German automaker Audi unveiled its sleek new concept car, Skysphere, which can shift size depending on the driving mode and has a retractable steering column. In a release, the Volkswagen-owned car manufacturer boasted Skysphere was'two vehicles in one': A 623-horsepower sports car that can go from zero to 60 mph in 4 seconds and a'grand touring' (GT) auto that expands the cabin about 10 inches for a roomier ride. In GT mode, the Skysphere is designed to be a Level 4 autonomous vehicle, according to Audi, 'meaning in certain defined road and traffic situations, the driver can delegate complete responsibility to the car and no longer has to intervene.' The luxury auto's rear-mounted electric motor has a range of about 310 miles before it needs a charge. 'This is not rather a car, it's an experience device,' Audi CEO Henrik Wenders, said at the unveiling Tuesday at 2021 Monterey Car Week on Tuesday.

What does the future of internet search look like? Google envisions it as looking more like a casual conversation with a friend. While Google's search engine has been online for over two decades, the technology that powers it has been constantly evolving. Recently, the company announced a new artificial-intelligence system called MUM, which stands for Multitask Unified Model. MUM is designed to pick up the subtleties and nuances of human language at a global scale, which could help users find information they search for more easily or allow them to ask more abstract questions.

All the sessions from Transform 2021 are available on-demand now. Deepbrain AI (formerly Moneybrain), a conversational AI startup based in Seoul, South Korea, has raised $44 million in a series B round led by Korea Development Bank at a post-money valuation of $180 million. The capital will be used to expand the company's customer base and operations globally, CEO Eric Jang said in a statement, with a particular emphasis on the U.S. Deepbrain provides a range of AI-powered customer service products, but its focus is on "synthetic humans," or human-like avatars that respond to natural language questions. Because the pandemic makes online meetups a regular occurrence, the concept of "virtual people" is gaining steam. Startups including Soul Machines, Brud, Wave, Samsung-backed STAR Labs, the AI Foundation, and Deepbrain aim to will a sort of "metaverse" into existence by pursuing AI techniques that can mimic the experience of speaking with a human being (for example, a support agent).

Apple is pushing back against criticism over its plan to scan photos on users iPhones and in iCloud storage in search of child sexual abuse images. In a Frequently Asked Questions document focusing on its'Expanded Protections for Children,' Apple insisted its system couldn't be exploited to seek out images related to anything other than child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The system will not scan photo albums, Apple says, but rather looks for matches based on a database of'hashes' - a type of digital fingerprint - of known CSAM images provided by child safety organizations. While privacy advocacies worry about'false positives, Apple boasted that'the likelihood that the system would incorrectly flag any given account is less than one in one trillion per year.' Apple also claims it would'refuse any such demands' from government agencies, in the US or abroad.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., August 02, 2021--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Stellar Cyber, the leading next-generation security operations platform, announced today that it has partnered with BlackBerry to accelerate adoption of AI-powered security solutions for enterprises and managed security service providers (MSSPs). Both companies are pioneers in using AI and machine learning to eliminate signatures and manual scripts from security solutions, and they are going to market together as a catalyst for AI-based security adoption worldwide by offering an integrated solution that combines BlackBerry's prevention-first AI-driven Unified Endpoint Security offerings with Stellar Cyber's security operations platform. BlackBerry has redefined what an endpoint protection solution can and should do for organizations by utilizing an AI-driven, prevention-first approach. Stellar Cyber pioneered adding AI to the security operations environments, helping to eliminate manual rule creation and management. By joining together in the marketplace, they offer enterprises and MSSPs higher efficiency, a lower rate of false positives, and significantly better protection against today's multi-layered cyberattacks.

All the sessions from Transform 2021 are available on-demand now. Low-code automation platform Appian today announced that it acquired Lana Labs, a process mining company, for an undisclosed amount. Appian says that with the addition of Lana, it'll be able to deliver actionable and continuous process optimization with people, systems, and data in the same workflow. Digital transformation and the ability to adapt quickly are critical in today's business environment. That's why a growing number of companies are adopting process mining, a family of techniques that support the analysis of operational processes of event logs, with the goal of turning event data into insights and actions.

The AgroScout platform collects data to create powerful analytics for actionable insights in crop management. AgroScout monitors the crop from emergence stand count, through canopy coverage estimates, and plant biomass, throughout the season. AgroScout announced today that it has completed a Series A investment round of $7.5 million to expedite the development of its AI cloud platform for remote agronomy, and to increase its accessibility to the 500 million mostly unserved farms worldwide. The platform allows all growers - from the biggest to the smallest - to efficiently comply with the rising demand for sustainable crop protection and carbon accountability. The investment round was led by Kibbutz Yotvata.

SAN DIEGO, August 03, 2021--(BUSINESS WIRE)--LumenVox, a leading provider of speech and voice technology, today announced its next-generation Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) engine with transcription. The new engine, built on a foundation of artificial intelligence (AI) and deep machine learning (ML), outpaces its competition in delivering the most accurate speech-enabled customer experiences. The new LumenVox ASR engine stands apart from the rest with its end-to-end Deep Neural Network (DNN) architecture and its state-of-the-art speech recognition processing capabilities. The new ASR engine not only accelerates the ability to add new languages and dialects but also provides a modern toolset to expand the language model to serve a more diverse base of users. "New demands have redefined the very meaning of Automated Speech Recognition," said Dan Miller, lead analyst at Opus Research.

We would like to invite you to our FDL USA Digital Showcase on Friday 13 August 2021. FDL USA is a public private partnership between NASA, the SETI Institute, Trillium Technologies and leaders in commercial AI, space exploration and Earth Science. FDL USA is once again pushing the boundaries of applied AI in ways that offer a tantalizing vision of what's on the horizon and our 7 challenge teams from FDL USA are excited to showcase and share their research outcomes they have been able to achieve during the 8 week research sprint. Please join for a celebration of the application of cutting edge AI in space science and exploration. For further information visit on this year's challenge teams visit fdl.ai

Exscientia today announced the opening of a 21,000 square foot expansion of its facilities at Oxford Science Park, increasing capacity for its technology teams as well as significantly expanding its laboratory-based experimental capabilities in structural biology, biophysics and high-content pharmacology. In parallel, Exscientia is building a new 26,000 square foot robotic laboratory at nearby Milton Park, Oxfordshire focused on the automation of chemistry and biology to accelerate drug discovery. This will take Exscientia towards its goal of drugs designed by AI, made by robot. "Exscientia has grown significantly in 2021, driven by new partnerships with leading pharma and biotech companies, as well as by our in-house drug discovery work. Our pipeline includes more than 25 active research programs across therapeutic areas, with a focus on immunology and oncology," said Dr. David Hallet, Chief Operating Officer of Exscientia.