McDonald's is exploring ways to automate its drive-thru service with the help of artificial intelligence. It means that you could soon be chatting with a robot rather than a human when you pull up to place your order. Helping the fast-food giant in its high-tech endeavor is Silicon Valley-based Apprente, which McDonald's revealed this week it has agreed to acquire. Apprente was founded in 2017 to create a voice-based, conversational platform for complex, multilingual, multi-accent, and multi-item conversational ordering. According to McDonald's, Apprente's technology, which is already being tested at select restaurants, will pave the way for "faster, simpler, and more accurate order taking at the drive-thru."

Over 7,000 store closings have already been announced in 2019. On the same day Apple unveiled the launch date of its subscription service Arcade, brick-and-mortar video game hub GameStop announced store closures. During Tuesday's quarterly earnings call with analysts, GameStop chief financial officer Jim Bell said the company was "on track to close between 180 and 200 underperforming stores globally by the end of this fiscal year." Bell also said there have been 195 store closures since last year. How many stores could close in the U.S. was not disclosed.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The chain has been using technology to stay ahead of the competition. In March, McDonald's announced the acquisition of Dynamic Yield, which specializes in personalization and decision logic technology. People familiar with the matter said the deal was worth more than $300 million, making it McDonald's largest deal in two decades. After closing the Dynamic Yield acquisition, McDonald's quickly deployed its machine learning tech in more than 8,000 U.S. drive-thrus.

Newswire) Patriot One Technologies Inc., (TSX: PAT) (OTCQB: PTOTF) (FRANKFURT: 0PL) ("Patriot One" or the "Company"), developer of the PATSCAN Multi-Sensor Covert Weapon Detection Platform ("PATSCAN Platform"), is pleased to announce the acquisition of XTRACT Technologies Inc. ("XTRACT") and all its related interests, assets, and intellectual property for consideration of $6,000,000 and the issuance of 9,422,956 Patriot One common shares (the "Consideration Shares") to XTRACT's former shareholders (the "Transaction"). Subject to certain exceptions based on the business of the Company or the performance of the Company's common share price, the Consideration Shares will be subject to escrow restrictions and released on a quarterly basis over the next twelve consecutive fiscal quarters of Patriot One. The Transaction follows demonstrated success of an ongoing collaborative project between the two firms that was announced in late July 2019. The XTRACT acquisition is part of an ongoing strategic initiative by the Company to bring together leading-edge technologies and services that will enhance the power of its PATSCAN Platform, which offers a layered, multi-sensor approach to concealed threat and disturbance detection. "Just over a month ago, we announced a development project with XTRACT, and during this period we've already seen great progress in significant opportunities for enhanced detection accuracy" said Martin Cronin, Patriot One's CEO and President.

Certain statements in this release concerning our future growth prospects are forward-looking statements, which involve a number of risks, and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding fluctuations in our earnings, revenue and profits, our ability to generate and manage growth, intense competition in IT services, our ability to maintain our cost advantage, wage increases in India, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, time and cost overruns on fixed-price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, restrictions on immigration, our ability to manage our international operations, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, disruptions in telecommunication networks, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, liability for damages on our service contracts, the success of the companies in which we make strategic investments, withdrawal of fiscal governmental incentives, political instability, war, legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside India, unauthorized use of our intellectual property, and general economic conditions affecting our business and industry. Additional risks that could affect our future operating results are more fully described in our filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. We may, from time to time, make additional written and oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in the company--s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our reports to shareholders. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statement that may be made from time to time by us or on our behalf.--

Alexey Ivasyuk, CEO & CTO According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, more than 30 per cent of all food produced globally is never eaten. The value of this wasted resource is worth over a trillion dollars. The causes of the aforementioned food wastage are numerous and occur at various stages of the supply chain--handling and storage, to name a few--but primarily due to absence in coordination among suppliers, retailers, and buyers. Also, ineffective food demand forecasts are one of the major causes of food waste even before you buy it in a store. "An efficient supply chain between suppliers and buyers, not only reduces food waste but also increases cash flow," says Alexey Ivasyuk, CEO and CTO of MySales Labs, while addressing the inadequacies of collaborations among various dealers, merchants, and sellers.

Palo Alto Networks on Wednesday announced the acquisition of IoT security firm Zingbox for $75 million in cash, and made public its financial results for the fiscal year 2019. Zingbox provides a cloud-based lifecycle management solution that uses AI and machine learning technologies to identify, secure and optimize devices.

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. Quickbooks's parent company Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU) recently reported its fiscal fourth quarter results that outpaced market expectations. The stock has climbed nearly 50% this year, and growth doesn't appear to be slowing down. Intuit's fourth quarter revenues grew 15% over the year to $994 million, significantly ahead of the market's expectations of $961 million.

It will be the first time that Blackberry's QNX platform will be integrated with Cylance's artificial intelligence technology. Blackberry and Jaguar Land Rover have announced that they will work together to develop new autonomous vehicles using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies. The two companies will use Blackberry's QNX operating system and Blackberry Cylance to develop a range of capabilities to bolster vehicle safety, including predictive software maintenance and cyber threat protection, in Jaguar Land Rover's next-generation vehicle architecture. Under the partnership, Blackberry will also help Jaguar Land Rover identify potential security vulnerabilities found in connected and autonomous vehicles. "BlackBerry is a trusted partner of the automotive industry because of our heritage and innovations in secure communications," Blackberry CEO John Chen said.

Palo Alto has inked a definitive agreement to acquire Internet of Things (IoT) start-up Zingbox for $75m (£60.8m). San Francisco-based Zingbox was established in 2014 and had raised $23.5m in funding rounds prior to its purchase by the security vendor. It is the second acquisition of 2019 for the vendor after it splashed out $560m for Israeli start-up Demisto . Palo Alto stated that it will incorporate Zingbox's artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning capabilities into its own Firewall and Cortex platforms.