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France is AI - Artificial Intelligence Event in Paris, France
We believe Artificial Intelligence (AI) will usher the next revolution in technology and accelerate the disruptions in almost every industry and that France, one of the leading countries in AI, has a very rich ecosystem. This event – organized by ISAI, BPIfrance and La French Tech – aims at gathering all the players (startups, tech companies, research centers, meetups…) to support the ecosystem. At the end of the event, we will also publish a comprehensive landscape of the AI startups and ecosystem and will promote it both in France and the US.
The Morning Download: Microsoft to Infuse Office Software with AI
Microsoft Corp.'s acquisition of the smart scheduling app Genee reflects a drive to add artificial intelligence to all of its digital experiences. The deal, announced Monday, could let Microsoft enhance its virtual assistant Cortana, to better compete with Alphabet Inc.'s Google Now and Apple Inc.'s Siri, as CIO Journal's Angus Loten reports. With Genee, Cortana could automatically set up business meetings by interpreting keywords in email. Though AI gets much attention these days, many CIOs don't have a clear idea about how to use the technology or maximize its value. Microsoft is expanding its AI expertise partly through acquisition, recently buying Wand Labs, a smart messaging app, and SwiftKey, a tool that predicts what users want to type next.
Google is using AI to compress photos, just like on HBO's Silicon Valley
Researchers at Google are working on a way to use neural networks, the building blocks of modern artificial intelligence, to make our picture files smaller without sacrificing quality. To consumers, smaller files means more available space on phones, tablets, and computers, but for tech companies like Google that offer unlimited photo storage, smaller photos could reduce server load, power consumption, and improve transfer speeds. This sort of idea has made its way into pop culture thanks to HBO's Silicon Valley, where the fictional compression startup Pied Piper uses neural networks to optimize how they shrink files. Google's work teaches neural networks how to scrimp and save data by looking at examples of how standard compression works in random images from the internet, according to a technical paper published on ArXiv. The paper shows that neural networks can beat standard JPEG compression on standard tests, according to the Google team.
How Artificial Intelligence Could Help Diagnose Mental Disorders
People convey meaning by what they say as well as how they say it: Tone, word choice, and the length of a phrase are all crucial cues to understanding what's going on in someone's mind. When a psychiatrist or psychologist examines a person, they listen for these signals to get a sense of their wellbeing, drawing on past experience to guide their judgment. Researchers are now applying that same approach, with the help of machine learning, to diagnose people with mental disorders. In 2015, a team of researchers developed an AI model that correctly predicted which members of a group of young people would develop psychosis--a major feature of schizophrenia--by analyzing transcripts of their speech. This model focused on tell-tale verbal tics of psychosis: short sentences, confusing, frequent use of words like "this," "that," and "a," as well as a muddled sense of meaning from one sentence to the next.
How Machine Learning and Push Computing Can Pull Employees In
You have a problem: Businesses all over the world are facing a serious issue. Employees are increasingly overworked, disengaged, and bogged down by inefficient processes. A Gallup poll of more than 80,000 workers found that just 31.5% described themselves as being engaged at work. The majority, 51%, say they're disengaged, and the final 17.5% reported actually being "actively disengaged." Legacy enterprise software is arguably one of the least engaging aspects of any job. However, many organizations have invested heavily in dated IT systems and will keep investing in their maintenance because those systems keep their business running, and any changes or upgrades would be incredibly costly and time consuming.
Artificial intelligence to help prepare tax returns: report
By 2025 Australians may well see the application of artificial intelligence in the preparation of tax returns, according to a report by KPMG. The movie "I Robot" starring Will Smith envisaged a future world ruled by robots. By 2025 Australians may well see the application of artificial intelligence in the preparation of tax returns, according to a report by KPMG. The report, 2025: People, economy and the future of tax, suggests a future world in which service industry professionals such as accountants will be replaced by robots and the size of revenue authorities such as the Australian Taxation Office will shrink. "The technological changes ... are likely to mean few mid-skilled jobs will be required," the report says.
Emerging Technologies Promise Business Opportunities, Gartner Says
The blurring of the physical and digital worlds is creating new business opportunities for companies perceptive enough to embrace options including artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and smart technologies. "Digital business is about more than technologies. It is about creating new business models and new ways to engage with customers, partners and suppliers in your business ecosystem," explained Betsy Burton, co-author of the report. Gartner defines a hype cycle as "a graphical depiction of a common pattern that arises with each new technology or other innovation." Burton estimates nearly 100 hype cycles will be produced over the course of this year, but noted that four major trends are dominating the technology landscape. Nexus Technologies, notably cloud, data, mobile and social, are all passing through or have already exited the Trough of Disillusionment.
Microsoft bought an AI start-up that schedules meetings like a personal assistant – FreeNewsHeadlines.com
Scheduling meetings can often involve a lot of back and forth over emails, something Genee solved with its solution. A user sends an email to the person they wanted to set up a meeting with and copy in Genee, like a personal assistant. Genee claims to understand the details of the meeting, including the date and location of the meeting. The app then emails the recipient directly with options that fit the user's calendar and preferences. Genee can do this because it uses natural language processing, according to the company.
'Neural network' spotted deep inside Samsung's Galaxy S7 silicon brain
Hot Chips Samsung has revealed the blueprints to its mystery M1 processor cores at the heart of its S7 and S7 Edge smartphones. International versions of the top-end Android mobiles, which went on sale in March, sport a 14nm FinFET Exynos 8890 system-on-chip that has four standard 1.6GHz ARM Cortex-A53 cores and four M1 cores running at 2.3 to 2.6GHz. Only two M1 cores are allowed to kick it up to the maximum frequency at any one time to avoid draining batteries and overheating pockets. The M1, codenamed Mongoose, was designed from scratch in three years by a team in the US, and it runs 32-bit and 64-bit ARMv8-A code. In benchmarks, the Exynos 8890 SoC is behind Apple's iPhone 6S A9 chip in terms of single-core performance, but pushes ahead in multi-core tests.