The Chinese search behemoth, Baidu, announced a 200m investment initiative focused on AI and ran a pre-release of their new open source deep learning framework called PaddlePaddle. The company has a ways to go to compete given that developers are still more likely to use TensorFlow, which holds the lead along with Caffe, Keras and Theano. Speaking of the growing number of hardware and software configurations available today, this research paper provides helpful benchmarks. Backchannel run a rare piece on how Apple uses machine learning. It states that a 200mb software package runs on the iPhone encompassing "app usage data, interactions with contacts, neural net processing, a speech modeler and a natural language event modeling system".

East Japan Railway Co., on Monday started a pilot project under which a humanoid robot serves visitors in English, Chinese and Japanese. Placed in front of the travel service center at the Marunouchi north exit, the 90-cm, 15-kg Emiew3 can respond questions on directions on trains leaving and arriving at the station as well as shops and restaurants within the station. It can also provide information on tourist attractions around the station. The robot, developed by Hitachi, Ltd., will be in service on weekdays through Oct. 28, for JR East to test its ability to comprehend questions and whether it can recognize people's voices in a crowded, noisy environment. Emiew3, which can also show maps through a screen on its back, is also being tested at Haneda airport.

To look at the stats you wouldn't think so: Apple has two million of them in its App Store and Google Play has a few hundred thousand more than that. Total app downloads have passed the 150 billion mark. But some are wondering whether apps are about to be replaced by something smaller, smarter and faster. These programs, thanks to AI [artificial intelligence] software in the cloud, can chat to humans via text, extract the meaning and then act on it. Any time you see a live chat box open up on a retailer's website, or order a taxi or flowers through chat platforms such as WeChat and Facebook Messenger, you're most likely talking to a bot.

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Self-driving cars without steering wheels or pedals might have gotten a little bit closer to reality late last week. On Friday, the California Department of Motor Vehicles released a revised draft of regulations that could give more flexibility to autonomous car manufacturers than they have today. The proposed regulations allow testing driverless cars that pass a federal safety inspection, even with no driver in the car. At the moment, states with self-driving car regulation normally require the presence of drivers. In California, 15 companies have permits to test vehicles as long as there is a licensed driver along for the ride, according to Reuters.

Never mind cancer research or climate change: IBM is finally bringing its Watson AI technology to bear on one of the real challenges still facing human civilisation – regulatory compliance. Big Blue has announced plans to snarf up Promontory Financial Group, a risk management and regulatory compliance consultancy, and combine the firm's expertise with Watson's cognitive capabilities in order to address the growing burden of regulation and risk management requirements. Promontory has about 600 workers in 19 offices across North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and the Middle East, and these are set to form the stout-hearted core of a new Watson Financial Services portfolio within IBM's Industry Platforms business. If all goes well, the transaction is expected to close before the end of 2016, but financial details of the deal have not been disclosed. According to IBM, more than 20,000 new regulatory requirements were created last year alone, and the complete catalogue of regulations is projected to exceed 300 million pages by 2020.

Dr R.V. Parameshwaran, head of the department of Nuclear Medicine at Manipal Hospitals, is a close friend of mine--more to my own good fortune and not so much the good doctor's! Apart from being a brilliant physician, Param is possessed of an insatiable curiosity with all things technical, and passionately believes that technology can be harnessed by the medical profession in order to better serve the sick. He and I have collaborated on assessing investments in start-ups that are focused on the healthcare space in India. He recently passed on an article to me which was focused on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine--from the website Futurism; founded last year, it is focused on emerging technologies, and attempts to take complex content and break it down into components that are easily understood. It has an unusually large following on Facebook--over 2 million followers.

Software giant Google is beginning an aggressive foray into hardware production with the launch Tuesday of a smartphone and other devices that will bring the company into direct competition with other leading tech firms, including its longtime partner Samsung. The launch signals a major shift for one of the world's most profitable companies as it seeks to adapt to a technology landscape increasingly dominated by mobile and other connected hardware. Google must find a way, analysts say, to keep acquiring user data for targeting ads as Web search -- traditionally done from laptop or desktop computers -- is supplanted by newer technologies. Google's new smartphone, the Pixel, will employ artificial-intelligence technology that users can converse with, allowing them to sidestep keyboards as they access online information and make purchases such as movie tickets, say people familiar with the company's plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal information ahead of its official release. The company also plans to release other new hardware, including a voice-based assistant for the home to rival Amazon's Echo and a virtual-reality headset to rival Facebook's Oculus.

In Episode 7 of "The Twilight Zone," a convicted prisoner falls in love with a humanoid robot while serving his sentence on an abandoned asteroid. In Spike Jonze's drama "Her," the introverted Theodore Twombly becomes emotionally attached to an artificial intelligence named Samantha. In another story, set in the present day, an automotive company designs a robotic baby and markets it toward childless mothers. On Monday, Toyota Motor Corp debuted Kirobo Mini, a robotic companion small enough to fit in a cupholder. With big eyes and a high-pitched voice, Kirobo is designed to trigger a maternal response from its owner.

Driving can sometimes be a solitary affair, heading from place to place with only the road and the radio for company, but that could change with Kirobo Mini. It's a small robot developed by Toyota that's designed to act as a virtual companion, listening to and responding to chat from people in a car or just about anywhere. At 10 centimeters tall, its small size means it can easily be carried around. The technology behind it is quite simple. Audio is sent from Kirobo's microphone to a smartphone running a companion app. The phone passes the audio on to a Toyota cloud service that runs voice recognition and helps to determine the appropriate response.