Addressing climate change is everyone's responsibility and AI has the potential to make a significant impact, yet only a fraction of organizations are actively using this technology to its full potential,

Acquisition Expands Medtronic's Artificial Intelligence and Data Capabilities, Becoming the First Company to Offer an Integrated Spine Solution Including AI-Driven Surgical Planning, Personalized Spinal Implants and Robotic Assisted Surgery DUBLIN, Nov. 16, 2020 /CNW/ -- Medtronic plc (NYSE:MDT), the global leader in medical technology, today announced that it has completed its friendly tender offer for France-based Medicrea International (Euronext Growth Paris: FR0004178572 – ALMED Medicrea; OTCQX Best Market – MRNTF), a pioneer in the transformation of spinal surgery through artificial intelligence (AI), predictive modeling and patient specific implants. On July 15, 2020, the parties announced a friendly voluntary all-cash tender offer at the price of €7.00 per Medicrea share. As a result of completion of the tender offer, Medtronic currently owns in excess of 90% of Medicrea's share capital and voting rights and will shortly request the implementation of a squeeze-out procedure under French law, which will result in Medicrea becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of Medtronic. This is Medtronic's seventh acquisition completed in 2020 and furthers Medtronic's strategic expansion into AI, machine learning and predictive analytics. Medicrea's product portfolio consists of 30 510(k) cleared or CE Marked implant technologies, utilized in spinal surgeries for adult deformity, pediatric deformity and degenerative disease.

AI-based electrocardiogram (ECG) technology developer AliveCor announced today that it has closed a $65 million Series E financing round. Mountain View, Calif.-based AliveCor plans to use proceeds from the financing round to accelerate the growth of its remote cardiology platform, both domestically and globally, according to a news release. AliveCor is augmenting its artificial intelligence-powered ECG with telehealth services and detection and condition management services. Omron, Khosla Ventures, WP Global Partners, Qualcomm Ventures and Bold Capital Partners, all existing investors, led the financing. AliveCor noted that its enhanced partnership with Omron in particular will position the company to include hypertension management within its service portfolio.

C3.ai intends to list its Class A common stock under the ticker symbol "AI" on the New York Stock Exchange. The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined. The offering is subject to market conditions, and there can be no assurance as to whether, or when, the offering may be completed or as to the actual size or terms of the offering. Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan and BofA Securities are acting as lead book-running managers for the proposed offering. Deutsche Bank Securities is acting as a book-running manager for the proposed offering.

AI took center stage in recently-announced updates to the Alexa virtual voice assistant, and in the charges this week from the European Commission that Amazon is breaking EU competition rules. During Amazon's Alexa Live event held in July, the company announced a major update to Alexa's developer toolkit that brings AI improvements. Since launching in 2014, Amazon's voice assistant has shipped hundreds of millions of units, which are targeted by a sizable developer community offering voice apps, called Skills, that extend the Alexa default feature set. Just as the Android and iOS large selections of third party applications differentiate those operating systems, so Skill plays an important role in Amazon's growth strategy for Alexa, according to a recent account in siliconAngle. Amazon added deep learning models for natural language understanding that the company said will enable Skills to recognize users' voice commands with 15% higher accuracy on average.

Conversational AI agency VERSA is to partner Mogaé in a joint venture. Announcing a Diwali India launch, VERSA said its expansion into this country is to capitalise on demand for specialised conversational strategy and design in a market with a population of more than 1.3 billion people, and an installed base of nearly a billion mobile phones. VERSA India will be a 50/50 joint venture between VERSA (Headquartered in Melbourne, Australia; with US operations out of Seattle) and Mogaé Consultants, owned by Sandeep & Tanya Goyal. Dr. Sandeep Goyal, is a well-known advertising & media veteran who has been a past President of Rediffusion, ex-Group CEO of Zee Telefilms and former Founder Chairman of Dentsu India. Tanya Goyal has been a six-term member of the Governing Council of the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and was Executive Director of Dentsu India.

The Japanese bank will help customers understand key social and economic activities using Orbital Insight's combination of satellite imagery, location data and artificial intelligence Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) announced today that it is partnering with Orbital Insight, the geospatial analytics company, to offer customers access to new data sources for better business decisions. SMBC will use Orbital Insight's GO platform to launch an analytics service that visualizes social and economic activities in near real-time by combining satellite imagery, anonymized location data and artificial intelligence. The service will initially focus on understanding macro trends like how people are shifting daily activities amidst current remote work requirements. SMBC has already piloted Orbital Insight's data for its proof of concept projects and confirmed its effectiveness. "When it comes to business risk, geospatial analytics and AI can make the invisible visible," said Katsunori Tanizaki, Senior Managing Executive Officer at SMBC. "The uncertainty of the pandemic makes that an even more important need for our customers, who are often managing global assets. Working with Orbital Insight on this new service combines SMBC's business insights as a financial institution with Silicon Valley's cutting-edge technology to help customers navigate the right decisions. Access to daily trends on thousands of global locations will be extremely valuable, especially across the construction, finance, retail and maritime sectors."

On Wednesday, London-based Synthesized launched a platform to help organizations identify and rectify biases in their data. Synthesized touts the platform as the "first publicly available solution to accurately detect and remove biases in data." A "freemium" Community Edition of the platform designed to mitigate bias in data is now available. "The reputational risk of all organisations is under threat due to biased data, and we've seen this will no longer be tolerated at any level. It's a burning priority now and must be dealt with as a matter of urgency, both from a legal and ethical standpoint," said Nicolai Baldin, CEO and founder of Synthesized in a press release.

Key quote "The life sciences industry has only begun to scratch the surface of AI's potential but the good news is biopharma and life sciences leaders see the potential and are willing to make the investments necessary to realize what's possible. They should be cautious, though, and carefully plan and strategize so those investments are used wisely and result in the desired outcomes. By spending time on a solid strategy, putting the building blocks in place for success and leveraging relationships with relevant partners, AI can help transform the life sciences industry as we know it and get the necessary products to market more quickly." Why this matters From R&D to manufacturing, supply chain to commercial functions, AI is beginning to have an impact on increasing efficiencies across the biopharma value chain, especially as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, increased remote work environments helped life sciences leaders realize how effective digital solutions can be in helping their businesses run smoothly, transforming mindsets and enabling executives to lean into a future grounded in digitization, data and AI.

Chris Johnston, Executive Director for Paerata Rise says "Our goal is to be one of the most desirable places to live in Auckland and becoming a Smart Village is an extension of this. It means we are able to offer the utmost connection to our residents through a private network, and the most cutting-edge technologies." "We are proud to be able to support the unique, first class community being built at Paerata Rise with the latest concepts in mobile network technology. While everyone has experienced the frustration of bad coverage, ultimately an excellent network should go unnoticed – instead allowing users' mobile applications, services, and other benefits to come to the fore," adds Ross Spearman, General Manager of Dense Air New Zealand. "The realities of smart villages and connected neighbourhoods are starting to emerge in the world around us, however the real'smarts' need to be built into the foundations of communities which is why we are executing this project at this stage of our development," says Johnston.