From MOOCs (Massive open online courses) to the use of iPads in schools, there's no doubt that technology is changing the way that we learn. Chatbots could have a similar effect, too -- by offering a means by which children can better interact with the subjects they're studying. That was the conclusion reached by UK-based tech company rehabstudio. During a recent hackathon event, they came up with the idea of creating an "edubot" that would enable kids to ask questions to a tyrannosaurus rex (called Tina) using Facebook Messenger. The finished product was a collaboration between rehabstudio (providing the tech) and National Geographic Kids (providing the data.)

When the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs awarded a five-year contract to Flow Health for advancing artificial intelligence, the startup stepped into the national health IT spotlight. Healthcare IT News caught up with Flow Health CEO Alex Mishkin to discuss his vision for AI, cognitive computing and machine learning, what a federal contract means to a young company and what the incoming Trump administration might mean for innovation in America. Q: What does winning a VA contract mean to an emerging company like Flow Health? A: The VA approached us and said'imagine what you can help us do with our data.' It's super exciting to be working with the largest integrated clinical data set in the United States: 22 million unique people, spanning 20 years so it's a rich longitudinal data.

Gigaom, the leader in emerging technology research, today announced that it will host its annual conference Gigaom AI Now in San Francisco, CA, February 15-16th. The one-and-a-half day conference, held at the Golden Gate Club, will share how companies are using AI today to drive significant ROI across every aspect of business, from administration to product development, sales and marketing, and customer experience. Attendees at this event will learn from world-leading practitioners how today's progressive businesses are applying the most innovative AI tools, platforms, and technologies in-house to drive revenue and improve operations across the enterprise. "In the last couple of years, AI has become the technology no enterprise can afford to ignore. It will change every department in almost every business. We have designed this event to focus entirely on how enterprises can use AI right now to improve their business in substantial ways," shared Gigaom Publisher, Byron Reese.

Global Big Data Conference's vendor agnostic Global Artificial Intelligence(AI) Conference is held on January 19th, January 20th, & January 21st 2017 on all industry verticals(Finance, Retail/E-Commerce/M-Commerce, Healthcare/Pharma/BioTech, Energy, Education, Insurance, Manufacturing, Telco, Auto, Hi-Tech, Media, Agriculture, Chemical, Government, Transportation etc..). It will be the largest vendor agnostic conference in AI space. The Conference allows practitioners to discuss AI through effective use of various techniques. Large amount of data created by various mobile platforms, social media interactions, e-commerce transactions, and IoT provide an opportunity for businesses to effectively tailor their services by effective use of AI. Proper use of Artificial Intelligence can be a major competitive advantage for any business considering vast amount of data being generated.

The human brain is the most sophisticated organ in the human body. The things that the brain can do, and how it does them, have even inspired a model of artificial intelligence (AI). Now, a recent study published in the journal Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience shows how human intelligence may be a product of a basic algorithm. This algorithm is found in the Theory of Connectivity, a "relatively simple mathematical logic underlies our complex brain computations," according to researcher and author Joe Tsien, neuroscientist at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University, co-director of the Augusta University Brain and Behavior Discovery Institute and Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Cognitive and Systems Neurobiology. He first proposed the theory in October 2015.

In the past, the terms business analyst and data scientist have sometimes been used interchangeably, and indeed, in a small company, the lines between the two sorts of jobs may blur. But as more and more companies look to big data for business insights, they are shifting from relying on business analysts to predict what the future of a business might look like, and moving towards using data scientists and machine learning to interpret data and predict trends. What's the difference, you might ask? While the end result of these two jobs is often similar, a business analyst and a data scientist use different tools to get there. In general, data scientists have much greater technical expertise, especially in computer programming, systems engineering, and statistics.

Earlier this week we warned that as the trend to robotization accelerates, millions of (mostly) low-skilled American jobs will be lost in the next five years, replaced by robots as companies seek to maintain high profit margins in a time of rising wages and growing inflation. One company, however, can not wait that long. British outsourcing giant Capita, a company whose contracts include collecting the BBC license fee, is preparing to fire thousands and replace them with robots after clients cut spending following Brexit vote in a move some fear will be repeated across the country, leading to more than 1 million job losses according to the Guardian. Capita, a FTSE 100-listed firm that also runs the London congestion charge, said it needed to axe 2,000 jobs as part of a cost-cutting drive in response to poor trading. The company said it would use the money it saved to fund investment into robotic workers across the whole company.

The next time you enter a query into Google's search engine or consult the company's map service for directions to a movie theater, remember that a big brain is working behind the scenes to provide relevant search results and make sure you don't get lost while driving. As Fortune's Roger Parloff wrote, the Google Brain research team has created over 1,000 so-called deep learning projects that have supercharged many of Google's products over the past few years like YouTube, translation, and photos. With deep learning, researchers can feed huge amounts of data into software systems called neural nets that learn to recognize patterns within the vast information faster than humans. In an interview with Fortune, one of Google Brain's co-founders and leaders, Jeff Dean, talks about cutting-edge AI research, the challenges involved, and using AI in its products. The following, done against the backdrop of the 50th annual Turing Award, an honor in computer science from the Association for Computing Machinery, has been edited for length and clarity. A lot of human learning comes from unsupervised learning where you're just sort of observing the world around you and understanding how things behave.

Home » Brain Function » Dementia risk in older adults can be predicted with a new risk index tool Dementia risk in older adults can be predicted with a new risk index tool By: Devon Andre Brain Function Friday, December 09, 2016 - 11:00 AM Dementia risk in older adults can be predicted with a new risk index tool. Preventing dementia is becoming a worldwide concern as rates of mental decline are expected to climb. While the risk of developing dementia can be somewhat curbed with lifestyle changes, detecting the most vulnerable population segments is still a challenge. Researchers from Finland and Sweden addressed the challenges of recognizing dementia by using a novel machine learning approach. They developed a dementia risk index tool which helps assess a person's risk of dementia in order to determine the appropriate preventative measures.

The Nihon Ki-in (Japan Go Association) announced on Nov. 29 that it will hold the "World Go Championship" in March next year in which top Go players from Japan, China and South Korea will compete against artificial intelligence (AI) software. The first-prize winner will receive 30 million yen. From Japan, 9th-dan Yuta Iyama, who holds the Honinbo qualification and six major titles, and "DeepZenGo," a Go software developed in Japan, will take part in the championship. It has not been decided on who will take part in the event from China and South Korea. The championship will be held at the Nihon Ki-in Kansai general headquarters in Osaka's Kita Ward from March 21 to 23.