Advertising and media are often at the forefront of new technology, and we have already seen augmented reality platforms showing content in the real world and a virtual reality advertising network for brands. Now an artificial intelligence robot, AI-CD?, developed by Japanese advertising and marketing agency McCann Japan, is set to work on providing new creative direction for commercials. The AI will give input on projects, mining and analyzing creative databases of adverts to find the best commercials for products and messages. But the robot is also being treated as somewhat part of the team at McCann, taking the title of "creative director" and attending the opening ceremony for new company employees. McCann Japan CEO Yasuyuki Katagi said: "Artificial intelligence is already being used to create a wide variety of entertainment, including music, movies, and TV drama, so we're very enthusiastic about the potential of AI-CD? The whole company is 100 percent on board to support the development of our AI employee."

Mauro Maggioni has been named the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Data Intensive Computation at Johns Hopkins in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences' Department of Mathematics and the Whiting School of Engineering's Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics. He will join Johns Hopkins from Duke University, where in 2012 he was promoted from assistant professor to full professor of mathematics, electrical and computer engineering, and computer science. Maggioni is the 20th Bloomberg Distinguished Professor appointed across Johns Hopkins. The professorships are supported by a 350 million gift to the university by Johns Hopkins alumnus, philanthropist, and three-term New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. The majority of this gift is dedicated to creating 50 new interdisciplinary professorships, galvanizing people, resources, research, and educational opportunities to address major world problems.

I deal with machine learning and web graphs analysis (mostly in theory). I also work on the development of Big Data products for one of the mobile operators in Russia. It's the first time I write a post, so please, don't judge me too harshly. Nowadays, a lot of people want to develop efficient algorithms and take part in machine learning competitions. So they come to me and ask: "Where to start?".

Last episode, we treated our Decision Tree as a blackbox. In this episode, we'll build one on a real dataset, add code to visualize it, and practice reading it - so you can see how it works under the hood. And hey -- I may have gone a little fast through some parts. Just let me know, I'll slow down. Also: we'll do a Q&A episode down the road, so if anything is unclear, just ask! Subscribe to the Google Developers: http://goo.gl/mQyv5L

Google announced an update to its open-source framework TensorFlow that will now run training process for creating machine learning models over hundreds of machines aligned. According to The Verge, Google opened up its TensorFlow last year for companies that wants to build their own artificial intelligence application using the same open-source library the search engine applies to power everything from photo analytics and automated email replies. Google tried extending its platform to other computer servers by publicly releasing a version that could only run a single machine. Now, Google has updated a new version of TensorFlow with a feature that will enable to run distributed computing across multiple machines at the same time. Engineering leader of TensorFlow Rajat Monga said the reason why TensorFlow's multi-server version was delayed for release because they found it difficult to adapt the open-source software to be usable outside of the highly customized data centers of Google.

Today, there are 4.4 million taxis globally. In 2020 this number is expected to reach 5.5 million. Once the commercialization of autonomous driving kicks in, the taxi market has the potential to double. This would allow for mobility to become a commodity or a service, which could compete with public transport. Similarly, commercial transport will be affected by AI.

E-Commerce has exploded in recent years, with consumers choosing to make many of their purchases online in favor of traveling to brick-and-mortar locations. However, there are many retail sectors where consumers still prefer to buy in-person, even if their pre-purchase research is largely aided by online channels. Apparel is one area that fits this pattern, with consumers wanting to try on sizes, see how the products actually look, and wear them to ensure an adequate level of comfort. In addition, consumers of specialty retailers enjoy the in-store experience due to the knowledgeable sales associates who are able to educate them and guide them towards relevant products and services. For this reason, many retailers have struggled to match the online shopping experience with the traditional brick-and-mortar shopping experience.

The TacoBot Slack integration is the latest step on our journey to make the brand more accessible wherever and whenever our fans want it,

Artificial Intelligence promises to benefit humankind in unprecedented ways. But small states are especially vulnerable to the technology's downside short of strengthening social cohesion and resilience. Artificial intelligence or AI, broadly defined as human-like intelligence and qualities exhibited by machines, has made a huge technological leap since 1956 when the term was first coined. Tech giants like Google and IBM believe that AI will benefit mankind in unprecedented ways. For example, autonomous vehicles are expected to enhance both traffic safety and flow whereas care-bots will aid in areas such as elderly and patient care.

GettyFacebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's 2016 New Years resolution is to create a virtual assistant for his home. Facebook is investing heavily in what many in the tech industry believe to be the next frontier of innovation, artificial intelligence. The largest social network on earth has a division of AI experts it calls FAIR. There's also a separate team called Applied Machine Learning, which focuses on "giving people communication superpowers through AI." Facebook clearly believes that AI is important to the company's future. Its employees are running 50x more AI experiments per day compared to last year.