To Dr. Ryszard Michalski, the man who coined the term "Machine Learning," did a lot to advance the field, and who, sadly, passed away on September 20, 2015. I first visited the prominent AI researcher Dr. Ryszard Michalski in 1990. At the time his research division at George Mason University (Virginia) was called "The Center for Artificial Intelligence." On a subsequent visit two years later it was called "The Center for Machine Learning." I was curious and asked Dr. Michalski why he renamed his center in spite of no visible change of direction in his research or that of his colleagues.

Every day we read about new developments in Artificial Intelligence (A.I.). Significant advances in machine learning, natural language processing, image recognition, and a myriad of other A.I. technologies are being used to solve previously insurmountable problems. And although these technologies are still in their infancy, there is a strong belief that they will radically disrupt much of how we see and engage with the world. There is a seeming inexorable march of this technology, with near-future uses that border on the fanatastical. But A.I. technology's futures are neither inevitable nor singular.

Can bots make learning a new language easier? Duolingo is about to find out. The language learning startup updated its app Thursday with a new feature that uses chatbots to help its users practice conversations. The feature only works for Spanish, French and German for now but the company is planning on adding more languages soon. Start a conversation and the bot, which has a few different "personalities," will guide you through a text conversation around a particular subject.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Google is opening tech labs in Oakland, Calif., and Harlem to build bridges to underserved communities as it seeks the next generation of African-American and Latino computer scientists. Code Next, a new initiative which officially launched Thursday, puts on free programs for middle school and high school students, working with local organizations such as Black Girls Code and local schools to nurture their interest in computer science. Google says its research shows that 51% of African-American students and 47% of Hispanic students don't have access to computer science classes in school. Code Next aims to fills that gap with hands-on curriculum that encourages creativity and experimentation, showing young people overlooked by the tech industry the possibilities that industry offers. Eventually Google, which is developing the two labs in collaboration with MIT Media Lab, plans to make the curriculum available to educators.

The Matrix Creator is an AI and computer vision Internet of Things (IoT)-ready dev board that is compatible with the 10 million Raspberry Pi's currently on the market. The Creator is an FPGA microcontroller-driven Raspberry Pi shield with over 15 accelerometers on it. There is a microcontroller, gyroscope, IMU, microphone array, IR, Z-Wave, Thread, NFC, and ZigBee amongst others. To simplify hardware application development, the Creator includes an OS, which allows developers to build hardware applications in a few lines of JavaScript, with C or Python code coming'soon'. Its goal in creating this product is to make developing IoT apps as easy as developing websites, and to allow novice and expert software developers to easily build hardware applications.

Verizon said it could launch Internet of Things services that combine unmanned aerial vehicles and systems and its LTE network as early as 2017. The company outlined plans around what it calls its Airborne LTE Operations effort. Verizon said it has completed technical trials using manned and unmanned aircraft on its 4G LTE network. One simulation highlighted how unmanned aircraft systems can use the Verizon network for first responders and emergency management. According to Verizon the testing for in-flight LTE operations started two years ago.

Hello all, I'm not sure if this is the best place to post this and if someone could point me in a better direction I would gladly take this elsewhere. I am a student in college and I have to interview someone in a career similar to the one I would like to be in. I am looking into a career in the artificial intelligence/machine learning field, so if any of you have a career in that or very similar to that I would love to ask you about 10 questions. If you are willing leaving a comment that I could PM you would be amazing. Thanks you for your time, have a great day!

To answer these and many other questions, Kaiser and Jeremy talk to Andrew Ng, founder and chairman of Coursera, an associate professor in the department of computer science at Stanford University, and the chief scientist of Baidu, where he heads up the company's research on deep learning and AI. The discussion delves into the differences between Chinese and American engineers, entrepreneurial culture in China, artificial neural networks, augmented reality, and the role big internet companies and their resources play in advancing AI. Check out the SupChina backgrounder on their conversation here.

Duolingo has been offering language learning tools for a while now, but today the company debuted a new tool inside its iPhone app that could make the task a bit easier. Thanks to AI-powered chatbots, the language-learning app offers a way to have conversations while you're trying to learn French, German and Spanish. That's a short list of languages for now, but Duolingo says more options are on the way. Right now, you can only interact with the chatbots via text, but the company does have plans to add spoken conversations in the future. Duolingo gave these bots a bit of personality to make them more like real people and created them to be flexible with the answers they'll accept when there's multiple ways for you to respond.

Announcement Layman Tutorials for Data Science site Annalyzin is now called Algobeans! We're creating a new mailing list to deliver tutorials to your inbox. If you'd like to be included, sign up: If you're already subscribed, signing up to this new mailing list will remove you from the old one. Have you ever wondered about the difference between red and white wine? Some assume that red wine is made from red grapes, and white wine is made from white grapes.