In a funding environment where most things have been on their way down, one area is still headed up, up, up: artificial intelligence. Investments in AI startups have been on a steep incline over the past five years, increasing from 282 million in 2011 to 2.4 billion in 2015, according to CB Insights. That growth has continued into the current year, and you can expect to see more into the future according to the Q2 Venture Pulse report from venture capital research firm CB Insights and auditing firm KPMG. "AI is an area that has experienced rapid growth over the last five years and is poised for further growth over the next year," according to the report, released today. "The relative resilience of this industry can be attributed to the fact that AI technologies underpin countless innovations, from driverless cars to robo advisory platforms."

Macy's is testing a mobile tool using artificial intelligence that lets shoppers get answers customized to the store they're in--like where a particular brand is located or what's in stock--that they would normally ask a sales associate face-to-face. The tool, which the nation's largest department store chain calls a "mobile companion," can be accessed for now through a browser and will accept questions in 10 U.S. locations about products, services and facilities. It uses natural language and offers feedback in seconds. It's developed by IBM Watson--the Jeopardy-winning "cognitive computing" service and is designed to keep learning more about the store's customers. That's a key element as Macy's seeks to spur sluggish sales, make being at the store more enjoyable and distinguish itself from online portals and specialty retailers.

IBM's Watson may be putting its cognitive muscle to work battling cancer and cybercriminals, but it's no slouch at shopping, either. On Wednesday, retail brand Macy's announced that it's testing out a new mobile service that lets in-store shoppers ask Watson for help. Dubbed Macy's On-Call, the tool gives smartphone-equipped shoppers a way to ask Watson questions about a store's products, services and facilities by typing their questions into a mobile browser. It's delivered through location-based engagement software from IBM partner Satisfi, which accesses Watson from the cloud, and it works in both English and Spanish. Natural-language processing allows shoppers to ask questions in their own words.

From Big Ben to Battersea Power Station, London's landmarks have been painstakingly recreated using tiny virtual bricks in Minecraft. Now, one of the capital's most disastrous events – the Great Fire of London – is about to be put on the pixelated map. The historic blaze of 1666, which gutted the medieval part of the city 350 years ago, will be portrayed using three different maps within the video game. The historic blaze of 1666, which gutted the medieval part of the city 350 years ago, will be portrayed using three different maps within the video game, Minecraft. Minecraft was created in 2009.

Spending hours playing video games instead of running around outside has been widely blamed as the cause of many problems among young people. But while it may prevent players from getting enough sleep or exercise, new research has shown that spending hours in front of a games console can have a positive impact. Playing action-based video games like Mario Kart could actually improve real-life skills like driving, according to the study. Playing violent video games and watching violence on television can lead to more aggressive behaviour in children, according to a new report. Angry feelings can also affect children of all ages subjected to screen violence, both real and fictional.

Enterprises can use Kanjoya performance review software to obtain a synopsis of an employee's strengths, consensus on areas for improvement and a summary of all the feedback provided by people who review the employee. Elaine Chang, director of products at Kanjoya, based in San Francisco, said Kanjoya's natural language processing and machine learning algorithms continually analyze performance reviews as they are submitted inside the software. The cloud-based tool provides a simple dashboard that displays an employee's "opportunity areas," or items for improvement, and strengths. The performance review software can also present aggregated results for the company, including for each department. The software works best with a 360-degree review, which includes feedback, often confidential, from multiple sources such as managers, team members or subordinates.

Since then, the company has entered into various collaborations with the NHS in England, including a partnership to develop an app allowing hospital staff to monitor patients' risk of developing acute kidney injury. In May, it was revealed that DeepMind had struck a deal with the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust giving the company access to an estimated 1.6 million patient records – a decision met with much criticism at the time. The company has since collaborated with Moorfields Eye Hospital on eye health scan readings.

Security isn't an add-on; in today's world security precludes business. Neil Costigan is the CEO of BehavioSec, a behavioural biometrics company using continuous machine learning to authenticate users based on the way they type, swipe, and hold their devices. To illustrate the imperative call for security and the ingenuity of attackers, Costigan recounted a cautionary tale about a trading platform in Asia which sacrificed security at the client side to make way for user convenience. Creators felt that if they made it impossible to withdraw money from the app, instead requiring a manual step such as going into a physical branch where KYC and identity verification would be guaranteed, user data would never be compromised. However, fraudsters exploited the weak security and commandeered a number of accounts to make lots of small trades, eventually managing to manipulate the market by building consumer accounts that could then trade with the stolen profiles, - including hedges and quick buys - before enjoying the cash out.

Training machine learning models over massive amounts of data is a cornerstone of many data analytics tasks. Usually this involves solving large optimization problems involving millions of optimization variables and constraints. Doing so over a parallel platform, like Spark or Hadoop, is crucial to making such computations scalable. It is not always obvious how to solve large optimization problems in parallel. ADMM, which stands for the Alternating Directions Method of Multipliers, is a popular parallel optimization technique that provides a methodology for doing so.

Video has taken the world by storm with a myriad of intelligent devices continuously capturing vast amounts of data about how people live and what they do. At the end of 2014, IHS Technology estimated over 245 million operational cameras were active globally. London alone has 500,000 cameras dotted throughout the city, which works out at about one camera for every 16 people. Thanks to smart cameras, CCTV devices, and even drones mounted with intelligent cameras, users are able to record videos at an unprecedented scale and pace. This vast store of data-rich content is used for a range of purposes – from gaming and law enforcement to crowd management at large events.