As SAP continues to makes its own transition into the cloud, the company is also focused on delivering applications that will help customers make that same change simpler. At this year's recently held SAP Sapphire Now conference in Orlando, Florida, a key theme for the company was introducing machine learning to its HANA cloud platform. CEO Bill McDermott predicted that over the next five to 10 years the hype will be around machine learning, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality. "I think very strongly that intelligent applications will fundamentally change the way you do work in the enterprise and the way you collaborate with your trading partners outside of the enterprise," McDermott said. He went on to say that machine learning has the capabilities to help businesses make more informed decisions around how they can better serve their end-customer.

The difference between Google's generated images of 2015, and the images generated in 2016. Last June, Google wrote that it was teaching its artificial intelligence algorithms to generate images of objects, or "dream." The A.I. tried to generate pictures of things it had seen before, like dumbbells. But it ran into a few problems. It was able to successfully make objects shaped like dumbbells, but each had disembodied arms sticking out from the handles, because arms and dumbbells were closely associated.

The "Air Superiority 2030 Flight Plan," which the Air Force released today, is an attempt to identify the battlefields of the future, and see what the Air Force needs to put in motion today to do its job right in the future. Unspoken, but alluded to throughout the document, is a move away from expensive, long-in-development aircraft. The Air Force can "no longer afford to develop weapon systems on the linear acquisition and development timelines using traditional approaches," reads the report. It continues later: "the Air Force must reject thinking focused on "next generation" platforms. Such focus often creates a desire to push technology limits within the confines of a formal program."

I hope you had a great long weekend. The weather in New York was beautiful. I'll cut the small talk, though. I want to tell you about something that's been happening on my iPhone. See, I have this folder called Apple Apps.

The 47th annual World Series of Poker starts Tuesday at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino. Among the 69 events is the tournament's Main Event, which begins July 9. It runs through July 18, when a final table of no-limit Texas Hold'Em players emerges. The final nine competitors will return to play at the Main Event championship Oct. 30 to Nov. 1. Pennsylvania poker pro Joe McKeehen won the gold bracelet last year, and a 7.68 million top prize. Organizers said the 2015 tournament had record-breaking attendance, including 103,512 entries and over 210 million in prize money.

Leading the charge to update the traffic code is New York Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Joseph Robach, who also fears the law could allow police to ticket drivers for using vehicle features that are already available like assisted parking or Tesla's Autopilot. Due to the outdated law, Audi was reportedly unable to demonstrate the technology when it showed up in Albany with one of its self-driving vehicles last week. "We are just trying to have the law match up to the technology that people are using today and I think is only going to grow down the road," Senator Robach told the Daily News. Although six other states and Washington, D.C. have already passed legislation allowing autonomous vehicles on public roads, Robach's bill is meeting some resistance from other state lawmakers who don't believe the technology is quite ready yet. Earlier this year, however, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration decided that an autonomous vehicle's piloting system can be considered "the driver" under federal law.

The store, the first of nineteen in development, was designed to appeal if not to actual millennials (whose moms still do most of the shopping) then to those whom one 365 employee described to me as sharing a "millennial mind-set." On opening day, the guy directing traffic in the extremely crowded parking lot seemed to have it: he was eating a peach with one hand and with the other pointing vaguely in the direction of no open spots. Before the door was a d.j. A young woman in a pickup truck made twenty years before she was born. The viral video "Whole Foods Parking Lot" begs for reprise.

Fundamentally, Zenbo is a tablet computer on wheels, in that the only features that it offers that you can't already get on a tablet (or phone, for that matter) are the small handful involving mobility. Specifically, Zenbo can be remote controlled to move around, acting as a mobile security camera. And it can follow you, apparently. But the storytelling, the remote fall notification that depends on a bracelet, the home control, and the understanding abstract voice commands? My phone can do all of that stuff already, so I'm not sure why I'd need a robot to do it, especially when companies like Google and Amazon have similar (albeit stationary) products that offer a much more tangible value proposition. I like the idea of an interactive home robot in theory, but so far, I'm still hoping to see someone come up with a "killer app" that will make it clear that yes, this is why I want a home robot in addition to my phone. Otherwise, I'm left wondering specifically what that US 600 (or whatever) is actually going to get me in terms of consistent long-term benefit rather than just novelty: when the cute shape and perky fake personality are no longer entertaining, what are you really left with? Maybe there's an answer, and Asus has a vague hope (very common in consumer social robotics) that partners and developers will somehow magically "help build a rich, robotic ecosystem that will enhance Zenbo and enrich users' lives."

Last week ago I posted an article called, What Do Predictive Analytics Consultants Do? Part 1, describing the general types of activities that we engage in. In the present article, I want to talk about the skills and tools that one should have to perform Predictive Analytics. Although this is not strictly a "What we do" article, knowing the skills we possess and the tools we use will provide some insight into what we do, without talking about some algorithm that you may have never heard of. I am always at a loss in describing the skills of analytics, for there are many. I just completed a new book about analytics (available for FREE--see notes) that has a different approach than Predictive Analytics using R (also available for FREE), though I am using material from three chapters.

Microsoft (MSFT) has launched a new formalized venture capital initiative. Led by Nagraj Kashyap and Peggy Johnson, Microsoft Ventures will focus on making early stage investments in: – companies who complement and leverage the transition to the cloud, – companies developing product and services that complement Azure infrastructure, – companies building new business SaaS applications, – companies promoting more personal computing by enriching the Windows and HoloLens ecosystems, – companies advancing new enterprise, consumer productivity, and communication products around Office 365, – companies who are developing solutions in the areas for machine learning and security. The newly formed arm will start with a presence in in SF/Bay area, Seattle, New York City and Tel Aviv with plans to expand to other geographies in the coming years. Following the reorganization, the former Microsoft Ventures team has now been rebranded to Microsoft Accelerator to focus on startup enablement, primarily through its seven accelerators located around the world.