Microsoft has bought a startup to boost its artificial intelligence capabilities, and rival Apple confirmed it has boosted its health focus with an acquisition of its own. Microsoft did not disclose financial terms of its deal to buy Genee, which specialises in using machine smarts to handle the time-sucking task of scheduling meetings. "Genee uses natural language processing and optimized decision-making algorithms so that interacting with a virtual assistant is just like interacting with a human one," Outlook and Office 365 corporate vice president Rajesh Jha said in a blog post. For example, Genee can be copied into an email exchange to act as a virtual assistant of sorts to pin down a time for a business or social meeting. Jha touted Genee as having designed "an intelligent virtual assistant specialized in the appointment decision."

On Monday, August 22, Microsoft Corp. has announced the acquisition of intelligent scheduling startup Genee, as part of the company's efforts to embed artificial intelligence in its digital experiences. According to The Wall Street Journal, Microsoft's Genee acquisition is part of the company's strategy to use artificial intelligence (AI) in order to improve the digital experience of its customers. The purchasing of the startup company and its app Genee will be used by Microsoft mainly for enhancing the intelligent capabilities of its Office apps suite. At the moment the details of the acquisition are not known, as the deal's terms were not yet disclosed. The vice president of Microsoft's Outlook and Office 365 business, Rajesh Jha, explained in a blog post that Genee is a startup that provided a virtual assistant for scheduling appointments and the acquisition will help building new Office 365 productivity services and capabilities.

South Africa's CLEVVA is making AI-powered virtual advisors a thing Artificial intelligence start-up Octo.ai raises 200000

New Delhi: Delhi-based artificial intelligence start-up Octo.ai has raised 200,000 from early stage investor Outbox Ventures, Rahul Khanna, managing partner of venture debt fund Trifecta Capital and Jaspreet Bindra, head of e-commerce at Mahindra & Mahindra, the company said on Tuesday. The company will use the fund for enhancing technology. Ltd) is an open-source analytics platform built for machine learning. It helps companies retain their data and apply machine learning to power real-time insights, recommendations and personalised feeds on their platform. It allows them to install Octo, and send personalised push messages to each user to drive more active users and engagement.

According to media reports, the acquisition reportedly happened earlier but was not publicly announced yet. An Apple spokesperson has now responded, saying: "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans." Founded in 2013 by Anil Sethi and Karthik Hariharan, Gliimpse provides a secure platform where consumers can manage and share their medical records and info. According to Sethi's LinkedIn page, Gliimpse -- like many startups -- was born of a personal need. In recent months, Apple has acquired HealthKit, CareKit and ResearchKit startups that allow patients, doctors and researchers to access important health and wellness data via a range of mobile devices.

Machine learning and AI have gradually moved from theoretical discussion to a real-life, everyday business application. But this increasingly ubiquitous technology goes by many names, and businesses must be careful to select performance over hype. Artificial intelligence has leapt from the pages of popular sci-fi novels and screenplays and into our everyday lives. Consider, for instance, the software I'm using to transcribe this paragraph as I dictate it out loud -- it's a simple enough task for a human, but one that requires some extraordinary computation for this technology. A natural language processor must categorize complex audio data as either useful or irrelevant, analyze it with probabilistic reasoning, and synthesize the result: in this case, the words you're currently reading.

The field of artificial intelligence has spawned a vast range of subset fields and terms: machine learning, neural networks, deep learning and cognitive computing, to name but a few. However here we will turn our attention to the specific term'artificial general intelligence', thanks to the Portland-based AI company Kimera Systems' (momentous) claim to have launched the world's first ever example, called Nigel. The AGI Society defines artificial general intelligence as "an emerging field aiming at the building of "thinking machines"; that is general-purpose systems with intelligence comparable to that of the human mind (and perhaps ultimately well beyond human general intelligence)". AGI would, in theory, be able to perform any intellectual feat a human can. You can now perhaps see why a claim to have launched the world's first ever AGI might be a tad ambitious, to say the least.

Baidu Inc needs to do more to diversity its business as the Chinese search engine firm falls behind domestic peers Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Tencent Holdings Ltd in revenue and profit, analysts said on Monday. Such efforts are of urgent importance to help Baidu safeguard its position as one of China's big three internet giants, they added. In the second quarter ended June, Baidu saw 34 percent plunge in net income, which declined to 363 million and was less than one-fourth of that of Tencent, one of the most profitable tech firms in China. Also, as the Beijing-based firm wrestled with tougher government regulations on online advertising in the second quarter, e-commerce heavyweight Alibaba delivered its most robust quarterly growth since its 2014 IPO, marked by a 59 percent year-on-year rise in revenue. Vinsan Wang, an analyst at Tiger Brokerage Group, which provides internet brokerage business for US and Hong Kong stocks, said the revenue and profit gap between Baidu and its two archrivals Alibaba and Tencent is widening, but Baidu is still one of the top players in China's rapidly changing internet landscape.

By 2020, we will all have an Invisible Friend. Whether we call it Siri, Alexa, OK Google, or a chatbot, we are entering a world where an intelligence assistant recognizes our "intent." This could spawn a massive consumer behavior shift, as AI-influenced bots would mean far fewer Google searches by humans. This invisible friend would learn from its mistakes, maintain context, and continue to expand into new areas of expertise through judicious use of Knowledge Management (see below landscape). Although 2020 is our destination, now is a time of heightened activity among the companies that provide the elements of Intelligent Assistance.

Feels like a home away from home. Microsoft acquires AI-powered scheduling service Genee, to be shut down and merged with Office ... 'Software is eating the world': How robots, drones and artificial intelligence will change everything