It is a fascinating experiment that brings together Google's artificial intelligence division and one of the world's leading centres for the treatment of eye conditions. But the research project that has seen Moorfields Hospital hand over retinal scans to DeepMind has already proved controversial - and, for me, it all feels rather close to home. For the past 10 years, I have been a regular visitor to Moorfields, where I receive excellent treatment for a longstanding condition. This includes having pictures taken of the back of my eye, and it seems likely that these photos may be among those handed to DeepMind. This is for a project that aims to work out whether machine-learning technology can give doctors a better understanding of eye disease.

Accelerating the race to autonomous cars, NVIDIA today launched NVIDIA DRIVE PX 2 – the world's most powerful engine for in-vehicle artificial intelligence. NVIDIA DRIVE PX 2 allows the automotive industry to use artificial intelligence to tackle the complexities inherent in autonomous driving. It utilizes deep learning on NVIDIA's most advanced GPUs for 360-degree situational awareness around the car, to determine precisely where the car is and to compute a safe, comfortable trajectory. "Drivers deal with an infinitely complex world," said Jen-Hsun Huang, co-founder and CEO, NVIDIA. "Modern artificial intelligence and GPU breakthroughs enable us to finally tackle the daunting challenges of self-driving cars. "NVIDIA's GPU is central to advances in deep learning and supercomputing.

Virtual marketing assistant Kit CRM announced today the launch of its chatbot on Facebook Messenger, making it the third platform it's available on. The move comes three months since it became one of the first companies to announce an integration with Facebook's conversational platform. Any of the more than 900 million monthly app users will be able to have access to a virtual employee right at their fingertips. The idea to bring this marketing assistant to Facebook Messenger enables merchants without marketing support to manage their online marketing promotions on Facebook and Instagram using an interface they're likely more comfortable with instead of being inundated by ad-serving networks and interfaces. Founded by Michael Perry, Kit is the producer of an artificial intelligent virtual assistant that previously let you run your e-commerce business through SMS text messages or using Telegram.

Is your garage door opening right now? Is your washing machine running? A growing number of products attempt to give consumers data on the sources of their household energy use--crucial data for home efficiency efforts and utility peak-hour conservation programs. But Sense, a startup in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is the first to offer a consumer product that reads incoming household power levels a million times per second--enough to tease out telltale clues to which specific appliances, even low-wattage ones, are operating in real time. "It's at the cutting edge of what I have seen people attempting in this area," says Michael Baker, a vice president at SBW, an energy efficiency consultancy in Seattle.

With a pocketful of savings, Melbourne entrepreenur Michelle Mannering and three fellow founders are busy building a platform utilising artificial intelligence to make the world a smarter and better place. As a hacker-in-residence at Carlton Connect and a participant in the Melbourne Accelerator Program, Mannering and her team are one of the first residents in Melbourne's new "melting pot" for innovation. "My co-founders and I all met at a bunch of different hackathons," Mannering tells StartupSmart. Just a year after meeting, the team has launched Black AI, a startup offering a platform that is developing machine learning computer vision. "Basically, we just teach computers how to understand and interpret the world," Mannering says.

Someone at Google really likes sneakers: The company has just bought a French machine learning startup that taught a computer how to recognize 15,000 different types of them. Paris-based Moodstocks builds image and object recognition software using deep learning techniques, and offered an Android app and visual search API that could recognize certain kinds of object. By analyzing video from a smartphone camera, and correlating it with accelerometer readings to determine how the camera is moving around, the software is able to infer information about the three-dimensional shape of objects in the video, facilitating their recognition. In February 2015 the company demonstrated its ability to identify sneakers through its app. Three months later, after training the software using 15,000 photos of shoes from an online retailer's website, Moodstocks claimed to be able to shop online for all the sneakers on sale in a Macy's store. Google has been introducing elements of machine learning into its existing online services, including Google Translate and Inbox, a next-generation interface for Gmail.

Most women aren't just happy with the technological advancements that have aided in labor and delivery -- they demand them. But what if the next big innovation in childbirth is delivering a baby with the help of . . . According to findings from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, what was once relegated to sci-fi movies could play a vital role in future labor wards. In a video produced by CNN, you can see one such robot assisting doctors and nurses with everything from understanding patients' needs to making scheduling decisions. This role of "resource nurse," in which one person is in charge of assigning all the other nurses to care for patients, is complicated not only because it requires quick, effective decision-making but because it occurs in a stressful, often unpredictable setting.

MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory created an algorithm that utilizes deep learning, which enables artificial intelligence (AI) to use patterns of human interaction to predict what will happen next. Researchers fed the program with videos featuring human social interactions and tested it to see if it "learned" well enough to be able to predict them. While this lineup may seem questionable, MIT doctoral candidate and project researcher Carl Vondrick reasons out that accessibility and realism were part of the criteria. "We just wanted to use random videos from YouTube," Vondrick said. "The reason for television is that it's easy for us to get access to that data, and it's somewhat realistic in terms of describing everyday situations."

Cashfloat.co.uk, a trading style of Western Circle Ltd (WCL), deployed a major upgrade to their FCA-ready SEO blueprint (FRSB) to sustain top search engine rankings following the activation of the payday loan Google ads ban. The FRSB has transformed Cashfloat's business to 99% organic and has enhanced customer oriented online marketing. The quest to address the FCA regulation requirements together with constant Google algorithm updates and soaring competition has reached a new peak with the activation of the Google payday loans ads ban today. The Google ads ban has intensified the demand for a sustainable online marketing framework and, consecutively, the level of blackhat SEO attempts. Ofer Valencio Akerman, SEO Strategist at WCL, commented, "As a company that has never relied on Google Ads, Cashfloat's new FRSB is a product of much research and experiment. However, we expect fierce competition to follow the Google ads ban. We are already experiencing a major increase in blackhat SEO activities and lenders that are looking for quick wins."