Intel Corp. more than doubled its second-quarter profit as sales of its personal computer chips strengthened and the company made further inroads in promising new areas of technology. The world's largest chipmaker also brightened its outlook for the remainder of the year. The report released Thursday drew a lukewarm reaction from investors as Intel's stock edged up 13 cents to $35.10 in extended trading. Intel earned $2.81 billion, or 58 cents per share during the three-month period ended July 1. That compared to net income of $1.33 billion, or 27 cents per share, at the same time last year.

Ford's automotive revenue of $37 billion was in line with Wall Street's expectations. Total revenue rose 1 percent to $39.85 billion. The elevated performance in the second quarter was due mostly to a lowering of the company's corporate tax rate, from 30 percent down to 10 percent, Chief Financial Officer Bob Shanks acknowledged. Ford has put some overseas losses back on its books in anticipation of changes in the U.S. corporate tax code, Shanks said. The company expects to have a 15 percent rate this year, but that will return to 30 percent next year.

Google-parent Alphabet, which has enjoyed revenue growth rate of over 20 percent for the past five quarters, said on Monday that TAC, or traffic acquisition costs, jumped 28 percent to $5.09 billion in the second quarter. MILAN/PARIS (Reuters) – France's Vivendi has tightened its grip on Telecom Italia by removing its CEO Flavio Cattaneo and paving the way for a joint venture between its own pay-TV Canal and the Italian group, in a boost to the French firm's ambitions to become a southern European media powerhouse. SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Silicon Valley baron Elon Musk insulted rival billionaire Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday, escalating a tech wizard war of words over whether robots will become smart enough to kill their human creators. SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Twitter Inc heads toward its quarterly earnings report on Thursday with a stock that has risen more than 40 percent since April when much of Wall Street was ready to write off the tech company.

Artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics are making some real money for stock investors, and beating the market. The Global X Robotics and Artificial Intelligence ETF (BOTZ) is up 30 percent this year and the ROBO Global Robotics and Automation Index (ROBO) is up 25 percent. "Between the tech exposure and the international exposure, that's helped the group pretty well," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at BMO Private Bank. The upward trend in robotics and artificial intelligence stocks is one proponents say, in the long-term, could top the so-called FANG stocks -- Facebook, Amazon.com, Each FANG stock has rallied 20 to 50 percent this year and the companies are increasingly focused on using technologies such as artificial intelligence, or AI, to develop their businesses.

Consumer robot maker iRobot, maker of the Roomba robot vacuum cleaner, is to acquire its largest European distributor, Robopolis, in a cash deal worth $141 million. The company said it's signed a definitive agreement to acquire the privately-held, French company, which is based in Lyon, with the acquisition expected to close in October 2017. Its aim is to further enhance its distribution network, following the November 2016 acquisition of SODC, its distributor in Japan. Better serving European consumers and working to drive continued growth in Western Europe -- "through a consistent approach to all market activities including sales, marketing, branding, channel relationships and customer service" -- is the rational for the Robopolis acquisition, it said. "At this stage in the Western European market evolution, and the growth opportunity it presents, we feel a more direct go-to-market strategy is necessary to continue driving adoption of robots for the home," said Colin Angle, chairman and CEO of iRobot, in a statement.

LONDON/NEW YORK – SoftBank Group Corp. has taken a stake in Roomba vacuum-cleaner maker IRobot Corp., people familiar with the matter said, as the Japanese company builds its holdings in robotics firms. SoftBank has built a less than 5 percent stake in IRobot, below the amount that would require a regulatory disclosure in the U.S., the people said, asking not to be identified because the purchase was private. The Bedford, Massachusetts-based technology company has a market value of $2.4 billion. Shares in IRobot rose 22 percent in late trading in New York. Representatives for SoftBank and IRobot declined comment.

HubSpot is announcing that it has acquired Kemvi, a startup applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to help sales teams. A few months ago, Kemvi launched DeepGraph, a product that analyzes public data so that salespeople can identify the best time (say, after a job change or the publication of an article) to reach out to potential customers. It also proactively reaches out to verify leads. "Our vision has been to empower sales and marketing professionals by building technology that can extract information from text about what's happening in the world," said Kemvi founder and CEO Vedant Misra. And from the HubSpot perspective, Chief Strategy Officer Brad Coffey said the company had been looking for new ways to bring AI technology into its platform. He acknowledged that "AI" and "machine learning" are buzzwords that get thrown around a lot right now, but he found Kemvi particularly appealing because it addressed a real need among salespeople.

Google parent Alphabet on Monday reported a quarterly profit of $3.5 billion, in a sharp decline from a year ago, with a massive fine by the European Commission biting into earnings. The technology giant reported that revenue grew to $26 billion in the recently ended quarter, and that profit would have tallied nearly $6.3 billion if it weren't for a $2.74 billion antitrust fine levied on search engine Google by the European Commission. The earnings for the quarter fell 28 percent from the same period last year. Google's parent company Alphabet says its quarterly profits took a hit because of a $2.74 billion anti-trust fine imposed by the European Union Alphabet announced separately that Google chief executive Sundar Pichai would join Alphabet's board of directors. Pichai is responsible for Google s product development and technology strategy, as well as the company s day-to-day-operations.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) attracted $162M in investments across 12 deals in the first half of 2017, the highest amount of funding in Canada in the past five years, according to the MoneyTree Report from PwC Canada and CB Insights. Despite the record high in AI deals, investments in venture-backed companies based in Canada slowed down in the first half of 2017. Funding decreased to $885M in the first half of 2017 from $1.027B (14%) from the same period in 2016. The number of deals also decreased to 127 deals from 170 (25%) from the same period last year. Quarterly activity in Q2 2017 saw $400M deployed across 58 deals. This is a decline from Q2 2016 which saw $600M deployed across 58 deals.

Around 47% of the AI companies acquired since 2012 have had VC backing. Corporate giants like Google, IBM, Yahoo, Intel, Apple, and Salesforce are competing in the race to acquire private AI companies, with Ford, Samsung, GE, and Uber emerging as new entrants. Over 250 private companies using AI algorithms across different verticals have been acquired since 2012, with 37 acquisitions taking place in Q1'17 alone. That quarter also saw one of the largest M&A deals: Ford's acquisition of Argo AI for $1B. Baidu has been particularly aggressive in its AI acquisitions in 2017, with 3 M&A deals so far this year, including its acquisition of Amazon Alexa Fund-backed Kitt.ai this quarter.