The Samsung Galaxy S8 has been on the market since late-April and its highlight feature, Bixby Voice has finally been implemented onto the device in the U.S. market. The artificial intelligence update is rolling onto Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 handsets over-the-air, adding to the overall platform, the ability to instruct the handset to execute functions with one's voice. Bixby serves as Samsung answer to other AI assistants such as Siri, from Apple, Alexa from Amazon and Google Assistant. In addition to Bixby Voice, the assistant includes features such as the Hello Bixby Hub, which serves as a hub for vital information for those using a Bixby enabled handset, Bixby Reminders, which learns user's patterns and sets automatic reminders, and Bixby Vision, which uses the Galaxy S8 camera app as a machine learning identification tool to pull information about products, places or things or even translate text. The latter three features were enabled on Bixby when the Galaxy S9 launched; however, Bixby Voice was delayed due to Samsung having issues implementing English speech recognition onto the platform.

A San Diego-based company that believes "tomorrow's robots will be intelligent autonomous machines that can take care of us," which will be "as commonplace as computers and mobile phones are today" has raised $114 million in Series C funding led by SoftBank's Vision Fund, with participation from Qualcomm Ventures. Brain Corp's primary product is its BrainOS platform, which is software designed to make it possible to create autonomous commercial robots using off-the-shelf hardware and sensors. Brain's tech uses AI to allow robots to control their own motion, as well as perceive their surroundings. The BrainOS software includes self-driving technology tailored for indoor use, as well as obstacle avoidance. Its business model involves selling its platform as a SaaS offering, which means its clients pay subscription fees to add autonomy to their robots. BrainOS is intended to "play the same role as Android OS plays for smartphones," the company says, offering equipment manufacturers an easy way to convert their existing machinery into functional robots.

Huawei is gearing up to launch an application processor that combines CPU (central processing unit), GPU (graphics processing unit) and AI (artificial intelligence) functions, according to a report from DigiTimes. Huawei Consumer Business Group CEO Richard Yu discussed the plans during the 2017 China Internet Conference in Beijing which started earlier this week. Yu stated that the new processor would debut in the second half of the year, though he didn't go into specifics about what the AI component of the chip would allow for (CPU and GPU have been being built into the same SoC since 2010). Yu did mention, however, that Huawei's EMUI interface supported "deep machine learning and smart computing capability," said DigiTimes. Which CPU and GPU will feature in this new chip is an interesting question.

HONG KONG – SoftBank Group Corp. is in talks to invest in Makeblock Co., a Chinese maker of DIY robotics, people familiar with the matter said. Makeblock is seeking to raise about $60 million in a series C round by the end of this year as it targets a doubling of its valuation to $400 million, the people said, asking not to be identified talking about private plans. The figures are preliminary and could vary depending on negotiations, the people said. SoftBank and Makeblock declined to comment. Makeblock is competing with a coterie of Chinese startups, as well as Pearson PLC, Lego Group and Sony Corp., who all want a slice of a learning industry that focuses on science, technology, engineering and math.

It's starting to seem like the KFC restaurants in China aren't really interested in serving chicken. Following the chain's earlier experiments with robot-staffed restaurants and facial-recognition technology, KFC China has teamed up with Huawei -- the country's largest smartphone company -- to release a Colonel-themed smartphone in honor of the KFC's 30th anniversary in China. "Both brands have witnessed the rise of China in these 30 years, and both embody the spirit of the times. Our collaboration is a homage to the era," said Steven Li, the senior vice president of KFC marketing for Yum China, in a statement to Campaign Asia-Pacific. The phone, named the KFC Huawei 7 Plus, comes with red casing and features an outline of the Colonel's face on the back.

Telecom operators have started using artificial intelligence (AI) technology capabilities that process and analyze real-time customer data to recommend and automatically trigger the next best action. Ooredoo, a top telecom operator in the Middle East, is investing in artificial intelligence technology to ensure next-generation customer experience to its mobile phone users in Qatar – as part of its digital strategy. Vodafone India faced 4.8 percent churn in fiscal 2017 as compared with 4.3 percent n fiscal 2016 due to competition. Churn of post-paid customers was 1.9 percent against 1.8 percent. Churn of pre-paid users was 5 percent against 4.5 percent.

For years Dish Network Corp. DISH 1.00% Chief Executive Charlie Ergen has sought out deals and partnerships with just about every major telecom company, from Sprint Corp. S -2.31% to T-Mobile US Inc. TMUS -0.83% to AT&T Inc. --so far, to no avail. Now, the satellite-television mogul is turning his attention to the technology world and a new--and somewhat surprising--potential partner has emerged: Amazon.com The two men--eccentric billionaires with geek tendencies and shared interest in space and robotics--have gotten to know each other better over the past year and have discussed a partnership to enter the wireless business, according to people familiar with the matter. Among the ideas: Amazon could help finance a network Dish is building focused on the "Internet of Things"--the idea that everything from bikes to Amazon's drones can have web connectivity everywhere. Another idea is that Amazon, as a founding partner of Dish's new wireless network, could offer an option for Prime members to pay a little more a month for a connectivity or phone plan, one of the people said.

Overview: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Cognitive Computing are increasingly integrated in many areas including Internet search, entertainment, commerce applications, content optimization, and robotics. The long-term prospect for these technologies is that they will become embedded in many different other technologies and provide autonomous decision making on behalf of humans, both directly, and indirectly through many processes, products, and services. AI will anticipated to have an ever increasing role in ICT including both traditional telecommunications as well as many communications enabled applications and digital commerce. Fast growing AI technologies for consumer facing industries include chat bots and Virtual Personal Assistants (VPA) and smart advisors. These technologies leverage autonomous agents to enable an ambient user experience for applications, services, and enhanced commerce.

Providing a broad but in-depth introduction to neural network and machine learning in a statistical framework, this book provides a single, comprehensive resource for study and further research. All the major popular neural network models and statistical learning approaches are covered with examples and exercises in every chapter to develop a practical working understanding of the content. Each of the twenty-five chapters includes state-of-the-art descriptions and important research results on the respective topics. The broad coverage includes the multilayer perceptron, the Hopfield network, associative memory models, clustering models and algorithms, the radial basis function network, recurrent neural networks, principal component analysis, nonnegative matrix factorization, independent component analysis, discriminant analysis, support vector machines, kernel methods, reinforcement learning, probabilistic and Bayesian networks, data fusion and ensemble learning, fuzzy sets and logic, neurofuzzy models, hardware implementations, and some machine learning topics. Applications to biometric/bioinformatics and data mining are also included.

Of all the fields in the chatbot-crazed world, customer service is one of the prime targeting areas for automation. Virtual Customer Agents (customer service focused bots or VCAs for short) are intelligent systems that are able to understand what users ask via chat and provide them with adequate answers to solve users' issues. In the context of this article when we talk about VCAs we mean systems that are able to understand natural language and texting and do not just operate in a rule based multiple-choice environment. In short, these VCAs compete directly with humans to resolve customer service issues. The current reality of chatbots nicely counterbalances all the hype that AI is getting and also offers guidance as to where things need to develop.