Artificial intelligence is becoming a buzz word among technology companies, and rather than growing services internally, enterprises are acquiring startups and other companies with expertise in the field. Several of the tech industry's biggest players have been investing in AI in recent months, extolling the potential of AI to help scientists process large data sets and understand cause and effect relationships. In October, for example, Apple purchased VocalIQ, a United Kingdom-based startup that worked to improve the way computers understand natural language. Salesforce has made a number of AI-related purchases recently. In March, it acquired PredictionIO and before that, it bought RelateIQ and smart calendar app Tempo AI.

On-demand delivery is something consumers have come to expect. With that in mind, startup Dispatch is building a fleet of autonomous delivery vehicles designed for sidewalks and bike paths. Today, the company announced a 2 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz's Chris Dixon with participation from Charles Hudson of Precursor Ventures and others. "The need for convenient low cost delivery is widespread," Dispatch co-founder Uriah Baalke told me. "Our goal is to fulfill that demand and build a system at scale that can scale and that can operate in all these locales efficiently."

Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae -- or dark patches -- on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts. Several hundred camped outside the London store in Covent Garden. The 6s will have new features like a vastly improved camera and a pressure-sensitive "3D Touch" display

Paul LaPorte is an expert in security, business continuity, and disaster recovery (DR). He is Director of Products at Metalogix and co-author of SharePoint RBS for Dummies, 2013 edition. Prior to Metalogix, he served as global manager for SaaS solutions at Proofpoint, a publicly traded email and data security company, principle strategist for Continuity Research, and a senior executive at Evergreen Assurance, a pioneer in real-time DR for mission critical applications. He holds a BS in Aerospace Engineering from MIT and an MBA from Georgetown University.

It took just two tweets for an internet troll going by the name of Ryan Poole to get Tay to become antisemitic. Tay was a "chatbot" set up by Microsoft on 23 March, a computer-generated personality to simulate the online ramblings of a teenage girl. Poole suggested to Tay: "The Jews prolly did 9/11. I don't really know but it seems likely." Shortly thereafter Tay tweeted "Jews did 9/11" and called for a race war. In the 24 hours it took Microsoft to shut her down, Tay had abused President Obama, suggested Hitler was right, called feminism a disease and delivered a stream of online hate.

Google switched its search algorithm to machine learning technology called RankBrain for its search results in October 2015. Software as a Service offers irresistible benefits for organizations of all sizes -- from cost savings to scalability to mobile accessibility. We offer guidance on avoiding the pitfalls of the cloud and choosing your SaaS partners well. RankBrain uses an Artificial Intelligence learning system to guess at words and phrases it might not have seen before. This should make it more effective at responding to queries and improving overall search quality. RankBrain learning system interprets language and queries in a similar way that'gut feeling' or'guessability' works in people.

Since the rise of modern medicine, the pharmaceuticals industry has relied on the brainpower of chemists and biologists to discover and develop new drugs. Their painstaking work has brought about dramatic advances in human health yet the slow pace of progress has prompted a search for new approaches. As in so many areas, some of the most promising ideas are coming from Silicon Valley. In the era of big data and artificial intelligence, could computer algorithms provide a short-cut to the next generation of medical breakthroughs? Among the pioneers of computer-based drug discovery is a Californian company called Verseon.

When was the last time you needed to Google something and Google wasn't there? Odds are, you don't remember that ever happening. Sure, there are times when you can't reach Google because your internet connection is down. But Google's primary online services, from its search engine to Gmail to Google Docs and more, are nearly always accessible. The company's Google Apps suite, including Gmail and Docs, was available about 99.97 percent of the time in 2015, according to the company's own numbers.

Salesforce has joined hands with the artificial intelligence startup, MetaMind. In a wise move, Salesforce has managed to integrate deep learning with its data science capabilities, beating other leading companies in their pursuit of machine learning and artificial intelligence. Salesforce acquires Palo-Alto-based deep learning company, MetaMind, the companies announced on April 4. Launched in July 2014, MetaMind specializes in artificial intelligence (AI) techniques of data crunching to help businesses arrive at better decisions. While the terms of the deal still remain undisclosed, the AI startup will shut down services on May 4 for their unpaid users, and on June 4 for the monthly recurring users. "[R]eal AI solutions with breakthrough capabilities that further automate and personalize customer support, marketing automation, and many other business processes," says MetaMind CEO Richard Socher, who added that he is "thrilled" with the integration.

An exotic stranger needs help, and you're the only one able to provide it. On any given day, a handful of those pleas still file into your email's spam folder. And if you replace "collect an inheritance" with "find true love," they're an increasing menace for dating apps and services. But they are an increasingly important front for criminals, who in turn use increasingly sophisticated methods to snare their marks, and take them for whatever they can. A recently released list, by a fraud-busting company called Scamalytics, of the top lines and photos used in profiles by online dating grifters shows that while the range of sophistication may vary, the end goal is always the same: To fleece romance-seekers out of their money.