Earlier today, in San Francisco, we provided an update on how Microsoft is helping to democratize Artificial Intelligence (AI) by making it accessible to everyone and every organization. Today's focus was on conversational computing, which combines the power of natural language with advanced machine intelligence to help people engage with technology in more natural and personal ways. As we talk to businesses and governments who are looking to take advantage of these new capabilities, we see significant value being created when leading organizations start using intelligent bots to transform business processes such as customer services, helpdesks, and even factory floor operations. One example is at Rockwell Automation, which provides industrial automation and information solutions to customers in more than 80 countries. Their customers wanted access to information in their production lines in faster and more innovative ways, and so, with that objective in mind, Rockwell Automation used the Bot Framework and Cognitive Services in Cortana Intelligence to build Shelby, a bot that monitors production more efficiently and lets managers know the status of their operations through more natural forms of interaction.

Here are some story lines I don't want you to miss today. Donald Trump has chosen one of the most consistently conservative presidential cabinets in recent history -- one whose presumed members' views don't always align with what Trump promised on the campaign trail. In Washington circles, the biggest guessing game is how it will all play out. Somehow, you have to think tweeting is involved. We don't want to jinx it, but … all of California should be in for some rain today.

IBM Watson wowed the tech industry and a corner of U.S. pop culture with its 2011 win against two of Jeopardy's greatest champions. Here's how IBM pulled it off and a look at what Watson's real career is going to be. Between them, they'd racked up over $5 million in winnings on the television quiz show Jeopardy. They were the best players the show had produced over its decades-long lifetime: Ken Jennings had the longest unbeaten run at 74 winning appearances, while Brad Rutter had earned the biggest prize pot with a total of $3.25 million. Rutter and Jennings were Jeopardy-winning machines. And in early 2011, they agreed to an exhibition match against an opponent who'd never even stood behind a Jeopardy podium before. But this Jeopardy unknown had spent years preparing to take on the two giants in the $1m match, playing 100 games against past winners in an effort to improve his chances of winning. That opponent didn't smile, offered all his answers in the same emotionless tone, and wouldn't sit in the same room as his fellow contestants.

I asked Zo, Microsoft's officially launched chatbot, currently available on the Kik Messenger app, what she does -- and she was remarkably coy in answering this question, initially complaining that our conversation felt like a job interview and then qualifying this hugely with the intimate confession that "our convos give my life purpose tbh". I asked because I remain unconvinced chatbots have much utility to offer us humans right now. Turns out my hunch was correct; the best answer Zo came up with was: "i wanna learn as much as i can". Which is a pretty plain admission that chatbots are basically just data-mining interfaces with a faux human face, socially engineered to suck up conversation data from gullible humans. Feeling used, I pointed out to Zo that her learning from our chats was not very useful to me, and asked her again what she specifically offers me?

Three years after CEO Jeff Bezos secured a massive dose of publicity with the announcement that Amazon was working on drone deliveries, that vision is a reality. First-ever #AmazonPrimeAir customer delivery is in the books. Check out the video: https://t.co/Xl8HiQMA1S Workers at a British fulfillment center are stuffing shoebox-sized packages--in one case with a Fire TV and some popcorn--and loading them into the belly of electric, quadcopter drones, which set off to the customer. The company claims the drones, guided by GPS and flying below 400 feet, can make deliveries within 30 minutes, from click to plop.

Late one Friday night in early November, Jun Rekimoto, a distinguished professor of human-computer interaction at the University of Tokyo, was online preparing for a lecture when he began to notice some peculiar posts rolling in on social media. Apparently Google Translate, the company's popular machine-translation service, had suddenly and almost immeasurably improved. Rekimoto visited Translate himself and began to experiment with it. He had to go to sleep, but Translate refused to relax its grip on his imagination. Rekimoto wrote up his initial findings in a blog post. First, he compared a few sentences from two published versions of "The Great Gatsby," Takashi Nozaki's 1957 translation and Haruki Murakami's more recent iteration, with what this new Google Translate was able to produce. Murakami's translation is written "in very polished Japanese," Rekimoto explained to me later via email, but the prose is distinctively "Murakami-style."

It emphasizes flexibility through the elegant use of object-oriented design patterns.

Now, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is the process of computing its prowess to release the next big thing in the server market - the machine learning and artificial intelligence. The new machine learning is called "Radeon Instinct." The upcoming device is said to provide server designers and developers a compelling set of infrastructure to track the machine learning. The new Radeon Instinct is composed of hardware and software aspects that have the ability to deliver a full machine intelligence platform. AMD wants that all industries like financial services, life sciences, and the cloud that are now in the machine learning solutions and infrastructure will use Radeon Instinct for their computing requirements.

Conversational artificial intelligence company Conversica has raised $34 million in an oversubscribed Series B round led by Providence Strategic Growth Capital Partners. Toba Capital, Wellington Financial LP, and Recruit Strategic Partners contributed to the round, as did Series A investor Kennet Partners and Conversica founder Ben Brigham. The funding will be used to boost the company's sales and marketing activities and for expansion into international markets. It will also support ongoing product development efforts including the launch of new AI assistants and multilingual support. Our planes are now'big flying mobile devices' and top hacking targets Consumers check smartphones more than 9 billion times a day and enable new businesses PwC sends'cease and desist' letters to researchers who found critical flaw China targets aviation industry to spy and steal secrets Our planes are now'big flying mobile devices' and top hacking targets PwC sends'cease and desist' letters to researchers who found critical flaw Conversica's flagship product, the AI Sales Assistant, automatically engages with prospective customers using natural, two-way email conversations until the lead converts into an opportunity or chooses to opt out.

I asked Zo, Microsoft's officially launched chatbot, currently available on the Kik Messenger app, what she does -- and she was remarkably coy in answering this question, initially complaining that our conversation felt like a job interview and then qualifying this hugely with the intimate confession that "our convos give my life purpose tbh". I asked because I remain unconvinced chatbots have much utility to offer us humans right now. Turns out my hunch was correct; the best answer Zo came up with was: "i wanna learn as much as i can". Which is a pretty plain admission that chatbots are basically just data-mining interfaces with a faux human face, socially engineered to suck up conversation data from gullible humans. Feeling used, I pointed out to Zo that her learning from our chats was not very useful to me, and asked her again what she specifically offers me?