Microsoft hopes to use artificial intelligence to help the globe. Microsoft is looking to artificial intelligence to save the planet. The company has announced that it's committing $50 million to fighting climate change with AI. The investment is a part of a five-year plan from Microsoft, with the hope of using data on the Earth's air, water, wildlife and land conditions to help. To do that, the company said, robust AI is needed that can convert the massive amount of data into useful information.

LG first laid the foundation for its AI efforts at CES 2017 when it announced DeepThinQ followed by the initiative to include Wi-Fi in its entire line of premium appliances launched this year. Advancing the company's innovations in AI, LG opened the Artificial Intelligence Lab in Seoul in June under company's CTO to tie together all its diverse AI research in technologies that recognize, deduce and learn from voice, video and sensors. LG's AI Lab has contributed to the development of the world's first space-learning air conditioner as well as intelligent refrigerators, washing machines and robot vacuum cleaners. "Our new ThinQ platform for LG's intelligent products is the latest way that LG is delivering innovations that make consumers' lives easier and more enjoyable," said David VanderWaal, vice president of marketing for LG Electronics USA. "LG ThinQ enables deep learning technology and connectivity across household products, delivering even greater capabilities and convenience." In the United States, LG already offers the most extensive range of Wi-Fi enabled appliances available* today featuring its LG SmartThinQ Wi-Fi connectivity.

Open any business publication or digital journal today, and you will read about the promise of AI, known as artificial or augmented intelligence, and how it will transform your business. The fact is: AI will not only transform your entire business -- whether you are in healthcare, finance, retail, or manufacturing -- but it will also transform technology itself. The essential task of information technology (IT) -- and how we measure its value -- has reached an inflection point. Instead, insight is the new currency. The speed with which we can scale that insight and the knowledge it brings is the basis for value creation and the key to competitive advantage.

I believe 2018 will be the year in which businesses of all sizes engage with the hype and get to grips with the difference between tech for tech's sake and understanding how it can be used to augment human capability. This is the year to overcome the tech fear.

Care Angel's innovative patient engagement, monitoring and management platform, SmartCare 3.0, brings Angel to life through a simple phone call on any voice-driven device, like a landline, cell phone or smartphone allowing providers to actively engage and manage their patient population in real-time. Care Angel's Virtual Nurse Assistant, Angel, conversationally checks-in with at-risk patient populations leveraging AI technology to enable scalable engagement with a focus on condition-specific health communication. Recent studies of at-risk populations have demonstrated patient engagement rates of 83 percent, readmission reduction of 63 percent and a $41 per patient per month net savings, by leveraging the Care Angel solution. Care Angel closes gaps in care between visits for the highest risk, highest cost patients while reducing hospitalization and readmissions. Under the agreement, Care Angel will work with FLAACOs and its ACO members to take a proactive approach to implementing Care Angel's patient engagement, monitoring and management solution, to support FLAACOs members' patient care and financial goals.

Everybody is talking about how artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the world and how it is the future of just about everything. Even communications professionals are abuzz with their desire to jump on the AI bandwagon for their media analytics. It's true; AI can be pretty impressive. It is already recommending products to consumers, catching credit card fraud, and targeting advertising with uncanny accuracy and effectiveness. Even doctors are starting to get assistance from AI in diagnosing disease through analysis of symptoms and lab results.

Facebook will let you know when someone posts a photo of you -- even if you aren't tagged in it -- becoming the latest tech giant to add more facial recognition technology to users' everyday lives. The new feature, which Facebook frames as a control measure for a user's image, is one of three new applications of facial recognition technology the Menlo Park, Calif., company announced Tuesday. These new additions expand on how Facebook already uses facial recognition, which is primarily through "tag suggestions" -- a feature started in 2010 that suggests which of your friends should be tagged in photos that you upload to the site. If you've already opted out of that feature, you will also be automatically opted out of the new facial recognition features. But Facebook is putting all of these features under one setting, meaning that if you want the notifications about where your face appears on friends' accounts or strangers' accounts, then you'll also have to be all right with automatic tagging.

Cognovi Labs, developer of the SaaS platform for emotion-based artificial intelligence, saw their Oct. 22 prediction of a Doug Jones victory realized in Tuesday's Alabama Senate election. Acting well ahead of poll data, Cognovi made the prediction almost three weeks before the sexual harassment claims surfaced against Moore. The prediction was based around Cognovi Emotion AI findings that showed Jones' superior ability to trigger an intense emotional bond with the electorate, which allowed him to generate the required turnout to win the election. This result follows a string of successful Cognovi predictions for several high-profile outcomes, including predicting the Brexit referendum hours before the polls closed; and foretelling the results of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In addition to political events, Cognovi utilizes its AI platform to make predictions for businesses, investors, corporations, ad agencies and public figures.

By listening to the acoustic signal emitted by a laboratory-created earthquake, a computer science approach using machine learning can predict the time remaining before the fault fails.

A machine learning technique called a neural network has identified two new exoplanets in our galaxy, NASA scientists and a Google software engineer announced today, meaning that researchers now know about two new worlds thanks to the power of artificial intelligence. Discovering new exoplanets--as planets outside our solar system are called--is a relatively common occurrence, and a key instrument that scientists use to identify them is the Kepler Space Telescope, which has already spotted a confirmed 2,525 exoplanets. But what's novel about this announcement is that researchers used a AI system to spot these two new worlds, now dubbed Kepler-90i and Kepler-80g. The planet known as 90i is especially interesting to astronomers, as it brings the total number of known planets orbiting that star to eight, a tie with our own system. The average temperature on 90i is thought to be quite balmy: more than 800 degrees Fahrenheit.