Mumbai: ICICI Bank, India's largest private sector bank, today announced the deployment of'Software Robotics' in over 200 business processes across various functions of the bank. The bank is the first in the country and among few, globally, to deploy'Software Robotics' that emulates human actions to automate and perform repetitive, high volume and time consuming business tasks cutting across multiple applications. At ICICI Bank, software robots have reduced the response time to customers by up to 60% and increased accuracy to 100% thereby sharply improving the bank's productivity and efficiency. It has also enabled the bank's employees to focus more on value-added and customer-related functions. The software robots now perform over 10 lakh banking transactions every working day.

The rise of artificial intelligence and automation in journalism has been front and center in the news lately, from Narrative Science co-founder Kris Hammond's prediction that "a machine will win a Pulitzer one day" to Facebook's decision to automate its Trending Topics feed. Algorithms seem certain to play a growing role in the production and curation of news, but it remains unclear what exactly this trend will mean for journalism -- or for the human journalists who currently produce it. Celebrants argue that algorithms will simply take over journalism's most menial tasks, freeing up human journalists to tackle more advanced work. Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwait, for example, called automation "crucial to the future of journalism," and New York magazine writer Kevin Roose described the introduction of automated reporting as "the best thing to happen to journalists in a long time." However, skeptics fear that robots may end up replacing journalists instead of helping them.

Investment into the digital health market topped 4.5 billion in 2015, and we are seeing an acceleration of investment in 2016. According to StartUp Health, investment into the digital health market for the first half of 2016 reached 3.9 billion. Early-stage innovation made up more than 65% of deals, with the majority of investment capital it going into Series A rounds. As of July, patient and consumer products, which include wearables, are leading with over 960 million invested in this sector, followed by wellness at 854 million, personalized health at 524 million, big data/analytics at 406 million and workflow at 328 million. Digital health research and population health are at the bottom of the start-up health company's list, with 65 million and 55 million, respectively. It's no surprise that we are seeing digital health M&A activity coming from tech giants such as Google, Apple and IBM.

Wipro will leverage the Vectra automated threat management platform built with artificial intelligence-based on machine learning and behavioral analytics to detect attacker behaviors and user anomalies in the network. According to Gartner, "most enterprises have limited capabilities to detect and respond to breaches when they inevitably occur, resulting in longer'dwell times' and increased damage." We believe organizations these days incur significant fines because they do not have adequate solutions to detect breaches or cannot contain them in a reasonable period. Gartner also says that by 2020, 60% of enterprise information security budgets will be allocated to rapid detection and response approaches -- up from less than 10% in 2014.1 As threats became more intelligent and sophisticated, traditional security solutions will become inadequate over time because they will continue to make snap judgments based on incomplete information. Wipro's'Threat Hunting as- a- Service' offering, powered by Vectra Networks, provides enterprises with an automated threat hunting platform for real-time detection of threats.

U.S. stocks inched higher Tuesday in another cautious day of trading as investors kept an eye on central banks in the U.S. and Japan. Healthcare and household goods companies led the way, while energy companies slipped. Major market indexes were higher all day but returned most of those gains at the close of trading. They rose just enough to cancel out Monday's small losses. Drug companies helped healthcare stocks make modest gains, while Exxon Mobil fell on reports that it's being investigated by securities regulators.

Webroot has acquired the assets of San Diego-based CyberFlow Analytics in a move that beefs up the company's machine learning capabilities. CyberFlow's FlowScape network behavioral analytics solution applies data science to network anomaly detection. Thus, the acquisition extends Webroot's machine learning-based cybersecurity to the network layer, to address the explosion of internet-connected devices and an increasingly complex threat landscape. SaaS-based FlowScape adversarial analytics and unsupervised machine can identify polymorphic malware and advanced persistent threats (APTs) that mask their activities within everyday network noise, the company said, identifying network anomalies in both IPv4 and IPv6 traffic. Security analysts can view alerts via a SIEM solution or the automated FlowScape visualization console, which creates self-forming behavioral clusters that provide an early warning system of high-risk activity that forms over time.

Xinhua News Media Holdings Ltd. said Monday it is seeking to raise up to 42.9 million Hong Kong dollars via a share placement and will use the net proceeds for general working capital. Macau Legend Development Ltd., which operates casino and hotels, said Monday Laurence Yuen resigned as executive vice president and chief financial officer effective immediately. Salesforce.com Inc. said it would embed artificial intelligence technology into its software for salespeople, making it the latest in a gaggle of companies racing to enhance workplace tools with human-like abilities. The company will demonstrate the new software at its annual user conference next month in San Francisco. Newcrest Mining Ltd. said it has agreed to sell its 50% stake in a Papua New Guinea gold operation to partner Harmony Gold Mining Co. Ltd. .

The Times Bayer bets the farm in 66 billion Monsanto deal: An American pioneer of genetically modified seeds has struck a 66 billion takeover deal with Bayer, the German chemicals giant, in the latest round of megadeal consolidations in agricultural production. Lawyers set to pass M&A paperwork to machines: Luminance, a start-up backed by Mike Lynch, the British technology investor, is aiming to reduce the time taken on due diligence that accompanies multimillion-pound M&A deals from weeks to days or even hours using a new form of artificial intelligence. Public sector job numbers plunge to record low: Employment in the public sector has fallen to a record low as private sector jobs surge ahead despite Brexit, official figures have shown. Mortgage lending falls in wake of Brexit vote: The number of mortgages advanced for house purchases fell in the first month after Britain's decision to leave the European Union. Miner in'bribery scandal' intends to quit AIM: An Africa-focused mining company that has been caught up in a bribery scandal is planning to delist its shares.

Ford Motor Co. F -1.53 % made its latest plea for investors to view the auto maker more like a Silicon Valley company, promising lofty returns on future ventures while warning near-term profit will be pinched by deep investment. The Dearborn, Mich., auto maker told investors on Wednesday that its new business services unit eventually will deliver 20% margins, two-and-a-half-times its core auto-making operation. It updated its plans for venturing into robo-taxis, electric car and other transportation services like bike sharing and shuttle vans. Ford's share price has declined while Chief Executive Mark Fields has been at the helm, despite delivering record operating profit. The focus under Mr. Fields--who took over in 2014 after Alan Mulally spent nearly a decade on initiatives that had Ford getting back to basics--has been on winning a technology race with rivals including General Motors Co. GM -0.71 % and Toyota Motor Corp. TM -1.04 % The new strategy will be costly and risky.

In February Amigobulls reported that Alphabet (NSDQ:GOOGL) was using chips from startup Movidius for the development of next-generation Virtual Reality (VR) headsets. Movidius, a company specialized in low-power machine vision for connected devices, has been working with Alphabet to accelerate the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) within mobile devices. Now, the machine vision startup is being acquired by Intel (NSDQ:INTC). "I'm excited to announce the planned acquisition of Movidius by Intel," said Movidius CEO Remi El-Ouazzane. "Movidius' mission is to give the power of sight to machines. As part of Intel, we'll remain focused on this mission, but with the technology and resources to innovate faster and execute at scale."