Microsoft Research India has announced the launch of a center for Societal impact through Cloud and Artificial Intelligence (SCAI). Part of the Microsoft Research (MSR) Lab in Bengaluru, SCAI will focus on creating and nurturing projects and transitioning them from lab to scale for real-world impact. "There are so many opportunities to leverage recent advances in cloud computing and AI technologies to address long-term societal challenges spanning multiple sectors and realms, including health and wellness, education, transportation, and agriculture," said Eric Horvitz, Technical Fellow and Director at Microsoft Research. SCAI will engage with NGOs, academicians, and startups through external collaborations; graduate and undergraduate students through the SCAI Fellow program in collaboration; and actively seek collaborators through calls for proposals. To start with, Microsoft is currently working with four organizations – Respirer Living Sciences for a project focusing on urban air pollution, NIMHANS for a project on mental health, Pratham Books for assisted translation system which enables children to read storybooks in multiple languages, and Voicedeck Technologies for Learn2Earn, a program which reinforces education and rewards learning through financial incentives.

The US remains the global leader in artificial intelligence (AI) innovation, despite big moves by China to change its standing, according to a study from the Center for Data Innovation, released this week. The study focused on six distinct categories--talent, research, development, adoption, data and hardware--and found that the US was far ahead of both China and the European Union in at least four of them. With the help of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Intel and Microsoft, the US was able to financially dominate the last wave of digital innovation. But China has doubled down on its efforts to become equals with the US and now invests heavily into educating and funding AI research. SEE: IT leader's guide to deep learning (Tech Pro Research) "The United States is leading in AI today, but it should not rest on its laurels," Michael McLaughlin, the Center's research analyst and the report's lead author, wrote in the study.

An unmanned spacecraft carrying Russia's first humanoid robot to be sent into orbit failed to dock at the International Space Station on Saturday, in a new setback for Moscow. "Russian cosmonauts issued a command to abort the automated approach of an uncrewed Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station," the US space agency NASA said in a statement. "The craft was unable to lock onto its target at the station," and "backed a safe distance away from the orbital complex while the Russian flight controllers assess the next steps," NASA said. Russian flight controllers had told the ISS crew it appeared the problem that prevented automated docking was in the station and not the Soyuz spacecraft, NASA added. The docking had been scheduled for 0530 GMT but a live broadcast of the event on the website of the Russian space agency Roscosmos was interrupted when the Soyuz approached to about 100 metres (yards) off the ISS.

Anyone looking for an industry to illustrate the implications of digital disruption need look no further than financial services. High-street branches continue to close at an alarming rate as many services go online, while the traditional banks face stiff competition from online rivals who don't have to worry about bricks-and-mortar at all – plus a horde of fintech startups touting new options like cryptocurrencies and more. Such is the potential for change that Gartner estimates as many as 80% of traditional banks will go out of business by 2030. The analyst says established financial services providers will have to move faster by building digital platforms or finding niche products. SEE: Digital transformation: A CXO's guide (ZDNet special report) Download the report as a PDF (TechRepublic) Royal Bank of Scotland Group is one financial services giant that claims to be taking a proactive approach, rather than the reactive response to IT and business change that tends to characterise big-name banks.

Xiao Jianxiong never visited a beach until he was 18, despite the fact his childhood home was only 20 miles from the sea. His hometown of Chaoshan, in China's Guangdong Province, was a poor fishing village until recently. Growing up without much money, Xiao's family couldn't afford a car trip to the beach. Today Xiao is hopeful that his company -- AutoX -- will give kids the opportunities he didn't have by making it easier and cheaper for them to get around by car, even if their parents are not able to drive them. "Autonomous driving should not be a luxury," Xiao said in a 2017 speech when he was named one of the "35 Under 35" by the MIT Technology Review.

There are plenty of reasons to consider investing in artificial intelligence (AI). For one, it will likely transform the transportation industry over the next two decades through driverless cars. AI is also being used to help speed along drug research and even improve detection of life-threatening illnesses. Additionally, developing smart AI computer systems that can analyze data faster and apply their insights more efficiently is expected to add $15.7 trillion to the global GDP by 2030. All of this means investors would be wise to take a closer look at some of the leading tech companies in this space, namely Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL), NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA), and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN).

Bengaluru, Aug 21 (PTI) The Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) is in the process of opening 28 centres of excellence (CoE) in emerging technologies at an investment of over Rs 400 crore ( US$ 56 million), its director-general Omkar Rai said on Wednesday. Five CoEs are already functioning and all 28 of them would be operational in two years, he said in an address to the 15th India Innovation Summit 2019 organised here by the Confederation of Indian Industry, according to a CII release. Emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IOT), medical electronics, IOT in agriculture and automotive electronics would be the focus of the CoEs, the release quoted him as saying. He said India's IT services industry currently stands at US $177 billion with exports amounting to US $136 billion. "It is the intention of the government of India to transform the country from an IT services industry to a product nation," Rai said.

Matt Ginsberg, today's constructor, is known for creating Dr. Fill, an artificial intelligence-based program that solves puzzles (you can see the doctor in action in the constructor's notes below). There is a growing thrum of A.I. in the world, and it is amazing and alarming what machines are increasingly able to do, quickly and accurately. Still, there are a lot of occupations and skills that are hard to imagine being conquered by programs. Today's puzzle concerns a type of performance that requires a human touch to pull off, not to mention an audience with the ability to experience surprise and inspiration. In a 2012 article, Dr. Fill was stymied by a puzzle with punny spoonerisms, unable to reach an AHA moment that transcends logic.

Tech decision makers are (and should keep) looking for ways to effectively implement artificial intelligence technologies into their businesses and, therefore, drive value. And though all AI technologies most definitely have their own merits, not all of them are worth investing in. If one thing and only one thing happens after you read this article, we hope it is that you are inspired to join the 62% of companies who boosted their enterprises in 2018 by adopting Artificial Intelligence into their workflow. Natural language generation is an AI sub-discipline that converts data into text, enabling computers to communicate ideas with perfect accuracy. It is used in customer service to generate reports and market summaries and is offered by companies like Attivio, Automated Insights, Cambridge Semantics, Digital Reasoning, Lucidworks, Narrative Science, SAS, and Yseop.

The growth of artificial intelligence (AI) demands that semiconductor companies re-architect their system on chip (SoC) designs to provide more scalable levels of performance, flexibility, efficiency, and integration. From the edge to data centers, AI applications require a rethink of memory structures, the numbers and types of heterogeneous processors and hardware accelerators, and careful consideration of how the dataflow is enabled and managed between the various high-performance IP blocks. This paper will define AI, describe its applications, the problems it presents, and how designers can address those problems through new and holistic approaches to SoC and network on chip (NoC) design. It also describes challenges implementing AI functionality in automotive SoCs with ISO 26262 functional safety requirements.