To power RoboFly, the engineers pointed an invisible laser beam (shown here in red laser) at a photovoltaic cell, which is attached above the robot and converts the laser light into electricity.Mark Stone/University of Washington Insect-sized flying robots could help with time-consuming tasks like surveying crop growth on large farms or sniffing out gas leaks. These robots soar by fluttering tiny wings because they are too small to use propellers, like those seen on their larger drone cousins. Small size is advantageous: These robots are cheap to make and can easily slip into tight places that are inaccessible to big drones. But current flying robo-insects are still tethered to the ground. The electronics they need to power and control their wings are too heavy for these miniature robots to carry.

Oracle announced today that it has acquired DataScience.com, Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. In the near term, not much will change for customers of Datascience.com But Oracle envisions combining its Cloud Infrastructure service with Datascience.com's "Every organization is now exploring data science and machine learning as a key way to proactively develop competitive advantage, but the lack of comprehensive tooling and integrated machine learning capabilities can cause these projects to fall short," Amit Zavery, vice president of Oracle's Cloud Platform, said in a statement.

Vlocity, Inc., a cloud software company, announced the launch of automated claims features in their apps. The launch includes end-to-end management of property and casualty (P&C) insurance claims for policyholders, agents and claims handlers, and enables dynamic, digital claims interactions from any device. New features include peril-driven adjudication and an adjuster workbench that enhance a carrier's ability to run their entire business on Salesforce. Carriers can download pre-configured claims processes from Vlocity's Insurance Process Library and leverage a modern, optimized user experience. Carriers, if they prefer, can create a completely new experience from scratch in a code-free environment using Vlocity's intuitive design interface.

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 16, 2018-- latest market research report on the provides an analysis of the most important trends expected to impact the market outlook from 2018-2022. This press release features multimedia. Technavio has published a new market research report on the gambling market in the UK from 2018-2022. According to Technavio analysts, the gambling market in the UK will grow at a CAGR of over 5% during the forecast period. One of the key factors driving the growth of the is the increased adoption of online platforms for gambling.

SoftBank Corp. ("SoftBank"), a leading mobile operator in Japan, has implemented an innovative method for radio access network design from Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC), based on machine intelligence. The service groups cells in clusters and takes statistics from cell overlapping and potential to use carrier aggregation between cells into account, thus reducing operational expenditure and improving network performance. Compared to traditional network design methods, it cut the lead time by 40 percent. Ryo Manda, Radio Technology Section Manager at the Tokai Network Technology Department of SoftBank, says: "We applied Ericsson's service on dense urban clusters with multi-band complexity in the Tokai region. The positive outcome exceeded our expectations and we are currently proceeding in other geographical areas with the same method and close cooperation with Ericsson."

It has been a good week for artificial intelligence companies. This morning, Crunchbase News reported that Beautiful.AI, an AI-powered presentation software, raised an $11 million Series B to end frustration with PowerPoint. Similarly, Alloy announced today that it has closed a $12 Million Series A round for its AI-powered supply chain platform. This round brings its total known funding to $15.3 million, according to its press release. Alloy was co-founded by its CEO Joel Beal with the goal to help companies use data with insights about supply and demand to inform business decisions.

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 15, 2018--, which, an artificial intelligence provider and legal research solution, has formed an internal Artificial Intelligence Taskforce consisting of attorney and staff representatives from various practice and industry groups throughout the firm to promote the use of new and disruptive technologies. A diverse group in terms of roles, practice groups and subject matter expertise, the taskforce is tasked with fostering the use of artificial intelligence, machine learning and other innovative technologies in ways that complement the firm's strategic business plan. Working with attorneys and staff, the group will continue to establish the firm's short and long-term strategy and execution of the firm's artificial intelligence action plan, taking into account the latest developments in the legal industry and beyond. "Artificial intelligence is growing at a phenomenal speed, and we are proud to be early adopters," said Chief Digital Officer Victor Barkalov. "We are operating at a time when AI has a potential impact on almost every aspect of our business, and we realized quickly that we needed a diverse group to assess how to best implement machine learning throughout the firm, while ensuring we are keeping our clients' best interests in mind. The taskforce recently recommended and implemented Clocktimizer, a tool designed to review timekeeping data to bring predictability and transparency to legal project management and budgeting. "Clocktimizer uses natural language processing to read time card narratives and identify the tasks and activities to help our attorneys with matter management, budgeting and pricing.

Actor Robert Downey Jr. and his wife, producer Susan Downey, are making an artificial intelligence documentary series on YouTube, the company announced today. The series will have eight episodes that are each an hour long and it's set to air on the paid membership-based YouTube Red platform next year. The series is still untitled, but we do know that Robert Downey Jr. will host and narrate the series, which will feature scientists, philosophers, and other experts in AI. YouTube says the series will explore how AI transforms the way we work and live in the present and future. The series will be executive produced by the Downeys through their production company Team Downey.

WIRE)-- 8x8, Inc. (NYSE:EGHT), a leading provider of cloud phone, meeting, collaboration and contact center solutions, today announced the acquisition of MarianaIQ (MIQ), a high-growth Silicon Valley startup, as part of the strategic investments it has been making in AI and Machine Learning. MIQ brings deep learning capabilities to the newly announced X Series to transform both employee and customer experience. The MIQ team, including founders Soumyadeb Mitra and Venkat Nagaswamy, have been leaders in applying AI and deep learning to practical business problems since 2013, and join 8x8 to strengthen AI capabilities for enterprise communications. "8x8 has continuously evolved itself to provide best-in-class enterprise communications to our customers. With the acquisition of MarianaIQ, we are fundamentally transforming how customers and employees interact through one system of engagement, and how companies optimize valuable moments of customer engagement with one set of data in one system of intelligence," said Dejan Deklich, Chief Product Officer, 8x8.

WIRE)--Looker, a leading data platform company, today announced tools and integrations that optimize data science workflows. Looker accelerates the data science stack by removing the struggle to prepare data and freeing up time for data scientists to use their unique skill set to perform higher-value tasks. Looker already delivers reliable, governed data, at scale, for data scientists to input into their models and then present the insights in understandable and actionable dashboards and reports. Now, Looker has further improved this workflow with an SDK for R and connections for Python, as well as streamed and merged results, Google TensorFlow integrations, and clean, visual recommendations for users. Looker also continues to partner with best-of-breed data science vendors to provide more seamless workflow integration.