Sinequa provides a Cognitive Search & Analytics platform for Fortune Global 2000 companies and government agencies. Using advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning algorithms, the solution offers insights extracted from structured and unstructured data. Broad connectivity to on-premise, Cloud and Hadoop Big Data sources facilitates and accelerates enterprise-wide projects. Sinequa ES offers strong Natural Language Processing (NLP) capabilities and combines semantic analysis in 21 languages with statistical analysis, to extract relevant information from all databases data and unstructured data (text, image, video). Sinequa ES contains a set of scalable Machine Learning libraries, developed on Spark, to provide deep analytics of contents and user behavior, offering information with continually improving relevance to users in their work environments.

Popular search engines are great at finding answers for point-of-fact questions like the elevation of Mount Everest or current movies running at local theaters. They are not, however, very good at answering what-if or predictive questions--questions that depend on multiple variables, such as "What influences the stock market?" In many cases that shortcoming is not for lack of relevant data. Rather, what's missing are empirical models of complex processes that influence the behavior and impact of those data elements. In a world in which scientists, policymakers and others are awash in data, the inability to construct reliable models that can deliver insights from that raw information has become an acute limitation for planners.

A new startup has harnessed the power of artificial intelligence to digitize and automate accounting processes. The startup, Smacc, offers small to midsize companies a platform to track invoices, sales, costs, etc. It will gradually learn over time, said Smacc, so it becomes progressively better at automatically dealing with customers' data. Smacc has secured a 3.5 million round of angel investment capital. Techcrunch.com said its founders came up with the idea after finding that handling accounting was the most annoying part of managing another startup. Smacc joins other cloud-based accounting programs like Xero and Crunch Accounting, but said their high level of automation differentiates them.

Retired U.S. Air Force Col. Gene Lee (seated) is operating a simulator developed by Nick Ernest (standing left) for military training and research. Ernest, a University of Cincinnati graduate and Psibernetix president and CEO, is standing next to David Carroll of Psibernetix. Gene Lee has decades of experience as a fighter pilot and aerial combat instructor. The talent Lee, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, has as a pilot allowed him to easily and consistently defeat other computer programs used in research and training. That was until he began working with a system developed by a University of Cincinnati doctoral graduate in collaboration with the Air Force Research Laboratory based at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

Chatbots for Facebook Messenger are in that awkward phase of development when they are mostly a proof of concept and a way to demonstrate potential. Most of the bots available today do not quite match the artificial intelligence you'll find in a Tesla or at Google. However, they are easily accessible through the Messenger app (you can see the latest chats at the top of the screen on your phone). Many are powerful and useful, including the new Yahoo Weather bot. They're about to improve radically this year (find out more about the latest developments this coming week at MobileBeat 2016) but, for now, here are a few unusual bots you can try.

A great trainer makes working out 10x more motivating, fun, and effective. That's why we created Vi--an evolving personal trainer who lives in bio-sensing earphones. Put Vi on and start a relationship with a friend for your fitness. Each day, Vi tracks you, gets smarter, and coaches you to real results. Vi will help you meet your weight goals, improve your running, cycling and training.

In March, Microsoft revealed that it was using the open-world game Minecraft to train AI agents to learn how to do things like climbing a hill. The company also promised to make it available to the public so they could work on their own artificial intelligence projects and research, and it's finally available today. Project Malmo (formerly known as Project AIX) is a Minecraft mod that works on Windows, Mac and Linux, and supports just about any programming language you might want to use. So yes, that means you will need to know how to code – but Microsoft says that even novice programmers can get in on the action. You can learn more about Project Malmo here and grab the mod from this GitHub repository to try it for yourself.

Over the past year, artificial intelligence has made big headlines for everything from Siri's new capabilities to smart assistants. Although A.I. technologies like self-driving cars may be more thrilling, there is one innovation that hits close to home for all of us: chatbots. Chatbots provide companies with a novel way of engaging with customers, one that is as imminently promising as it is potentially harmful to the customer experience. As more companies begin to incorporate A.I. and autonomous systems into their operations, we are about to see a massive uptick in the usage of these types of bots. In fact, we already are. So how do we find the right mix of bot and human in order to maintain the highest level of customer service?

WIRE)--International Data Corporation (IDC) has published a 2016 IDC Innovators report recognizing pioneering players in the machine learning-based text analytics market. IDC Innovators are companies with under 50M in revenue that offer an inventive technology and/or groundbreaking new business model. Kira Systems, Loop AI Labs, NetBase, and Taste Analytics were all named as IDC Innovators in the machine learning-based text analytics market for 2016. "Organizations are continually looking to improve their handling of data, especially unstructured data, given the explosion of information that is available via the Internet today," said David Schubmehl, Research Director, IDC's Content Analytics, Discovery and Cognitive Systems research. "Understanding and utilizing this human-generated data is a significant challenge for most organizations and the use of machine learning based text analytics is rapidly becoming the best approach to dealing with this type of data."