CHENNAI: Infosys has launched a new Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool that the IT major claims will revolutionize the way companies manage complex information technology systems. 'Mana', the AI tool, can optimize mundane maintenance of IT systems, saving substantial operating expenditure for firms and freeing up human resources to innovate. CEO Vishal Sikka, who has been at the announced the system at the firm's Confluence conference in San Francisco. "If we can bring automation to do better things we can already do, then we can focus on innovation," he said, adding that Infosys has been doing that by using Mana in maintenance and operation of the complex systems, thereby freeing up resources to "reinventing the landscape" in which they operate. Systems like these, said Sikka in the buildup to the announcement, will maintain and operate a complex landscape, codify and capture knowledge that sits in business processes, helping turn focus on improving processes and implementing "Zero Distance" between end user and the firm.

Elon Musk's OpenAI has created a'gym' to let developers train their AI systems on Atari games. The open source code, which is still in development, includes'environments' to create situations in which AI can learn. The environments include playing classic board games, controlling a robot in simulation and playing 59 Atari games like Asteroids, Air Raid, Pac-Man, Space Invaders and Pitfall. The hope is that the tasks will give OpenAI and others a way to rank and improve various AI approaches, and unveil new ways to teach machines to learn. OpenAI will also feature a leaderboard of the most successful systems.

I am amazed with some of the online shopping solutions around. How do they continue to attract people to their website and services? Some are like the Dollar shop selling cellphone cables, mouse, dongles and many other things from as low as a dollar and with free shipping. How do they stay in business!! But then I look at Netflix and Amazon they can do just that, with a brand that they built and yet offer prices that are reasonable.

Because of new computing technologies, machine learning today is not like machine learning of the past. It was born from pattern recognition and the theory that computers can learn without being programmed to perform specific tasks; researchers interested in artificial intelligence wanted to see if computers could learn from data. The iterative aspect of machine learning is important because as models are exposed to new data, they are able to independently adapt. They learn from previous computations to produce reliable, repeatable decisions and results. While many machine learning algorithms have been around for a long time, the ability to automatically apply complex mathematical calculations to big data – over and over, faster and faster – is a recent development.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company has opened up a virtual'gym' to enable developers to train their AIs using vintage video games like Pac-Man. OpenAI launched the open source code workout spot in order to offer'environments' in which tech boffins can test their AIs. The environments on offer include a range of 59 classic Atari games such as Pong and Asteroids. The code-based gym also includes the strategy board game Go. Google's DeepMind AI software recently beat the reigning human Go champion in a series of matches.

Tesla Motors cofounder and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently collaborated with Y Combinator's Sam Altman and former Googler Ilya Sutskever to launch a non-profit platform for artificial intelligence research called OpenAI. Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer just a part of fictional films today. As a matter of fact, AI has become ubiquitous in almost all fields of sciences, offering its remarkable benefits that can revolutionize the world. Despite its protracted history, artificial Intelligence is a field that is still constantly and actively evolving. It is defined as the science and engineering of making intelligent machines through incorporating clever computer programs.

Like so many organizations today, Infosys, the Indian consulting giant, is a company in transition. For years it has made a good living helping customers manage legacy tools, but CEO Vishal Sikka, who took over 21 months ago saw a shifting landscape and he began implementing new systems immediately. One of those changes involved developing a new artificial intelligence system they have called Mana, which is designed to help customers automate repetitive system maintenance tasks and build knowledge about the underlying systems using artificial intelligence and machine learning. Sikka announced the system this morning at the Infosys Confluence conference in San Francisco. Mana involves three main tools: Infosys Information Platform for analytics, Infosys Automation Platform for automating and continuously building knowledge about system maintenance and workflow tasks and Infosys Knowledge Platform, a formal platform for capturing and storing knowledge.

The robotic skull of a T-600 cyborg used in the movie Terminator 3. Eduardo Parra/Getty Images hide caption The robotic skull of a T-600 cyborg used in the movie Terminator 3. In his lab at George Mason University in Virginia, Sean Luke has all kinds of robots: big ones with wheels, medium ones that look like humans, and then he has a couple of dozen that look like small, metal boxes. He and his team at the Autonomous Robotics Lab are training those little ones to work together without the help of a human. In the future, Luke and his team hope those little robots can work like ants -- in teams of hundreds, for example, to build houses, or help search for survivors after a disaster. "These things are changing very rapidly and they're changing much faster than we sort of expected them to be changing recently," Luke says. New algorithms and huge new databases are allowing robots to navigate complex spaces, and artificial intelligence just achieved a victory few thought would ever happen: A computer made by Google beat a professional human in a match of Go.

Without fail, every few months there is yet another breathlessly published blog post or article proclaiming that "SEO is Dead!" Typically this dire proclamation regarding the future of SEO is accompanied by some variation of the following: In reality, SEO will never die. At least not as long as there are search engines. While Google certainly has diminished the amount of real estate for the average search query in the "traditional" organic search result, "natural" search results are critically important for search engines. If, as some have speculated, Google went to a "paid" results-only model, over time I suspect that the average web user would lose trust in the quality of their search results. However, there are by contrast many exciting developments in the field or search that will likely have a huge impact on SEO in the coming years.

Facebook already has research groups dedicated to advancing the company's capabilities in artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision and natural language processing and speech. Earlier this month, for example, it introduced an iOS feature called "automatic alternative text" that uses object recognition technology to provide spoken descriptions of Facebook photos to people who are visually impaired. And this month, the company also unveiled new bot and chatbot technology as part of its Messenger Platform, now in beta. The bots enable businesses using the platform to provide automated information and help to online customers. "A lot of what we're building today in areas like connectivity, artificial intelligence and virtual and augmented reality may not pay off for years," Zuckerberg said at the start of yesterday's call.