HYDERABAD: To use artificial intelligence (AI) in the field of eyecare, Microsoft India, in collaboration with L V Prasad Eye Institute launched Microsoft Intelligent Network for Eyecare (MINE), on Monday. This is a consortium of different institutions with similar goals who have joined hands to apply artificial intelligence to help eliminate avoidable blindness and scale delivery of eyecare services across the globe. The partner organizations, which include Bascom Palmer from University of Miami, Flaum Eye Institute from University of Rochester, Federal University of Sao Paulo and Brien Holden Vision Institute, will collectively work on diverse datasets of patients across geographies to come up with machine learning predictive models for vision impairment and eye disease. Microsoft will deploy its cloud platform technology Cortana Intelligence Suite for advanced analytics and to build intelligence models on eyecare. "MINE, a global collaboration, reinforces Microsoft's belief in the combined power of data, cloud and advanced analytics to drive public good," said Anil Bhansali, managing director of Microsoft India (R&D).

He is a German computer scientist and artist known for his work on machine learning, Artificial Intelligence (AI), artificial neural networks, digital physics, and low-complexity art. "We need to be super careful with artificial intelligence. It is potentially more dangerous than nukes." That was Elon Musk two years ago, on Twitter. What does it mean for a technology, when it faces serious doubts from a man who is passionate about creating a better world through innovation? Since its beginnings in the 1950s, artificial intelligence has been a favourite subject of science fiction. But now AI has entered the realm of fact: several studies predict that intelligent machines will have a big impact on how we work, how we move and even how wars are fought. Innovators and scientists around the world believe that now is the time to ensure that AI is beneficial above all for humans. And even if there are plausible reasons to be anxious about machines that could one day be more intelligent than we are, many scientists are ready to take up the challenge. Some people fret that artificial intelligence will end civilization as we know it. Others believe it can solve every problem.

Will skills be as vibrant as apps?

We are in the midst of an extraordinary period of computing platform revolution, a renaissance in artificial intelligence, which is going to change the lives of billions of people around the globe. No other technology is gaining more momentum, seeing more progress--or inciting more fear--than the radical sharpening and rise of intelligence of machines. While the promise of AI has been known for years, the current pace of breakthrough is stunning. Machines are set to reach and exceed human performance on more and more tasks, thanks to advances in dedicated hardware, faster and deeper access to big data, and newer sophisticated algorithms that provide the ability to learn and improve based on feedback. AI has driven crucial progress in fields such as medicine, where it has spurred breakthroughs in disease diagnosis and the development of treatment plans.

Editor's Note: With 2017 now upon us, RCR Wireless News has gathered predictions from across the mobile telecommunications space on what they expect to see in the new year. There's no doubt that the "internet of things" has immense potential for business impact, but customers and end users need to get fully comfortable with the anticipated return on investment in order to move beyond maker projects and proof-of-concepts to real investment. Without understanding business value and potential ROI, IoT adoption will stifle and slow. There's a bit of a catch-22 in these early days because companies that have successfully deployed an IoT solution typically don't want to share metrics of their success with competitors. We're seeing progress on this front with more companies willing to document measurable gains in case studies, but it will also take time for the masses to trust that gains made elsewhere will translate to their organizations.

Nintendo's new Switch gaming console is off to an underwhelming start. The new machine, a tablet-sized device with wireless controllers that can be used anywhere but also connects to TVs, will go on sale 3 March at a price of $300 in the US and £279.99 in the UK, with a brand-new Zelda game as its launch title. None of that, however, was enough to convince investors that it will be a big moneymaker for the Kyoto-based company, whose shares fell 5.8 perc ent to 23,750 yen (£169.96) after Nintendo executives held a presentation in Tokyo on Friday. Nintendo is counting on the Switch to end years of pain at its console division, which released a successor to the popular Wii in 2012 that flopped. After shunning the smartphone market for years, its long-awaited foray into mobile gaming got off to a rough start, with last month's disappointing debut of Super Mario Run.

One of the newer technologies getting buzz these days is the voice-enabled digital assistant – and new data from Accenture [pdf] suggests that it's not all hype. In fact, the use of embedded voice-enabled digital assistants in smartphones and PC/laptops has reached the mainstream among 14-17-year-olds, per Accenture's survey of almost 26,000 consumers across 26 countries. The results indicate that 31% of 14-17-year-olds regularly use voice-enabled digital assistants, with another 20% just getting started using them. Adoption – not surprisingly – declines with age, but still remains above one-third (38%) of Millennials (18-34) and higher than one-quarter (27%) of Gen Xers (35-54). Although only 15% of Boomers (55) are currently using voice-enabled digital assistants, another 35% are interested in doing so.

On Sept. 16, 2007, a Japanese YouTuber who goes by the handle "Computing Aesthetic" uploaded a forty-eight-second-long video with the deafening title, "ULTRA MEGA SUPER LUCKY SHOT." The video shows a high-scoring shot in Peggle, a vastly popular video game, loosely based on Japanese pachinko machines, in which a ball-bearing clatters down the screen, accruing points as it bounces through a crowd of candy-colored pegs, which disappear shortly after being touched; more bounces, more points. Although Peggle involves some skill--before firing the ball, the player must carefully aim the launcher that dangles at the top of the screen--you are principally at the mercy of the luck of the bounce. In Computing Aesthetic's footage, the points pile up as the ball bounces fortuitously between pegs. To underscore the seemingly miraculous shot, Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" blares euphorically until, in the video's final moments, the ball-bearing sinks into the bucket at the base of the screen and the words "FEVER SCORE" flash onscreen.

What's ahead as the field matures? Since the concept took hold, big data has made big waves. The field of analytics has developed rapidly since the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) released its landmark 2011 report, Big data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity. But much value remains on the table as organizations wrestle with issues of strategy and implementation. In this episode of the McKinsey Podcast, MGI partner Michael Chui and McKinsey senior partner Nicolaus Henke speak with McKinsey Publishing's Simon London about the changing landscape for data and analytics, opportunities in industries from retail to healthcare, and implications for workers. Simon London: Welcome to this edition of the McKinsey Podcast. Today we're going to be talking about data analytics and how organizations can use the unprecedented volume of data at their disposal to transform industries, create new business models, and, frankly, make better decisions across everything they do. Joining me here in London to discuss the issues is Nicolaus Henke, the global leader of McKinsey Analytics and chairman of QuantumBlack, an acquisition McKinsey made in 2015. And joining us from San Francisco is Michael Chui, a partner with the McKinsey Global Institute. Nico and Michael are among the coauthors of The age of analytics: Competing in a data-driven world, which is a new McKinsey Global Institute research report. Nicolaus Henke: Thank you very much. Simon London: Before we get into detail on the latest research, I think it might be helpful to take a step back and clarify what we mean in terms of the age of analytics. Cynics would say, "Come on.

CB Insights revealed the AI 100 winners during The Innovation Summit in Santa Barbara, a gathering of top executives and investors to explore the industries of the future. The CB Insights research team selected the winners based on a combination of data submitted by the companies, responses to interview questions and the company's Mosaic Score. Mosaic is an algorithm built with funding from the National Science Foundation that gives predictive intelligence into the health of private companies. "At Ayasdi, we see clearly that intelligent applications enabled by AI and big data will be as transformative for knowledge-based processes as the industrial revolution was for mechanical processes," said Ayasdi CEO Gurjeet Singh. "Intelligent applications running on our platform are already becoming a fundamental part of our customer's operations with breakthrough results. We are delighted to be recognized by CB Insights for the success our clients are having in deploying Ayasdi to use AI to solve real-world business problems at scale."