Ever since Minority Report hit theaters in 2002 we've dreamed of controlling interfaces with our hands just like Cruise's crime-fighting character did in Steven Spielberg's film. Our reality, though, tends to be more disappointing. We still don't have holographic interfaces (unless we wear a headset like Microsoft's HoloLens) and the gesture controls we have usually require you to keep your hands in some sort of virtual box, or wear some special device (e.g. Gesture control needs to be simple, obvious. It gets better when you combine, say, a Leap Motion with VR, but then you're mostly cut off from the outside world.

Digital video consumption has surged, igniting new monetization opportunities for these modern distribution outlets and content makers, a point I explored in a previous essay. The challenge I didn't touch on, however, is how to optimize these monetization events in the most efficient manner. Machine learning is at the root of the answer. Machine learning is when computers learn and analyze new data without being programmed. It's when software can recognize patterns and draw conclusions.

As the basic toolkit becomes more rounded, that's where the applications will be - using pretrained models, maybe with a little fine tuning. Some of these functions should be included directly in the OS (such as speech recognition). I hope AI tools and pretrained models will become more and more integrated and accessible, because now they just sit in separate repositories and libraries, needing a considerable amount of effort to make them work together. One model does age detection, another does sex detection, another action recognition, and so on, but we need them all in one place. As I see it, AI is slowly converging towards differentiable programming, flexible network structure (torch-style frameworks), graph based neural nets and hierarchically composing higher order skills from lower order ones, anyway.

How's it gone so far? Microsoft's big annual conference kicks off today, and we've sniffed out what you can expect. We also get the full reveal of Amazon's Echo-with-a-screen. It's not pretty, but it does sound pretty smart. What to expect at Microsoft's Build 2017 conference While it's a mobile computing world, Microsoft has no shortage of projects we need to be updated on.

With diversified ways to listen on the rise, radio is attracting renewed attention in Japan. Its popularity was also spurred by the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami and the April 2016 temblors in Kumamoto Prefecture, as its role in spreading key information during disasters came into view. Fans can listen to radio shows on personal computers and smartphones and share favorite programs online through social networking services. Some 12 million people a month listen through the Radiko internet radio service that makes programs from various broadcasters available. The service was developed by Fumio Miura, a professor at Kansai University and a fellow at operator Radiko Co. "I want to evolve radio into completely different new media by, for example, utilizing artificial intelligence," Miura said.

Apple confirmed its keynote address for its upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) by sending press invitations for the June event Tuesday, MacRumors reported. Apple will hold the keynote event on June 5 at 10 a.m. The WWDC 2017 will consist of get-togethers, sessions and labs for developers, plus a keynote address. Last year, Apple unveiled iOS 10, which revamped iMessage and the Photos and Maps apps, along with other features. This year could include big announcements on the Apple TV, iOS 11 and the rumored Siri speaker.

Amazon revealed the Echo Show Tuesday, and with coverage of the Alexa gadget came rumors about Apple's upcoming Siri speaker. Apple employees have been testing the Siri speaker in their homes for several months, sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. So far, it's unknown whether Apple's upcoming Siri speaker will come with a built-in display, like Amazon's Echo Show. Marketing chief Phil Schiller said last week in an interview he thinks voice assistant devices are beneficial, but that doesn't mean you'd never want a screen. KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo previously said there's a more than 50 percent chance Apple could announce its Siri speaker at the Worldwide Developers Conference this June.

Convolutional encoders for neural MT go as far back as (Kalchbrenner, Blunsom 2013) and convolutional encoders decoders in LM and MT appear first in (Kalchbrenner et al, 2016) and with pooling also in (Bradbury et al, 2016).

BootstrapLabs, a leading Venture Capital firm focused on Applied AI, announces its annual Applied Artificial Intelligence Conference on May 11th in San Francisco. The Applied AI Conference 2016 was a great success, and this year, the BootstrapLabs community will gather again for one day of discovery, exchanging ideas, and networking with over 600 AI thought leaders, corporate executives, founders and investors. "The conference is a great opportunity to learn about practical applications and the commercialization of AI technologies across industries such as Transportation & Logistics, Internet of Things (IoT), Future of Work (FoW), Financial Technologies (FinTech), CyberSecurity, and Healthcare Technologies (HealthTech)," said Benjamin Levy, Co-Founder, BootstrapLabs. The world's leading AI investors and companies will be at this year's conference, including Intel, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, Salesforce, Cylance, Ford, Visa, GE, Brighterion, Bloomberg, Capgemini, Intuit, Unity, Open.AI, UC Berkeley, Stanford, D-Wave Systems and many others. "We are at the epicenter of a new revolution, and for BootstrapLabs, working with the incredible community of Artificial Intelligence thought leaders and experts gives our portfolio companies an unfair advantage. The Venture Capital industry is evolving, with some of the most exciting opportunities emerging in the early stages. We created a way to effectively bring the value add of larger Venture Capital funds to early stage companies," said Nicolai Wadstrom, CEO and Founder of BootstrapLabs.

The features on Amazon's new Echo Show look straight out of the future. A link has been sent to your friend's email address. The features on Amazon's new Echo Show look straight out of the future.