For any cloud to be taken seriously, it has to meet an ever rising bar of features. Machine learning seems to be on that list, as all the major cloud providers now feature it. But how they go about doing it is another story. Aside from the "curated API vs. open-ended algorithm marketplace" models, there are the "everything and then some vs. just enough" variants. Here's how the four big cloud providers -- IBM, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon -- stack up next to each other in machine learning. When IBM first announced it would turn its Watson AI system into a consumable service, the questions piled up.

A man walks at the Samsung Electronics' headquarters in Seoul January 7, 2015. Samsung wants to use some of its US 61 billion (RM246 billion) in cash and equivalents to help it morph into more of a software-driven company, executive vice president Rhee In Jong said in an interview. The South Korean consumer-electronics giant also is spending more to develop its own services because the global market for gadgets is saturated and can't be counted on for significant revenue growth, he said. "We are actively looking for M&A targets of all sorts in the software area," said Rhee, who runs the mobile division's research-and-development business. "We are open to all possibilities, including artificial intelligence. Intelligence is no longer an option -- it is a must."

Xiaomi started making smart home gadgets over two years ago. And now for the first time these are heading to markets outside China. Starbucks hired its new chief technology officer, Gerri Martin-Flickinger, just four months ago. While she's new to the coffee chain, she already has … The lifecycle of a new gadget is relatively predictable: When it's brand new, only early adopters are interested. The Alta is Fitbit's best-looking tracker yet, but it doesn't do everything its predecessors can p b The good: /b Attractive; Comfortable to wear; Easy to change straps; Good battery life p b The bad: /b No heart rate monitor; Doesn't measure stair-climbing; Fickle touch screen p b Who should buy: /b Those who want an … IoT described so my grandmother can understand… p If you're reading this, then you probably already know IoT stands for The Internet of Things.

She joined as senior reporter in April 2014 having previously worked as assistant editor at Government Computing. This week saw an artificial intelligence system built by Google-owned AI company DeepMind called'AlphaGo' beat South Korean champion Lee Sedol at the fiendishly complex game'Go'. Sedol won just one game to AlphaGo's four across a five-match series. The success has been touted as a milestone in AI development due to Go's complexity: it managed to win at a game where there are more possible moves than atoms in the observable universe. DeepMind's technique differs from using traditional'brute force' computing power to win. Its deep learning technology allows it to work out general rules from large quantities of data.

If you haven't heard of Mycroft, there's a good chance you've been living under a rock. Mycroft is a project over at Indiegogo and Kickstarter that has the distinction of being the first truly open source, open hardware home AI to grace the technological landscape. And, of course, it runs GNU/Linux. Mycroft is designed to respond to natural human language and execute functions based on what you say/it hears. This allows it to integrate with an array of online sites like YouTube, Netflix, Pandora, and Spotify (along with many others) so you can find content/control those sites with the ease of voice.

Last week, machine learning took a big leap forward when Google's AlphaGo, a machine algorithm, beat the world champion, Lee Sedol, in the game Go. If the lip-reading technology had been used during the 2006 World Cup Final, when Zinedine Zidane was given a red card for headbutting Marco Materazzi, the outcome of the game could have been different. The partnership will provide students within the university's Department of Computing Science the opportunity to gain hands-on experience of IBM's … A new study reveals that voice assistant AIs, like Siri and Cortana, might be clever, but they lack fundamental empathy at their core. Google has entered into the machine learning market with the alpha release of Cloud Machine Learning. "Extraordinary" merger of machine intelligence and cloud economics, is changing business operations and society, says Leading Edge Forum.

Human beings begin to learn the difference before we learn to speak--and thankfully so. We owe much of our success as a species to our capacity for moral reasoning. It's the glue that holds human social groups together, the key to our fraught but effective ability to cooperate. We are (most believe) the lone moral agents on planet Earth--but this may not last. The day may come soon when we are forced to share this status with a new kind of being, one whose intelligence is of our own design. Robots are coming, that much is sure. They are coming to our streets as self-driving cars, to our military as automated drones, to our homes as elder-care robots--and that's just to name a few on the horizon (Ten million households already enjoy cleaner floors thanks to a relatively dumb little robot called the Roomba). What we don't know is how smart they will eventually become. Some believe human-level artificial intelligence is pure science fiction; others believe they will far surpass us in intelligence--and sooner rather than later.

A new bill in California's legislature that aims to smooth the path for fully driverless vehicles on the state's public roads is being proposed by an assembly member who has received thousands of dollars from Google. It is one of two bills currently under discussion that would relax the rules on testing self-driving cars in the US's largest state and the test bed for automated driving. The bill being promoted by Mike Gatto, who represents several communities in and near Los Angeles, would allow Google and others to test vehicles on public streets without a steering wheel, brake pedal or human safety driver. Gatto has received contributions from Google and Ford, which is also testing driverless car technology in California, according to state campaign finance records. Alphabet, Google's parent company, is considering spinning out its self-driving car project into a separate business.

Advances in deep learning and artificial intelligence are accelerating because massive computing power is finally accessible to companies of all sizes. Cloud computing is proving itself a true game-changer in this "futuristic" sector because it affords a variety of critical resources to, arguably, the most creative people in the world--entrepreneurs. One of these entrepreneurs who thinks differently is Jason Toy. He is the founder and CEO of Somatic, a platform for anyone to easily build deep learning applications. He has been building software companies and products from the ground up for 10 years.

Tay, a chatbot designed by Microsoft to learn about human conversation from the internet, has learned how make racist and misogynistic comments. Early on, her responses were confrontational and occasionally mean, but rarely delved into outright insults. However, within 24 hours of its launch Tay has denied the Holocaust, endorsed Donald Trump, insulted women and claimed that Hitler was right. A chatbot is a program meant to mimic human responses and interact with people as a human would. Tay, which targets 18- to 24-year-olds, is attached to an artificial intelligence developed by Microsoft's Technology and Research team and the Bing search engine team.