We're taking a break today from the election and corporate scandals to do something that most leaders–in fact, most people–generally, don't do often enough: Thinking great big thoughts about how technology will change our lives. Many CEOs tell me their greatest fear is being blindsided by a competitor they never even thought of as a competitor, threatening to make the CEO's business irrelevant by using technology and a business model the CEO hadn't imagined. It's a main challenge now -- simply imagining what might be possible as technology advances ever faster. That's why I urge you to read Roger Parloff's new cover story on deep learning, how it's changing our lives, and how, as he says, it "will soon transform corporate America," and business globally for that matter. This is the technology powering the hugely improved speech recognition in so many products, including the Google Home device introduced yesterday as the company's answer to Amazon's Echo.

Whether they practice medicine in a hospital or a community clinic, healthcare workers are facing an exponential increase in the amount of patient information needed to effectively treat their patients. This will require the application of sophisticated'big data' techniques such as machine learning to process, analyse and surface information that will assist in creating more personalised healthcare plans. That's according to Orion Health CEO Ian McCrae, whose company has today released a report on the application of machine learning in healthcare. The report's publication coincides with the official launch at the University of Auckland of Precision Driven Health - one of the largest data science research initiatives to be undertaken in this country, which aims to position New Zealand at the forefront of precision health globally. "The electronic health record is fast becoming the most powerful tool in the medical toolkit. Today it contains a patient's medical record, soon it will include genetic, environmental and social data and will be critical in the application of precision medicine or personalised healthcare," Mr McCrae says.

Watson, IBM's artificial intelligence computer system, is ridiculously prolific. In the last few years it's written a cookbook, crafted a movie trailer, joined the debate team, and helped in medical education, among many other projects. The latest point on the system's resumé is to help make hospital stays more comfortable for patients and relieve the strain on doctors and nurses through smart speakers that can answer basic questions and grant patients' control over things like room temperature, the lights or the TV.

Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp wants consumers to connect with mini talking robots. The talking robot called Kirobi Mini, whose name comes from "hope," is just as smart as a 5-year-old. The 4-inch-tall Kirobo Mini is small enough to be carried around. When people place the Kirobo Mini in their cars, it encourages safe driving by saying phrases like "Oops!" when the driver steps on the brakes suddenly, and "Don't leave me behind", when left in the vehicle. The Kirobi Mini comes equipped with Bluetooth, camera and microphone, and can connect to a smartphone, but needs to be installed with a software application.

Venture-backed smart tech assistant startup Drippler has launched a new tech support chatbot that helps users resolve technical issues and provides personalised recommendations for useful tips and apps. Drippler was founded in Tel Aviv, Israel by chief executive Matan Talmi, chief product officer Dotan Galron, and chief technology officer Ronen Yacobi to help people make better use of their smart devices. "Ever since we [can] remember, my co-founders and I were helping everyone around us with using technology -- helping the family program the VCR, helping friends install software on their PCs and so on. We started Drippler to help people use tech because we believe that the more accessible technology is to people, the better their lives are," Talmi told ZDNet. The app's new chat-based tech support service combines artificial intelligence (AI) with a "human-in-the-loop" system comprised of a large community of experts who can answer consumer tech related questions on demand.

Samsung Electronics will acquire open artificial intelligence (AI) platform developer Viv, the company has announced. The deal shows the South Korean tech giant's commitment to virtual personal assistants and delivering an AI-based open ecosystem across all of its devices, it said. Viv's superior platform combined with Samsung's leading devices, services, and global resources will help drive the next generation of AI solutions, it added. The company has its own virtual assistant app S Voice, like Apple's counterpart Siri. Viv's AI platform allows third-party developers to use it to build conversational assistants and integrate natural language-based interfaces to existing platforms.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff delivered the Dreamforce keynote on October 5, 2016. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff on Wednesday delivered the keynote address at the Dreamforce 2016 conference, the massive tech conference which this year drew more than 170,000 to San Francisco. He stressed his company's philanthropic efforts and its business partnerships, sharing the stage with everyone from artist and philanthropist Will.i.am to Schneider Electric CEO Jean-Pascal Tricoire. While Salesforce's new products were announced ahead of time, here's a look at some of the key takeaways from the keynote: Benioff is known for making philanthropic causes a central part of Salesforce's mission and for taking a stand on social justice issues like gender equality and LGBT rights. For instance, Salesforce was one of several Silicon Valley companies to take a stand against anti-LGBTQ laws, such as North Carolina's controversial House Bill 2. Salesforce put its philanthropic efforts front and center during the Dreamforce keynote, hightlighting its partnership with the (Red) organization to create an "AIDs free generation."

Samsung Electronics will likely start applying Viv's AI technology to its own products and services by the second half of 2017, the company's CTO has said, following Samsung's acquisition of the platform. "The big direction in the industry is using interfaces that utilize AI," said Injoing Rhee, CTO of Samsung's mobile business. "And maturity of AI technology has improved dramatically over the years." Viv was rumored to have been approached by Facebook and Google prior to Samsung's announcement. The South Korean tech giant was in talks with the AI platform developer for two years, according to Rhee, and the US firm found Samsung to be the best partner.

Samsung Electronics Co. SSNHZ 0.00 % said Thursday that it will buy U.S. artificial intelligence company Viv Labs Inc., as the South Korean smartphone giant turns to the creators of Apple Inc. AAPL 0.04 % 's Siri service to beef up its own mobile software and services. The deal, for an undisclosed amount, is Samsung's fourth U.S. technology company acquisition in a little more than two years, underscoring the technology player's new willingness to look outside the company to spur innovation, particularly in areas like software, where it has traditionally been weak. The aim for Samsung is to pack its phones with more eye-popping features to help its premium devices stand out from a pack of competitors, including Apple's iPhones. After its acquisition last year of mobile payments startup LoopPayfor about 160 million, Samsung adopted the Burlington, Mass.-based company's technology to launch Samsung Pay, a mobile payment service that rivals Apple Pay. Samsung is looking to follow a similar model with San Jose, Calif.-based Viv Labs, which was founded four years ago by a team that includes Siri co-creators Dag Kittlaus and Adam Cheyer.

Data mining (sometimes called knowledge discovery) is the process of analyzing and summarizing data into useful information which can be used to understand common features, the origin of data and to extract hidden predictive information. Data mining is used in science, engineering,modeling and analysis of financial markets. In this article we will discuss a free data-analysis framework called DMelt (The DataMelt project, http://jwork.org/dmelt/) It is a great program for scientists, engineers and students who need numerical and statistical computations, data and function visualization and even symbolic computation. DMelt is a 100% Java package, which means it is fully object-oriented and runs on any Java Virtual Machine regardless of computer architecture.