As market trends shift away from physical video game sales in favor of direct downloads, the biggest remaining dedicated gaming retailer is up for sale. GameStop announced Tuesday that the Texas-based company is in "exploratory discussions" with possible buyers. GameStop announced the news in a press release on its website. The release is only three sentences long and gets straight to the point. "GameStop Corp.(NYSE:GME) today confirmed it is in exploratory discussions with third parties regarding a potential transaction. There can be no assurance any agreement will result from these discussions. GameStop does not intend to make any additional comments regarding these discussions unless and until it is appropriate to do so."

Clients across all industry sectors will be served by a new specialty practice in Artificial Intelligence (AI) at Heidrick & Struggles (Nasdaq: HSII), a premier provider of executive search, leadership assessment and development, organization and team effectiveness, and culture shaping services globally. Machine learning and other advanced forms of AI can help companies in every sector move beyond process automation that has helped drive efficiency and growth. Integrating and optimizing adaptive changes made possible by AI can provide massive competitive advantage. But there is a critical shortage of leaders with the ability to apply a deep understanding of AI to completely rethink and transform an organization's business model. Led by Ryan Bulkoski, a San Francisco-based partner, Heidrick & Struggles' AI Specialty Practice will help clients identify and develop senior talent needed to bring the power of emerging technologies to their business.

The first Stakeholder Summit on Artificial Intelligence, organised by the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and the European Commission, stressed that the EU must ensure that artificial intelligence is safe, unbiased and in line with European values. The event, which aimed to discuss the next steps to advance the EU strategy on artificial intelligence, took place on 18 June in Brussels. The key EU policy-makers on artificial intelligence and European stakeholders who gathered for the first stakeholder summit agreed that artificial intelligence held great promise in terms of addressing societal issues, but also raised a number of challenges with regard to privacy, security, labour, education and ethics. "Artificial intelligence is a technology which does not have to overcome and overwhelm us," said Catelijne Muller, President of the EESC Thematic Study Group on Artificial Intelligence, adding that humans should stay in command of artificial intelligence and be able to determine "if, when and how we want to use these technologies in our daily lives." Artificial intelligence is one of the main political priorities of the EESC's current presidency.

SoftBank Group Corp. CEO Masayoshi Son said Wednesday that the company will bolster its investment business in a shift in the telecommunications giant's growth strategy. "I have used 97 percent of my brain to consider the telecom businesses, but will shift that to investments," Son said at a meeting with more than 2,300 shareholders in Tokyo. Son, one of most influential investors in the technology industry, said his company will strengthen its focus on investments in startup ventures possessing artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technologies through its $100 billion Vision Fund, which was set up last year with partners such as Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund. "We are the unicorn hunter," Son said, referring to unlisted startups valued at more than $1 billion. Among its recent investment projects, SoftBank has taken a stake in ride-hailing service provider Uber Technologies Inc. and has also bought U.S.-based robotics company Boston Dynamics.

Amazon Web Services hosts a cloud conference'AWS re:Invent' every year which comprises of a series of announcements, bootcamps, hackathons, breakout sessions, workshops, and certification opportunities. The conference lasts nearly a week and provides great opportunities to gain information and insights about Amazon's current products, product launches and services for attendees of all skill levels. The research firm, Wikibon, predicts that by 2022 Amazon Web Services (AWS) will reach $43B in revenue, and be 8.2% of all cloud spending. This shows that Amazon leads ahead of Google and Microsoft in cloud computing. We revisited the AWS re:Invent 2017 conference to list down few of the emerging cloud trends that are expected to be widely adopted during 2018.

This year, we have seen an acceleration of Silicon Valley tech giants opening AI research labs around the world as they seek to gain traction among researchers and fulfill their global ambitions. In the past six months or so, Google brought labs to China and France, Facebook opened labs in Pittsburgh and Seattle, and Microsoft announced plans to open labs near universities in Berkeley, California and Melbourne, Australia. This trend shows no signs of slowing down. Last month, Samsung announced labs in Cambridge, Moscow, and Toronto. This week, Nvidia announced plans to open a new lab in Toronto, while Google shared plans to open a lab in Accra, Ghana, Google's first in Africa and perhaps the first of any tech giant in Africa.

Entitled "Bringing AI and Intelligent Live Streaming to the Smart City," this presentation will be led by key members of CrowdOptic's technical team: Richard Smith, VP of Product, Austin Markus, VP of CrowdOptic Labs, and Joshua Davis, Principal Director of Engineering. There are already hundreds of thousands of cameras in many smart cities, but how intelligent are their video cameras and video management systems? This session will dig into the use of artificial intelligence to control cameras, and will explain how sensor data can be used to analyze video stored at the edge. CrowdOptic Intersect APIs expose developers to triangulation and cluster detection algorithms, guiding them through the basics of how CrowdOptic works with camera lines of sight to bring artificial intelligence to the smart city. A quick demonstration will drive home the depth of these APIs, showing how smart phones leverage cameras in the smart city to effectively look through walls and around corners.

Roundtable Analytics Inc., an AI/ML-based software company focused on improving the operational and financial performance of Emergency Departments (EDs), expanded its team of data scientists with the recent appointment of Michael Hyman, Ph.D., as vice president. Michael (Mike) Hyman has had a distinguished academic career, graduating with honors from the University of North Carolina with a Bachelor of Science in mathematics and a minor in chemistry. Pursuing his passion for the application of data science, Mike went on to earn both an M. Stat and Ph.D. in statistics from the University of Florida, one of the premier statistics graduate programs in the U.S. During his studies at UF, he was named a National Science Foundation Fellow, receiving an IGERT award for interdisciplinary training, and shared an office with the future founders of Roundtable Analytics Inc. Prior to joining Roundtable, Mike spent over five years working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, performing statistical and geospatial research and developing the statistical methodology for projects such as the U.S. Census of Agriculture. Previously, during his spare time, Mike organized and completed a charity bike ride across the United States and is delighted to now return to his hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina.

Neurala, Inc. developed The Neurala Brain--deep learning neural network software that makes devices and products like drones, mobile phones and cameras more intelligent, engaging and useful. Neurala provides customized solutions ranging from high-end applications to inexpensive everyday consumer products. With The Neurala Brain and an ordinary camera, products can learn people and objects, recognize them in a video stream, find them in the video, and track them as they move. The Neurala Brain is based on technology originally developed for NASA and the U.S. Air Force. Follow Neurala on Twitter @Neurala and on Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn.

Mobile wallet company Mobikwik has announced today that it has invested Rs 2 crore in Pune-based Pivotchain Solutions, a data science startup focused on deep learning and advanced analytics. Founded in 2017 by Deepak Rao and Yogendra Pratap Singh, Pivotchain offers blockchain based asset registry platform and within a year of its existence, the startup is working closely with banking, insurance, retail and government sectors globally. Notably, Pivotchain has also built exclusive AI and deep learning models for MobiKwik and these models, Mobkwik official's statement, will be instrumental for MobiKwik as it rolls out numerous lending products to address the credit requirements of its user base. MobiKwik founder and CEO Bipin Preet Singh said the company's focus on delivering high quality fintech products will require immense focus on data, and an in-depth understanding of the user requirements across categories. "Pivotchain is doing incredible work in alternate data scoring, predictive modelling and risk management and this investment will give us an edge over competition. We will continue to invest in companies that can add value to our business," he said.