When it comes to AI (Artificial Intelligence), VCs (venture capitalists) continue to be aggressive with their fundings. During the third quarter, 965 AI-related companies in the US raised a total of $13.5 billion. In fact, this year should see a record in total fundings (last year's total came to $16.8 billion). Some of the deals have been, well, staggering. Just look at the $1 billion that Microsoft shelled out for an equity stake in OpenAI (the company is one of the few that is pursuing Strong AI). So what has been the result of all this activity? What have been the breakthroughs for AI this year?

The global market intelligence firm predicts that about 51.3 percent of China's GDP will be digitalization-related by 2023 as the country's enterprises step up digitalizing their businesses.

At the last Democratic presidential debate, the technologist candidate Andrew Yang emphatically declared that "we're in the process of potentially losing the AI arms race to China right now." As evidence, he cited Beijing's access to vast amounts of data and its substantial investment in research and development for artificial intelligence. Yang and others--most notably the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, which released its interim report to Congress last month--are right about China's current strengths in developing AI and the serious concerns this should raise in the United States. But framing advances in the field as an "arms race" is both wrong and counterproductive. Instead, while being clear-eyed about China's aggressive pursuit of AI for military use and human rights-abusing technological surveillance, the United States and China must find their way to dialogue and cooperation on AI.

Sougwen Chung is an internationally renowned multi-disciplinary artist and researcher, who uses hand-drawn and technologically-reproduced marks to address the closeness between person-to-person and person-to-machine communication. She is a former research fellow at the M.I.T. Media Lab and current Artist in Residence at Bell Labs and New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. For the uninitiated, what is human-machine collaboration? Sougwen Chung: Human-machine collaboration is a perspective of technology not as a tool, but as a collaborator. It stems from an understanding that the relationship between humans and their tools have changed.

While moldering pumpkins, denuded mum plants, and lawns strewn with leaves can be hidden by a heavy blanket of snow, neglecting to keep up on tech will surely secure a place for you on the naughty list. Not worth the risk when you can easily catch up on the latest goings-on in ITOps, AIOPs, and IT monitoring with our blog. According to a recent article in BizTech Magazine, Forrester predicts over half of surveyed enterprises are expected to adopt AI in the next four years, while recent data from AIOps Exchange agrees with a prediction of 68 percent. This adoption is continuing to be driven by the ever-increasing volume, variety, and velocity of data generated by IT. It's not news that technical complexity is increasing, nor that digital transformation and AIOps adoption are becoming critical to effective data analysis.

Melissa Mulholland was 16 weeks pregnant with her second child when her doctor noticed something unusual in an ultrasound scan. It was a rare fetal condition called posterior urethral valves, PUV, and it meant her son wouldn't survive the womb without medical intervention. She was fortunate to have a doctor skilled in detecting the condition and intervening to address it, and the good news is that her son, Conor, is now 5 years old. But the experience left Mulholland thinking about the families who aren't so lucky to have such expert health care. She wondered if technology could be a solution. She's not an engineer, and doesn't have a technical background, but she works at Microsoft, so she's familiar with the latest technologies in her role working with the company's cloud customers and partners. She asked a question that not a lot of people would ask: could artificial intelligence help?

After adjusting your search parameters, press Enter on your keyboard or click on the red magnifying glass to run your query again. Murdoch plan to reunite Fox with News Corp. finds few fans Several analysts said the potential recombination is unlikely to solve one of the key problems facing Fox and News Corp. -- low valuations relative to their peers. Norah O'Donnell will become anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News and Gayle King is getting two new morning show co-hosts as CBS News seeks to boost the programs' ratings and put a tumultuous, scandal-scarred period behind it. In February, the YourNewsWire page on Facebook was at its peak popularity, boosted by its salacious post claiming that Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, was Fidel Castro's love child. Brian Ross, the veteran ABC News investigative correspondent who embarrassed the network late last year with an on-air report suggesting former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn had been told by President Donald Trump to make contact with Russian officials during the 2016 campaign for the Oval...

Observe.AI, the leader in AI-powered agent enablement for voice customer service, today announced a $26 million Series A financing led by Scale Venture Partners, with participation from Nexus Venture Partners, Steadview Capital, 01 Advisors, and Emergent Ventures. This funding allows Observe.AI to expand its US-India team globally and accelerate product development. In conjunction with the funding, Andy Vitus, partner at Scale, will be joining Observe.AI's board. This brings the company's total funding to $34 million. "Legacy speech analytics systems are simply not meeting the needs of the world's top brands," said Swapnil Jain, CEO and co-founder of Observe.AI.

The months seem to be whipping by in a whirlwind and before long we will be into the new year. While it can be easy to get caught up in plans for marketing for the holidays, casting your eye further is necessary. Because 2020 is more than just a milestone, it is an opportunity to start implementing the hottest digital marketing trends that are going to be dominating the industry. Digital marketing has a wider scope and greater applications than ever before. Statista projected that by the close of 2019, active email accounts would be increasing to an astonishing 5.6 billion.

Does artificial intelligence pose a major threat or are the dangers overblown? "If you're not concerned about AI safety, you should be. "I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I were to guess like what our biggest existential threat is, it's probably that. So we need to be very careful with the artificial intelligence.