SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Executives previously from IBM Watson, GE Digital, Infosys, and MicroStrategy announced today that they have joined forces with TPG Growth to launch Noodle Analytics, Inc. (Noodle.ai), the Enterprise Artificial Intelligence company. Enterprise AI represents a major step forward in merging human learning and machine learning, all fueled by big data. Enterprise AI solutions combine world-class expertise in human-centered design, business process engineering, and artificial intelligence technologies. Today's artificial intelligence technologies include machine learning, predictive data analytics, and data science. "Over the next three to five years, artificial intelligence technologies and big data will be the most significant competitive differentiators in business. We are excited to be a pioneer in Enterprise Artificial Intelligence, offering timely, valuable, and affordable solutions to clients. We have the right team, an optimized business model, and the right partners to create extraordinary value," says Stephen Pratt, CEO of Noodle.ai.

Attention all 18- to 24-year-olds in the U.S.: Tay is online now, and she wants to chat with you. That, at least, is according to a new Web page for the artificially intelligent bot, which was created by Microsoft to learn more about how people converse. The bot is now on hand to chat with you on Twitter as well as Kik and GroupMe; it's also on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. The more you chat with it, the smarter it gets, Microsoft says, leading to a personalized experience. If you share information with Tay, the bot will track your nickname, gender, favorite food, ZIP code and relationship status. It may also use that data to search on your behalf or to create a simple profile for you.

Mr Toyoda Toyota president announced that the car company would be launching a research company in silcon valley to develop artificial intelligence for use in cars and robotics. The Toyota research institute according to the company press release would make drive accessible to everyone regardless of inability. However the new company, which will have 200 employees and launch in 2016, will be looking to go "beyond" autonomous cars. Health, mobility and personal well being robotics to improve all aspects of human life. Toyota has previously said its first self-driving car will be out by 2020 and it has produced some robots which includes a series of nursing bots to help those with physical impairments.

"I believe that AliveCor's approach to empowering people to be proactive with their heart health data is going to significantly impact the way we think about healthcare," said Simon Prakash, vice president of products and design of AliveCor. "I look forward to expanding upon what the team has already created, and working to get our technology into the hands of more people." "We are excited to welcome both Frank and Simon to the AliveCor leadership team. Frank is one of the most renowned experts in visualization engineering and Simon is a leader in product integrity and design. Their unique skills in both software and hardware engineering and machine learning are in line with our company goals and will help further our vision of saving more lives by producing the most innovative Wearable MedTech devices and services," said Vic Gundotra, chief executive officer of AliveCor.

One of the biggest problems with Apple TV is that in order to log into applications, users have to enter usernames and passwords into their set-top box one letter at a time using a remote control. Apple is aiming to fix that with a forthcoming update to tvOS, the operating system powering the Apple TV. Users will soon be able to dictate text to Siri, including usernames and passwords, so they don't have to hunt and peck out long strings of text. What's not clear is how Apple will secure users' spoken password data; Apple TV will have to record and process people literally speaking out their passwords. The company will release tvOS 9.2 (which was previously in beta) late Monday, the company said.

March 21, 2016– AliveCor, Inc., the leader in FDA-cleared ECG technology for mobile devices, announced today the appointment of two former Google leads, Frank Petterson and Simon Prakash. Petterson joins AliveCor as the company's Vice President of Engineering and Prakash as Vice President of Products and Design. Together they will drive the development of products that will continue to enable people and doctors worldwide to proactively manage heart conditions, anywhere anytime. They will lead engineers and data scientists to disrupt the standard of cardiac care and support the company's expansion into the new Wearable MedTech space, pioneered by AliveCor. "I am inspired by AliveCor's mission and vision of bringing together healthcare, wearable technology, and machine learning to create the'Wearable MedTech' category and I look forward to contributing to the goal of creating technology that will make a difference in millions of lives around the world," said Frank Petterson, vice president of engineering of AliveCor.

This week, Google's Verily (formerly Google Life Sciences) and Ethicon, a Johnson & Johnson medical device company, announced the formation of a startup called Verb. "In the coming years, Verb aims to develop a comprehensive surgical solutions platform that will incorporate leading-edge robotic capabilities and best-in-class medical device technology for operating room professionals." But seriously, that's not much to go on, so let's see what we can piece together from the press releases put out from the various companies involved. It's Taurus, from SRI Robotics, which (according to a press release) "is licensing next-generation robotics technology to Verb Surgical that we believe will impact both the open and minimally invasive surgery markets and ultimately make the benefits of robotic surgery accessible to more patients around the world." While Taurus, originally designed as a bomb-disposal robot, is very much not a surgical robot in its current implementation, it represents several technologies that are very valuable in a surgical context: highly dexterous small manipulators and an advanced teleoperation system with haptic feedback.

MOL Group announced yesterday the winners of the Freshhh 2015 competition, which sees students from all over the world compete in technology and business strategy simulations related to the oil and gas industry. 'Just Ask Siri', consisting of three students from the Prague University of Economics and the Czech Technical University, was awarded first place, with Hungary's'Oil's Creed' and Slovenia's'Decore' teams placing in second and third respectively. All three teams will now be given the opportunity to join MOL Group's graduate recruitment and development program. MOL Group HR Vice President Zdravka Demeter Bubalo commented in a company statement: "We congratulate the top three teams for winning the Freshhh competition 2015. I would like to thank all participants for their endless efforts during the competition. It is incredible to see how young students work with such difficult real-life cases and always find new solutions. The outstanding results from the participants and number of applications are showing us once more that we are heading in the right direction in order to attract top talents of the oil and gas industry."

Our selections for this issue describe deployed applications. They explain the context, requirements, and constraints of the application, how the technology was adapted to satisfy those factors, and the impact that this innovation brought to the operation in terms of cost and performance. The articles also supply useful insights into use cases that we hope can also be translated to other work that the AI community is engaged in. In the first of these deployed application articles, eBird: A Human/Computer Learning Network to Improve Biodiversity Conservation and Research by Steve Kelling, Carl Lagoze, Weng-Keen Wong, Jun Yu, Theodoros Damoulas, Jeff Gerbracht, Daniel Fink, and Carla Gomes, the authors describe an intriguing application that successfully combines the best in human and artificial computing capabilities with an active feedback loop between people and machines. The next two papers articles describe high-value industrial applications where diagnostic capabilities avoid considerable cost and accidents on a daily basis.

The AAAI-12 technical Christos Papadimtriou (University of abstracts, and poker competition program will kick off with the opening California, Berkeley) will deliver the posters.