Automation, digital platforms, and other innovations are changing the fundamental nature of work. Understanding these shifts can help policy makers, business leaders, and workers move forward. The world of work is in a state of flux, which is causing considerable anxiety--and with good reason. There is growing polarization of labor-market opportunities between high- and low-skill jobs, unemployment and underemployment especially among young people, stagnating incomes for a large proportion of households, and income inequality. Migration and its effects on jobs has become a sensitive political issue in many advanced economies. And from Mumbai to Manchester, public debate rages about the future of work and whether there will be enough jobs to gainfully employ everyone.

American technology giant Google has acquired Bangalore-based artificial intelligence (AI) firm Halli Labs for an undisclosed sum. The firm which was co-founded by former chief technology officer of now defunct Stayzilla, Pankaj Gupta, announced the acquisition in a blogpost on Tuesday. The firm becomes the latest AI start up to be snapped by a technology giant after a spate of similar acquisitions by firms such as Microsoft, Facebook, Apple among others. "Halli Labs was founded with the goal of applying modern AI and ML (Machine Learning) techniques to old problems and domains?--?in order to help technology enable people to do whatever it is that they want to do, easier and better. Well, what better place than Google to help us achieve this goal," the company said in a blog.

New Delhi: Google Inc. has acquired Halli Labs, a four-month old start-up out of Bengaluru that is developing artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions. Halli Labs announced the acquisition late Wednesday. "We will be joining Google's Next Billion Users team to help get more technology and information into more people's hands around the world," the company said in blog post on Medium.com. According to a bio-note, also on Medium, Halli Labs is engaged in developing solutions to traditional problems using AI, MI, deep learning and natural language processing technologies. "Halli Labs is applying modern ML techniques to old problems and domains to help technology march on in its timeless purpose-- that of giving superhuman powers to all of us humans in letting us do whatever we want to do, better," the post read.

NEW DELHI: American technology giant Google has acquired Bangalore-based artificial intelligence (AI) firm Halli Labs for an undisclosed sum. The firm which was co-founded by former chief technology officer of now defunct Stayzilla, Pankaj Gupta, announced the acquisition in a blogpost on Tuesday. The firm becomes the latest AI start up to be snapped by a technology giant after a spate of similar acquisitions by firms such as Microsoft, Facebook, Apple among others. "Halli Labs was founded with the goal of applying modern AI and ML (Machine Learning) techniques to old problems and domains?--?in order to help technology enable people to do whatever it is that they want to do, easier and better. Well, what better place than Google to help us achieve this goal," the company said in a blog.

To ride the rising wave of AI, financial services companies will have to navigate evolving standards, regulations and risk dynamics--particularly regarding data rights, algorithmic accountability and cybersecurity. The success of artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms hinges on the ability to gain easy access to the right kind of data in sufficient volume. Put more simply, AI depends on good data. Even Google--which is famous for the pioneering work in AI that underpins its standard-setting search-based advertising business--makes no bones about the critical role of data in AI. Peter Norvig, Google's director of research, has said: "We don't have better algorithms, we just have more data." Companies increasingly realize that data is critical to their success--and they are paying striking sums to acquire it. Microsoft's US$26 billion purchase of the enterprise social network LinkedIn is a prime example. But other technology companies are also seeking to acquire data-related assets, typically to acquire more than just identity-linked information from social media sources by focusing instead on vast troves of anonymized consumer data. Think, for example, of Oracle pursuing an M&A-led strategy for its Oracle Data Cloud data aggregation service, or IBM buying, within the past two years, both The Weather Company and Truven Health Analytics.

One of the hottest areas for VC investment at the moment is AI/machine learning -- that includes artificial intelligence algorithms, related machine learning systems, neural networks, and back-end processing to produce insightful and self-learning applications. As Nvidia's CEO recently said: VC investment in AI has risen from $3.2 billion in 2014 to $9.5 billion for the first five months of 2017 annualized, with the number of funding rounds nearly doubling since 2015 to over 1,200 on an annualized basis so far this year. Investors piling into a space aim for multiple exits worth hundreds of millions of dollars. However, the pattern of AI exits is the opposite. Most successfully-exited AI companies sell for below $50 million after raising only a small amount of money.

Google once had a reputation for bankrolling moonshots. It spent billions creating a self-driving car, started Google Fiber to bring ultra-high-speed internet to the masses, and acquired the Darpa-backed robotics company Boston Dynamics. But since restructuring itself as a holding company called Alphabet in 2015 and moving many of its bigger ideas outside the core Google business structure, Mountain View's ambitions have become a little more sober and its investment strategy more restrained. As Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat put it during an earnings call last year: "We continue to rationalize our portfolio of products to ensure we efficiently and effectively focus our resources behind our biggest bets across Alphabet." In practical terms, that's meant scaling back Google Fiber and selling off some of its wilder projects, and it's also opened the door for another company–the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank–to take the lead on some of today's most audacious bets in global tech.

Electric car maker Tesla Inc may have an announcement related to the release date of its first mass-market Model 3 sedan on Sunday. Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk said there would be'News on Sunday', in reply to a tweet by Sydney-based Douglas Bailey who asked Musk to end the speculation on the Model 3 release date. Musk had said in May that Tesla was on track to begin production of the Model 3 sedan in July. Musk had said in May that Tesla was on track to begin production of the Model 3 sedan in July, but took to Twitter today to promise'News on Sunday' for the car. The car will be priced at about $35,000.

John Chambers, Chairman of Cisco System 3. Welcome to the Digital Economy Compass 3 Less talking, more facts – our idea behind creating the Digital Economy Compass. It contains facts, trends and key players, covering the entire digital economy. This very first edition will provide everything you need to know about the digital economy. In a global comparison, broadband speed is fastest in East Asia and Scandinavia Source: Akamai Technologies Note: Figure refers to Q3-2016; countries covered: broadband ranking – 147 1: Megabits per second 10 Average broadband speed in Top10 and selected countries (in Mbps1) South Korea 1 Hong Kong 2 Norway 3 23.6 18.2 Sweden 4 20.1 18.4 20.0 19.7 The sevenfold increase in global mobile data traffic is mainly driven by online video streaming Source: Cisco System; figures include only cellular mobile traffic (Wi-Fi or small cell from dual-mode devices are excluded) Note: Other mobile devices include Tablets, mobile PCs, M2M (incl. Pokémon Go was the most popular mobile game for iPhone users across the globe In cooperation with 19 Most downloaded iPhone apps per category and country in 2016 Categories covered: Shopping, Music, News, Gaming, Social Networks U.S. PandoraAmazon CNN Pokémon Go Messenger China Kugou Music Taobao Toutiao WeChat King of Glory Germany SpotifyKleinan zeigen Spiegel Online Pokémon Go WhatsApp U.K. SpotifyeBay BBC News Pokémon Go WhatsApp France DeezerWish Le Monde Pokémon Go Messenger Connectivity 21. "If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends."

Naver will acquire France-based Xerox Research Centre Europe (XRCE), the company announced, in a bid to strengthen its AI business and expand in Europe. South Korea's largest search giant this year created a lab to focus on AI research. Earlier this month, it announced a partnership with US chip giant Qualcomm to expand its AI platform, named Clova, which is a joint project with subsidiary and chat giant Line. It partnered with compatriot Mirae Asset Daewoo, Korea's largest brokerage company, to apply AI in financial services. It is also applying AI and machine learning technology to its search and apps. The 80 employees at the research centre will join Naver, with the deal expected to close in the third quarter.