Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an important and evolving concept that is having significant impact within the Customer Experience industry -- and it's a topic that is being talked about on a seemingly daily basis at this point. But is AI really ready for primetime in customer care? I spoke with Michael Johnston, Lead Inventive Scientist at Interactions, about frequently asked questions about AI and Machine Learning as they apply to customer care. Artificial Intelligence refers to the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior. Put another way, AI technologies are algorithms that attempt to mimic things that humans do.

Unlike most other lists of top experts, this one is a hand-picked selection, not based on influence or Klout scores, or the number of Twitter followers and re-tweets, or other similar metrics. Each of these experts has his/her own Wikipedia page. Some might not even have a Twitter account. All of them have had a very strong academic and research career in the most prestigious places. Jeffrey Hawkins is the American founder of Palm Computing (where he invented the Palm Pilot) and Handspring (where he invented the Treo).

Yoo Kwang-yeol, commissioner of the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit, said his agency is currently working to upgrade the main system that stores and analyzes information regarding hundreds of millions of financial transactions in order to increase accuracy of capturing suspicious transactions out of normal ones. "We are considering an uptake of the artificial intelligence technology to improve the current intelligence system by benchmarking advanced systems in countries like Australia and Canada," Yoo said in an interview with The Korea Herald. Yoo Kwang-yeol, commissioner of Korea Financial Intelligence Unit speaks during an interview at his office in Gwanghwamun, central Seoul, Dec. 6. Ahn Hoon/The Korea Herald For this, a group of KOFIU experts paid a trip to Australia earlier this month to learn from the Australian financial intelligence system. "AI can help improve efficiency of sorting out suspicious financial transactions and accuracy of analyzing related account information," Yoo said.

To ramp up its contribution to global fights against money laundering and terrorism financing, South Korea will introduce an artificial intelligence-based system to better filter out financial crimes, said the country's financial intelligence chief. Yoo Kwang-yeol, commissioner of the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit, said his agency is currently working to upgrade the main system that stores and analyzes information regarding hundreds of millions of financial transactions in order to increase accuracy of capturing suspicious transactions out of normal ones. Yoo Kwang-yeol, commissioner of Korea Financial Intelligence Unit speaks during an interview at his office in Gwanghwamun, central Seoul, Dec. 6. For this, a group of KOFIU experts paid a trip to Australia earlier this month to learn from the Australian financial intelligence system. "AI can help improve efficiency of sorting out suspicious financial transactions and accuracy of analyzing related account information," Yoo said.

The Canadian firm is set to invest C$100 million ($75 million) in a new autonomous vehicle-testing hub over several years, the company's chief executive said on Monday, marking a change of direction for the smartphone pioneer. Apple is said to have taken the unusual step of working on its car software far away from its California HQ. QNX, which was bought out by Blackberry in 2010, is known for producing car software. What is REALLY going on in North Korea? 'Explosion' thought... From reacting to a bad gift to buying the perfect present:... Facebook Messenger FINALLY unveils group video calls that... Look up! FOUR asteroids are set to make a'close approach'... What is REALLY going on in North Korea?

What is the Central Limit Theorem and why is it important? How many sampling methods do you know? What is the difference between Type I vs Type II error? What do the terms P-value, coefficient, R-Squared value mean? What is the significance of each of these components? What are the assumptions required for linear regression? There are four major assumptions: 1. There is a linear relationship between the variables, meaning the model you are creating actually fits the data, 2. The errors or residuals of the data are normally distributed and independent from each other, 3. There is minimal multicollinearity between explanatory variables, and 4. Homoscedasticity. This means the variance around the regression line is the same for all values of the predictor variable. What is an example of a dataset with a non-Gaussian distribution?

Amazon Go stopped the world in its tracks. The Dec. 5 introduction of Amazon's revolutionary convenience store looms among the most surprising and compelling retail announcements in recent memory: The Seattle pilot location -- which Amazon describes as "roughly 1,800 square feet of retail space that is conveniently compact, so busy customers can get in and out fast" -- advances far beyond existing self-checkout systems by eliminating the checkout process entirely. Amazon Go offers c-store staples like milk and bread, along with meals and snacks made by on-site chefs and local suppliers, as well as Amazon Meal Kits. Shoppers (a segment currently comprised exclusively of Amazon employees) scan a QR-code based mobile application upon entering the store. The e-commerce giant's Just Walk Out technology then detects when items are removed from or returned to store shelves, tracking purchases in a virtual cart, and totals the final cost when customers exit the premises.

Master everything you need to transform data into action with our Learning Path: Machine Learning, a curated collection of lessons to take you from the basics to coding your own machine learning algorithms. Subscribe to the O'Reilly Data Show Podcast to explore the opportunities and techniques driving big data, data science, and AI. Find us on Stitcher, TuneIn, iTunes, SoundCloud, RSS. In this special two-segment episode of the Data Show, I spoke with Dafna Shahaf, assistant professor at the School of Computer Science and Engineering at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her area of research is focused on tools and techniques for overcoming information overload, an area of increasing importance in an attention economy.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an important and evolving concept that is having significant impact within the Customer Experience industry -- and it's a topic that is being talked about on a seemingly daily basis at this point. But is AI really ready for primetime in customer care? I spoke with Michael Johnston, Lead Inventive Scientist at Interactions, about frequently asked questions about AI and Machine Learning as they apply to customer care. How do you define Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning? Artificial Intelligence refers to the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior.

A number of the notable science stories of the past year are, quite literally, out of this world. For me, the story of the year has to be the August discovery of an Earth-like planet orbiting the closest star to our own. The star, Proxima Centauri, is just 4.2 light-years from Earth. The planet circling that star has been named Proxima Centauri b. Proxima Centauri b was discovered by astronomers working on a project called Pale Red Dot, who reported that the planet lies in the star's habitable zone, meaning that it could possess water and, maybe, life.