Malaysia's strategic investment fund Khazanah Nasional Bhd is making a strategic investment of 100 million into New Jersey-based Fractal Analytics, a leading global provider of analytics, to accelerate its growth. In a press release, Khazanah executive director Chinta Bhagat commented: "The availability of large amounts of real-time information and the ability to analyse it at scale, will transform how the world makes decisions. Fractal is one of the companies leading this change and with our partnership, it can dramatically accelerate its programmatic investments and acquisitions." TA Associates, a Boston-based global private equity firm and AIMIA, the world's largest loyalty firm and Gulu Mirchandani of Onida are some of Fractal's current investors. Fractal Analytics co-founder and chief executive officer Srikanth Velamakanni said, the investment will allow the company to step up development of its artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning-based software stack.

"Tom Clancy's The Division" was the biggest launch of a new video game property ever, which helped Ubisoft report a profit for its fiscal 2015-2016, the company said Thursday. Ubisoft reported a decrease in sales but a rise in profit for its fiscal 2015-16. Sales were 1.8 billion, down 4.8 percent compared to the previous year, but the 147 million profit was up from the 128 million posted the previous year. "The Division" has amassed 9.5 million registered players since its launch on March 8. Active players are spending around three hours daily on the open world third-person shooter. Bolstering Ubisoft's earnings report was the better-than-expected release "Far Cry Primal," which had the biggest February launch.

Google is expected to hit the smart home market in a big way with a new device codenamed Chirp. According to a report from Recode, the tech titan is moving in on the turf carved out by Amazon's Echo with its own voice-activated assistant for the home. The device probably won't see the light of day until later this year, though we may see some hints of what's to come by reading between the lines at Google's developers conference in San Francisco next week. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Google has been focused on the smart home for years, and in 2014 forecast broader ambitions in the space by buying smart appliance maker Nest for 3.2 billion.

Computers have slowly started to encroach on activities we previously believed only the brilliantly sophisticated human brain could handle. IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer beat Grand Master Garry Kasparov at chess in 1997, and in 2011 IBM's Watson beat former human winners at the quiz game Jeopardy. But the ancient board game Go has long been one of the major goals of artificial intelligence research. It's understood to be one of the most difficult games for computers to handle due to the sheer number of possible moves a player can make at any given point. Researchers at Google DeepMind, the Alphabet-owned artificial intelligence research company, announced today that it had created an artificial intelligence system that has beat a professional Go player at the game.

WIRE)--Cylance, the American company that is revolutionizing cybersecurity through the use of artificial intelligence to proactively prevent advanced persistent threats and malware, announced that it has signed an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) agreement with MOTEX to integrate MOTEX LanScope, a leading endpoint systems management solution, and CylancePROTECT, Cylance's innovative artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning based endpoint malware prevention product. Cylance has produced the world's most advanced malware detection and attack prevention technology, which is protecting hundreds of global organizations and millions of computers today. Draper Nexus Ventures, a leading US-Japan cross border investment firm, is helping Cylance accelerate its entry into the Japanese market. "It's a global phenomenon that traditional security cannot protect endpoints from advanced threats. The Japanese market is not an exception and we have identified a great opportunity there," said Hiro Rio Maeda, managing director for Draper Nexus.

"The Nervana team is developing a full-stack deep learning platform to enable organizations to use deep learning to tackle previously unsolvable problems. We believe our inclusion in the Cool Vendor report by Gartner validates our mission to make scalable artificial intelligence widely accessible and to enable disruptive new applications across a range of industries," said Naveen Rao, co-founder and CEO of Nervana. In February, Nervana launched Nervana Cloud, a full-stack hosted platform for deep learning. Based on neon, Nervana's open source deep learning framework, Nervana Cloud helps businesses develop and deploy high-accuracy deep learning solutions at a fraction of the cost of building their own infrastructure and data science teams. Utilizing the Nervana Engine, an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) that is custom-designed and optimized for deep learning, Nervana Cloud has been optimized down to the silicon to handle the most complex machine learning training at scale.

This five-fingered robot hand can learn how to perform dexterous manipulation -- like spinning a tube full of coffee beans -- on its own, rather than having humans program its actions.University of Washington Robots today can perform space missions, solve a Rubik's cube, sort hospital medication and even make pancakes. But most can't manage the simple act of grasping a pencil and spinning it around to get a solid grip. Intricate tasks that require dexterous in-hand manipulation -- rolling, pivoting, bending, sensing friction and other things humans do effortlessly with our hands -- have proved notoriously difficult for robots. Now, a University of Washington team of computer scientists and engineers has built a robot hand that can not only perform dexterous manipulation but also learn from its own experience without needing humans to direct it. Their latest results are detailed in a paper to be presented May 17 at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

The list of featured speakers includes innovators, business leaders, and entrepreneurs from the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Amazon Robotics, Baidu, Facebook, GE Software Research, Google, IBM, Pinterest, Tesla, and more. About MIT Technology Review Founded at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1899, MIT Technology Review is a digitally oriented independent media company whose analysis, features, reviews, interviews, and live events explain the commercial, social, and political impact of new technologies. MIT Technology Review readers are curious technology enthusiasts--a global audience of business and thought leaders, innovators and early adopters, entrepreneurs and investors. Every day, we provide an authoritative filter for the flood of information about technology. We are the first to report on a broad range of new technologies, informing our audiences about how important breakthroughs will impact their careers and their lives.

DATAVERSITY Education, LLC announced the agenda and opened registration for the company's newest online conference, Smart Data Online (SDO). The event will be held online at smartdataweek.com on July 13th, 2016 from 8:00 am to 2:20 pm Pacific Time. Registration is free and attendees will receive access to the on demand recordings, slides, and materials following the event. SDO is the newest event to be added to DATAVERSITY's educational programs, and is designed to provide guidance on executing and implementing a successful data strategy using new technologies in the fields of machine learning, cognitive computing, and artificial intelligence. Throughout the day on July 13th there will be six, 40-minute presentations, each followed by a 10 minute "Q & A" discussion with the presenter(s).

Celaton's inSTREAM software streamlines the handling of unstructured unpredictable (and structured) content such as correspondence, claims, complaints and invoices that organizations receive by email, social media, fax and paper. This minimizes the need for human intervention and ensures that only accurate, relevant and structured data enters business systems. Unique to inSTREAM is its ability to learn through the natural consequence of processing information and collaborating with people. Capgemini's extensive knowledge and experience in business process services will also enable Celaton to accelerate and improve inSTREAM's capabilities. The cooperation will enable Capgemini to increase efficiency, shorten turnaround times and enhance quality in areas where incoming documents and queries need to be processed, improving overall customer satisfaction.