How do you combine historical Big Data with machine learning for real-time analytics? An approach is outlined with different software vendors, business use cases, and best practices. "Big Data" has gained a lot of momentum recently. Vast amounts of operational data are collected and stored in Hadoop and other platforms on which historical analysis is conducted. Business intelligence tools and distributed statistical computing are used to find new patterns in this data and gain new insights and knowledge for a variety of use cases: promotions, up- and cross-sell campaigns, improved customer experience, or fraud detection.

Data centers are an ideal environment for machine learning since there is so much data available, said Christopher Yetman, COO at Vantage Data Centers, a data center services provider in Santa Clara, Calif. There is sensor data at the building and physical level, with servers and network devices generating vast amounts of information about their own operations. Humans have used that data in the past, but not to its fullest potential. There are also sensors that generate data about air pressure, humidity, temperature and supply voltage and typically feed into a programmable logic controller, Yetman said. The data can then trigger specific actions at certain thresholds, like when a room begins to get too warm.

With the rise of chat bot assistants and the rise of robo-advisers, the future of tech -- especially FinTech -- looks like a personalized one. But not all companies are jumping on the bot bandwagon just yet. Vancouver-based Wealthbar, which provides online investment portfolios and financial planning services, has raised 5.5 million in funding to improve the client experience with Wealthbar's team of financial experts. The funding was led by Nicola Wealth Management, one of Canada's biggest high-net-worth wealth management company with 3 billion in assets under management, and Howard Atkinson, an ETF industry pioneer and former President of Horizon ETFs. Wealthbar's co-founder and CEO, Tea Nicola, said that the company is looking to provide a more personalized client experience.

In a bid to develop its artificial intelligence ("AI") capabilities, Sony Corporation (SNE - Analyst Report) announced an investment in a U.S. technology start-up, Cogitai. The financial details of the deal were kept under wraps. The investment comes at a time when technology stalwarts such as Facebook, Inc. (FB - Analyst Report), Apple Inc. (AAPL - Analyst Report) and Google are spending aggressively on AI initiatives. California-based Cogitai was founded a year ago by three researchers, and works with technology that enables machines to learn constantly and autonomously from interaction with the real world. The companies believe that the next step in AI field is the development of autonomous cognitive development systems that can continually learn from experience and react appropriately in a wide range of task domains.

As useful as robot arms are, they tend to be heavy, bulky things that need a bunch of support and structure to get them to work properly. If you need precision and speed, this may be unavoidable, but if all you're looking for is long reach, a high-strength to weight ratio, and very low cost (which, admittedly, are a lot of things to be looking for), another option was presented at ICRA today by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania: an arm made out of a strip of plastic that zips together with itself, creating an extendable cylinder that can be paired with winches and cables and used for manipulation. This concept is similar in principle to some commercially available systems like the Zippermast and Spiralift, but both of those designs are heavier and significantly more complicated. The spiral zipper uses a single band that's made of very lightweight plastic, with a relatively simple meshing mechanism that meshes the teeth on the bottom edge of one wrap with the teeth on the top of the wrap below to create a cylinder that has a very high strength to weight ratio, with exceptionally good compressive performance. And changing the length of the arm is as simple as zipping or unzipping the band: it's completely reversible, and you can stow the arm almost entirely in a very small volume consisting of the plastic band spooled around the zipping mechanism.

Silicon Valley is going crazy over bots. In particular, chat bots, software designed to mimic conversations with real humans. According to a report from The Information, Google may launch a new chat bot initiative at Google I/O today. Google is reportedly developing tools for developers to create their own chat bots that live inside large messaging platforms like Facebook's Messenger or Google's own Hangouts. Rather than just create its own bots, Google wants to create a platform that other parties can use to build bots for their own needs.

"[It's a] data token that boils you down to a data object," says Pete Kazanjy, founder of TalentBin, a service that uses social media to find job recruits (now part of Monster). That's especially true for hard numbers, said Google's SVP of "people operations" Laszlo Bock in a 2013 New York Times interview. "One of the things we've seen from all our data crunching is that GPAs are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless," said Bock. A growing wave of hiring tech firms are ingesting far more information about candidates--surveys, work samples, social media posts, word choice, even facial expressions. Adding artificial intelligence (AI), they promise to assess work skills as well as personality traits like empathy, grit, and prejudice to provide a richer understanding of who the applicant is and whether they will fit.

Scientists have discovered a remarkable property of a certain type of spider silk: It acts like a solid when you stretch it, but liquid when you squish it. And they've proven that they understand how this "liquid wire" works by actually creating synthetic strands that can do the exact same thing -- solving a decades-old mystery in the process. The findings, described in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveal the bizarre phenomenon that may help spider webs remain taut, and could offer fresh insight for a range of technologies, including soft robotics. Spiders spin a range of web shapes, from funnels to nests, but the classic orb-like structures remain something of an archetype. Such webs typically have sticky droplets of glue on the strands of capture thread – the segments of spider silk that connect the radiating branches of these disc-like webs.

It's been a big 12 months for Google. On Wednesday, the tech giant kicks off its I/O developers conference with a keynote address expected to cover plans for its Android mobile operating system, and possibly other ventures including Android Auto. You can follow live updates right here starting at 1 p.m. ET. It's the first under parent company Alphabet, formed last year. This is also the first I/O as CEO for Sundar Pichai, who claimed the top role at Google when Alphabet was announced.

A joint venture between a U.S. producer and a Chinese entertainment investor, announced Tuesday, is hoping to make a live-action film based on the classic video game, Tetris. To be exact, Threshold Global Studios, a partnership between California studio Threshold Entertainment Group -- owned by producer Larry Kasanoff -- and China's Seven Star Works -- owned by investor Bruno Wu -- plans to make a science fiction trilogy based on the popular 1980s game. A statement released by the joint venture said the film adaptation of Tetris will be the company's first project and will be produced at a budget of about 80 million. The film will be shot in China and feature an ensemble cast, including Chinese actors. The financing for the film, as well as a story, are already in place, according to the statement.