Thanks to machine learning, the page you see when you log-on to Amazon.com is likely very different from the one I see. Advertising, product recommendations, and special deals are all tailored to our unique customer profiles based on historical browsing trends and buying behavior. Online retailers like Amazon were among the first users of customer data collection and analysis for improving services and personalizing the shopping experience, and they've become so skilled some sites might even be able to predict what we will purchase before we even know what we're looking for. Advancements in digital technologies have driven a paradigm shift in the way businesses interact with their customers, with touchpoints increasingly moving to digital mediums. Because of the limited opportunities to satisfy customers on a person-to-person level, machine learning is now in widespread use by a variety of modern enterprises as a way to enrich customer experiences, create more personalized and customer-centric interactions, and offer seamless omnichannel communications. Machine learning goes a step beyond Big Data analytics, where machines employ advanced algorithms to autonomously adapt and learn from previous experiences, and therefore emulate the thought process behind human decision-making.

Google is promoting natural language understanding with the open-sourcing of SyntaxNet, a neural network framework, and Parsey McParseface, an advanced parser for English text. Implemented in Google's open source TensorFlow machine intelligence library and released this month, SyntaxNet provides the code needed to train natural language understanding (NLU) models on your data along with the Parsey McParseface parser for analyzing English text. "Parsey McParseface is built on powerful machine learning algorithms that learn to analyze the linguistic structure of language and that can explain the functional role of each word in a given sentence," said Slav Petrov, Google senior staff research scientist. The project arose out of Google's pondering of how computers can read and understand human language in order to process it in intelligent ways. Accessible on GitHub, SyntaxNet serves as a framework for a syntactic parser, a key first component in many NLU systems, Petrov said.

Last week, NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) released its first-quarter fiscal 2017 report, which included some impressive results. The graphics-processor maker posted Q1 revenue of 1.3 billion, an increase of 13% year over year, and non-GAAP earning per share were up 39% from the year-ago quarter to 0.46. Wall Street analysts had been expecting revenue of around 1.26 billion and EPS of 0.41. NVIDIA co-founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said the revenue and earnings growth were spurred on by all of the key segments of its business. "We are enjoying growth in all of our platforms -- gaming, professional visualization, datacenter and auto," Huang said in a press release.

The experiment, developed by physicists from The Australian National University (ANU) and UNSW ADFA, created an extremely cold gas trapped in a laser beam, known as a Bose-Einstein condensate, replicating the experiment that won the 2001 Nobel Prize. "I didn't expect the machine could learn to do the experiment itself, from scratch, in under an hour," said co-lead researcher Paul Wigley from the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering. "A simple computer program would have taken longer than the age of the Universe to run through all the combinations and work this out." Bose-Einstein condensates are some of the coldest places in the Universe, far colder than outer space, typically less than a billionth of a degree above absolute zero. They could be used for mineral exploration or navigation systems as they are extremely sensitive to external disturbances, which allows them to make very precise measurements such as tiny changes in the Earth's magnetic field or gravity.

The innovations protected by the new patent provide users of the Arria NLG Platform with an added level of control to query their data to achieve a deeper understanding. Users can direct the report output by changing the data parameters to refine its focus and apply the embedded subject matter expertise to quickly interrogate their data at the click of a mouse. For example, financial analyst who receive an NLG report analysing an entire year of sales data can use an interface to focus the report on the most recent quarter or on one or a combination of geographic regions, or by using any other search criteria that they specify. With one click, the NLG Platform searches the data afresh, conducts pre-programmed analysis and produces an amended report responding to the new query. This, Arria's eighth patent, covers flexible modification of search parameters not only for reports that may be generated with Arria NLG's advanced artificial intelligence technology, but also with more rudimentary, template based NLG systems offered by several of Arria NLG's competitors.

Truphone co-founder James Tagg recently addressed the critical role artificial intelligence (AI) will play in helping smartphones and other technology platforms evolve. Tagg, who authored'Are The Androids Dreaming Yet,' kicked off his presentation in Mountain View, California, by exploring some of the basic differences between humans and machines. "Human brains are fundamentally'broken' in certain ways, especially when it comes to accurately remembering a specific event a few weeks after it occurred. Yet, we can recall more than 1,000 faces – in less than 370ms (each)," he explained. "We also understand hierarchy quite well, although we have difficulty with recalling names. Plus, humans adhere to strong rules of etiquette around face-to-face communication."

Sure announced today that it has introduced the world's first on-demand insurance app powered by artificial intelligence, marking an important step for the company as it drives rapid adoption of mobile, on-demand insurance products. An industry first, Sure uses data-driven approaches to empower consumers with the ability to personalize insurance needs on the go. In doing so, it eliminates the built-in limitations of an industry driven largely by one-size-fits-all recommendations from brokers. Sure continues to pioneer Episodic Insurance in the insurance market by providing consumers with simple options based on the context and information gathered through his or her mobile device with permission. Sure uses data-intelligence and advanced analytics to identify needs and provide products for easy, on-demand purchase. For the first time, customers can buy the type of insurance they need, for exactly the duration they need it.

Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) announced a few days ago that its subsidiary Qualcomm Technologies will offer OEMs its first machine learning SDK for running their own neural network models on devices powered by Snapdragon 820 SoCs. The devices include smartphones, cars and drones among many others. With the introduction of the new Snapdragon Neural Processing Engine SDK, we are making it possible for myriad sectors, including mobile, IoT and automotive to harnesses the power of Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 and make high-performance, power efficient on-device deep learning a reality. Qualcomm said in its Q2 earnings call that the company is broadening its presence in "adjacent opportunities," i.e., in adjacent markets where it has growth opportunities. The company has such opportunities in the sectors Brotman mentioned, as presented above in bold.

SAN FRANCISCO -- When Google kicks off its annual get-together for software developers on Wednesday, expect to hear about the two major trends shaping the future of the technology industry: artificial intelligence and virtual reality. Thousands will descend on Mountain View, Calif., the first time the tech giant is holding the I/O conference in its hometown. Google's conference, sandwiched between Facebook in April and Apple in June, is vying to put on the greatest show on earth for software developers. For weeks, workers have been constructing a Google-themed park to immerse developers in the artificial intelligence-powered future that Google envisions.The outdoor venue, the Shoreline Ampitheatre, is most famous for showcasing the talents of Neil Young, The Who and Metallica. For I/O, the master of ceremonies is Sundar Pichai, Google's newly minted chief executive who will look to dazzle developers with a demo-packed keynote.

Amazon has become the latest tech giant that's giving away some of its most sophisticated technology. Today the company unveiled DSSTNE (pronounced "destiny"), an open source artificial intelligence framework that the company developed to power its product recommendation system. Now any company, researcher, or curious tinkerer can use it for their own AI applications. It's the latest in series of projects recently open sourced by large tech companies all focused on a branch of AI called deep learning. Google, Facebook, and Microsoft have mainly used these systems for tasks like image and speech recognition.