Google wants its Assistant to be more than just an order-taking robot -- so it hired some clever writers from outside the company to help make it happen. A new story from the Wall Street Journal's Christopher Mims details the advancements of different artificial intelligence devices like Amazon Echo and Google's rival product Home, and how they're comforting for those who live alone thanks to how personable the AI's have become. For Google, that friendly personality is thanks to a team of writers from Pixar and The Onion who helped make the Assistant -- which powers Google's Home device -- sound more like a human and less like a robot, according to the Journal. Google's eventual goal is to help users build an emotional connection with the Assistant, the Journal reports. Google unveiled its Assistant-enabled Home device last week, a direct competitor to other AI-powered hardware devices like Amazon's Echo.

Machine learning is a fashionable buzzword right now in infosec, and is often referenced as the key to next-gen, signature-less security. But along with all of the hype and buzz, there also is a mind-blowing amount of misunderstanding surrounding machine learning in infosec. Machine learning isn't a silver bullet for all information security problems, and in fact can be detrimental if misinterpreted. For example, company X claims to block 99% of all malware, or company Y's intrusion detection will stop 99% of all attacks, yet customers see an overwhelming number of false positives. What do the accuracy numbers really mean? In fact, these simple statistics lose meaning without the proper context.

TYSONS CORNER, VA, Oct. 13, 2016 -- In-Q-Tel has partnered with Brainspace in an investment agreement that seeks to advance the latter's machine learning and data analytics tools to support digital investigations, ExecutiveBiz reported Wednesday. Brainspace said Tuesday the partnership also serves to build on its efforts to meet the operational requirements of the Intelligence Community. About Executive Mosaic: Founded in 2002, Executive Mosaic is a leadership organization and media company. It provides its members an opportunity to learn from peer business executives and government thought leaders while providing an interactive forum to develop key business and partnering relationships. Executive Mosaic offers highly coveted executive events, breaking business news on the Government Contracting industry, and delivers robust and reliable content through seven influential websites and four consequential E-newswires.

Carahsoft Technology and IPsoft have partnered to offer the latter company's artificial intelligence-based digital labor platforms through the General Services Administration's Schedule contract vehicle. The partnership aims to drive demand for IPsoft's AI offerings across the public sector market, Carahsoft said Wednesday. "Federal organizations are under considerable pressure to deliver more with less, particularly when it comes to improving their service to citizens," said Brian O'Donnell, a Carahsoft vice president. O'Donnell said the addition of IPSoft's digital labor products to Carahsoft's GSA schedule will help resellers and government clients to automate computing processes and provide a digital customer service experience. IPsoft's AI platforms include the Amelia virtual agent designed to automate human interaction, read natural language, understand context and apply logic to address problems.

Microsoft is all in with Cloud Computing and that was never more evident than at its annual Ignite Conference that was held in Atlanta. While Azure was not the only story, it was the lead one. This blog recaps some of the key things we observed at Ignite. Microsoft is all in with cloud computing. One of the big things we noticed at Microsoft is that its swagger is back.

Google's DeepMind artificial intelligence lab does more than just develop computer programs capable of beating the world's best human players in the ancient game of Go. The DeepMind unit has also been working on the next generation of deep learning software that combines the ability to recognize data patterns with the memory required to decipher more complex relationships within the data. Deep learning is the latest buzz word for artificial intelligence algorithms called neural networks that can learn over time by filtering huge amounts of relevant data through many "deep" layers. The brain-inspired neural network layers consist of nodes (also known as neurons). Tech giants such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft have been training neural networks to learn how to better handle tasks such as recognizing images of dogs or making better Chinese-to-English translations. These AI capabilities have already benefited millions of people using Google Translate and other online services.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is now a reality, and want it or not, it soon will be part of our daily lives. In a recent study, Bank of America Merrill Lynch predicted that the artificial intelligence market will blossom to 153 billion over the next five years: 83 billion for robots and 70 billion for artificial intelligence-based systems. Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes that virtual robots powered by artificial intelligence are bound to transform the way companies interact with their customers. In a world where disruption has become the norm, super-intelligent machines have the potential to revolutionize businesses while benefiting users and society in general. But as these smart personal assistants blend into our environment, many questions arise.

A rotary wing unmanned air vehicle from the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, Pacific, lifts off as part of the first-ever Unmanned Warrior, a research and training exercise. The Royal Navy is testing out more than 50 autonomous vehicles, including drones and submersibles in one of the largest demonstration of marine robotic systems. Held off the coast of west Scotland and west Wales, the Unmanned Warrior event is a showcase for aerial, surface and underwater Maritime Autonomous Systems (MAS) from 40 companies. Demonstrations will include the use of autonomous vehicles for surveillance, intelligence-gathering and mine countermeasures. The Royal Navy said that autonomous systems like this "could transform the way in which the armed forces of the future help keep Britain safe".

It was the great hockey player Wayne Gretzky that once said, "A good hockey player skates to where the puck is. A great hockey player skates to where the puck is going to be." When it comes to business there are a lot of great minds making predictions about the future. It is no surprise that technology is at the forefront of these predictions, but now the focus has shifted to'what type of technology?' Do some research and you'll discover that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is at the top of the list, and the smartest minds on the planet are saying it is the next big thing. In fact, research firm Markets and Markets estimates that the AI market will grow to 5.05 billion by 2020.

Artificial intelligence, and technology in general, will have a crucial role to play in society's progress, that is the view of the UK and American governments anyway. This Thursday President Obama announced at the first White House Frontier Conference that more than 300 million in funding, through partnerships, will be released for tech innovations that will improve healthcare, develop smart cities and enhance America's space ambition. "We may be in a slightly different period now, simply because of the pervasive applicability of AI and other technologies," said President Obama in a video shown at the start of the conference. President Obama believes AI, in particular, will be able to help solve the biggest crises that face the world, such as disease, famine, climate change and economic inequality. Others, like Tesla CEO Elon Musk, suggest AI's rise will be the biggest threat to the survival of the human race.