Catan is a fantasy island, uninhabited except for a few scattered settlements of humans. German robot maker Kuka recently partnered with the Regensburg University of Applied Sciences to make an A.I.-controlled robotic arm to play Settlers of Catan, a widely popular modern board game. Fortunately, the world champions of Catan won't have to worry about any surprise machine upsets. The robot right now is focused on placing pieces and connected roads. In the future, it might learn AlphaGo levels of strategy, but that's not for a long time.

Our client, a known entity in the eCommerce space is looking for a Research Scientist to join their innovative team. They use machine learning and statistical techniques. They build advanced algorithmic systems that help manage the trust and safety of loads of transactions every day. Please be excited by the prospect of analyzing and modeling terabytes of data and create state-of-art algorithms to solve real world problems. They are looking for candidates who want to own end-to-end business problems/metrics and directly impact the profitability of the company.

The face of SEO is changing, and it's mainly due to incredible research and development into artificial intelligence (AI) baked into search algorithms. A decade ago, search engine marketers could create a site with some keywords in specific places, drop some links around the web, and start ranking within a short amount of time. The web has grown tremendously since that time, and now these methods are no longer viable. Instead of focusing on keywords, search engine algorithms attempt to "understand" your content. The latest news of Google's new RankBrain algorithm is just one example of why the future of SEO will change Internet marketing. Before getting into the details of 2016 SEO, it helps to understand Google's market.

Consider the artificially intelligent voices you hear on a regular basis. Are any of them men? Whether it's Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana, Amazon's Alexa, or virtually any GPS system, chances are the computerized personalities in your life are women. This gender imbalance is pervasive in fiction as well as reality. Films like "Her" and "Ex Machina" reflect our anxieties about what intelligent machines mean for humanity.

Artificial Intelligence (AI), or the development of smart machines, has been likened to "building the Internet itself – something that can only be done over time, and with a huge number of incremental advances." The development of a wide array of intelligent machine innovations are underway in labs across the nation, and have breathtaking potential for education, healthcare, business, finance and more. MIT's Media Lab is undertaking robotic projects targeting a wide range of focus areas. For education, a team is developing language-learning companions for children, which incorporate gaming and conversation to create an immersive experience. For healthcare, the robot, Huggable, is designed to be a companion to pediatric patients in hospitals to help alleviate stress and support children as they face physical and emotional challenges.

This article, 10 artificial intelligence insiders to follow on Twitter, originally appeared on TechRepublic.com. With the flood of news on self-driving cars, drones, caring robots, and more, it isn't always easy to keep up-to-date with the latest in the artificial intelligence universe. For the insiders' view on what's happening in AI, follow these 10 researchers, professors, institutions, and other great thinkers who offer human insight into the world of machines. Author of the recently released Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future, Ford is an important voice in conversations about the future of the workplace and the debate over whether automation will replace humans in the job market. Zhang, a leading software engineer, was a recent speaker at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing 2015 conference.

DETROIT – Toyota is forming a new data science company in partnership with Microsoft that's designed to free customers "from the tyranny of technology." The company called Toyota Connected has a goal of simplifying technology so it's easier to use, perhaps even getting rid of distracting and complicated touch screens that now are in most cars and replacing them with heads-up or voice-activated technology, said Zack Hicks, the company's CEO, who also is Toyota Motor America's chief information officer. "I think people are really tired of fumbling with multiple devices and having this disjointed experience," Hicks said as Toyota announced the venture on Monday. Like other automakers, Toyota Connected will research connecting cars to each other and to homes, as well as telematics features that learn and anticipate a driver's habits. The company, like other automakers, will explore transmitting a driver's health data to a doctor or driving patterns to an insurance company so people are insured based on where they travel, Toyota said.

A U.S. government-backed committee has reportedly recommended that the Federal Aviation Administration loosen restrictions on the use of commercial drones, a crucial first step to wider business applications for unmanned aerial vehicles. The FAA's Aviation Rulemaking Committee of industry leaders and agency officials late Friday recommended easing restrictions that prohibit businesses from flying unmanned aerial vehicles over populated areas in some cases. FAA spokesman Les Dorr says the agency received the report on Saturday and needs time to review the recommendations. The committee's report, obtained by the Associated Press, recommends the creation of four categories of drones. Devices weighing half a pound or less would have essentially no limits on flying over crowds if the manufacturer could ensure a 99 percent chance that it would not injure someone even if it fell on them.

Last week at Microsoft's Build conference, CEO Satya Nadella said that the future of the company was "conversation as platform." In other words, less Windows and Office, and more Cortana and Tay--conversational interfaces that can understand the natural language of human users. If Nadella thought he was expressing some unique vision of the future, though, he was fooling himself. The idea of conversational UI has quickly colonized nearly every corner of Silicon Valley over the past year. Now seems like a good time to ask: What is a conversational interface?

Bengaluru: Infosys Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the IT services company, said it will give a Rs.24-crore grant over the next three years to Delhi-based Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) to set up a research centre for artificial intelligence (AI). For Infosys, which carries out its Corporate Social Responsibility through the foundation, supporting educational institutions has been a fundamental part of its CSR strategy. The grant comes at a time when Infosys chief executive Vishal Sikka, who has a doctorate degree in artificial intelligence from Stanford University, has been trying to increasingly build out capabilities around the strategic focal points of automation and artificial intelligence in the company. The proposed Infosys Center for Artificial Intelligence will facilitate work on both fundamental and applied aspects of AI and focus on areas such as robotics, machine learning, computer vision, AI for software systems, large-scale data analytics. The research will draw on real-time data to develop a deeper understanding of AI for social benefits, and the application of AI in education and related areas, said the release.