Here I offer a few off-the-beaten-path interesting problems that you won't find in textbooks, data science camps, or in college classes. These problems range from applied maths, to statistics and computer science, and are aimed at getting the novice interested in a few core subjects that most data scientists master. The problems are described in simple English and don't require math / stats / probability knowledge beyond high school level. My goal is to attract people interested in data science, but who are somewhat concerned by the depth and volume of (in my opinion) unnecessary mathematics included in many curricula. I believe that successful data science can be engineered and deployed by scientists coming from other disciplines, who do not necessarily have a deep analytical background yet are familiar with data.

What major advances do you foresee in artificial intelligence in 2017? Despite the impressive progress that machine learning made in 2016, AI systems remain specialists: they cannot add new skills to their repertoires without erasing what they already know. This is the problem of catastrophic forgetting. An AI trained to recognise faces in photographs, for example, would not apply well to another visual task, such as recognising street signs. Each system would need to be trained for its own limited task.

Every year at CES, some of the world's biggest tech companies try to one-up each other. TVs get thinner and brighter. Home appliances get chattier and robots get friendlier. But this year, instead of standing out for their memorable devices, a lot of companies showed up with a shared identity: the voice of Alexa. Within a span of just two years, Amazon's cloud-based voice service has spread far beyond the Echo speaker where it first debuted.

Here's a conversation I had recently with Cleverbot. What are your views on the future of chatbots in language learning? User: What are your views on the future of chatbots in language learning? User: Do you think there is a future for chatbots in language education? Cleverbot: Sure, if you are talking about the moon. I also tried to have a conversation with Alice, the avatar from EFL Classroom Bot, listed by Larry Ferlazzo as one of'the best online chatbots for practicing English'.

If you came across an animal in the wild and wanted to learn more about it, there are a few things you might do: You might watch what it eats, poke it to see how it reacts, and even dissect it if you got the chance. Mathematicians are not so different from naturalists. Rather than studying organisms, they study equations and shapes using their own techniques. They twist and stretch mathematical objects, translate them into new mathematical languages, and apply them to new problems. As they find new ways to look at familiar things, the possibilities for insight multiply.

CHENNAI: Google DeepMind's AlphaGo, an artificial intelligence programme developed using deep neural networks and machine learning techniques, hit global headlines last year when it beat South Korean Go grandmaster Lee Sedol to win the series 4-1. However, not many know that AlphaGo has consumed a whopping 30,000 watts of power to complete the task, while the human brain consumes around 20 watts! What gives the human brain such efficiency has so far proven elusive to replicate in computers. Not surprisingly, man's most defining organ is also the least understood. Although an adult human brain weighing 1.4 kg is made up of close to 100 billion neurons, scientists do not know how many different kinds of human neurons exist.

The contentious presidential campaign was filled with accusations of elitism and bias by the media -- from the news to entertainment. Many supporters of Donald J. Trump saw his victory as a repudiation of the so-called liberal elite. So as 2017 begins, we ask: Is Hollywood representing all Americans? Are Hollywood values out of sync with American values? It's the start of a conversation we'll have all year with Hollywood's creators, consumers and observers. Most of all, we want to hear from you . Is Hollywood out of touch with your America? Here's what our critics and writers have to say: KENNETH TURAN on potent Hollywood visions that helped elect Trump TV's affluent bubble: MARY McNAMARA on Hollywood's reluctance to deal with class issues Fear of the powerful woman: JUSTIN CHANG on working women and men still behaving badly Realistic or cliche?: JEFFREY FLEISHMAN on film's working class men and women Building distrust: LORRAINE ALI on destructive TV portrayals of Muslims and how TV ...

Mercedes-Benz plans to introduce a production car powered by artificial intelligence in the next year as part of a collaboration with chip-maker Nvidia. Plans for the car were disclosed during a talk Friday between Sajjad Khan, Mercedes-Benz' vice president of digital vehicle and mobility, and Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, at CES here. "I am very proud of saying that within 12 months we are rolling out a product with Nvidia," Khan said on Friday. Very few details of the car are known, including whether it will be a completely new vehicle or an existing Mercedes model. It is a product of a three-year collaboration, according to Huang.

Most of our editors eschewed the typical New Year's Eve celebrations and arrived in Las Vegas on New Year's Day. One of us even arrived on December 31st and spent the last few hours of 2016 in bed. All of that just to give our all to the annual tradition that is CES. We spent the past few days walking the show floor, attending evening events and covering press conferences just to bring you the very best from CES 2017. And now, we're ready to unveil the finalists for our annual Best of CES awards. Below you'll find our selections for 15 categories, which range from accessibility tech to wearables. We'll announce our category winners tomorrow, which is also when we'll reveal the recipient of our Best of the Best award, the most coveted prize of them all. That special award is selected from our pool of category winners. If you want your voice heard too -- and who doesn't? -- there's an additional category for People's Choice, where you can vote for your favorite entry in our compilation of finalists. Just head on over to our poll right here to cast your ballot. All award winners will be announced at a special ceremony tomorrow at our CES stage, so be sure to come back right here on Engadget around 5PM PT / 8PM ET Saturday to watch it all unfold.

Imagine a world where talent acquisition professionals don't have to spend hours sifting through resumes or LinkedIn profiles. A world where they can instead focus on marketing the position to a smaller pool of qualified candidates, properly assessing their fit during the interview process and ultimately cutting the time to hire by a significant amount. This is the world of artificial intelligence. As a recent Wired article points out, "the world's biggest tech companies are aggressively remaking themselves around artificial intelligence," which is why companies like Microsoft, Twitter, Amazon, and Facebook are investing heavily in it. But before we dive in too deep, let's outline the basics of this digital phenomenon.