Phuong Vo.T.H has a MSc degree in computer science, which is related to machine learning. After graduation, she continued to work in some companies as a data scientist. She has experience in analyzing users' behavior and building recommendation systems based on users' web histories. She loves to read machine learning and mathematics algorithm books, as well as data analysis articles. Martin Czygan studied German literature and computer science in Leipzig, Germany.

Through a special arrangement, what follows is a summary of an article from Retail Dive, an e-newsletter and website providing a 60-second bird's eye view of the latest retail news and trends. Target and three other retailers have partnered with natural language processing (NLP) startup AddStructure to roll out what an AddStructure co-founder describes as a "white-label" spin on Amazon's Alexa virtual assistant, according to a Chicago Tribune report. Chosen in June to participate in the Target TechStars accelerator program, AddStructure has already worked with Target on a six-to-nine-month pilot program and is set to begin similar pilots next month with L'Oreal, Under Armour and the online antiques marketplace, 1stdibs. "We've always been focused on language, so how are people searching for things, what are the priorities around different products through analysis of user reviews," AddStructure co-founder Will Underwood told the Trib. "Now it's just about using that knowledge of natural language to allow people to interact."

Ashish Gupta has been working in the field of software development for the last 10 years. He has worked in companies such as SAP Labs and Caterpillar as a software developer. While working for a start-up predicting potential customers for new fashion apparels using social media, he developed an interest in the field of machine learning. Since then, he has worked on big data technologies and machine learning for different industries, including retail, finance, insurance, and so on. He is passionate about learning new technologies and sharing that knowledge with others.

This book, together with specially prepared online material freely accessible to our readers, provides a complete introduction to Machine Learning, the technology that enables computational systems to adaptively improve their performance with experience accumulated from the observed data. Such techniques are widely applied in engineering, science, finance, and commerce. This book is designed for a short course on machine learning. It is a short course, not a hurried course. From over a decade of teaching this material, we have distilled what we believe to be the core topics that every student of the subject should know.

Daniel Lélis Baggio started his work in computer vision through medical image processing at InCor (Instituto do Coração Heart Institute) in São Paulo, where he worked with intra-vascular ultrasound image segmentation. Since then, he has focused on GPGPU and ported the segmentation algorithm to work with NVIDIA's CUDA. He has also dived into six degrees of freedom head tracking with a natural user interface group through a project called ehci (http://code.google.com/p/ehci/). He now works for the Brazilian Air Force. Shervin Emami (born in Iran) taught himself electronics and hobby robotics during his early teens in Australia.

The modern day shopping experience is flush with personalized options, concierge services, same day shipping and of course, endless options. While shopping online allows consumers to order products from virtually anywhere in the world, it can be challenging to sift through the unwanted items and find the desired ones. As stated in a study by Forrester Research, U.S. consumers will spend 327 billion online by the end of 2016. With more opportunities than ever to capitalize on online spending, online retailers are realizing they must make an impression on consumers. How do they do that?

Samsung Electronics Co. is joining the race to create the smartest digital assistant by acquiring Viv, a Silicon Valley start-up launched by the same entrepreneurs who sold Siri to Apple. The deal announced Wednesday provides Samsung with technology to compete against Google Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Apple Inc. in the increasingly important field of programming computers to learn and respond as if they were human. The specialty, also known as artificial intelligence, has hatched a flock of voice-activated digital concierges -- such as Siri, Amazon's Alexa, Microsoft's Cortana and Google's Assistant -- that work in personal computers, smartphones and Internet-connected speakers. Samsung plans to implant Viv into phones, televisions and a wide range of other devices. The South Korean company did not disclose how much it paid for the start-up.

On Sept. 19, Etsy (NASDAQ:ETSY) announced it had acquired private analytics and AI company Blackbird Technologies to enhance its search capabilities. Since Etsy is an online retailer of rare products and handmade crafts, though, some might question the prudence of its purchase. Etsy bought Blackbird Technologies for an undisclosed sum of money. What we do know is what the company gets in the exchange: Blackbird's analytics engine that analyzes shoppers' behavior to predict and suggest personalized search results, image recognition and cataloguing to enhance user searches, and spelling correction and predictive type to speed up the search process. In addition to the technology, the techie team at Blackbird will also be joining Etsy, including the two company co-founders.

Microsoft Corp has created a new artificial intelligence unit, as the company pushes deeper into the fast-growing field. Silicon Valley is diving into artificial intelligence (AI)and machine learning research, an industry estimated to zoom to 70 billion by 2020 from just 8.2 billion in 2013, according to a Bank of America report that cited IDC research. On Wednesday, Microsoft teamed up with four other big technology companies - Amazon.com Inc, Alphabet unit Google, Facebook Inc and IBM - to create a non-profit organization to advance public understanding of AI technologies. The new unit -- Microsoft AI and Research Group -- will be headed by Harry Shum, a company veteran who has held senior roles at the Microsoft Research and Bing engineering divisions.

SAN FRANCISCO – Alphabet Inc.'s Google on Tuesday announced a new Pixel smartphone and a virtual reality headset, making a concerted move into home electronics and challenging Apple Inc.'s iPhone at the high end of the more than 400 billion global smartphone market. The string of announcements, including the 649 Pixel, a new Wi-Fi router and its voice-activated digital assistant for the living room, Home, is the clearest sign yet that Google intends to compete directly with Apple, Amazon.com and even its own Android mobile operating system customers to create a world of integrated devices and services that meet every digital need. The moves also show Google is taking tighter control of its products. Google lets Android device makers modify software almost without limit, which has helped make Android the most-used mobile operating system in the world. But company executives boasted that the Pixel was developed in-house from start to finish and gives it a direct hand on a platform for the distribution of its internet-based services.