Alibaba Cloud, the cloud-computing arm of Alibaba Group, is making artificial intelligence (AI) technology more accessible to businesses and organizations with the debut of an upgraded machine-learning platform. Called PAI 2.0, the platform, which launched in 2015, will "help customers easily deploy large-scale data mining and modeling," Alibaba Cloud said in a statement. Machine learning is a branch of AI that gives computers the ability to absorb information, discern patterns in data and adapt to new input without explicit programming. China's first publicly available machine-learning platform, PAI is a suite of tools and AI software algorithms that allows businesses without an AI background to make practical use of Alibaba Cloud's ET program, an "artificial brain" that the company is using to solve complex problems such as predicting the winner of a popular Chinese reality TV show and helping to ease traffic congestion in the city of Hangzhou, China. "In the past year, Alibaba Cloud has implemented a number of real-life AI applications for customers across industries," said Alibaba Cloud Chief Scientist Dr. Jingren Zhou.

When Andrew Ng, one of the world's leading thinkers on artificial intelligence, announced he would be stepping down from his position as chief scientist at Chinese Baidu, the company's stock dropped nearly 3 percent in just a few hours. It was a reflection not only of Ng's prominence and fame, but also of the importance investors have placed on the search giant's focus on AI. The technology has become a key element of the company's strategy, and Ng's departure comes at a time when Baidu is determined to double down on its AI efforts. Baidu has quickly reaffirmed its commitment to AI, naming Wang Haifeng, an expert in natural-language processing, as Ng's replacement. CEO Robin Li has recently written numerous opinion pieces in Chinese newspapers about the importance of developing AI expertise.

The combination of face-mapping and video projections makes for a trippy experience. The technology transforms the human face into a canvas for digital art. When a bright red lightning bolt appeared on Lady Gaga's face during her David Bowie tribute at the Grammys last year, the projection mapping technique went from niche studios to a mainstream audience. Now, the studio behind that performance has dropped a visual experiment called Inori to demonstrate the pace and precision of a new system. Nobumichi Asai, creative director of a Japanese visual studio called WOW, is a new media artist who is known for experimenting with face-mapping and video projections.

Dance Dance Revolution is one of the classic video games of the late 20th century. A testament to its success, novelty, and longevity is that it is still popular today, almost 20 years since its launch. This is a dancing game consisting of a screen and a dance platform that players control with their feet. The platform has four pads, which players must touch to music in the order specified by a chart on the screen. So players must dance to the music in the way the game demands.

Will an AI system ever create art that can equal a work created by a human? Researchers and artists are already making attempts to find out by translating creativity into algorithms. To answer whether these attempts are likely to generate artwork -- music, poetry, fiction, visual art -- that can pass for human-created work starts with understanding how human creativity functions. While the potential for rational thinking and mathematical ability in humans are present at birth, we still require education to fully realize these capabilities. So we study the laws of nature, logic puzzles, ethical dilemmas, and so on.

Just imagine, if 100 years ago the Wright brothers would have tried to build an'artificial bird' rather than calling it an airplane? We would have had endless discussions around engineering this machine to emulate birds in every detail. Would you feel comfortable to fly on an artificial bird? Does an artificial factory produce better cars than a human-centered production environment? Artificial intelligence was invented as a term in the 1950's when computer science professors at Dartmouth College convened a conference in order to teach computers to think during one summer - a slightly optimistic view as it turned out.

Netflix unveils trailer for Louis C.K.'s new comedy special Drought drives huge, deadly cobra to calmly drink from a villager's water bottle'Fantastic Beasts' gets the Honest Trailers skewering that (let's be real) it totally deserves

We know self-driving cars are the inevitable future of transportation -- mostly because all the companies looking to profit from it can't stop hyping the technology. A slick ad from Swedish transportation agency Västtrafik has all the hallmarks of a futuristic autonomous vehicle hype video, complete with buzzwords like "sustainable," "electrified" and "delegated driving." Cue the big reveal... to a standard city bus. Turns out, you can already experience many of the perks we're looking forward to in self-driving cars by taking public transport. Drought drives huge, deadly cobra to calmly drink from a villager's water bottle'Fantastic Beasts' gets the Honest Trailers skewering that (let's be real) it totally deserves Netflix unveils trailer for Louis C.K.'s new comedy special Seth Meyers doubts Trump's deal-making skills after failed health care bill

Those were the fighting words Sony Pictures Chairman Tom Rothman threw out in front of hundreds of movie theater owners here Monday night, boasting about the studio's upcoming slate. While Sony unveiled footage from a handful of blockbuster hopefuls -- an adaptation of Stephen King's "Dark Tower," a reboot of the kids' flick "Jumanji" and the new "Spider-Man" flick -- the executive was most bullish about this summer's "Blade Runner 2049." Rothman made his Netflix diss after footage from the new Denis Villeneuve film played, insinuating that the movie's theatrical experience will exceed anything offered on the streaming site. A sequel to Ridley Scott's 1982 sci-fi classic, this time directed by Villeneuve, the film stars Harrison Ford and "an electrifying young star" -- Rothman's words -- in Ryan Gosling. Dressed in a hoodie and jean jacket, Gosling came out onstage to talk about his experience filming the movie in Budapest last year.

A moody, provocative adventure set in a dystopic future, "Ghost" defined cyberpunk, spawned a string of sequels and TV series, and influenced films on both sides of the Pacific. Last year, protests erupted when Paramount announced a live-action remake starring Scarlett Johansson as the crime-fighting cyborg, Maj. An agent for Public Security Section 9 who suggests a cross between a Playboy centerfold and the Terminator, Maj. Kusanagi battles the hacker known only as "The Puppet Master." But her real quest is of self-discovery: Does her "Ghost," her essential being, reside in the organic brain within her largely prosthetic body or is it part of the Web?