"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." When it comes to political speeches, great ones are few and far between. But ordinary political speeches, those given in U.S. congressional floor debates, for example, are numerous. They are also remarkably similar. These speeches tend to follow a standard format, repeat similar arguments, and even use the same phrases to indicate a particular political affiliation or opinion. It's almost as if there is some kind of algorithm that determines their content.

The internet has transformed the way of obtaining information. Search engines play a crucial role in the process of collecting information. The present innovations and technological advancements have brought a new face to the internet. Jerry Yue has designed a new search engine Brain, which uses artificial intelligence. Jerry Yue has become famous for his earlier startup, Benlai.com.

The deal is expected to close in the later third or early fourth quarter this year. The two companies have not disclosed the transaction cost. Just four months ago, EE Times posted a blog entitled "Will Intel's Drone Chips Fly?" In that blog, referring to Intel's depth sensing technology called RealSense, Remi El-Ouazzane, Movidius CEO called the technology "a world-class, quality depth solution." At that time, El-Ouazzane also told us: "Practically all the chip companies currently in the drone market --Intel, Qualcomm, Nvidia and Movidius included--are going after the same target: Autonomous drones."

MIT has created a system that generates video based on still photos. MIT has used machine learning to create video from still images, and the results are pretty impressive. As you can see from the above image, there's a lot of natural form to the movement in the videos. The system "learns" types of videos (beach, baby, golf swing...) and, starting from still images, replicates the movements that are most commonly seen in those videos. So the beach video looks like it has crashing waves, for instance. But like other machine-generated images, these have limitations.

Update: This post has been translated to Japanese and Chinese. Recently I came across a video of a simulation that demonstrates the use of evolutionary techniques to train agents to avoid moving obstacles. The methodology used seems to employ a variation of the NEAT algorithm used to evolve the topology of neural networks so that it can perform certain tasks correctly. It was written to be used in the Unity 5 game engine to be incorporated to general game AIs which interested me. The results are really cool and the dynamics seemed quite elegant, so I wanted to try to implement a similar demo in javascript that can run inside a browser session.

Concerned about potential regulatory fines and skyrocketing costs, the world's largest banks are turning to artificial intelligence to improve their compliance with know-your-customer and anti-money laundering regulations. "The value proposition for AI solutions is highest for large banks with significant volumes, complexity, multiple lines of business and geographical reach as these banks are affected most by the current challenges and stand to benefit the most by adopting new and innovative solutions," write Arin Ray and Neil Katkov, analysts with Celent in a new research report entitled "Artificial Intelligence in KYC-AML: Enabling the Next Level of Operational Efficiency." The analysts predict that global tier-one and large regional banks will be early adopters of AI over the next three years. Ray and Katkov's conclusions match the findings of a survey of 424 executives from financial services and fintech companies released in March by Chicago-based law firm Baker McKenzie. The firm found that 29 percent are thinking about using AI in know-your customer and anti-money laundering monitoring.

Imagine a future office in which the robot not only makes you tea but actually gets better at it over time. That is the very real future that awaits most workers. "You can imagine a world in five years' time when teams are made up of company employees, crowd specialists, and cognitive robots -- all creating and collaborating together", says Shamus Rae, the head of innovation and investments for KPMG in the UK. The future of robotic process automation also promises to bring more "human" intelligence to robots. "The robot would gain experience from its many interactions -- potentially thousands or more each day -- and gradually improve its responses", Rae explains in the KPMG report "The crowd in the cloud".

Dmitry Malioutov can't say much about what he built. As a research scientist at IBM, Malioutov spends part of his time building machine learning systems that solve difficult problems faced by IBM's corporate clients. One such program was meant for a large insurance corporation. It was a challenging assignment, requiring a sophisticated algorithm. When it came time to describe the results to his client, though, there was a wrinkle. "We couldn't explain the model to them because they didn't have the training in machine learning." In fact, it may not have helped even if they were machine learning experts.

Cognitive computing means giving computers the ability to work out complex problems for themselves. Just like humans, cognitive computers benefit greatly from experience, learning better ways to solve problems with each encounter. When a traditional system of rules finds a task impossible, cognitive computing sees only an opportunity to expand its knowledge. The necessity for cognitive computing in the Internet of Things (IoT) arises from the importance of data in modern business. In the smart IoT venues of the future, everyone from startups to enterprises to homeowners will use data to make decisions using facts rather than instincts.

Intel has many disparate business units doing their own thing. The challenging task of tethering them is a top priority for Intel's second-in-command, Venkata Renduchintala. Renduchintala, known as Murthy, was appointed last November to run Intel's PC, client, and internet of things businesses. He's made his presence felt: Within six months of his appointment, Intel cut struggling products like mobile embedded CPUs and sharpened its focus on growth areas of IoT, servers, and connectivity. One common thread in all the areas of growth is connectivity, with modems and wireless products now as important to Intel as its CPUs.