Microsoft on Friday introduced new Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered capabilities in Microsoft 365 that will allow people in an organisation create live and on-demand events. Events can now be viewed in real-time or on-demand, with high-definition video and interactive discussion, the company said in a statement. Launched one year back, the adoption of Microsoft 365 has grown by more than 100 per cent – building on over 135 million commercial monthly Office 365 users, 200 million Windows 10 commercial devices in use, and over 65 million seats of Enterprise Mobility Security. "Today, we are introducing new ways Microsoft 365 connects people across their organisation and improves collaboration habits, including new AI-infused capabilities," said Ron Markezich, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft. AI-powered services will include speech-to-text transcription, time coding, transcript search and closed captions to make the event more accessible to all.

AthenasOwl (AO), an Artificial Intelligence for media solution, announces the launch of the'FIFA WC '18 Brand Rankings', where it ranks the top sponsors based on their screen presence during the live broadcast of the matches. Besides overall visibility, the rankings also provide brands with additional information on the field positioning where they were most visible, their visibility levels during match highpoints such as goals and substitutions, and how brands' ranking progressed through the tournament. "AO was born out of our belief that AI can be used to empower content creators, broadcasters and brands to understand and analyze video content better, and additionally identify important micro-moments. With the FIFA World Cup'Brand Rankings' we want to demonstrate how AI technology has evolved to analyze hours of video content and generate interesting insights, something that wasn't possible earlier" says Vivek Khemani, Co-founder of Quantiphi. He adds "Based on the data that the tagging engine is generating every day, we are publishing interesting trends in the rankings for the group and knockout stage matches" AO will be analyzing brand visibility through the FIFA World Cup and publishing rankings on fifa18.athenasowl.tv

Willis Towers Watson, a leading global advisory, broking and solutions company, and Relativity6, Inc., a machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) insurance-technology company, today announced that Willis Towers Watson has selected the Relativity6 platform to predict and optimise customer retention and win-back. Brent Lehmann, General Manager Affinity & Commercial Australasia said the partnership with such an innovative technology company will help to ensure Willis Towers Watson remains competitive in the marketplace. "Relativity6's product offerings are a good fit to accomplish our strategic objectives across the organisation, so we are very excited to partner with them to take full advantage of the data that we have accumulated within our core systems in Australia." Alan Ringvald, Chief Executive Officer at Relativity 6, commented: "We are honoured to partner with such a distinguished organization. We believe that our solution will enable Willis Towers Watson to better serve their customers and ultimately drive significant top line revenue growth. We've engaged with top-tier insurers in the U.S. and Latin America, and this is a fantastic opportunity to expand our footprint with a truly global insurance broking brand."

Apple on Thursday announced a long-awaited update for the MacBook Pro, giving the laptops a much-needed performance bump but not any meaningful change in design. Most notably, Apple has not fully changed the design of the laptops' keyboards, which have drawn serious complaints from consumers who find them unreliable. The new models -- one 13-inch model and one 15-inch model, both with Apple's Touch Bar -- have new chips that Apple said should dramatically increase performance. The company said in a press release that the 15-inch model is up to 70 percent faster, while the 13-inch model is twice as fast. Both have more storage than before: The 15-inch model can go up to a four-terabyte solid-state drive, while the smaller model maxes out at two terabytes. The laptops will also have a new "Hey Siri" capability that allows people to trigger Apple's voice assistant without having to hit a combination of keys beforehand.

TUM is the only German university among the ten most influential institutions in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). The top spots in the rankings are held by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Carnegie Mellon University, both in the USA, and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, with which TUM maintains a close partnership. Half of the top ten positions are held by Asian universities. The only European representative apart from TUM is the University of Granada in Spain, which ranks fourth. The report also includes country rankings.

Millions are at stake in Fortnite's new Summer Skirmish.Credit: Epic Games Epic Games announced today the new'Summer Skirmish' event: 8 weeks of competitive play and $8 million in prize money. That's just a small slice of the esports money the developer and publisher has set aside for the 2018/2019 Fortnite: Battle Royale competitive season. Earlier this year the company announced $100,000,000 in prize money will flush the coffers of the best teams and players in the coming year. The Summer Skirmish series will last 8 weeks and each week will see a new format, keeping us all on our toes from week-to-week. For the inaugural week, competitive Duos competitions will kick things off.

Fractal Analytics, (http://www.fractalanalytics.com), a global leader in AI solutions that power human decision-making in Fortune 500 companies, today announced the launch of ai.now, a brand new conference focused on how Fortune 500 businesses can better leverage artificial intelligence for their organizations. The half-day event, which includes a number of sessions and roundtable discussions, will take place on Wednesday, July 18, 2018 at the One World Trade Center in New York City. Fractal Analytics' ai.now is the only industry event of its kind, designed to help Fortune 500 attendees from a wide-range of industries - CPG, financial services, healthcare, insurance, telecom, and retail - learn how to practically implement artificial intelligence for their business. Ford will explore how AI and automation will usher in a new era of man and machine collaboration, with a realistic view of what the future of work, and our place in it, will look like, from education to law, agriculture to healthcare, management and beyond. "As investments in AI, machine learning and data science surge among Fortune 500 companies, they are seeking ways to realize and maximize the full potential of these new technologies," said Pranay Agrawal, Co-founder & CEO, Fractal Analytics.

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 10, 2018--The following is an opinion editorial provided by Naveen Rao of Intel Corporation. This press release features multimedia. Naveen Rao was the founder of Nervana and is now corporate vice president and general manager of the Artificial Intelligence Products Group at Intel Corporation. Most people agree that artificial intelligence (AI) will transform modern society in positive ways. From autonomous cars that will save thousands of lives, to data analytics programs that may finally discover a cure for cancer, to machines that give voice to those who can't speak, AI will be known as one of the most revolutionary innovations of mankind. But this fantastic future is a long way off, and the path to get us there is still under construction.

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The following is an opinion editorial provided by Naveen Rao of Intel Corporation. Most people agree that artificial intelligence (AI) will transform modern society in positive ways. From autonomous cars that will save thousands of lives, to data analytics programs that may finally discover a cure for cancer, to machines that give voice to those who can't speak, AI will be known as one of the most revolutionary innovations of mankind. But this fantastic future is a long way off, and the path to get us there is still under construction. Never before has society undertaken such a significant transformation so deliberately, and no blueprints exist to guide us.

Summary GlobalData's "Artificial Intelligence Adoption, Usage & Investment Trends in the Telecoms Industry", report examines the advancement in adoption of AI within the global telecom industry along with the key benefits influencing the deployment and projected investments in AI over the next two years.The report highlights the use cases and applications that have highest growth potential in driving the implementation of AI in the global telecom industry. Additionally, the report covers the information about the market opportunities expected to influence the investment in AI and challenges/ barriers encountered by telecoms businesses. The majority of telecom industry executives consider that their organization is in the development phase of implementing artificial intelligence (AI).Due to significant value and potential that AI has to offer to telecom enterprises companies are moving towards AI solutions and use cases. Improved operational efficiency is expected to be the most beneficial factor of AI for telecom companies over next two years.In total, 40% of surveyed industry executives revealed that their company has plans to invest more than US$1 million in AI during 2018-2020. Moreover, the rising popularity of AI applications within the telecom industry is supported by the increasing complexity in networking caused by growing volume of IoT devices, cloud migrations, the increasing number of OTTs and the arrival of 5G. However, lack of skill-sets and making changes to traditional organizational structures are major challenges faced by the telecom companies to adopt AI.