Editor's note: This tutorial series was started in September of 2014, with the 8 installments coming over the course of 2 years. I only mention this to put John's first paragraph into context, and to assure readers that this informative series of tutorials, including all of its code, is as relevant and up-to-date today as it was at the time it was written. This is great material, both for anyone taking Andrew Ng's MOOC and as a standalone resource. One of the pivotal moments in my professional development this year came when I discovered Coursera. I'd heard of the "MOOC" phenomenon but had not had the time to dive in and take a class.

Ford's automotive revenue of $37 billion was in line with Wall Street's expectations. Total revenue rose 1 percent to $39.85 billion. The elevated performance in the second quarter was due mostly to a lowering of the company's corporate tax rate, from 30 percent down to 10 percent, Chief Financial Officer Bob Shanks acknowledged. Ford has put some overseas losses back on its books in anticipation of changes in the U.S. corporate tax code, Shanks said. The company expects to have a 15 percent rate this year, but that will return to 30 percent next year.

While data science has emerged as an ambitious new scientific field, related debates and discussions have sought to address why science in general needs data science and what even makes data science a science. Following a comprehensive literature review,5,6,10,11,12,15,18 I offer a number of observations concerning big data and the data science debate. For example, discussion has covered not only data-related disciplines and domains like statistics, computing, and informatics but traditionally less data-related fields and areas like social science and business management as well. Data science has thus emerged as a new inter- and cross-disciplinary field. Although many publications are available, most (likely over 95%) concern existing concepts and topics in statistics, data mining, machine learning, and broad data analytics. This limited view demonstrates how data science has emerged from existing core disciplines, particularly statistics, computing, and informatics. The abuse, misuse, and overuse of the term "data science" is ubiquitous, contributing to the hype, and myths and pitfalls are common.4 While specific challenges have been covered,13,16 few scholars have addressed the low-level complexities and problematic nature of data science or contributed deep insight about the intrinsic challenges, directions, and opportunities of data science as an emerging field. Data science promises new opportunities for scientific research, addressing, say, "What can I do now but could not do before, as when processing large-scale data?"; "What did I do before that does not work now, as in methods that view data objects as independent and identically distributed variables (IID)?"; "What problems not solved well previously are becoming even more complex, as when quantifying complex behavioral data?"; and "What could I not do better before, as in deep analytics and learning?"

Studies have shown we like happy faces because positive emotions in others immediately boosts our own mental state. But what are the emotional consequences of trying to seem happy in order to please others? Researchers have found that we can adjust facial expressions and body gestures without actually changing our emotional state – for example putting on a smile without being happy. People performing surface acting'put on a mask', which creates an unhealthy inner conflict between expressed and felt emotions, researchers found. In an article for The Conversation, Milda Perminiene, a senior lecturer in occupational psychology at the University of East London, shows that this can cause emotional exhaustion, strain and reduced job satisfaction.

Google-parent Alphabet, which has enjoyed revenue growth rate of over 20 percent for the past five quarters, said on Monday that TAC, or traffic acquisition costs, jumped 28 percent to $5.09 billion in the second quarter. MILAN/PARIS (Reuters) – France's Vivendi has tightened its grip on Telecom Italia by removing its CEO Flavio Cattaneo and paving the way for a joint venture between its own pay-TV Canal and the Italian group, in a boost to the French firm's ambitions to become a southern European media powerhouse. SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Silicon Valley baron Elon Musk insulted rival billionaire Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday, escalating a tech wizard war of words over whether robots will become smart enough to kill their human creators. SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Twitter Inc heads toward its quarterly earnings report on Thursday with a stock that has risen more than 40 percent since April when much of Wall Street was ready to write off the tech company.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is considered to be the next stupendous technological development, alike past developments such as the revolution of industries, the computer era, and the emergence of smartphone technology. The North American region is expected to dominate the industry due to the availability of high government funding, the presence of leading players, and strong technical base. Advances in image and voice recognition are driving the growth of the artificial intelligence market as improved image recognition technology is critical to offer enhanced drones, self-driving cars, and robotics. The AI market can be categorized based on solutions, technologies, end use, and geography. The two major factors enabling market growth are emerging AI technologies and growth in big data espousal.

Jul. 25, 2017 - Tech titans Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk recently slugged it out online over the possible threat artificial intelligence (AI) might one day pose to the human race, although you could be forgiven if you don't see why this seems like a pressing question. Thanks to AI, computers are learning to do a variety of tasks that have long eluded them -- everything from driving cars to detecting cancerous skin lesions to writing news stories. But Musk, the founder of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, worries that AI systems could soon surpass humans, potentially leading to our deliberate (or inadvertent) extinction. Two weeks ago, Musk warned U.S. governors to get educated and start considering ways to regulate AI in order to ward off the threat. "Once there is awareness, people will be extremely afraid," he said at the time.

Artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics are making some real money for stock investors, and beating the market. The Global X Robotics and Artificial Intelligence ETF (BOTZ) is up 30 percent this year and the ROBO Global Robotics and Automation Index (ROBO) is up 25 percent. "Between the tech exposure and the international exposure, that's helped the group pretty well," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at BMO Private Bank. The upward trend in robotics and artificial intelligence stocks is one proponents say, in the long-term, could top the so-called FANG stocks -- Facebook, Amazon.com, Each FANG stock has rallied 20 to 50 percent this year and the companies are increasingly focused on using technologies such as artificial intelligence, or AI, to develop their businesses.

Last week, Elon Musk dashed off 125 characters announcing a remarkably ambitious plan to send Amtrak to an early grave. "Just received verbal govt approval for The Boring Company to build an underground NY-Phil-Balt-DC Hyperloop. NY-DC in 29 mins," he proclaimed in a tweet. Sign up to get Backchannel's weekly newsletter. Yet something about this particular moonshot seemed off.

This spring, as part of their coursework, four Stanford University students found themselves in Coronado, California, doing pushups on the beach and charging into a 61-degree surf while overseen by Navy SEAL trainers. They performed this extraordinary homework to better understand the process of inculcating recruits into the elite corps of military frogmen and women. The end result of their (literal) immersion was a solution to an inefficiency in evaluating prospective SEALS: the time-consuming process of analyzing the mountains of comments made about each candidate. Tackling the problem like the internet entrepreneurs they hoped to become, the students created a mobile app to streamline the process. Their reward was thanks from a grateful military establishment--and college credit. Dan Raile is a freelance journalist based in San Francisco.