Hundreds of industry specialists were recently introduced to APRIL (Automated Processing Robotic Ingredient Loading) at an event organised by automation solutions provider OAL and the University of Lincoln at the UK's National Centre for Food Manufacturing. The session was held to demonstrate to manufacturers what can be achieved using robots to handle ingredients and cook food, so that food manufacturing can become more efficient and safer. "Consumer demand for greater choice and convenience versus the rising cost of food production due to the introduction of the living wage has led food manufacturers to a crossroads," OAL sales and marketing manager Jake Norman told BakeryandSnacks. "These interlinking factors mean the time is now for robotics and automation to deliver flexible food production at the lowest cost." According to Norman, other industries have embraced technology as an alternative to people to great effect.

There are three main ingredients to creating artificial intelligence: hardware (compute and memory), software (or algorithms), and data. We've heard a lot of late about deep learning algorithms that are achieving superhuman level performance in various tasks, but what if we changed the hardware? Firstly, we can optimise CPU's which are based on the von Neumann architectures that we have been using since the invention of the computer in the 1940's. These include memory improvements, more processors on a chip (a GPU of the type found in a cell phone, might have almost 200 cores), FPGA's and ASIC's. Such is the case with research being done at MIT and Stanford.

Didi Chuxing, the largest ride-hailing service in China, just received a huge boost from Apple. The iPhone maker recently invested a whopping 1 billion into the Chinese company. "Didi exemplifies the innovation taking place in the iOS developer community in China," said Tim Cook, the chief executive of Apple. "We are extremely impressed by the business they've built and their excellent leadership team, and we look forward to supporting them as they grow." The investment by Apple in Didi Chuxing is an interesting and unusual move.

Should Marriott International acquire Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide as is widely expected, it will gain a company whose smartphone check-in, key-less entry and robot bellhops are progressive in the increasingly technology-focused hospitality sector. But Starwood's digital crown jewel is invisible to guests: Its analytics software platform enables the hotelier to automatically recalibrate pricing of its properties using hundreds of variables that influence supply and demand. Starwood spent more than 50 million over three years on this revenue optimization system, or ROS as the company calls it, which has helped the chain improve demand forecasting by 20 percent since 2015, says David Flueck, Starwood's vice president of global revenue. As ROS "learns" it will price rooms more efficiently, ideally boosting revenues and profitability. "What we're trying to do within our industry space is to say: How do we exploit access to data to create a more robust capability?" says Starwood CIO Martha Poulter.

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your dance-challenged Automaton bloggers. We'll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next two months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!): Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos. SNUMAX is a "multi-functional soft robot" developed by Seoul National University's Biorobotics Laboratory, which won the RoboSoft Grand Challenge this year. "Boomf is the noise a marshmallow makes when it falls through your letterbox and lands on your doormat."

Generally, computers are useless at holding a conversation. They just take things a bit too literally. But Google is teaching computers how to make sense of the vagaries of human speech and text. Starting today, Google is opening up those algorithms to outside software developers. The tools released will help programmers build language-based apps and services that are less prone to annoying misunderstandings than many of today's chatbots.

AI is not likely to take over the world, but will probably make major inroads in the enterprise IT space. This will happen as soon as business decision makers can be shown a compelling economic reason to adopt such technology. What is needed are use cases that lay out the expected ROIs for such investments. This paper examines the state of AI business rationalization, and looks at one company, IBM, that is attempting to provide support to business leaders presented with the decision to adopt AI solutions. Artificial intelligence (AI) has been very prevalent in the popular press, and seems to be comprised of equal parts speculation and hyperbole.

Ross has four key strengths, according to its creators. First, the AI is able to answer questions with exact and pertinent responses. Unlike search engines, which give users many thousands of often-irrelevant replies, Ross delivers precise answers, without requiring lawyers to load questions with keywords. Second, Ross combs through legal texts and recent court decisions to identify changes to the law that might have a positive or negative impact on the case. Third, as a machine learning system, Ross becomes more sophisticated the more lawyers use it.

It's a little known but often dangerous problem: each year, 3,500 people in the U.S. -- mostly young children -- swallow button batteries. Normally, these batteries pass through the body without incident. But if they come into prolonged contact with esophagus or stomach tissue, the results can be harmful: the batteries can cause an electric current that produces hydroxide, which burns through body tissue. A postdoctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Shuhei Miyashita brought up this hazard to Daniela Rus, the professor who leads the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. A simple experiment proved how hazardous the little batteries can be.

We are looking for a web designer to help spread the word about how H2O makes machine learning easy. You will work with marketers and product designers to make our messaging clear, concise and accessible on the web. H2O has already spread like wildfire in the data science community, now is the time to let the rest of the world know about it. Help us design and build a beautiful, maintainable web presence for H2O, and empower our marketing team and reach more customers. You don't need to be proficient in every aspect – what we are looking for is a strong core set of skills, the ability to improvise and a collaborative spirit.