When SAP veteran Bill McDermott took over the CEO spot at digital workflow company ServiceNow in October, his mandate focused on growth. "Should we choose to do'tuck-ins' to compliment what our customers need, to get us somewhere faster, we'll do that very carefully," he told CNBC. ServiceNow kicked off 2020 with one such "tuck-in": the acquisition of Israeli company Loom Systems, an AIOps company that uses artificial intelligence to give enterprise users insights into digital operations and fix IT issues. The acquisition symbolizes a bigger trend in enterprise technology: Acquiring AI startups enables technology vendors to capitalize, enhance or expand their capabilities while bringing scarce talent aboard. Last year, consolidation in the AI market hit record numbers.

To grasp how artificial intelligence will play out in higher education, and how we can strategically address these changes, we should think about how artificial intelligence might unfold over the next few years. In late 2019, professors research, create, critique, and teach various forms of artificial intelligence. Students, staff, and faculty increasingly experience artificial intelligence in digital devices, ranging from autonomous vehicles to software-guided computer game opponents, that are unsupported by the campus IT department. AI capabilities are gradually infusing the services, used by all in the campus community, of powerful computing enterprises such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft. Homegrown experiments are under way on our campuses, while vendors offer AI tools for us to purchase and implement.

Incredible footage shows the moment a British Paralympian swimmer with cerebral palsy stands up and takes her first steps wearing a robotic exoskeleton. Grace Harvey, 21, was able to take the special walk with the help of state-of-the-art technology developed in Japan -- giving her a day she will never forget. In the video, the swimmer from Ware, Hertfordshire, smiled nervously as she took her'first' tentative steps. She went on to giggle when a bystander said'You're running, Grace.' Swimmer Ms Harvey holds the European record for the 200 metre (656 feet) Individual Medley and is presently the British number one in the 100 metre (328 feet) backstroke event. She is currently training in the city of Suzuka, Japan, ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics in August.

Several industries are seeing the impact of robotics -- and medicine is no exception. While the progress of these applications has been slow compared to other industries, the impact could be huge: robotics in medicine can help to reduce human error, improve recovery time, and reduce hospital stays, ultimately enhancing patients' quality of life. The first medical robotic application appeared in 1985, when an early robotic surgical arm assisted in a neurosurgical biopsy surgery. Fifteen years later, the first fully FDA-approved system (known as the da Vinci surgery system) for laparoscopic surgery emerged, giving surgeons the ability to control surgical instruments indirectly via a console. Today, companies are leveraging advances in the tech to develop new robotic applications to explore the future of medicine -- including those related to bionics, disease discovery, and rehabilitation.

In anticipation of his upcoming conference presentation at Predictive Analytics World for Business Las Vegas, May 31-June 4, 2020, we asked Kumaran Ponnambalam, Analytics Architect at Cisco, a few questions about their deployment of predictive analytics. Catch a glimpse of his presentation, Using Association Rules Mining for Segmentation and Profiling, and see what's in store at the PAW Business conference in Las Vegas. Q: In your work with predictive analytics, what behavior or outcome do your models predict? A: My models deal with natural language understanding for contact center voice calls. They transcribe the calls and derive call summaries, intent and sentiment based on the transcriptions.

Berlin-based Merantix, a venture studio which specifically concentrates on building'AI companies', says it has raised a new €25M fund ($27M). Anchor investors include Trusted Insight, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, as well as further family offices from Europe. Co-founder Adrian Locher said in a statement that the successful fundraising "underpins Europe's competitive ability with regards to new transformative technologies and validates the innovative potential of Berlin. We are very excited to spearhead AI's incredible value potential and are eager to build more disruptive companies with our amazing team." Locher is a Swiss serial entrepreneur and investor and has founded more than 10 companies both in Europe and the US.

Online learning (aka E-Learning) is now considered to be an integral part of the education sector. In simple words, online learning refers to the type of learning where the learning process is mediated by the internet i.e. the learners use the internet to learn. Online learning is gaining tremendous popularity. It is also said to increase the knowledge retention rates from 25-60% in comparison to face-to-face training. Online learning owes much of its popularity and efficiency to machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI).

The Ethiopian Council of Ministers has decided to establish an artificial intelligence (AI) research and development center. The move was taken "to safeguard Ethiopia's national interests through the development of artificial intelligence services, products and solutions based on research, development and implementation," the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement issued on late Friday. The decision calls for "a conducive environment for beginner developers and startups working in the artificial intelligence sector." This was the latest of a series of measures taken by Ethiopia, Africa's second populous nation with a a population of about 107 million, to step up AI research and development in particular and advance information and Communications technology (ICT) in general. In November, Ethiopia signed a memo with Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group on the creation of an Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP).

Derek speaks in voiceover: After I returned back from the Navy and getting my undergraduate degree coming back to Indiana and working here at Crane. Derek speaks in voiceover: I've seen that there is an enormous amount of talent in Indiana. Derek speaks in voiceover: There's a whole lot of potential to create technology, to create business, to grow Indiana in a very positive way. Derek speaks in voiceover: cognitive science is going to fill the gap of how do I make cerebral systems. Mike speaks in voiceover: We are a systems and software engineering company.