September badge challenge: Earn either the Artificial Intelligence Basics badge or the IoT Basics badge before October 10th for a chance to win an Apple Watch Sport. Artificial Intelligence and IoT are for everyone. At Trailhead, not only do we want you to master Salesforce technology, we want to launch your career to the next level and to do that you must understand the current technology ecosystem. Learn the fundamentals of AI through the Artificial Intelligence Basics badge and read up on the Internet of Things Cloud and what it can do for you in the IoT Basics badge. Are you ready for a trip to the land of IoT?

Major technology firms have joined forces in a partnership on artificial intelligence, aiming to cooperate on "best practices" on using the technology "to benefit people and society." Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook, IBM, and Google-owned British AI firm DeepMind have announced a non-profit organization called "Partnership on AI" focused on helping the public understand the technology and practices in the field. The move comes amid concerns that new artificial intelligence efforts could spin out of control and end up being detrimental to society. The companies "will conduct research, recommend best practices, and publish research under an open license in areas such as ethics, fairness, and inclusivity; transparency, privacy, and interoperability; collaboration between people and AI systems; and the trustworthiness, reliability, and robustness of the technology," according to a statement. Academics, non-profit groups, and specialists in policy and ethics will be invited to join the board of the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society (Partnership on AI).

Looking at Apple's latest shopping list, there no denying the fact that Tim Cook has big plans for the artificial intelligence industry. What seems like a shopping spree, only months after buying Turi, and also recollecting that Apple bought Perceptio at the end of 2015, rumors of the firm buying another machine learning startup have resurfaced. This time it's India/US based machine learning startup called Tuplejump. Though the representative from Apple neither denied nor acknowledged the buzz going around, but they didn't either shy away from giving their standard response when they do acquire a company: "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans." The Hyderabad-based firm helps companies to store, process and visualise big data.

CEO: Yoshihito Yamada) announced that it will release two variations of the Mobile Robot LD Platform, developed for indoor use by its U.S. subsidiary Omron Adept Technologies (hereafter: OAT), simultaneously in 33 countries on January 20, 2017 as a step towards realizing harmony between humans and machines in the field of manufacturing. The Mobile Robot LD is a carrier robot equipped with OAT's proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) technology, which allows it to transport materials to a target location while calculating the optimal route and avoiding humans and obstacles. The robots are ideally suited for a wide range of indoor environments, including facilities manufacturing car parts, electronics, foods and pharmaceuticals, as well as warehouses and research facilities. The January release will include two variations; a customizable OEM type and an all-in-one cart transporter type with an attached cart. The OEM type allows the user to optimize the robot for the intended usage environment by attaching a custom cabinet or conveyor.

Uber has killed off taxi service--it is a dying industry. AIRBNB is taking market share from hotels and motels--which is why lobbyists are swarming city hall to create regulations to make it more expensive and less available for property owners to use their private property. Fast food places are introducing robots to produce food, kiosks to take orders and payments. Hospitals are using robots to sanitize rooms and agriculture is developing driverless tractors. Now the legal profession is being hit is computer disruption.

Google's Apps for Work has a new name, G Suite. G Suite at the moment is more of a mission than a reality. What Google wants to do is create the ultimate suite of office apps using your data. What sets Google apart is the access to emails, calendars, search and other information. More people use Microsoft Office, but Google's Gmail, Calendar, and search beat Microsoft's offerings for popularity.

In the history of cinema, few images are as iconic as Yul Brynner's gunslinger, relentlessly pursing his quarry: Westworld theme-park guest Peter Martin (Richard Benjamin), the sole survivor of a software glitch that turned the robots populating its imaginary worlds into killers. "It was terrifying, terrifying, but so much of it has become kind of iconic," says producer Jonathan Nolan, who with co-producer (and wife) Lisa Joy, is steering the HBO television reboot of the film. "Yul Brynner, this unstoppable creation, wearing the same wardrobe from The Magnificent Seven, is iconic." Though the film, just 88 minutes long and written and directed by Michael Crichton, seems to wholly belong to the 1970s in tone and style, its themes made a reboot unusually relevant, Nolan says. "The world has obviously changed in the decades since the original film, but changed only in ways that make the original premise that much more interesting," he says.

We are the market leader in providing service assurance for large service providers around the world and large enterprises. Before, it took them four months, four to five months, between the moment the process starts where we have the big sales targets and the time the sales rep in every country receives the letter that tells him, okay you need to sell this product with this discount -- four to five months. So we're at the very early days of narrow applications of machine learning and artificial intelligence. I think that what you're going to find is that in any kind of specific category where you can frame a problem you can bring predictive algorithms; you can bring machine learning; you can bring neural networking.

This is another installment of Spare5's "Conversations in Machine Learning" blog series. Each week, our content human, Cassie, shares a summary of a recent conversation we had with a machine learning team and potential customer--what they're building, how they're handling training data today, etc. Read more about the series here. This week I'm highlighting a call we had with the makers of a consumer mobile application that is killing it in terms of downloads, usage, and even business model. You've quite likely heard of the app, but due to my vow to not be creepy or shady, I won't name it. So first, do you remember a time when people were not snapping selfies, photo-documenting their brunch, or capturing touching moments with a freaking iPad that blocks everyone else's view?

With any luck we won't be seeing killer AI machines in the future. Image Credit: CC BY 2.0 Stephen Bowler Several major technology companies have joined forces in an effort to prevent an AI-fuelled apocalypse. Some of the world's most prominent scientists and technology entrepreneurs, including Professor Stephen Hawking and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, have repeatedly warned in recent years of the dangers we might face should rogue intelligent machines ever manage to take hold. Now with computers becoming increasingly sophisticated and with several major firms including Google working on AI technology, a new partnership has been arranged in an effort to avoid any future disasters and to ensure that AI research remains safe and beneficial to mankind. So far the group consists of Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and IBM however it is likely that others, including Apple, will also be joining in the not-too-distant future.