Imtiaz Adam, Twitter @Deeplearn007 Updated a few sections in Sep 2020 Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly affecting the world around us. It is increasingly making an impact in retail, financial services, along with other sectors of the economy.

The newest Roku products include a streaming device promising improved video delivery throughout the home, a smaller soundbar that also streams, and an updated mobile app for viewing on the go. The nation's leading streaming platform, Roku said it had about 43 million monthly active accounts at the end of June 2020. Research firm eMarketer estimates Roku captures about 33% of U.S. internet users and 47% of connected TV users. Roku's lineup of devices includes the Roku Express ($29.99) and Roku Streaming Stick ($49.99). But its marquee standalone player – it also markets Roku TVs with built-in streaming capability – is the Roku Ultra ($99.99).

If you could play god to an emerging artificial intelligence, would you? That's the moral dilemma at the heart of Agence, an interactive "dynamic film" that blends virtual reality, gaming, and cinematic storytelling to let audiences influence a handful of evolving, three-legged AI creatures, known as agents. The project, which recently debuted at the Venice International Film Festival, is a co-production between Toronto-based indie studio Transitional Forms and the National Film Board (NFB) of Canada. Think of it as Tamagotchi for the 2020s, but with real consequences on the development of digital life. "I think the core artistic vision of this is to cause people to question humans' role in artificial intelligence," says Pietro Gagliano, creator of Agence and founder of Transitional Forms, "both in its creation and interaction right now. These are virtually living creatures that are learning. This is a moment that I hope that we look back on in time as, you know, we made the right choices. And we decided to empathize with these creatures that didn't ask to be born."

With all of the spectacle of an Apple event and droid-like gadgetry of the Disney Star War series The Mandalorian, the Amazon Devices & Services Showcase on September 24 dazzled with more than a dozen new products to help consumers adapt to pandemic life and better integrate work, school and entertainment into their smart homes. Here are highlights from the show along with my interview of Alexa's Head Scientist Rohit Prasad. Ring Always Home Cam is sure to become a family favorite as it zips around the house playing with your dog, spying on the nanny, searching for your phone, checking the oven, and spooking intruders. Echo Dot Kids Edition, which comes in animal-themed tiger and panda prints, switches to Alexa kid mode with a child-friendly tone when answering a youngster's questions, helping with homework, reading bedtime stories, calling friends, and playing games. One year subscription to Amazon Kids with Audible books included.

In this article, we will finally put an end to the "Automating Swords & Souls" series (thank God!). We will continue from where we left off in the previous post and solve the last three mini-games, namely the Accuracy, Dodge, and Critical training, all in this one article. The reason for not separating the tutorial into further posts (e.g. one exclusively for Accuracy training, etc.) is the fact that these training are not vital (unlike the previously covered ones), hence not that important to automate. It is only because of the weird fusion of my masochist and perfectionist sides that I even bothered dealing with coding and fine-tuning (at least to a certain degree) these scripts. But hey, all is good when automating is considered, right?

Although A&Rs are still looking for the same qualities in an artist as they were fifty years ago, what they're looking for in that same artist's data – and they way they're looking for – it has changed dramatically. Editor's Note: Tommaso Rocchi is a 2020 Master of Arts graduate of The Global Entertainment and Music Business program at Berklee College of Music in Valencia, Spain. Data-driven A&R has been a buzzword for quite some time in the music industry, but also one of its most guarded secrets. Even before the acquisition of Sodatone by Warner Music Group, major and big indie record labels started to switch their mindsets and focus on the advantages of a data-driven approach. Compared to the classic "gut-feeling" expertise of a senior A&R, data analysis allows today's A&Rs to validate their intuition and justify talent acquisition with predictive modeling.

The "Curly" curling robots are capturing hearts around the world. A product of Korea University in Seoul and the Berlin Institute of Technology, the deep reinforcement learning powered bots slide stones along ice in a winter sport that dates to the 16th century. As much as their human-expert-bettering accuracy or technology impresses, a big part of the Curly appeal is how we see the little machines in the physical space: the determined manner in which the thrower advances in the arena, smartly raising its head-like cameras to survey the shiny white curling sheet, gently cradling and rotating a rock to begin delivery, releasing deftly at the hog line as a skip watches from the backline, with our hopes. Artificial intelligence (AI) today delivers everything from soup recipes to stock predictions, but most tech works out-of-sight. More visible are the physical robots of various shapes, sizes and functions that embody the latest AI technologies. These robots have generally been helpful, and now they are also becoming a more entertaining and enjoyable part of our lives.

Someday, there will be a reason to spend more than $1,000 on a TV. For now, save your money and buy the new TCL 6-Series. For the third year in a row, the $650, 55-inch model is our favorite TV--where beautiful picture quality and a usable Roku interface meet a reasonable price. It has better picture than TVs that cost hundreds of dollars more, Roku OS built in, and even Chromecast for showing slideshows on the big screen. You can spend double the money for a slightly better-looking OLED TV, but this quantum dot, Mini-LED TCL is nearly as good--and comes with a better interface.

A good example of solving for the right problems can be seen in Formula One World Championship Ltd. The motorsport company was looking for new ways to deliver race metrics that could change the way fans and teams experience racing, but had more than 65 years of historical race data to sift through. After aligning their technical and domain experts to determine what type of untapped data had the most potential to deliver value for its teams and fans, Formula 1 data scientists then used Amazon SageMaker to train deep learning models on this historical data to extract critical performance statistics, make race predictions and relay engaging insights to their fans into the split-second decisions and strategies adopted by teams and drivers.

For several years, there has been a lot of discussion around AI's capabilities. Many believe that AI will outperform humans in solving certain areas. As the technology is in its infancy, researchers are expecting human-like autonomous systems in the next coming years. OpenAI has a leading stance in the artificial intelligence research space. Founded in December 2015, the company's goal is to advance digital intelligence in a way that can benefit humanity as a whole.