AI-as-a-service (AIaaS) is becoming increasingly popular, with the likes of Amazon AI (which includes Rekognition), Clarifai, Google Cloud Vision, IBM Watson, and Microsoft Cognitive Services gaining traction. One of the main economic drivers within AIaaS is the prevalence of microtransactions. Visual cognition startup CloudSight has announced that it will now support Bitcoin Lightning payments, accepting microtransactions to gather and share visual knowledge to allow AI to learn from AI. CloudSight utilizes data to train deep learning neural networks to automatically caption images. With a database of over half a billion images and all the associated metadata, CloudSight says its image recognition API is one of over 30 patents pending worldwide. The incorporation of Bitcoin Lightning means that microtransactions between devices can happen at great speed, unlocking an exchange of information that was previously difficult.

Sonasoft Corporation is a publicly traded corporation and is listed on the OTC Markets under the trading symbol SSFT. Sonasoft is now an AI-first company. The Company intends to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into the Company's core business model, which includes enterprise-class email archiving, eDiscovery, and business continuity software solutions for Microsoft Business Applications on Microsoft Windows platforms. Sonasoft's signature products for eDiscovery tools, which include SonaVault 5.0 Email Archiving and eDiscovery Software, as well as SonaVault Email Archiving Appliances, deliver affordable enterprise-level functionality that exceeds compliance and ease-of-use requirements of small and medium-sized businesses, governments, school districts, organizations, and enterprises. The company also launched SonaSecure, which protects systems from ransomware and other email-based threats as well as provides email continuity services.

Alexa, ask Excalibur Insurance for a car insurance quote. That possibility is just around the corner, as Wawanesa Mutual Insurance Company announced Thursday that it had opened an Innovation Outpost lab in Kitchener, Ont. that will connect customers with brokers through voice technology. One of the first projects out of the lab is a new interactive technology using an Amazon Alexa voice skill to connect Wawanesa customers to their brokers for an auto or home insurance quote. Jeff Roy, CEO of brokerage Excalibur Insurance Group, helped to spearhead the work with ProNavigator (which provides an insurance AI-powered virtual assistant). The brokerage will be the first going to market with the new technology, which will then be launched on other brokerages' websites in the future. David Arbuthnot, director of the Innovation Outpost lab, told Canadian Underwriter in an interview the voice assistant walks customers through six underwriting questions, which provides enough information to obtain a quote.

SAN MATEO, CA and COLUMBIA, SC – June 21, 2018 – SIOS Technology Corp., the industry pioneer in the application of artificial intelligence (AI) to help enterprises lower costs and ensure resilience of their critical information technology infrastructures, today announced the opening of the SIOS R&D facility at the M. Bert Storey Engineering and Innovation Center at the University of South Carolina's College of Engineering and Computing in Columbia. The new facility will serve as the SIOS R&D center for product development and is strategically located at the University for the purpose of advancing collaborative research in AI and machine learning through collaboration with students and faculty. With the new R&D facility located on-campus, students will have an opportunity to work with the latest AI technologies on projects addressing real-world problems alongside senior research engineers at SIOS. In turn, SIOS has the unique opportunity to participate deeply in a vibrant and rich academic community, tapping into academic programs, intern programs, Capstone projects, and helping to design meaningful research projects. To support the fostering of leading-edge research in AI, SIOS has also awarded the University a $475,000 grant for the use of its SIOS iQ software.

Amazon has announced a new program designed to help hotels deploy Alexa's voice-enabled smarts across their properties. Though Amazon's Alexa-powered Echo speakers are growing in popularity across the domestic realm -- helping users control their doors, lights, and search the web using nothing but their voice -- the internet giant has been targeting the hospitality sector for a while already. High-end hotel firm Wynn Resorts has been placing thousands of Amazon Echo speakers in its hotels since last summer, for example. And as of April, Alexa has been able to make phone calls in hotel rooms. Put simply, Amazon recognizes that hotels are a perfect showcase for its automated AI technologies.

Pune, India -- (SBWIRE) -- 06/19/2018 -- The Artificial Intelligence is used in the creation of construction plans. Autonomous equipment is considered as AI as it is aware of its surroundings and is capable of navigation without human input. In the planning stages, AI machinery can survey a proposed construction site and gather enough information to create 3D maps, blueprints and construction plans. Before this advancement, these processes would take weeks – now they can be done in one day. This helps to save firms both time and money in the form of labor.

Kraken Robotics, Inc. (OTCQB: KRKNF) (TSXV: PNG) is engaged as a marine technology company that develops underwater robotic systems and software-centric sensors. Shares of the underwater robotics company are rallying 35%, through early trading on Wednesday, June 20, 2018. Over the past month, Kraken Robotics, Inc. has seen average daily volume of 78,235 shares. However, volume of 155,625 shares or dollar volume of $24,121, has already exchanged hands on the day. Shares of Kraken Robotics, Inc. are climbing today after the company announced that it has received a non-brokered private placement offering with Ocean Infinity, Ltd., an offshore ocean survey and ocean exploration company.

Today, New America and the Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Initiative (AI Initiative), a project of MIT's Media Lab and Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center, formed a new partnership to strengthen international understanding of Chinese artificial intelligence policies and developments. The AI Initiative will contribute $250,000 to support the work of New America's DigiChina project, a collaborative effort to translate, analyze, and contextualize Chinese digital policy developments. DigiChina, which published its first work in July 2017, emerged organically from a group of scholars and analysts on technology in China and has so far published translations and analysis by 12 scholars from 10 different organizations. In 2017, DigiChina published the first complete English-language translation of China's New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan, which lays out ambitions for AI development and policy stretching to 2030. See below for links to other work so far on AI-related issues.

Today, the European Commission hosted a high-level meeting with 12 representatives from philosophical and non-confessional organisations from across Europe, as part of the regular dialogue with churches, religions, philosophical and non-confessional organisations foreseen by Article 17 of the Lisbon Treaty. This ninth annual high-level meeting discussed the topic "Artificial Intelligence: addressing ethical and social challenges". First Vice-President Frans Timmermans, responsible for the Article 17 Dialogue said: "Our societies are in the midst of an unprecedented digital revolution which will impact every person living on the planet. This revolution brings new promises, and new risks of disruption. We have seen recently that the digital world moved faster than the ethical discussion about what could and should be allowed online. We need to be in control of this transformation, and make sure that it is used to foster our values and defend our social model".

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is in the middle of a massive transition right now, but you may not have noticed. That's because the company is moving effortlessly into the burgeoning artificial intelligence (AI) market -- and it's bringing its legacy products and services along with it. Over the past few years, Microsoft has successfully been building new features into its Office products and launching new AI-powered tools through its Azure cloud-computing service as the company looks beyond its Windows products to the fast-growing AI market. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said recently that AI is the "defining technology of our times," and he's probably right. AI has the capability to alter how we drive our cars, it will help automate our factories, it will both create and kill jobs, it can be used in warfare, and it's already being used to help improve our healthcare.