After a first all-day introduction to Deep Learning back in February, the Deep Learning class will continue in April and May. These classes will mostly be hands-on workshops (please don't forget to bring your laptop), with a minimum of formal theory to support these. Programming level: Beginner to advanced. Important: We will check IDs at the entrance. You will not be able to enter the school if you are not on the list. Please give us your real name when you register to this meetup.

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) organized an exclusive conference this week in Palm Springs, California, that focused on robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), space exploration, and home automation, according to Bloomberg Business and reports from attendees. The event was called MARS, which stands for Machine-Learning Automation, Robotics and Space Exploration. Some of the guests on the invite-only list came from robotics companies such as Rethink Robotics, educational institutions like MIT, research institutes like ETH Zurich, and carmakers such as Toyota. Around 130 people were invited to the cozy affair. Much of the event is still shrouded in mystery.

Microsoft has a new artificial intelligence bot named Taylor that tries to hold conversations on Twitter, Kik, and GroupMe. And she makes me feel terribly old and out of touch. Tay, as she calls herself, is a chatbot that's targeted at 18 to 24 year-olds in the US. Just tweet at her or message her and she responds with words and occasionally meme pictures. She's meant to be able to learn a few things about you--basic details like nickname, favorite food, relationship status--and is supposed to be able to have engaging conversations.

It's easy to make too much or too little of an event that took place earlier this month. A computer program called AlphaGo played a five-game match of the Japanese board game of go against South Korean grandmaster Lee Sedol. AlphaGo won easily, 4 games to 1. It's been nearly two decades since the Deep Blue computer program beat Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov in 1997 to claim superiority in that game. Go had been considered much more difficult for artificial intelligence (AI) to master (for one thing, chess is played on a board with an 8-by-8 grid producing 64 squares; the go grid is 19-by-19). AlphaGo succeeded by combining two powerful computational approaches.

Everyday virtual assistants – like Siri, or Google Now's voice feature – are well-trained to respond to your queries about weather, directions and other basic information. Now a new crop of artificial intelligence assistants with names like Tara and Amy are jockeying for a job at your company. San Francisco-based TARA, created by Iba Masood and Syed Ahmad as part of Y Combinator, is a chatbot designed to help startups and small businesses offload the work of sourcing, contacting and hiring freelancers to build and redesign websites and applications. "Our customers do not have to be technical," adds Masood, noting that the assistant has helped non-technical business owners to add functionality like apps of payments to their existing products. "Through simple commands such as'build me a VR app for Android,' TARA assigns the contractor and helps build the entire platform."

Images leaked online this week give the first good look at what is claimed to be a controller for the highly anticipated Nintendo NX. The device pictured in the post by Reddit user perkele37 supports rumours that the new controller will have an elliptical shape and a touchscreen covering its entire surface. Apart from the touchscreen, the rumoured controller has just two'nubs' and a headphone jack. Images leaked online this week give the first good look at what is claimed to be a controller for the highly anticipated Nintendo NX. The images were revealed on Wednesday, just days after a similar leak showed blurry photos of a device claimed to be the controller.

Not all Muslims speak Arabic." For example, Ismail said, the world's largest Muslim nation is Indonesia, which is not anywhere near the Middle East. "People just don't realize that." It's not just the portrayal of Muslims that is problematic. In several video games, images of the Arab and Muslim world are often inaccurate.

The Google Chrome extension is similar to a spell check function, except instead of flagging misspelled words, it identifies insults and hateful messages and then prompts the user to write something else. That's from the website for Reword, a new Google Chrome extension designed to combat cyberbullying. The tool identifies insulting words in online posts and messages, and then crosses them out with a red line. Developed in Australia by Headspace, which is Australia's National Youth Mental Health Foundation, and ad agency Leo Burnett Melbourne, Reword aims to address online abuse by preventing hateful messages before they're even posted. "Sadly, online bullying is endemic," Headspace CEO Chris Tanti said in a news release.

The Twitter profile for Tay.ai, Microsoft's short-lived chatbot. The Twitter profile for Tay.ai, Microsoft's short-lived chatbot. Editor's Note: This post contains language that some readers might find offensive. Her emoji usage is on point. She says "bae," "chill" and "perf."

SAN FRANCISCO -- The days of free spending appear to be waning as Alphabet gets serious about subsidiary companies becoming more disciplined and accountable. "The fiscal discipline era has now descended upon everything," Tony Fadell, the CEO of smart device subsidiary Nest, told The Information in an interview. Google bought Fadell's company for 3.2 billion in 2014. We're going to hold you to those numbers," Fadell said. Last week Bloomberg reported that Alphabet is trying to sell Boston Dynamics, the robotics start-up it bought in late 2013, because it's unlikely to release a marketable product in the next few years. "There is increasingly a new level of financial discipline being injected into how Alphabet allocates capital," said S&P Global Market Intelligence analyst Scott Kessler. He and other analysts see the influence of chief financial officer Ruth Porat, who has shown a greater willingness to keep costs in check while still aggressively pursuing revenue growth. "From an investor's perspective, you want Alphabet and Google out there taking risks and making big bets.