Here's the tech news you need to know this Thursday. The deal will help Google expand its service into dense, urban areas like apartment buildings with multiple units. The company, which provides phone and text-message services to app developers, is now valued at 1.23 billion ( 833 million), beating the company's last private valuation of around 1 billion ( 677 million). The catch is that employees and "certain" ex-employees are eligible for the buyback offer only if they agree to a variety of conditions, including no talking to the media. The research supports the theory that AI is the next major revolution in computing.

Recently found a post by Ali Syed on topic; "Europeans unconvinced by big data in general". This study was conducted for the Vodafone Institute for Society and Communications by Kantar-owned market researchers TNS Infratest. It analyses over 8,000 individuals across eight European countries and offers valuable insight into people's perceptions of big data and analytics Still there are people or groups don't believe that we are living in the age of Big Data. Other way round we can say they think Big Data is just a hype created by technology people. To me the concept of Big Data is not new.

IBM Watson, the distributed natural language processing platform, isn't the only advanced system available, but it's the highest-profile and arguably the most sophisticated. It's also important to recognize how shrewdly Watson is being marketed. Even before Watson was Watson, IBM was adept at generating publicity for its futuristic computing activities. Most famously, Big Blue beat world chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997. Four years later, Watson, in a form far more rudimentary than today's commercialized version, beat Ken Jennings, the human Jeopardy!

Futurist Ray Kurzweil predicted in 1990 that a computer would beat a human world champion chess player by 1998. In 1997, that actually happened with IBM's Deep Blue. Since then, artificial intelligence (AI) has continued to advance rapidly, making now a good time to brush up on what is considered the next wave of highly disruptive technology. AI consists of many sub disciplines such as natural language processing, computer vision, knowledge representation and reasoning. The technology is making its way into a broad range of industries from marketing with behavioural targeting, to healthcare with accurate and early detection of complex diseases, to infrastructure with smarter urban planning.

"No Dr., or How I Learned to Stop Debugging and Love the Robot" In this talk, Guy will dicuss what developers must know to explore the power of machine learning services in the cloud. Using data to build machine learning models is a powerful alternative for heuristic or handwritten rules. This power is not limited to people with Ph.D. or MSc. in machine learning, statistics or computer science, but can be used successfully by competent developers. You will learn how to get started and how to think in machine learning terms when developing your next smart application. To gain background on machine learning in the cloud before the meetup, consider reading Guy's blog posts on machine learning.

The threat of terrorism has greatly accelerated the exchange of data between European states. Social media has become indispensable, both for investigative purposes and to fight propaganda. The "Fraternity Taskforce", a group of some 20 investigators, has probing into the Paris attacks of 13 November 2015 since late last year. But this team, based at Europol headquarters in The Hague, has no high-tech surveillance equipment or bullet-proof vests. Its main weapon and its biggest resource is data, vast quantities of data. The European police organisation's focus on terrorism has quickly taken off with this investigation.

Before giving smart machines the ability to make decisions, people need to make sure the goals of the robots are aligned with those of their human owners. Google can see a future where robots help us unload the dishwasher and sweep the floor. The challenge is making sure they don't inadvertently knock over a vase -- or worse -- while doing so. Researchers at Google, along with collaborators at Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, and OpenAI -- an artificial intelligence development company backed by Elon Musk -- have some ideas about how to design robot minds that won't lead to undesirable consequences for the people they serve. They published a technical paper on Tuesday outlining their thinking.

San Francisco: Google can see a future where robots help us unload the dishwasher and sweep the floor. The challenge is making sure they don't inadvertently knock over a vase--or worse--while doing so. Researchers at Alphabet Inc. unit Google, along with collaborators at Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, and OpenAI--an artificial intelligence development company backed by Elon Musk--have some ideas about how to design robot minds that won't lead to undesirable consequences for the people they serve. They published a technical paper on Tuesday outlining their thinking. The motivation for the research is the immense popularity of artificial intelligence, software that can learn about the world and act within it.

June 23--Olli, a 3D-printed, self-driving minibus powered by IBM's Watson supercomputer, could be tested on the streets of Miami-Dade County before the end of the year. IBM Watson, the company's artificial intelligence platform, announced last week that it power services in Olli -- an electric-powered vehicle that can carry up to 12 people designed by Local Motors, an Arizona-based automaker well-known for using newer technologies such as 3D-printing, TechCrunch reported. The companies will begin testing these autonomous vehicles in Maryland but plans call for these vehicles to hit the road in Miami-Dade County and Las Vegas in larger pilot tests before the end of the year. Florida International University is reportedly on the short list for the pilot testing as well. "We must do more to improve transit and mobility in our community and the deployment of autonomous vehicles is a big step in the right direction," said Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez, in a statement.

Google can see a future where robots help us unload the dishwasher and sweep the floor. The challenge is making sure they don't inadvertently knock over a vase -- or worse -- while doing so. Researchers at Google, along with collaborators at Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, and OpenAI -- an artificial intelligence development company backed by Elon Musk -- have some ideas about how to design robot minds that won't lead to undesirable consequences for the people they serve. They published a technical paper on Tuesday outlining their thinking. The motivation for the research is the immense popularity of artificial intelligence, software that can learn about the world and act within it.