At the COSM Technology Summit, tech pioneer and visionary Ray Kurzweil offered by interactive video a glimpse of his foreseen Singularity in which we merge with super-intelligent computers. As a Director of Engineering at Google, with a 30-year track record of accurate predictions and many key patents to his credit, the "the restless genius" (Wall Street Journal) projects the revolution -- of which he has been so large a component -- into a limitless future: "I've been in this field 55 years and it's only in the last few years that we can take everything humans do and go way beyond the best human. We can perform any kind of human capability." He cites an example: "AlphaGoZero was not given any information about Go but after three days defeated every human. These milestones are coming quickly."

Digital media software company RealNetworks has announced significant financial progress in the third quarter financial report, the company says in a press release. RealNetworks had already announced great success for its SAFR biometric facial recognition software in its Q2 2019 report that saw revenues of $44.2 million. According to current figures, the third quarter revenue rose to $45.0 million from just $17.6 million during the same timeframe last year. The SAFR live video artificial intelligence and biometric facial recognition platform was recently integrated with the Nvidia Metropolis Software Partner Program to improve technology deployment in smart city projects. In June, SAFR biometric facial recognition was rolled out in a museum in Europe on MOBOTIX cameras to provide live analytics.

Forecast, a Denmark-based startup that has developed "AI-powered" project management software, has raised $5.5 million in new funding. The round is led by Crane Venture Partners, with participation from existing backers SEED Capital and Heartcore. Forecast has raised $10 million in total funding to date. Founded in late 2016, Forecast describes itself as an AI-powered project management solution that automates manual project management tasks, and brings extra visibility and predictive capabilities to to project management. The idea is to help increase collaboration across teams with a better workflow and to improve planning.

Starbucks Corp. is getting personal with its customers, enlisting help from advanced technologies that the company says will kick its digital capabilities up a notch. Kevin Johnson, Starbucks' SBUX, 0.44% chief executive, talked on the post-earnings conference call with analysts about Deep Brew, an artificial intelligence program, saying it has been percolating for the past year. The company has been ramping up its investment in artificial intelligence during the course of the program. "Deep Brew will increasingly power our personalization engine, optimize store labor allocations and drive inventory management in stores," said Johnson, according to a FactSet transcript. With more customers signing up for the company's loyalty program, the opportunity for personalization is increasing.

Viz.ai, a healthcare startup that's using artificial intelligence (AI) to help medical professionals spot early signs of stroke, has raised $50 million in a series B round of funding led by Greenoaks, with participation from Alphabet's VC arm GV and Kleiner Perkins. In the U.S. alone, someone has a stroke every 40 seconds, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), culminating in some 140,000 deaths each year -- or 1 in every 20 deaths. Moreover, those who survive a stroke often suffer long-term disability as a result. As with many medical conditions, early stroke detection is the key to treating and negating the impact of strokes, but they can be difficult to diagnose. And even then, coordinating treatment among the various specialists can cause unnecessary delays.

Israeli artificial intelligence (AI) peptide drug discovery company Pepticom announced today that it has raised $5 million in a Series A financing round from the Chartered Group. The Jerusalem-based company's AI technology streamlines and significantly accelerates the ability of researchers to discover advanced peptide-based drug candidates. Peptides are used in various therapies, and are recognized for being highly selective and efficacious as well as relatively safe. The pharma industry has recently shown an increased interest in peptide research and development, leading to a resurgence of peptide drug candidates. The process of discovering new peptides with lifesaving potential, however, is still costly and time consuming.

McDonald's has failed to lure customers in with new technology, bringing the firm's third-quarter earnings down by two percent and dropping net income to $1.6 billion. Although the firm's net income experienced dipped, it was able to show a 5.9 percent increase in global comparable sales, including a decent rise in the US. However, Investors have put pressure on profits following the fast-food giant's increased spending on a variety of technologies including artificial intelligence and voice recognition. McDonald's has failed to lure customers in with new technology, bringing the firm's third-quarter earnings down by 2% and dropping net income to $1.6 billion. Although the firm's net income dipped, it was able to show a 5.9% increase in global comparable sales, including a decent rise in the US Quarterly earnings for McDonalds were flat at $2.11 per share, while Wall Street was looking for at least $2.21 of earnings per-share, according to analysts polled by FactSet. The Chicago company said its third-quarter revenue was $5.4 billion, again missing Wall Street's mark, which was forecasted to be $5.49 billion.

Newswire) GBT Technologies Inc. (OTCPINK: GTCH) ("GBT", or the "Company"), a company specializing in the development of Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) enabled networking and tracking technologies, including its GopherInsight wireless mesh network technology platform for both mobile and fixed solutions, announced that it has entered into a Joint Venture ("JV") Agreement with BitSpeed LLC ("BitSpeed"), a software development company located in the Los Angeles area. BitSpeed is currently partnered with a major Cloud Platform (GCP) and has an agreement to supply its software through GCP's Partner Advantage program, where their customers can buy certified solutions directly from GCP. BitSpeed's Concurrency application competes in the Extreme File Transfer market, which is a subset of the larger Managed File Transfer or MFT market. "Managed file transfer is a type of software that allows the transfer of files inside an organization or between multiple organizations. This method is a fast, secure, reliable, and a transparent way of exchanging files, with additional features such as tracking and monitoring. As a result, one can discover the loss of data from a specific point, and also receive an acknowledgement after successful completion of a file transfer process. With the advent of digitalization, companies are becoming heavily dependent on the successful transmission of digital files bearing critical information. Hence, this transmission should be secure, reliable, and quick to run the business process smoothly in real time. The demand for efficient and effective file transfer has been increasing in the past few years."

I'm publishing this series to discuss a topic that I follow closely - cloud stocks, trends, strategy, acquisitions, and more. Please subscribe to my Cloud Stock Analysis series and never miss an article. Earlier this week, IBM (Nasdaq: IBM) declared its third quarter results that exceeded earnings expectations despite missing revenue estimates. The stock fell nearly 5% post the result announcement in the after-hours session. Revenues for the third quarter fell 3.9% over the year to $18.03 billion, missing the Street's forecast of $18.23 billion for the quarter.