Amazon just dropped a whole bunch of Alexa-equipped gear on us, including a redesigned Echo speaker with a price tag of just $99. That's a bargain compared to the $189 price of its predecessor, but you can take advantage of Alexa's best new feature on your old Echo stuff right now, for free: Multi-Room Music is rolling out across the platform. Multi-Room Music allows you to play your tunes or talk radio (woo!) simultaneously across a variety of Echo devices on the same network. It works like a Sonos system, pumping audio to individual speakers throughout a house. Or, you can place several speakers around a really big room that's covered by the same network, a technique often used by gyms, studios, or other large spaces.

The last three weeks I was working on ImageMonkey - check it out here: https://imagemonkey.io/. The idea originated while I was working on another project where at some point I wanted to integrate Machine Learning into my application. With all the great Machine Learning frameworks out there, it's really easy to get your foot into the door quickly. But while I was playing a little bit with the frameworks, I somehow realized that it's really hard to get some good training data. If you are lucky then there is some (annotated) training data online, if not...well, then you have to get your hands dirty and do the tedious work yourself.

For more than a year, "Blade Runner 2049" director Denis Villeneuve and star Ryan Gosling have been working under the cover of CIA-level stealthiness. On the film's Budapest set, copies of the script for the long-awaited sequel to Ridley Scott's 1982 sci-fi neo-noir classic were held so closely -- literally locked away in safes when not in use -- that many crew members never laid eyes on one. Actors would sign out their sides on the day they were shooting a scene and be required to sign them back in before going home, lest the merest hint of a spoiler leak. On a late-September afternoon, with the film's Oct. 6 release just days away, Villeneuve and Gosling sat in a windowless conference room in a hotel in downtown Los Angeles, preparing to finally let audiences in on their secret -- and wondering what they will make of it. "When you make a movie as a filmmaker, it's like you bring people in a boat and you say, 'We will discover America together,' " said Villeneuve, the French Canadian director of such films as 2015's crime thriller "Sicario" and the 2016 cerebral sci-fi hit "Arrival."

A few days ago, I finally bought a pair of AirPods. Apple's funny-looking ear-computers have been available for about a year, provided you were willing to order them online and wait six weeks for delivery. When I saw that I could snag a pair at my local Apple store, I decided to take the plunge. I worry that makes me sound like an impulsive person. At $159, AirPods are expensive.

Artificial Intelligence has been described as "Thor's Hammer" and "the new electricity." But it's also a bit of a mystery – even to those who know it best. We'll connect with some of the world's leading experts in artificial intelligence, deep learning, and machine learning to explain how it works, how it's evolving, and how it intersects with every facet of human endeavor, from art to science. We release new episodes every week. A long-time journalist based in Silicon Valley, Michael has been in the thick of technological change since the web took hold.

Thursday morning starts with more Amazon products than you could ever possibly want. Remember how the retailer found success with its Echo speaker? Everything gets a voice assistant. Amazon might not have YouTube on Echo anymore, but the devices are coming in several new shapes and sizes. Our three-minute wrap-up video from the big event shows everything you need to know, or you can dive in to check out our impressions of the new Echo speakers (now in regular or tall size), its small-screened Echo Spot or the latest Fire TV device, which puts 4K video streaming in a dongle.

Netflix Inc. isn't going to leave the success of its series and films to chance--and analysts say its stock should be rewarded. The company wants to be able to "combine great story telling and the great technological aspects," Chief Executive Reed Hastings told MarketWatch in 2015. "That's where we want to be." Netflix's use of convolutional neural network and proprietary algorithms, which is essentially deep machine learning used to analyze visual imagery, is a prime example of its approach. And it's just that approach that grabbed the attention of Wells Fargo analysts Ken Sena and Marci Ryvicker. They initiated coverage of Netflix NFLX, 1.44% on Wednesday with an overweight rating and a $230 12-month price target, which is the highest price target among analysts covering the stock, according to FactSet.

In the episode we talk to two gents from Ireland's biggest trade union for production workers. An industry known for its automation increases not only planned for the future but also in the past. We are no longer screwing the caps on toothpaste tubes, robots in automation are doing it for us. Automation is not a new term, it doesn't always refer to a robot process but has been taking place for thousands of years. We no longer build our buildings the way the Ancient Egyptians shifted over 2 million rocks weighing over 3 tons each in a pyramid shape.

Thanks to a surprise event at Amazon's Seattle HQ yesterday, we got to see a whole host of new Alexa-powered devices. We played with the redesigned Echo, the all-new Echo Plus with smart hub, the cute Echo Spot and an overhauled Fire TV, giving consumers even more reason to buy into Amazon's ecosystem. While most of the event was dedicated to brand new Echos, the company also found time to update customers outside of the US on the status of the Echo Show. The good news is that the video-capable device is now available to pre-order in the UK and Germany for £199.99 and €219.99 respectively. The Echo Show is the first Echo with a touchscreen, and will deliver rotating views of your calendar appointments, to-do items, weather and a bunch of trending news stories.

So, now the difficult part is behind and I can show you seven machine learning application examples that use ML in a right way. Netflix is one of the most obvious examples of Machine Learning in mobile apps. Today, everyone knows what it is. The reason is, it just knows what you want to watch, before you want to watch it! First, you may think, 'Magic?' Well, not exactly, but a few decades ago it could have been considered magic!