsoft's Ignite conference in Australia. However, the Creators update – the first of the two – is currently being tested by Windows Insiders and looks set to land in April. The graphic shows that Microsoft plans to release the second update to consumers towards the end of the year, before a stage dubbed'production' kicks off in 2018.

Artificial intelligence ( AI) is the latest buzz word of the tech industry, with smart algorithms powering your personal assistants and recommending which TV shows to binge on next. And now, AI is getting ready to make music: Brisbane, Australia-based digital music startup Popgun wants to use machine learning to figure out which music is trending on services like Apple Music and Spotify - and then train algorithms to write songs that the users of these services may also like. Popgun is just one of eleven music startups that are part of the inaugural Techstars Music class, a new program run by tech incubator Techstars that gives participating companies $120,000 launch capital as well as a three-month incubation program hosted in Los Angeles. Others include Hurdl, a Nashville-based startup that wants to incorporate wireless LED bracelets into live concerts; Jaak, a London-based startup that is building a rights management system based on the same technology as the crypto-currency Bitcoin; Weav, a new York-based company that is developing generative music for fitness studios that's timed to your heartbeat; and Pippa, a New York-based startup that is working on dynamic ad insertion for podcasts. Techstars Music is being led by Bob "Moz" Moczydlowsky, who previously headed Twitter's music efforts.

Matchmaking connects multiple players to participate in online player-versus-player games. Current matchmaking systems depend on a single core strategy: create fair games at all times. These systems pair similarly skilled players on the assumption that a fair game is best player experience. We will demonstrate, however, that this intuitive assumption sometimes fails and that matchmaking based on fairness is not optimal for engagement. In this paper, we propose an Engagement Optimized Matchmaking (EOMM) framework that maximizes overall player engagement. We prove that equal-skill based matchmaking is a special case of EOMM on a highly simplified assumption that rarely holds in reality. Our simulation on real data from a popular game made by Electronic Arts, Inc. (EA) supports our theoretical results, showing significant improvement in enhancing player engagement compared to existing matchmaking methods.

Partial Least Squares (PLS) methods have been heavily exploited to analyse the association between two blocs of data. These powerful approaches can be applied to data sets where the number of variables is greater than the number of observations and in presence of high collinearity between variables. Different sparse versions of PLS have been developed to integrate multiple data sets while simultaneously selecting the contributing variables. Sparse modelling is a key factor in obtaining better estimators and identifying associations between multiple data sets. The cornerstone of the sparsity version of PLS methods is the link between the SVD of a matrix (constructed from deflated versions of the original matrices of data) and least squares minimisation in linear regression. We present here an accurate description of the most popular PLS methods, alongside their mathematical proofs. A unified algorithm is proposed to perform all four types of PLS including their regularised versions. Various approaches to decrease the computation time are offered, and we show how the whole procedure can be scalable to big data sets.

ACM has recognized 53 of its members as ACM Fellows for major contributions in areas including artificial intelligence, cryptography, computer architecture, high performance computing and programming languages. The achievements of the 2016 ACM Fellows are accelerating the digital revolution, and affect almost every aspect of how we live and work today. "As nearly 100,000 computing professionals are members of our association, to be selected to join the top one percent is truly an honor," explains ACM President Vicki L. Hanson. "Fellows are chosen by their peers and hail from leading universities, corporations and research labs throughout the world. Their inspiration, insights and dedication bring immeasurable benefits that improve lives and help drive the global economy."

Self-driving cars wearing a Hyundai badge will hit the road inside three years, with the company confirming it will debut an autonomous driving system for highway usage by 2020. The announcement makes Hyundai the car brand with the most affordable range of products to have communicated its roll-out of technology that can drive without human input. However unlike some competitors it has placed caveats on its system. Hyundai Motor Company senior research engineer Byungyong You told Drive that the initial release of its system will be able to accelerate, brake, steer, change lanes and detect any obstacle automatically for an extended period of time, but on highways only. "We are aiming to do highway first and next we will expand it to the urban driving conditions," he said.

The most successful artificial intelligence (AI) systems will be those comprising an emotional intelligence almost indistinguishable from human-to-human interaction, according to Bronwyn van der Merwe, group director at Fjord Australia and New Zealand -- Accenture Interactive's design and innovation arm. While the concept of AI is not new, in 2017 van der Merwe expects emotional intelligence to emerge as the driving force behind what she called the next generation in AI, as humans will be drawn to human-like interaction. As businesses continue to experiment with the Internet of Things, interesting use cases are emerging. Here are some of the most common ways IoT is deployed in the enterprise. Speaking with ZDNet, van der Merwe explained that building on the first phase of AI technology, emotional intelligence enhances AI's ability to understand emotional input, and continually adapt to and learn from information to provide human-like responses in real time.

Building neural networks models and implementing learning consist of lots of math this might be boring. Herein, some tools help researchers to build network easily. Thus, a researcher who knows the basic concept of neural networks can build a model without applying any math formula. So, Weka is one of the most common machine learning tool for machine learning studies. It is a java-based API developed by Waikato University, New Zealand.

The Pacific Ocean might be hiding a whole other continent, Bill Gates wants to tax the robots, and some other robots crash in the midst of a road race. A pretty thrilling Monday morning, we'd say. Funds could help humans find new work when automation takes over. How would you deal with the likelihood that robots and automation will lead to many people losing their jobs? For Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, the answer is straightforward: tax the robots.

Big Data - The ability to capture and process large amounts of data in real time will enhance companies' ability to gain better insights as well as predict customer behaviours. Censors can help understand and respond to customers' reactions in real time. Data scientists will become an in-demand profession! Robots - Software robots will be providing first line customer service and support, not only reducing costs for companies but delivering a better service by continuously learning and getting better through AI, and allowing real agents to focus on the more complex problems. VR & AR - Virtual and mixed reality [Augmented Reality] provide new exciting opportunities.