We tend to think of R and other such ML tools only in the context of the workplace, to do "weighty" things aimed at saving millions. A little judicious use of R may help us hugely in our personal lives too. The ideas of regression, classification trees etc. can be powerful tools in valuation, as I found out. Recently, I was in a five-car accident on the infamous 101 in the San Francisco bay area. Luckily, none of us required an ambulance and all of us walked away.

The Cupertino tech firm has significantly scaled back its auto department, with hundreds of employees - from a team of around 1,000 - said to have left, according to new reports. The company is thought to be refocusing its efforts on developing software for self-driving cars, rather than building its own vehicle. Earlier this year, a concept video revealed ideas for a futuristic-looking Apple car, with a wide dashboard display and smart capabilities. Claims that Apple is working on cars may seem like a leap, but it isn't the first time such projects have been discussed by the Californian firm. In an interview last year, Apple board member Mickey Drexler said that before his death in 2011 Steve Jobs had considered building a car.

Technology company Nauto has entered into agreements with BMW i Ventures and Toyota Research Institute, as well as with Allianz Ventures, part of the leading global financial service provider and insurance company Allianz Group. Nauto developed deep learning capabilities that run both in the cloud and on retrofit devices that can be mounted in any vehicle. Nauto is already deployed into commercial passenger, logistics and delivery fleets and enables these fleets to manage vehicle and driver safety and operate more efficiently. Nauto detects driver attention, coaches drivers and warns of collisions, keeps fleet managers in touch with their drivers and helps them optimize vehicle deployment. In fact, Nauto claims, its algorithms provide 5X more risk differentiation between the best and the worst drivers.

The World Economic Forum has made an important discovery: San Francisco is a major center for discussing innovation, policy, and the future of civil society. On Monday, the venerable international organization announced the opening of its third office outside its Geneva headquarters, after New York and Beijing. Dubbed the Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in San Francisco, the new office takes its name from the current big-think thesis of WEF's founder, German business theorist Klaus Schwab. As Alan Murray explained earlier this year, Schwab's first three revolutions featured steam power, electricity, and computers; the new one involves sensors and artificial intelligence. WEF is famous for its snowy annual thinkfest in Davos, Switzerland, where global leaders and other opinionated folks come together to discuss the state of the world.

Samsung is all out to join the artificial intelligence (AI) race as the South Korean giant has agreed to acquire Viv Labs, the startup behind Viv an AI assistant system which is "radically simplifying the world by providing an intelligent interface to everything." Interestingly, Viv was co-founded by Dag Kittlaus, Adam Cheyer and Chris Brigham, the creators of Apple's Siri. The trio founded Viv in 2012, which is an intelligent assistant and an open platform wherein any developer can add more knowledge and capabilities to it. Viv was unveiled at Disrupt NY tech conference in New York back in May. The news about Samsung acquiring Viv Labs was confirmed by TechCrunch, and also through a blog post by Kittlaus.

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. on Thursday said it agreed to acquire Viv Labs Inc., the company behind open artificial intelligence platform Viv. The financial details of the transactions were not disclosed by the company. With Viv, Samsung will be able to unlock and offer new service experiences for its customers, including one that simplifies user interfaces, understands the context of the user and offers the user the most appropriate and convenient suggestions and recommendations, the company said in a statement. As part of the acquisition, the founding team will work closely with Samsung's Mobile Communications business, but continue to operate independently under its existing leadership, the statement added. Viv was founded by Dag Kittlaus, Adam Cheyer and Chris Brigham, the original creators of Siri, in 2012.

From Siri creator Dag Kittlaus comes Viv, a product that aims to be the next generation personal assistant. Kittlaus sat down with USA TODAY's Ed Baig to talk about Viv and where he thinks its headed. Samsung plans to make its range of smartphones smarter with its acquisition of Viv, an AI virtual assistant platform started by the man who created Siri. SAN FRANCISCO -- Samsung Electronics just accelerated into the voice-assistant fast lane. The South Korean electronics company, which has been grappling with extended fallout from its recalled Galaxy Note 7, announced Wednesday that it was buying Viv, the machine-learning virtual assistant company started by Siri founder Dag Kittlaus.

One balmy May evening, thirty of Silicon Valley's top entrepreneurs gathered in a private room at the Berlinetta Lounge, in San Francisco. Paul Graham considered the founders of Instacart, DoorDash, Docker, and Stripe, in their hoodies and black jeans, and said, "This is Silicon Valley, right here." All the founders were graduates of Y Combinator, the startup "accelerator" that Graham co-founded: a three-month boot camp, run twice a year, in how to become a "unicorn"--Valleyspeak for a billion-dollar company. Thirteen thousand fledgling software companies applied to Y Combinator this year, and two hundred and forty were accepted, making it more than twice as hard to get into as Stanford University. After graduating thirteen hundred startups, YC now boasts the power--and the peculiarities--of an island nation. At the noisy end of the room, Graham was cheerfully encouraging improbable schemes. At the quiet end, Sam Altman was absorbed in private calculations. When founders came over to ...

The drone turned slowly with a loud buzzing sound, red and blue lights flashing, and hit me right in the eyes with a spotlight. "Security has been notified," boomed a smooth voice from the aircraft's twin loudspeakers. Startup Aptonomy thinks this experience can keep intruders out of factories, warehouses, and other facilities more cheaply than human guards can and more effectively than cameras and alarms. I received the drone security guard treatment in a demonstration at the company's testing area on Treasure Island, an old naval base in San Francisco Bay. Cofounder Mihail Pivtoraiko says his drones will be ready to go on patrol next year.

This month, US home improvement retailer Lowe's will introduce the LoweBot – an artificially intelligent (AI) robot – into 11 of its San Francisco Bay stores. Tapping into the rising influence of AI in all service industries, the 5ft tall robot, developed by Silicon Valley technologists Fellow Robots, has been commandeered to ease the customer journey in-store. This frees up (human) sales staff for more complex, nuanced and creative brand-consumer connections. The LoweBot uses 3D scanning tech to detect the human body, prompting it to greet customers. It's also equipped with speech-recognition tools, allowing it to verbally respond to basic questions relating to stock availability or the location of items in-store.