Skymind, a company developing an open-source deep-learning library for Java, along with tools for implementation, today closed 3 million in financing from Tencent, SV Angel, GreatPoint Ventures, Mandra Capital and Y Combinator. Skymind was previously part of Y Combinator's Winter 2016 batch and has taken money from Joe Montana's Liquid 2 Ventures and a number of other prominent angels. Chris Nicholson, the company's co-founder and CEO, decided to start the company after he noticed the steady stream of deep-learning researchers leaving the halls of academia for the six- and seven-figure salaries of large tech companies. With human capital becoming a finite resource, the challenge quickly became about helping companies leverage existing resources to play in the world of deep learning. Eighty percent of the world's programmers are versed in Java programming.

Mobile ovens inside the delivery truck cook the pie right before it reaches its destination. Mobile ovens inside the delivery truck cook the pie right before it reaches its destination. Only instead of a dozen blue-collar workers pouring marinara sauce, Zume Pizza has -- you guessed it! Their job is to solve a familiar problem: It's game night. It arrives later than you'd hoped, aaaand it's cold.

Despite escalating industry pressure for approval of package-delivery drones, safety experts and federal documents indicate widespread flights aren't likely before the next decade. U.S. aviation authorities only recently kicked off the formal, time-consuming process of defining the types of collision-avoidance systems considered essential for such operations to receive broad regulatory authorization. Drafting the technical standards is projected to take three or four years, envisioning a suite of ground-based and airborne sensors that haven't yet been developed. Even strong proponents of unmanned aerial vehicles predict that delivering packages to individual customers probably won't gain significant momentum until at least roughly 2020. "It's not outside the realm of possibility that by the end of the decade, we could see more routine uses" of package-delivery drones, according to Paul McDuffee, co-chair of the federal standards-setting panel and a high-ranking official with Boeing Co. BA -0.13 % 's drone-making unit, Insitu Inc.

Virtual reality is on the cusp of becoming mainstream, but one startup in Japan is betting the technology won't really succeed unless it cracks a critical piece of the puzzle: human eyeballs. Fove Inc. is introducing the world's first commercially available VR goggles equipped with tiny infrared cameras to follow eye movements. By tracking human irises, the gadget aims to reduce motion sickness, improve graphics performance and enhance social experiences by making virtual eye-contact possible, says Yuka Kojima, Fove's founder and chief executive officer. "We want to be the company that figures out VR's unsolved problems," Kojima said. "The immediate goal for now is to get as many headsets into the hands of developers as possible."

Machine Learning, driven by the rise of big data and evolving technologies, is emerging as a powerful quantitative investment tool, with financial advisers increasingly recognising the benefits it can bring to investors, according to Man AHL. A recent survey of financial advisers, who attended a series of adviser events held by Man AHL across Australia earlier this month, found that nearly three quarters of advisers (74%) believe Machine Learning, a branch of artificial intelligence, has the potential to change the way we invest in the future. Speaking at the adviser events, Man AHL's Oxford-based Chief Scientist Dr. Anthony Ledford said that Machine Learning has become increasingly important to the alternative investment management industry as it deals with larger and more complex data-sets. "The rise of Machine Learning in quantitative investing is powered by three separate revolutions: the growth in computing power, the explosion of data generation and the maturing of methodologies from statistics, computer science, mathematics and engineering, amongst other disciplines." "As more data become available, sophisticated Machine Learning models enable new patterns to be detected that humans can't easily spot. The technology is a significant area of research focus for Man AHL and we believe our enhanced focus on Machine Learning will be strongly supportive of the evolution of our quantitative investment strategies," Dr. Ledford said.

With thousands of people in your area using Tinder to find love, it's easy for your own profile to be overlooked. The firm understands it's hard to get noticed among the sea of profiles and is now testing a feature that places paid user at the top for 30 minutes - but for a price. Called Tinder Boost, this new premium feature aims to increase users' chances for a match, as it gives them up to 10 times more profile views than the standard method. Tinder is testing a feature that places paid user profiles at the top of their area for 30mins. Tinder Boost can be activated swiping through profiles in the app.

Google has helped build intense speculation for its October 4 event in San Francisco, where it's expected to reveal new phones aimed at consumers that will power a new virtual reality platform, and possibly other smart home devices. Now that the buzz has reached a football-stadium roar, here comes the hard part: living up to the hype. Google has been teasing the event as one for the history books. A tweet Monday from Hiroshi Lockheimer, the company's senior vice president of Android, Chrome OS and Google Play, turned up the volume on the buzz. We announced the 1st version of Android 8 years ago today.

Artificial intelligence (AI) isn't new but the rise of mobile and cloud computing, combined with big data and cheap computing power, is driving a resurgence. Convergent technologies mean AI is finding new uses in financial services. AI will be used in "every single segment of financial services", predicts Christophe Chazot, group head of innovation, HSBC. "The software is getting more intelligent in a human sense, mimicking human reasoning." The technology can help wealth advisors, back office staff and operations, traders and corporate finance teams.

In the fall of 2010, I traveled to New Zealand, and one of the places I visited was the small south island city of Christchurch. I was charmed by the tree-lined Avon River, the English-style cathedral in the main square, and the mountains looming in the distance. Inside the cathedral was a stack of poems with a moving message of peace. I saved one to tack on my cork board at home, where it remains to this day. Three months later I turned on the news to see the Christchurch cathedral splintered and broken, its spire crumbled to the ground.

Humanity has a major food problem. The world's population is expected to increase significantly over the next three decades, but our capacity for food production will struggle to keep pace. Although global fertility rates are actually falling, a general increase in life expectancy will mean a steady increase in headcount during our lifetimes. One 2015 UN DESA report claims the world's population will hit 9.7 billion by 2050 – an increase of some 2.3 billion over today. Of course, a general rise in life expectancy reflects a higher standard of living for more of the world, which is cause for celebration.