The Apache Software Foundation is now incubating a project backed by Cloudera Inc. and Intel Corp. that aims to bolster cyber security with Big Data analytics and machine learning. Previously known as the Open Network Insights (ONI) initiative, the project is now called Apache Spot, since it uses machine learning to sniff out bad traffic amongst good data. It can also study network traffic to characterize its unique behavior using the open source distributed storage and processing software Hadoop, which helps it to discover if any anomalies are present. Intel launched the project back in February on Cloudera's cloud computing platform. Apache Spot works by storing large amounts of information within Hadoop, then using Apache Spark to process data from deep packet inspection of domain name system (DNS) traffic, connections and log files from proxies.

Posted by Riku Inoue, Product Manager, Google Cloud Platform Earlier this year at GCP NEXT, we introduced new Cloud Machine Learning products with the intention to change the way businesses operate and create new customer experiences, while deepening the insights derived from data.Today, we want to share how Google aims to help more businesses benefit from the advancements in machine learning, while making it easier for them to use it. Google Cloud Machine Learning is now publicly available in beta and can empower all businesses to easily train quality machine learning models at a faster rate. With its powerful distributed training capability, you can train models on terabytes of data within hours, instead of waiting for days. Integrated with Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Cloud Machine Learning is a fully-managed service that can scale and creates a rich environment across TensorFlow and cloud computing tools such as Google Cloud Dataflow, BigQuery, Cloud Storage and Cloud Datalab. We're also introducing a new feature, HyperTune, that automatically improves predictive accuracy. It allows data scientists to build better performing models faster by automatically tuning hyperparameters, instead of manually discovering values that work for their model.

It looks like robots are one step closer to taking over the world. Scientists at Sony's CSL research lab unveiled a new track called "Daddy's Car." If that sounds bizarre to you, you're not wrong. Although the song sounds like any run-of-the-mill track, it's actually created by the artificial intelligence software Flow Machines. The software draws from a massive database of songs to compose its music, combining small elements of many tracks to create new compositions.

Computers can already recognize you in an image, but can they see a video or real-world objects and tell exactly what's going on? Researchers are trying to make computer video recognition a reality, and they are using some image-recognition techniques to make that happen. Researchers in and outside of Google are making progress in video recognition, but there are also challenges to overcome, Rajat Monga, engineering director of TensorFlow for Google's Brain team, said during a question-and-answer session on Quora this week. The benefits of video recognition are enormous. For example, a computer will be able to identify a person's activities, an event or a location.

Over 500 founders, CTOs, business leaders, software engineers & entrepreneurs came together at the 2nd annual Deep Learning Summit in London, to explore how deep learning will impact communications, manufacturing, healthcare, transportation and more. This event took place alongside the Deep Learning Summit, view the Storify: goo.gl/pCcQ33

Bots on Slack can help your team be more productive and accomplish more tasks. They can help you increase visibility into your operations or help your customers easily get information through a natural, conversational interface. However, building and running bots can be a time consuming and difficult task. Developers must provision, manage, and scale the compute resources that run the bot's code. Wouldn't it be nice if you could focus on building great bots without worrying about how to run and scale them?

BRATISLAVA (Reuters) – The European Commission wants to reduce national restrictions on where some types of commercial and health data can be stored, Vice-President Andrus Ansip said on Thursday. BRUSSELS (Reuters) – U.S. software company Salesforce called on EU regulators on Thursday to investigate antitrust issues related to Microsoft's 26 billion bid for social network LinkedIn. SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A bill signed into law on Thursday by California Governor Jerry Brown allows a self-driving vehicle with no operator inside to test on a public road, a key step enabling a private business park outside San Francisco to test driverless shuttles. NEW YORK (Reuters) – Unocoin, a Bangalore-based bitcoin startup, has raised 1.5 million in funding from a mix of Indian and U.S. investors, the company announced on Thursday. Silicon Valley is diving into artificial intelligence (AI)and machine learning research, an industry estimated to zoom to 70 billion by 2020 from just 8.2 billion in 2013, according to a Bank of America report that cited IDC research.

Microsoft CEO says he wants to democratise artificial intelligence. MICROSOFT CEO Satya Nadella says the software giant is hellbent on ensuring the democratisation of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence, or machine intelligence, currently covers a broad range of somewhat modest capabilities in commercial technology such as voice recognition chatbots like Apple's Siri. When considering its ultimate potential some have famously described the pursuit of AI as summoning the demon but regardless of any fatalistic concerns for humankind, the pursuit of AI represents the most heated competition in the tech sector right now and holds the promise of unprecedented power. "We have set ourselves the goal of democratising AI," Mr Nadella told the audience during the keynote address at Microsoft's Ignite conference Tuesday morning AEST.

The group, officially named the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society, or just Partnership on AI, is dedicated to address potential problems the rapid development of machine intelligence can raise, before those problems appear. The group encourages the sharing of ideas and research related to AI, as each multinational tech giant has its own AI prototype. The group states that it is dedicated to working with the public, to both educate about the benefits of the technology and to hear concerns, varying from job loss to -- potentially -- robot uprisings. The group will have corporate and non-corporate members in its projects and discussions, with research organizations, including the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence and the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, included. Funds and logistical support will be provided by the tech giants.

Today the banking industry faces a rebirth by necessity. As the digital age morphs into the cognitive era, success depends on radical transformation that enables the integration of advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, blockchains and more. For 64 percent of those surveyed in 2016, their organization's efficiency remained the same or declined over the last three years.Tapping huge quantities of dormant, bank-owned data, much of it unstructured, is essential to offering the individualized engagement that customers demand, transforming operations and benefitting from fintech innovation. How can you take advantage of these technologies to build a cognitive bank?