Apple revealed its fourth quarter financial results during a conference call with investors on Tuesday, but perhaps the most interesting narrative -- aside from the company's first annual revenue decline since 2001 -- was the tech giants avowed focus on machine learning. "Today, machine learning drives improvement in countless features across our products," Apple CEO Tim Cook boasted during his initial remarks. Cook then offered a state of machine learning at Apple, by running down areas where machine learning is already helping to improve the iPhone user experience, noting that machine learning "enables the proactive features in iOS 10, and that cameras employ it in face recognizing software. Machine learning is also a key aspect of Apple's fitness offerings. "Machine learning continually helps Siri get smarter in areas including understanding natural language," Cook added.

Matt Zeiler grew up in a Canadian farming community -- but fast forward a few decades and he's now running a startup that's looking to bring the same kinds of visual search tools that Pinterest and Google have to other companies and developers. That company is Clarifai, a New York-based startup that offers developers the ability to tag metadata to photos in such a way that the company algorithmically learns what kinds of objects are in photos. With that, Clarifai developers can train algorithms to be able to search for those objects, or input their own photos in order to find similar objects. The company said today that it has raised $30 million. The round was led by Menlo Ventures, with Union Square Ventures, Lux Capital and others participating.

People pass by a T-Mobile store in the Brooklyn borough of New York June 4, 2015. NEW YORK T-Mobile US Inc is the likeliest acquisition target as media companies seek a wireless partner following AT&T Inc's proposed 85.4 billion takeover of Time Warner Inc, analysts said. AT&T announced the deal late on Saturday, stoking urgency in the telecoms and media sectors, where carriers facing a saturated wireless market are looking for content to attract mobile users and producers of shows and movies are seeking digital distribution. T-Mobile took most of the wireless industry's subscriber and revenue growth in the third quarter. Its strong balance sheet and fast-growing wireless business makes it an attractive target for a pay-TV or media company, analysts said.

Analysts expect Tesla Motors (TSLA) to show that it has reigned in its losses when the automaker releases its third quarter earnings Wednesday after more than doubling analysts' loss expectations last quarter. Investors polled by FactSet expected the California-based company, led by South African investor and engineer Elon Musk, to post a loss of 53 cents per share--an improvement from last year's third quarter losses of 1.78 per share and second quarter losses of 1.06 per share. Analysts surveyed by Reuters, however, estimated the company's earnings per share (EPS) would turn positive, hitting 37 cents for the quarter ending in December. Such optimistic forecasts are likely fueled by Tesla's announcement that it saw a 70 percent rise in third-quarter deliveries early in October--welcome news after, two months earlier, it disclosed third quarter expenditure needs of 1.1 billion. The earnings report will come one week after the automaker announced all of its cars currently in production would be self-driving, with "a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver."

Above the Trend Line: machine learning industry rumor central, is a recurring feature of insideBIGDATA. In this column, we present a variety of short time-critical news items such as people movements, funding news, financial results, industry alignments, rumors and general scuttlebutt floating around the big data, data science and machine learning industries including behind-the-scenes anecdotes and curious buzz. Our intent is to provide our readers a one-stop source of late-breaking news to help keep you abreast of this fast-paced ecosystem. We're working hard on your behalf with our extensive vendor network to give you all the latest happenings. Be sure to Tweet Above the Trend Line articles using the hashtag: #abovethetrendline.

The company's total income has increased from Rs 13,198.6 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2015 to Rs 14,407.3 The company has posted a net profit after taxes, minority interest and share of profit of associates of Rs 2070 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2016 as compared to Rs 2241 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2015. Total Income has increased from Rs 13198.6 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2015 to Rs 14407.3 On a standalone bais, the company has posted a net profit of Rs 1932 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2016 as compared to Rs 2153 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2015. Total Income has increased from Rs 11725 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2015 to Rs. 12101 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2016.

NVIDIA's (NVDA) quarterly revenues have been surging at double-digit rates in the last three quarters and, looking at the guidance for the next quarter, it's clear that the company is expecting the growth rate to continue unabated in the near future. One of the key factors that has added fuel to their engines is NVIDIA's new growth drivers: the data center segment and auto segment. In the most recent quarter, NVIDIA's data center unit reported 151 million in sales, a growth of 109.72% The growth in data center revenues is much higher than other segments, and there are several reasons why this growth can, in fact, continue its breakneck pace for several more quarters. NVIDIA's expertise in the GPU segment has given it a range of must-have products for hyperscale data centers.

USA TODAY tech reporter Mike Snider looks into Microsoft's 26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn and how it might help the company. LibreOffice is free and has many of the same features as Microsoft Office. SAN FRANCISCO - Microsoft reported first-quarter 2017 adjusted earnings of 76 cents a share on adjusted revenues of 22.3 billion Thursday. The company was expected to report adjusted earnings of 68 cents, up from 67 in the year ago quarter, on revenue of 21.7 billion (excluding deferred revenue), or about the same as a year ago, according to analysts polled by S&P Global Intelligence. Microsoft shares (MSFT) closed down .75% at 57.10, but the impressive beat caused the stock to jump 5% in after hours trading.

Indeed, with so many cyborgs living in our midst, it may not be too early to consider an impending shift in our conception of an "able bodied" human. Perhaps "unenhanced" humans – what nowadays passes for "normal" – could come to be seen as "disabled" because they fail to incorporate some sort of AI in their own being. In thinking about how we might govern AI while getting away from Asimov's "us vs them"mentality, the following three points are worth keeping in mind: If a computer chip is planted in you, then potentially others can operate it, if they know the code. Today's fears of hackers shutting down the internet could morph into tomorrow's fears of terrorists shutting down entire populations – and that might be the way future wars are won. But who should be entrusted to ensure that none of this happens?

Replatforming a business of our size and scale takes time. However, our pace of innovation is accelerating. We're increasingly using structured data and artificial intelligence to transform shopping on eBay, delivering more personalization capabilities, continuing to iterate our mobile experience, and bringing more unique inventory and categories to our customers. We've got more work to do, but I'm confident we're on the right path. Now, let me turn it over to Scott, and he'll provide more details on our Q3 results.