A new legal technology company called Deftr is today launching a tool powered by artificial intelligence that helps professionals diagram intricate corporate structures. The tool reads text in real time, as it is being typed, then turns that text into a shareable, interactive graphic illustrating a corporate structure or transaction. In a press release being issued today, Deftr's co-founder and CEO Matthew Osman explained: Building charts to represent corporate structures or transactions essentially by hand is a laborious process all too familiar to anyone in corporate life. It's the reason a lot of associates don't have weekends. Our tool automates this outdated, manual process, allowing a user to build a chart in a fraction of the time and focus their efforts on high-level, analytical work. The tool should be of value to law firms, in-house legal departments, accounting firms, financial services and management consultants, Deftr says.

By 2020 50% or more of the U.S. workforce are expected to be on-demand workers / contingent workers in the liquid workforce. Zoondy capitalizes on this paradigm shift by utilizing a commodity brokerage approach to create a marketplace for seasoned professionals to sell their skills and expertise in four unique ways: free, fixed price, auction and goal pricing. Zoondy provides a secure, structured market environment for buyers and sellers of professional high-skill expertise to transact for the knowledge, expertise and skills that they need on a short term or project basis. While most associate freelance and on–demand workers with creative engagements, at best or un-skilled hourly gig workers, at worst, like Uber drivers, Fivver or Upwork; Zoondy targets the 43 million seasoned professionals, retirees and work-from-home executives who have proven expertise that can be shared locally or globally with businesses both small and large. For seasoned professionals, a Zoondy profile takes only minutes to set up and when completed the platform immediately begins marketing a user's skills.

July 6, 2016, Over a third (36%) of all developers who are actively working on Big Data or advanced analytics projects now use elements of machine learning according to Evans Data's recently released Big Data and Advanced Analytics survey report. While the market for machine learning is still fragmented, those developers actively working with machine learning are most likely to be targeting financial sectors, Internet of Things, or manufacturing. The survey of over 500 developers actively working with Big Data also showed that decision trees are the most used analytical model which links in closely with artificial intelligence and machine learning development. Linear regression and logistics regression were the next most cited analytical models. Logistics, distribution, or operations were the company departments most likely to be using advanced data analytics or Big Data solutions.

The world's first beer brewed with the help of artificial intelligence is now on sale. Four beers have been created, with each recipe altered based on customer feedback received by an algorithm. The system is hidden behind a Facebook Messenger bot, which takes feedback from customers and sends it onto human brewers who change recipes accordingly. IntelligentX, the company behind the beers, said the use of AI would help brewers receive and test customer feedback "more quickly than ever before". Codes printed on the bottles direct people towards the bot, which then asks a series of questions.

Students and teachers at the University of Electronic Science and Technology, China, have developed a robot, nicknamed'Robomintoner', that can play badminton. It uses a camera and has a binocular vision system, imitating humans, to locate the flying shuttlecock. It then uses Bluetooth to communicate the data to a base station to determine where the shuttlecock is likely to land.

Maybe it's just FOMO, but it seems like every internet company wants to be in the car business these days, and Japan's DeNA is no exception. The app maker's automotive wing had a special event in Tokyo today (via Reuters) to reveal its first self-driving vehicle, a 12-person bus which will begin operating in Japan's Chiba prefecture at a shopping center next month. DeNA is probably a familiar name for TechCrunch readers, but the company's highlight moment to date might be its selection as Nintendo's partner in bringing its iconic gaming characters and brands to mobile devices. DeNA has had an automotive business for a while now, though, and now it's launching its first production vehicle in partnership with French driverless tech company EasyMile, which makes the EZ10 Robot Shuttle currently being trialled in a number of global projects. The EasyMile EZ10 can hit a max of 40km or around 25 miles per hour, and employs a variety of sensors, cameras, GP and other systems in order to operate. It's not a full-featured city dweller, though; EasyMile's vehicles are designed specifically for use in private environments, where they don't have to contend with the added complexity of human traffic.

Early terrestrial animals dragged themselves through mud and sand to take their first'steps' on land 360 million years ago. Now, scientists believe the powerful tails they used as fish were more important than previously thought. They came to this conclusion by studying African mudskipper fish and building a robot modelled on the animal. Scientists believe the powerful tails early terrestrial mammals used as fish were more important than previously thought. Scientists believe ancient creatures used the powerful tails they relied on as fish to crawl across the mud and sand as they made the move onto land, some 360 million years ago.

When you think of a robot, you may imagine a shiny, metallic machine with a jerky gait. But engineers have created a robotic stingray that mimics the movement of the graceful and efficient marine creature. Stranger still, the robo-ray is powered and guided by light-sensitive rat heart cells. The neutrally-charged gold skeletons mimic a stingray's shape and are overlaid with a thin layer of stretchy polymer to give it flexibility and shrug off the water Researcher Kevin Kit Parker told MailOnline the Eureka moment for the project came when he took his daughter to the New England Aquarium. 'She was trying to pet a stingray and she put her hand in the water and the stingray quickly moved away from her hand and a very elegant way.

Apple has released the first public test version of iOS 10 and Sierra, its new MacOS software. The iOS update brings a new look complete with a radical overhaul of the messages app offering new animations and emoji, while Sierra brings Siri to the Mac for the first time. The products, available as free updates, were announced at Apple's WWDC event in September. The iOS update brings a new look complete with a radical overhaul of the messages app offering new animations and emoji, while Sierra brings Siri to the Mac for the first time. To sign up for Apple's beta program, simply visit the beta site.

Twenty percent of CEOs indicated that cognitive is one of the top three areas they are devoting significant investment/resources to in the next 3 years. And nearly nine in ten (85 percent) are concerned with having to consider the integration of basic automated business processes with artificial intelligence and cognitive processes. We are just entering the fourth industrial revolution, and the speed of change is exponential. But are we ready for it? "It's in our nature to get fearful of what has never happened before," says Cliff Justice, Innovation and Enterprise Solutions Partner, KPMG in the US.