ARM servers are devalued partly because many applications don't work with the chips. But ARM has acquired Allinea Software with the hope of partially resolving the compatibility issue. Allinea provides software development, debugging, and porting tools, which should make it easier for people to write applications for ARM-based servers and supercomputers. The acquisition will "provide a channel to thousands of developers using supercomputers and give us better first-hand knowledge of the issues being addressed as software is ported to new ARM-based systems," Javier Orensanz, general manager of the development solutions group at ARM, said in a blog entry. The development tools will also be used for ARM chips in deep-learning systems, which require large-scale server deployments for analytics. ARM's competition will come from deep-learning and HPC software tools offered by Intel, Nvidia, Google, Microsoft, and more recently, AMD.

Etsy, the online marketplace where you can buy handmade and unique items, is eleven years old. IPO'ing in 2015 and with millions of products Etsy is shifting more than just crafts though. I wanted to know more about what's going underneath the bonnet of this juggernaut. It turns out Etsy is boasting solid results this year; in the third quarter it reported 33% revenue growth, 19% growth in gross merchandise sales, 50% growth in seller services, and a 110% increase in adjusted EBITDA (with a margin of 14.9%). It also raised its full-year guidance.

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WIRE)--Conversica, the leader in artificial intelligence (AI) powered business conversations and the only provider of AI-based lead engagement software for sales and marketing, today announced that it has secured $34 million in an oversubscribed Series B funding round. The round was led by Providence Strategic Growth Capital Partners L.L.C. (PSG), an affiliate of Providence Equity Partners L.L.C., with participation from Toba Capital, Wellington Financial LP and Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd., as well as additional funding from existing investor Kennet Partners and founder Ben Brigham. Conversica's board of directors has been expanded to include PSG Managing Director Gopi Vaddi and Toba Capital Partner Wilder Ramsey. "The Conversica team has developed a unique and powerful way to solve a ubiquitous business problem, enabling sales and marketing organizations to automatically engage, qualify and follow up with their leads to more effectively turn them into customers," said Alex Terry, CEO of Conversica. "Sales and marketing professionals at over 1,000 organizations have already achieved tremendous productivity enhancements by deploying our service. We are confident that our unique AI technology will be deployed across a broad spectrum of customer engagement functions to automate and improve many important business conversations."

Hong Kong/Beijing: Megvii Inc., a Chinese developer of facial-recognition technology, has raised at least $100 million from investors including Foxconn Technology Group and CCB International Holdings Ltd, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter. The owner of Face is still in talks with other investors for more funding, the people said, asking not to be named because the matter is private. Megvii confirmed it's raising funds while declining to comment on the specific amount. It plans to work with investors to improve facial recognition technology, especially in the financial industry, smart cities and robotics, the company said in an e-mailed statement. Megvii provides face-scanning systems to Ant Financial, which operates the dominant payments service on Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's online shopping platforms.

Conversational artificial intelligence company Conversica has raised $34 million in an oversubscribed Series B round led by Providence Strategic Growth Capital Partners. Toba Capital, Wellington Financial LP, and Recruit Strategic Partners contributed to the round, as did Series A investor Kennet Partners and Conversica founder Ben Brigham. The funding will be used to boost the company's sales and marketing activities and for expansion into international markets. It will also support ongoing product development efforts including the launch of new AI assistants and multilingual support. Our planes are now'big flying mobile devices' and top hacking targets Consumers check smartphones more than 9 billion times a day and enable new businesses PwC sends'cease and desist' letters to researchers who found critical flaw China targets aviation industry to spy and steal secrets Our planes are now'big flying mobile devices' and top hacking targets PwC sends'cease and desist' letters to researchers who found critical flaw Conversica's flagship product, the AI Sales Assistant, automatically engages with prospective customers using natural, two-way email conversations until the lead converts into an opportunity or chooses to opt out.

Increased investor interest in AI startups – from around 10 deals in Q1'11 to over 120 in Q2'16 – can be attributed to recent advances in machine learning algorithms, particularly "deep learning" technology, a souped up version of AI. Just this week, Google integrated deep learning into its Google Translate tool; Baidu announced the launch of DeepBench, an "open source benchmarking tool for evaluating deep learning performance across different hardware platforms"; and NVIDIA introduced Xavier, a deep learning-based supercomputer for driverless cars. In the private market, Google put deep learning in the spotlight back in 2014 when it acquired 4 startups focused on this AI tech in quick succession: DeepMind, Vision Factory, Dark Blue Labs, and DNNresearch. Apple, which joined the race in 2015, most recently acquired Turi, which has developed a deep learning toolkit, among other AI-based solutions. Not to be outdone, Intel has acquired around 5 AI startups since January 2015, including deep learning startup Nervana Systems and, more recently, Movidius.

Samsung's annual year-end reorganization announcement is being delayed. South Korea's largest business group usually announces reshuffles and structural changes within the second week of December. The changes are indicators of what direction and strategy the conglomerate plans to take the following year. For instance, last year, Samsung Electronics made Injong Rhee, a software expert, the head of mobile division's research team one. Since then, the company has announced the acquisition of Joyent, a cloud vendor, and Viv, an AI-based voice assistant developer, both of which it plans to integrate into its mobile division's services.

In recent years, advanced machine learning techniques have enabled computers to recognize objects in images, understand commands from spoken sentences, and translate written language. But while consumer products like Apple's Siri and Google Translate might operate in real time, actually building the complex mathematical models these tools rely on can take traditional computers large amounts of time, energy, and processing power. As a result, chipmakers like Intel, graphics powerhouse Nvidia, mobile computing kingpin Qualcomm, and a number of startups are racing to develop specialized hardware to make modern deep learning significantly cheaper and faster. The importance of such chips for developing and training new AI algorithms quickly cannot be understated, according to some AI researchers. "Instead of months, it could be days," Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said in a November earnings call, discussing the time required to train a computer to do a new task.

In recent years, advanced machine learning techniques have enabled computers to recognize objects in images, understand commands from spoken sentences, and translate written language. But while consumer products like Apple's Siri and Google Translate might operate in real time, actually building the complex mathematical models these tools rely on can take traditional computers large amounts of time, energy, and processing power. As a result, chipmakers like Intel, graphics powerhouse Nvidia, mobile computing kingpin Qualcomm, and a number of startups are racing to develop specialized hardware to make modern deep learning significantly cheaper and faster. The importance of such chips for developing and training new AI algorithms quickly cannot be understated, according to some AI researchers. "Instead of months, it could be days," Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said in a November earnings call, discussing the time required to train a computer to do a new task.