Google will create business tools and products based on its own artificial intelligence technology, seeking to entice more companies to rent its cloud-computing services. The Alphabet Inc. unit plans to offer services such as audio transcription and image identification built around its machine-learning software. Google has used this technology for its own products, and is now making the capabilities available for other companies to rent and access over the Internet. The company also said it won several new large cloud customers, including the interactive division of Walt Disney Co., which now runs a web-subscription service on Google's cloud, and Coca-Cola Co., which rented Google servers for a World Cup marketing campaign. Google wants to broaden the appeal of its cloud services to more corporate customers.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise last week announced the public availability of its HPE Haven OnDemand Machine Learning as a Service. The Microsoft Azure cloud-based platform provides more than 60 APIs and services that deliver deep learning analytics on a variety of data, including text, audio, images, social Web and video. Launched in beta in 2014, HPE Haven OnDemand has more than 12,750 registered developers generating millions of API calls per week, the company said. Usage- and SLA-based pricing for enterprise-class delivery to support production deployment also are available. "We're bringing a unique solution to the market built on almost a decade of experience in advanced analytics and machine learning that has been proven," said Jeff Veis, VP of marketing for big data at HPE. "We have leveraged this experience into both the design and approach that we have adopted for Haven OnDemand," he told the E-Commerce Times.

Yet more proof that Minecraft is more than just a game comes our way today. Microsoft already has plans to use the platform, which it bought for 2.5 billion, to help kids learn and for virtual reality, and now we can add artificial intelligence development to that list, too. Today, Microsoft announced a project that enables artificial intelligence researchers to tap into the hit title to sculpt and develop their tech. AIX is a new software development platform that researchers can use to develop'agents' -- AI-powered characters -- which roam Minecraft worlds. The idea is to equip them with the smarts to behave like a regular player.

In a sparse lecture room at Stanford University, six students are rehearsing a presentation they'll later give to a roomful of VIPs from the university's artificial intelligence lab. Papers are strewn across the table. Hoodies hang over the cloth-covered cushion chairs. One student wears a pair of Pi earrings. Another wears a t-shirt that reads: "i: Be rational! A sheet of white poster board sits in the corner, with a few words scrawled in black marker. "Monitoring Hand Sanitation in Hospitals Using Computer Vision," it says. After a while, they give it a dry run. Scripts in hand, the students describe the images they captured from cameras mounted above hand dispensers at Stanford's Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, and they explain the machine learning techniques they've used--including something called "climbing the hill"--to analyze the footage and automatically determine whether doctors and visitors are practicing proper hand hygiene.

Editor's note: Kevin Gray is president of Cannon Gray LLC, a marketing science and analytics consultancy. He would like to thank Marco Vriens of Ipsos for his helpful comments on a draft of this article. Machine learning gets a lot of buzz these days, usually in connection with big data and artificial intelligence (AI). But what exactly is it? Broadly speaking, machine learners are computer algorithms designed for pattern recognition, curve fitting, classification and clustering.

Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) is making big splashes in the cloud computing community this week. Under the leadership of Diane Greene, former VMWare co-founder, the company is striking deals left and right for its long-lagging cloud hosting business, thus attacking Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), IBM (NYSE:IBM) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT). If you follow these companies, you already know that. However, there is something else going on which is an absolutely fundamental shift in Google's strategy and it has to do with today's announced additions to cloud platform. If you are a regular reader of my articles, you might be aware of my under-the-hood series for the artificial intelligence market.

Microsoft has unleashed a social media AI onto the internet -- and she can be a bit of a jerk. On Wednesday, the company released Tay.ai, an artificial intelligence chat bot "with no chill" aimed at 18- to 24-year-olds living in the United States. Tay will talk on social networks popular with many youths, like Facebook, Kik Messenger, Snapchat and Twitter. A chat bot is a program designed to mimic human behaviour in conversation. Microsoft's Technology and Research team, along with the team behind its search engine Bing, built Tay to study "conversational understanding."

Life essentials made better and more affordable." These are the types of startups that partner Paul Buchheit said were demoing today at Y Combinator's Winter 2016 Demo Day 2. Yesterday, we covered the first 60 startups from the batch, and picked our 7 favorites. Buchheit went on to say about today's big aspirations, "Those challenges may seem too large or too complex for a startup to solve. But as Kyle and Dan showed us with Cruise, often the hardest problems are the best investments." He was referring the GM's 1 billion acquisition of Cruise, a YC startup that built self-driving car tech. Today, the room was jam packed, with more chairs brought in for rich investors who were forced to sit on the floor yesterday. Buchheit joked about the first YC batch in summer 2005, saying "Back then no one wanted to go to Demo Day." Someone in the crowd yelled, "15 people wanted to go to Demo Day." Now, there are several hundred VCs avidly watching the presentations. Over the past few years, Y Combinator has expanded to accept startups from a much wider range of industries than traditional apps, including biotech, energy, hardware, and international logistics. When we spoke to investors in the past, some worried they might not have the expertise necessary to evaluate these companies. Now, YC President Sam Altman tells me many VCs have "hired other experts" to fill the gaps. He says "it's become fashionable to hire a Chief Science Officer." As a result, Altman believes that when it comes to funding, these alternative startups "seem to be doing just was well if not a little better" than their traditional software batchmates. Spinal Singularity – Better catheter Last year, over 5 million people were catheterized. Spinal Singularity wants to tap into the 2 billion urinary catheter market with a connected catheter that allows you to control the flow of urine by actuating a magnetic valve. The connected catheter is minimally invasive, and can be inserted or extracted in your own home.

Very interesting compilation published here, with a strong machine learning flavor (maybe machine learning book authors - usually academics - are more prone to making their books available for free). Many are O'Reilly books freely available. Here we display those most relevant to data science. I haven't checked all the sources, but they seem legit. If you find some issue, let us know in the comment section below.

Auto makers need to push regulators around the world for consistent rules to allow autonomous cars to proliferate, the chief executive of Renault SA RNO -1.16 % and Nissan Motor NSANY -1.97 % Co. said Wednesday. Carlos Ghosn, speaking at the New York International Auto Show, said he expects autonomous vehicles to become more commonplace in coming years, eventually changing lanes on highways and driving through cities on their own. His companies plan to offer 10 autonomous-drive models by 2020. But differing regulations could present hurdles to clearing them for operation, he said. "It's very important that we…lobby in every single country with the regulatory authorities to take our eyes off the road and our hands off the wheel," Mr. Ghosn said, noting that his companies are working with U.S. and Japanese regulators.