Ride-hailing requires a lot of machine smarts to maintain a competitive edge, so it's not surprising to see Uber make a strategic acquisition in the artificial intelligence space. The company has acquired Geometric Intelligence, a startup co-founded by academic researchers with AI experience, and its team will provide the core for a new central AI lab being established at Uber's SF HQ. Uber's doing a lot with machine learning already through its research team in Pittsburgh, but they're focused specifically on solving issues related to autonomous driving. This new core team will be looking at applications for AI more broadly, with a focus on basic research that's likely to have impact across a range of potential uses, including things like route management. It's also yet another sign that Uber wants to be passed among tech bigs like Google, Apple and Microsoft whose interests range beyond a single domain.

Ride-hailing requires a lot of machine smarts to maintain a competitive edge, so it's not surprising to see Uber make a strategic acquisition in the artificial intelligence space. The company has acquired Geometric Intelligence, a startup co-founded by academic researchers with AI experience, and its team will provide the core for a new central AI lab being established at Uber's SF HQ. Uber's doing a lot with machine learning already through its research team in Pittsburgh, but they're focused specifically on solving issues related to autonomous driving. This new core team will be looking at applications for AI more broadly, with a focus on basic research that's likely to have impact across a range of potential applications, including things like route management. It's also yet another sign that Uber wants to be passed among tech bigs like Google, Apple and Microsoft whose interests range beyond a single domain.

The acquisition will bring Zementis' predictive analytics to Software AG's real-time streaming analytics platform. Software AG has acquired California-based Zementis for an undisclosed sum in a move designed to bolster its internet of things capability. Zementis offers software for'deep learning' which plays a crucial role in the development of machine learning, data science and fundamental technology that drives artificial intelligence (AI) development. According to Software AG, the advances in machine learning and AI are being applied in the next generation Internet of Things (IoT) such as self-driving cars, personal digital assistants, medical diagnosis, predictive maintenance and robotics. Software AG has already employed Adaptive Decision and Predictive Analytics (ADAPA) from Zementis into its Digital Business Platform to offer its clients with comprehensive insights for real time business analytics.

Ride-hailing requires a lot of machine smarts to maintain a competitive edge, so it's not surprising to see Uber make a strategic acquisition in the artificial intelligence space. The company has acquired Geometric Intelligence, a startup co-founded by academic researchers with AI experience, and its team will provide the core for a new central AI lab being established at Uber's SF HQ. Uber's doing a lot with machine learning already through its research team in Pittsburgh, but they're focused specifically on solving issues related to autonomous driving. This new core team will be looking at applications for AI more broadly, with a focus on basic research that's likely to have impact across a range of potential applications, including things like route management. It's also yet another sign that Uber wants to be passed among tech bigs like Google, Apple and Microsoft whose interest range beyond a single domain.

Bob, CFO of ABC Inc is about to get on an earnings call after just reporting a 20% miss on earnings due to slower revenue growth than forecasted. Company ABC's stock price is plummeting, down 25% in extended hour trading. The board is furious and investors demand answers on the discrepancies. Unlike humans, algorithms can simulate numerous scenarios and recognize patterns that keep re-emerging in the data. It is also not limited to structured data and can examine unstructured data such as emails and logs to extract meaningful indicators.

Dashbot, the leading bot analytics platform, today announced it has raised $2 million in a Series Seed funding round. 'We strongly believe that AI-driven insights and tools-coupled with engaging conversational interfaces-can significantly bolster organizations' bottom lines in an efficient way. Dashbot is doing just that, and is essential for any enterprise or developer to build and monetize their bots in a technology environment increasingly harnessing AI's potential' Tweet this Dashbot provides bot-specific analytics and tools to enable brands and developers to increase user acquisition, engagement, and monetization. In addition to bot-specific metrics like sentiment analysis, conversational analytics, and AI response effectiveness, Dashbot provides tools to take action on that data, like its Live Person Takeover of chat sessions and Push Notifications for re-engagement. Dashbot is a cross platform solution which natively supports Facebook Messenger, Slack, and Kik bots, and has a generic API for any conversational interface.

One of Silicon Valley's most idiosyncratic players -- the Mozilla Foundation -- just reported a 28% leap in revenue for 2015, to $421 million, with cash flow more than tripling, to about $80 million. Further increases appear likely this year. In a section of its newly released annual report, called The State of Mozilla, the foundation said that in 2017, Mozilla will invest in more mobile-product development and will build a recommender system for the web, known as Context Graph. Mozilla also said that in 2017 it will launch its first Internet Health Report. This will examine "the state of the open internet . . .

Nintendo Reports Second Quarter Losses But 3DS Sales Are Up Thanks To'Pokmon GO' We've all been there – scouring the internet for items of clothing to buy to suit any given occasion, only to feel more than overwhelmed by the volume of choice now available and increasingly frustrated by how hard it is to actually find something we like. Abigail Holtz is out there to try and solve that problem. Hailing from Google where she worked on a multitude of different shopping products, including Boutiques.com The vision is to create a'Pandora for fashion' – a site that uses recommendation technology (based on what Holtz calls a "fashion genome" and her "secret sauce") as well as human input, to suggest looks for shoppers informed by things like style, fit, body shape, even occasion appropriateness. It's got an intuitive UI/UX built around a simple like or dislike (heart or cross) functionality, and a straightforward breakdown of clothing categories based on trends as well as occasions.

Nintendo Reports Second Quarter Losses But 3DS Sales Are Up Thanks To'Pokmon GO' Intel is reorganizing to better position itself for the next big thing in computing: self-driving cars. The chipmaking giant is taking its autonomous car efforts out the Internet of Things business group and creating a new business unit focused exclusively on the new market, called the Automated Driving Group. Doug Davis, the current head of Intel's Internet of Things division, will be heading up the new unit. In August, Davis had announced he would be retiring from Intel soon, but it looks like he changed his mind. "Throughout his career, Doug has consistently been on the leading side of disruption – standing up amazing new technologies that redefine how we experience work and life," said Intel president Murthy Renduchintala in a blog post.

Nintendo Reports Second Quarter Losses But 3DS Sales Are Up Thanks To'Pokmon GO' At Inbound 2016, HubSpot's co-founders Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah entertained 19,000 attendees with their take on the past and future of marketing. Here's what I learned from their keynote presentation and a brief interview. So predicts Halligan, adding "in five years, you will do a lot less navigating through apps and more just asking questions and chatting back and forth with bots… the next thing you know, we like it and it's easier and more efficient than waiting for the sales rep to call you back." Shah notes that businesses started building websites in the 1990s so they can answer customer questions 24/7. "Soon," he says, "they will start building bots. They won't replace the websites, but they will power them. The shortest time between a customer question and the answer will be a bot. It's not human vs. bot, it's human to the bot powered."