Radical advances in artificial intelligence, along with greater processing power, are pushing cognitive computing and deep learning into the mainstream. Since the dawn of computing, the goal of engineers, designers and developers has been to imbue machines with greater intelligence so they can think more like humans. Today, marked leaps in processing power and incredible advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are pushing the concept from the pages of science fiction novels to our homes and workplaces. "The growing complexity of computing and information--and the need for more intelligent automation--is leading to the next wave of transformation, including cognitive systems," says Paul Brody, technology sector strategy leader for the Americas at consulting firm EY. Systems such as IBM's Watson, as well as interfaces such as Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana and Google Voice, are transforming the way data and information are routed to people.

Artificial intelligence (AI) advocates within enterprise IT teams must focus their efforts on solving "real business problems" if they are to convince the board to support the technology. That was the key message from BGL Group's insight and technology manager, who was speaking at Computing's Big Data and Analytics Summit 2016 this morning. Mike Maddock began by spelling out the differences between the public's perception of AI, and what it can now realistically achieve for the enterprise. He described Gartner's recent prediction that, by 2020, five per cent of financial transactions across the world will be carried out by AI, as a "bold claim". He also cast doubt on the usefulness of hypothesis-driven AI, as epitomised IBM's Watson, which achieved fame after its victory in the US gameshow Jeopardy.

Get ready for a shakeup: Google is setting its sights on the healthcare industry. Google built its empire by establishing itself as a monolith of search. Now, it intends to build another by doing the opposite: fragmenting its efforts to secure a multitude of "smaller" victories, each of them worth billions. Leveraging its colossal reserves and analytic prowess, Google is becoming, in effect, the largest healthcare startup incubator in history -- so who are these leading analytic minds at the helm of this effort? They're actually not minds at all, but advanced computers that can make decisions based on technology called "machine learning."

Artificial intelligence experts in the '90s thought it would take at least another century for researchers to accomplish what Google did just two weeks ago. AI experts thought it could take until the year 2100, if not longer, for people to create an AI system that can beat a human at Go, according to a 1997 New York Times article posted on Reddit's futurology thread by user Yull-Ban. Google's AI system AlphaGo made history when it beat Go champion Lee Sedol four times in a five-game tournament earlier this month. The feat was seen as a major milestone in the AI community since IBM's Deep Blue computer beat world chess champion Garry Kasparov. That's because beating Go, a game with more than 300 times the number of plays as chess, requires sophisticated pattern recognition.

Google DeepMind AI program AlphaGo defeated human Go world champion, Lee Sedol, in a five game series. The victory draws the week-long Challenge Series tournament in South Korea to a conclusion. This win marks a major milestone for artificial intelligence research, as Go is a fairly simple game, but has proven to be infamously difficult for computers to master due to the vast number of potential moves. Many Go players say the game primarily relies on intuition as a strategy. The victory is also significant, as it marks the first time in history that an AI program beat one of the best Go players in the world.

Allow me to join you, if I may, on your morning commute sometime in the indeterminate future. Here we are, stepping off the curb and into the backseat of a vehicle. As you close the car door behind you, the address of your office--our destination--automatically appears on a screen embedded in the back of a leather panel in front of you. "Good morning," says the car's humanoid voice, greeting you by name before turning on NPR for you like it does each day. You decide you'd like a cup of coffee, and you tell the vehicle so.

Natural Language Processing, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are changing how content is discovered, analyzed and shared online. More recently, there has been a push to harness the power of Text Analytics to help understand and distribute content at scale. This is particularly evident with the popularity of recommendation engines and intelligent content analysis technologies like Outbrain and Taboola, who now have a presence on most content focused sites. Intelligent software and technological advancements allow machines to understand content as a human would. When we read a piece of text, we make certain observations about it.

One of the biggest problems with Apple TV is that in order to log into applications, users have to enter usernames and passwords into their set-top box one letter at a time using a remote control. Apple is aiming to fix that with a forthcoming update to tvOS, the operating system powering the Apple TV. Users will soon be able to dictate text to Siri, including usernames and passwords, so they don't have to hunt and peck out long strings of text. What's not clear is how Apple will secure users' spoken password data; Apple TV will have to record and process people literally speaking out their passwords. The company will release tvOS 9.2 (which was previously in beta) late Monday, the company said.

Apple has developed a new tool that deconstructs iPhones after they are returned. The robotic cutting tool, called Liam, removes the valuable materials from iPhone parts so they can be repurposed into other products. Apple shared some details about the tool during a press event Monday. Some of the materials removed include cobalt, gold, silver, platinum and tungsten. For example, Tungsten is repurposed in precision cutting tools.

A new material being researched could make shape-shifting robots real, but let's hope they aren't as violent as the Transformers from the movies. Researchers have developed a flexible material that can stretch when heated and will allow robots to change shapes. The material, which can also be rigid, is a mix of elastomer foam with a soft metal alloy. With the material, robots could become more versatile. Most robots are rigid, much like human skeletons, but by morphing into new shapes, they could be used for new tasks.