From Blade Runner to I.Robot, to Transformers, Hollywood's robots-take-control genre has long profited from fears surrounding artificial intelligence's future role in society. But it's looking like, at this particular juncture, AI is more likely to determine what life insurance or hiking boots people might buy than whether cyborgs or humans will control the world. No worthwhile data management platform or analytics solution emerges today without touting its machine learning capabilities and powers of predictive analytics. But machine learning's roots are not foreign to business people. Delivering a primer on the topic at a client conference, SAS Manager of Data Science Technologies Wayne Thompson noted that the main difference between statistics and machine learning is that "statistics focuses more on inferential analysis or hypothesis testing to make predictions about a larger population than the sample represents. Machine learning uses massive amounts of observational data and, as a branch of artificial intelligence, focuses on automation."

The elimination of poverty worldwide is the first of 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals for the year 2030. To track progress towards this goal, we need more frequent and more reliable data on the distribution of poverty than traditional data collection methods can provide. In this project, we propose an approach that combines machine learning with high-resolution satellite imagery to provide new data on socioeconomic indicators of poverty and wealth. For more information, check out... Our recently published Science paper: http://science.sciencemag.org/content... A project website featuring poverty maps of Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, and Rwanda: http://sustain.stanford.edu/predictin...

This article was posted by SmileJet on Dev Battles. She paints and writes poetry. She's also an artificial intelligence from the movie Her, which imagines how a juiced-up Siri will change our lives. Now, tech companies large and small are racing to make this a reality. You've heard the jargon: AI, machine learning, deep learning, neural networks, natural language processing.

Microsoft has picked up another productivity app -- announcing the acquisition of AI-powered scheduling tool Genee. In a blog post today the software giant said it will be plugging Genee into its cloud productivity suite, Office 365. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. "As we continue to build new Office 365 productivity capabilities and services our customers value, I'm confident the Genee team will help us further our ambition to bring intelligence into every digital experience," writes Rajesh Jha, CVP of Outlook and Office 365. Genee launched in public beta a year ago, offering an end-to-end scheduling tool that integrates with calendar apps and email providers to take the strain out of arranging meetings.

Microsoft announced today that it acquired Genee, an AI-powered scheduling assistant bot that specializes in planning meetings for large groups or when organizers don't have direct access to the calendars of everyone involved. Genee's app is a chatbot accessible via an iPhone app, email, SMS, FB, Twitter or Skype, and it understands natural language input, so you can just text it the kind of event you want to schedule, when you want to happen and who you want to include, and it should theoretically output a proper meeting invite. The standalone service is going to be shut down on September 1, 2016, as a result of the acquisition. It originally debuted in August last year. Genee co-founders Ben Cheung and Charles Lee explained in a blog post announcing the news that easing calendar entries created by the service will still function, but it won't create any new ones or send reminders or agendas related to upcoming events. The team also says they "consider Microsoft to be the leader in personal and enterprise productivity, AI, and virtual assistant technologies," hence their excitement about teaming up with Redmond.

It's been two and a half years since we let Genee out of the bottle. In our drive to deliver large productivity gains through intelligent scheduling coordination and optimization, we often found ourselves on the forefront of technology involving natural language processing, artificial intelligence (AI), and chat bots. We were extremely fortunate to find many who believed in the vision and supported us with their resources, talent, time, and advice along the way, which made Genee possible. Today, we are pleased to announce that Genee has signed an agreement to be acquired by Microsoft. A new beginning means the end of another.

Predictive data analytics and machine learning are becoming necessities for businesses that wish to succeed in today's market. The right machine learning strategy can put your business ahead of the competition, reduce your TCO, and give you the edge your business needs to succeed. First there was big data – extremely large data sets that made it possible to use data analytics to reveal patterns and trends, allowing businesses to improve customer relations and production efficiency. Then came fast data analytics – the application of big data analytics in real-time to help solve issues with customer relations, security, and other challenges before they became problems. Now, with machine learning, the concepts of big data and fast data analytics can be used in combination with artificial intelligence (AI) to avoid these problems and challenges in the first place.

Microsoft has announced its acquisition of Genee, a scheduling service powered by artificial intelligence (AI). Genee launched just two years ago with the simple intention of making it easier for people to schedule or reschedule meetings. The service uses natural language processing, AI and chat bots to allow users to'conversationally' ask Genee to help arrange meetings or calls between even large groups of people, with tasks such as adding meetings to calendars, and emailing meeting invites to each attendee, handled automatically. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Microsoft said that it will integrate the company into its Office 365 team. However, that means that Genee will be shutting down its service on September 1, 2016, but all existing calendar entries created by Genee will remain.

This article was written by a Data-centric Executive Management, Chris Pehura. Chris is a management consultant with a data emphasis helping Fortune 100/1000 companies strategically evolve and reinvent their businesses to maximize their revenue growth. Are algorithms taking over our jobs? Yes, yes they are… and that a good thing. An algorithm is a series of steps with rules that help us solve problems and accomplish goals.

Artificial intelligence, or machine learning, is a black box. Even those who work in the field argue over what makes a machine artificially intelligent, and what is simply the execution of an elaborate set of instructions.