Can the development of artificial intelligence technology be kicked up a notch? Scientists at Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) certainly hope so and recently issued a Request For Information about how AI advances could be made more quickly and consistently. "Artificial intelligence, defined here as computer simulation of cognitive processes such as perception, recognition, reasoning, and control, have captured the public's imagination for over 60 years. However, artificial intelligence research has proceeded in fits and starts over much of that time, as the field repeats a boom/bust cycle characterized by promising bursts of progress followed by inflated expectations and finally disillusionment, leading to what has become known as an "AI winter" – a long period of diminished research and funding activity," IARPA wrote. IARPA is the high-risk, high-reward research arm of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Apple is working on its own competitor to the Amazon Echo to give consumers a Siri-powered speaker for the home, according to a report from The Information today. Not only that, but Apple is also reportedly opening Siri up to third-party apps so developers can finally tap into the voice assistant. The report states that an Echo rival is a more longterm project, while creating and releasing a Siri software development kit is more likely to happen first. In fact, the Siri SDK could arrive as early as June during Apple's annual WWDC conference. While some third-party companies have gained access to Siri, such as Yelp, they've only done so by way of specially crafted deals with Apple.

When surfing the internet, it is quite easy to find sites comparing the most popular Machine learning toolkits (datascience.stackexchange.com, These sites give you a lot of information about the strengths and weaknesses of the libraries, how they work and some examples to compare how easy it is to use these types of tools. Therefore, if you are new to the business, they are very helpful for finding the right library to begin to study your data. Actually, they are written by Data Scientists for Data Scientists. However, as a Software Engineer you would rather know if these tools are going to work well or just crash your servers.

The innovations protected by the new patent tie together graphs and graphical annotations with the corresponding narrative in natural language reports that the Arria NLG software generates. For example, placing one's cursor on a graphical element can cause the corresponding report section to be highlighted for ease of reference. The patented features will be deployed to strengthen the integration of language and graphical elements in the Company's products. As with the Company's other recent patents, the covered features are desirable in any NLG system, not only Arria NLG's advanced Reiter & Dale model language generation system. The new patent is part of a broad diversification plan that Arria NLG has instituted to enhance versatility and improve ease of use, as well as to increase the analytic power and actionable conclusions of its NLG products.

In episode ten of season two, we talk about Computational Learning Theory and Probably Approximately Correct Learning originated by Professor Leslie Valiant of SEAS at Harvard, we take a listener question about generative systems, plus we talk with Aviv Regev, Chair of the Faculty and Director of the Klarman Cell Observatory and the Cell Circuits Program at the Broad Institute.

Leading global IT services company HCL Technologies has been named winner of the'Best Innovation in Natural Language Processing (NLP)' award at the AIconics Awards during the "AI Summit" in London recently. AIconics are the world's only independently judged awards celebrating the drive, innovation and hard work in the international Artificial Intelligence (AI) community. "This award gives testimony to the innovation and pragmatic implementation of'Natural Language Processing' in the 21st century enterprise," Kalyan Kumar, executive vice president at HCL Technologies, said in a statement. HCL was also named as a finalist in the "Best Intelligent Assistant" category which showcases companies making ground-breaking advancements in virtual assistants and advanced voice/text recognition capabilities. The driving force behind HCL's success at the AIconics Awards is "HCL DryICE" -- the company's innovative autonomics and orchestration framework.

Renren.com, once a leading Chinese online social network, is now dubbed as a "cyber Chernobyl". A recent report shows that there are almost no active users left on Renren, as advertising accounts keep pushing uninteresting contents and the system keeps recommending other people's posts that were so "yesterday". Some have jokingly said this must be what will happen to our world after it is taken by AI. Although it is still hard to say whether AI will ultimately do us good or pose threats, robots are indeed gradually entering our lives.

HYDERABAD: At a time when most of the startups are focusing on solving fairly shallow problems, Avishkar, the start-up accelerator programme of International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad (IIIT-H) on Friday took three companies under its wings to encourage entrepreneurs who are into solving deep-tech problems. Screened from about 140 applications across the world, the top three companies are all set to form the first batch of the six-month long programme. The selected startups will now work closely with the Avishkar team and the faculty members of IIIT-H labs and other partners over the next six months to get to a level of investment-readiness that will launch them to the next stage of their journey. "We are a four-month-old company trying to build a virtual personal stylist for women. Through our app, we want to offer all the services that a stylist offers to women. In other words, we want to create artificial intelligence (AI) of a personal stylist. The best part about Avishkar is that unlike many accelerators, the programmes here are personalised for each and every startup and would be helpful for us to grow faster," Komal Prajapati, founder, Fabulyst, said.

Intel is transforming from a PC company to a company that powers the cloud and billions of smart, connected computing devices. These devices will use the power of Intel technology to process data being generated from "things," connect to and learn from data being analyzed in the cloud, and deliver amazing new experiences. One of the amazing Internet of Things (IoT) experiences Intel is gearing up to deliver is autonomous driving. Americans spend some 75 billion hours a year driving. Morgan Stanley estimates that self-driving vehicles could deliver 507 billion in annual productivity gains – to cite just one compelling benefit.

As someone on Twitter said, if "bots" was on your Build 2016 drinking game card, you'd be long dead. But while Microsoft is all about getting developers to create intelligent app companions to make our lives easier, is there any impressive machine learning the Redmond firm is ready to show off right now? The answer, surprise, is yes. Besides ordering Domino's pizzas, Microsoft has been tinkering with its Azure-based tools to recognize age, gender, emotion and individuals by name. Remember the great/awful How Old Do I Look? website introduced at last year's Build? The Windows 10 maker has been building off this ego-buster since, and what it's cooked up is far more intelligent – and more flattering – than its earlier iteration.