Top e-retailers apply artificial intelligence, bots and a mobile-first approach to push mobile commerce well beyond sites and apps. Many retailers are likely familiar with, and perhaps even own, a Staples Easy Button. They may have even tapped the tchotchke a time or two, prompting the bright red plastic button to cheerfully chirp the office supply retailer's tagline, "That was easy!" But calling out the retailer's slogan was the extent of the Easy Button's capabilities. Staples is testing how consumers react to it incorporating machine learning in its Easy Button that enables shoppers to press the button to order a product by voice, or to ask common questions, such as when an order will be delivered or the status of a return.

Researchers at the University of Leuven in Belgium said a study they conducted showed artificial intelligence could help interpret, and thereby improve, lung function tests used to diagnose long-term lung disease. Results of the study were presented Monday at the European Respiratory Society's International Congress. As part of the study, the researchers used data from 968 people who were undergoing complete lung function testing for the first time. Using a concept called "machine learning", they developed an algorithm that takes into account routine lung function parameters and clinical variables of smoking history, body mass index, and age to make a suggestion for the most likely diagnosis. "We have demonstrated that artificial intelligence can provide us with a more accurate diagnosis in this new study," Wim Janssens, senior author of the study, said.

WASHINGTON – CIA Director John Brennan warned on Sunday that Russia has "exceptionally capable and sophisticated" computer capabilities and that the U.S. must be on guard. When asked in a television interview whether Russia is trying to manipulate the American presidential election, Brennan didn't say. But he noted that the FBI is investigating the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails, and he cited Moscow's aggressive intelligence collection and its focus on high-tech snooping. "I think that we have to be very, very wary of what the Russians might be trying to do in terms of collecting information in a cyber realm, as well as what they might want to do with it," he told CBS' "Face the Nation" on the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. On the terrorism threat, Brennan said the U.S. government is much better now at sharing information.

After spending 10 years building a cloud accounting platform, New Zealand's Xero is looking to partner with banks to allow small businesses access to capital and debt. Speaking at Xerocon South in Brisbane, Xero CEO and co-founder Rod Drury said the issue with small business is that it is such a fragmented sector, and given how small some businesses are, it often becomes too risky for a bank to lend. "Our view is, if we can partner with large banks and deal with the issues of how to get them lending large pools of money to small business, that would be a very purposeful thing," he said. "If you get a bit more money, you can bring another container of raw materials in, you can bid for a larger project and you can create jobs." Drury said the idea to head down this path came after Xero realised the potential of its data.

Turnkey software allows brands to manage their messaging presence across all of the most popular messaging apps from a single dashboard. Our analytics capture trending topics and conversation sentiment, and uncover new sales and engagement opportunities to propel messaging as a core channel for unprecedented user engagement, operational efficiency and sales.

The One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence, or AI100, is a 100-year effort to study and anticipate how the effects of artificial intelligence will ripple through every aspect of how people work, live and play. One Hundred Year Study of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has its roots in a one-year study on Long-term AI Futures that we commissioned during my term of service as president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) in 2008-2009. Seven researchers will form the first AI100 standing committee. It and subsequent committees will identify the most compelling topics in AI at any given time, and convene a panel of experts to study and report on these issues.

We have seen how the internet of things and the growing phenomenon of'big data' will throw up major problems for consumers and citizens, problems that have as yet barely been grasped by most policy-makers. In this world of growing complexity, the potential for an unintended consequence becomes greater and greater from machines performing an action that was not anticipated. There are key issues, too, about our reliance on data at a time of massive data generation, data storing and data preservation which have the potential to both obscure results and generate injustices. Perhaps the greatest issue that we now face is caused by our blind faith in machines. We have invested them with certainty and – as we have pointed out – we trust them. Part of the reason for this is an odd confusion that has conflated the machines of the industrial age with the machines of the information age.

Chatbots are on the rise. Startups are building chatbots, platforms, APIs, tools, analytics. Microsoft, Google, Facebook introduce tools and frameworks, and build smart assistants on top of these frameworks. Multiple blogs, magazines, podcasts report on news in this industry, and chatbot developers gather on meetups and conferences. I have been working on chatbot software for a while, and I have been looking on what is going on in the industry.

HONG KONG--A Chinese venture-capital firm raised about 4.5 billion yuan ( 675 million) worth of fresh capital as the country's top venture firms are building up their cash piles amid a cooling environment for funding. Sinovation Ventures, co-founded by former Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. executive Kai-Fu Lee, on Monday said it closed two venture capital funds aimed at deals. A new U.S. dollar-denominated fund of 300 million was raised from global investors; Apple Inc. supplier Foxconn Technology Group was the anchor investor. Sinovation Ventures also raised a new yuan-denominated fund of 2.5 billion yuan, larger than its previous 500 million yuan fund. Chinese startups are increasingly preferring to go public in China where they are likely to get higher valuations.

Which authors of this paper are endorsers? Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)