Editor's Note: Our annual Vator Splash Spring 2016 conference is around the corner on May 12, 2016 at the historic Scottish Rite Center in Oakland. Speakers include Nigel Eccles (CEO & Co-founder, FanDuel), Andy Dunn (Founder & CEO, Bonobos), Mitch Kapor (Founder, Kapor Center for Social Impact); Founders of NextDoor, Handy, TubeMogul; Investors from Khosla Ventures, Javelin Venture Partners, Kapor Capital, Greylock, DFJ, IDG, IVP and more. Chris Dixon, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), announced this week that his firm has led a 3.1 million round in Comma.ai, a scrappy startup developing self-driving technology using artificial intelligence. The most fascinating thing about this new funding is that the person behind Comma has nothing to do with Apple, Google, General Motors (GM), Lyft, Tesla, Uber, or any of the other big-name technology and automotive companies that have typically dominated the self-driving car narrative over the past couple years. Instead, the head of Comma is George Hotz, a hacker who rose to prominence at the age of 17 for becoming the first person to unlock the iPhone so it could be used on any wireless carrier.

We are on the cusp of an exponential shift in machine learning, the ability of a computer to automatically refine its methods and improve its results as it receives more data. For the last couple of years, technology giants such as Google, IBM and Microsoft have been in an arms race to construct artificial neural networks that mimic the human brain. Increased computing power, combined with access to very large data sets and advancements in machine learning algorithms, have augured in this new era. We can expect to see a surge in deep learning startups focused on areas such as speech and object recognition, robotics and finance. In the secretive world of hedge funds a very large artificial intelligence play involved Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund, which launched a six-strong AI unit led by David Ferrucci, who joined the fund at the end of 2012.

Some 2 billion X-rays are performed around the world every year. But the average radiology clinic is understaffed. Radiologists are burdened with a growing workload, allowing little time to comprehensively evaluate images -- leading to misdiagnoses and more serious consequences. Now a Tel Aviv University lab is engineering practical solutions to meet the demands of radiologists. Prof. Hayit Greenspan's Medical Image Processing Lab in the Department of Biomedical Engineering in the TAU Faculty of Engineering has developed a wide variety of tools to facilitate computer-assisted diagnosis of X-rays, CTs and MRIs, freeing radiologists to attend to complex cases that require their full attention and skills.

Jim Scapa has been chairman and CEO of Altair Engineering for 12 years, but he's having difficulty getting others at the Troy, Michigan-based design and development engineering company to grasp the importance of machine learning. "I've suggested using it for a couple of things here recently but got persuaded otherwise," he says. "But I still think I'm right, and I'm really persistent." What Scapa recognizes is that machine learning "leverages the fact that there' s a huge amount of computing available to try to solve problems, predict the future and prescribe solutions." Indeed, Big Data is revolutionizing business, much as the Internet began doing a quarter-century ago, and machine learning is emerging as one of the most important tools for utilizing it.

Scheduling a simple coffee meeting can take days and countless emails to complete, but Dennis Mortensen wants to change all that -- and more. In episode 623 of "This Week in Startups," the founder of x.ai show us his AI assistant, which sets meetings for you like an actual human. He also shares his thoughts on Siri, Echo, the Danish tax system, his vision for x.ai's AI assistants conquering other tasks, and the future of artificial intelligence. Throughout the episode, Jason and Dennis set up a meeting with each other using Amy, the x.ai assistant. After putting Amy to task, Dennis checks out of the email chain, and it's not at all obvious that Jason is talking to an AI.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has reshaped the company since taking over two years ago. Windows is still important, but it's no longer the only platform that matters: Microsoft is releasing software and supporting app development for Apple's iOS, Google's Android, and even its old enemy Linux. The infighting and aggressive dismissal of competitors is mostly gone. And Nadella has embraced cloud computing -- the idea that some customers don't want to run their own technology but would prefer to outsource it -- turning Microsoft into the clear No. 2 in the category after Amazon. We caught up with Nadella fresh off the company's Build conference for developers last week in San Francisco and ahead of the new Envision conference for business leaders, which kicks off Monday in New Orleans. Matt Rosoff: There was a lot of talk last week at Build about chatbots and artificial agents and "conversation as a platform." That idea is not new, right? I think I heard Bill Gates talking about it 15 years ago.

The successful applicant will join a group working on machine learning and artificial intelligence to healthcare and medicine. The proposed project involves the development of techniques for diabetes management, including vital sign feature extraction, semantic management, and temporal data. The postdoctoral fellow will work on an interdisciplinary project funded under H2020 (Patient Empowerment through Predictive PERsonalised decision support - PEPPER - 689810) involving strong interaction with physicians. The university and research group The research, knowledge transfer and innovation activities from the University of Girona is carried out through more than 100 research groups linked to 22 departments and 11 research institutes. There are also chairs, which play an important role to promote the study and research, and other structures such as observatories and laboratories.

New Delhi – April 04, 2016: Infosys Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Infosys, today announced that it will provide a corpus grant worth INR 24 crore over the next three years to the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Delhi to establish the Infosys Center for Artificial Intelligence in its Okhla campus. The center will initially be headed by Dr. Srikanth Saripalli, an expert in robotics and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), currently spending his sabbatical at IIIT-Delhi. The center will facilitate work on both fundamental and applied aspects of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and focus on areas such as, robotics, machine learning, computer vision, AI for software systems, large-scale data analytics, etc. Several faculty members of IIIT-Delhi will be associated with the center, and research will be conducted by PhD scholars, post-docs, students, and visiting researchers. Sudha Murty, Chairperson, Infosys Foundation "Research is the backbone of our national scientific advancements – our collective aspiration. Research requires investments in time and effort. The objective of the Infosys Center for Artificial Intelligence is to facilitate research in Artificial Intelligence that will greatly benefit our society. The team, led by Dr. Saripalli, comprises some of the most skilled research experts. Our endeavor is to facilitate the creative exchange of ideas in collaboration with IIIT-Delhi and the government. We will also provide training opportunities for students and teachers in AI and robotics."

Some 2 billion X-rays are performed around the world every year. But the average radiology clinic is understaffed. Radiologists are burdened with a growing workload, allowing little time to comprehensively evaluate images--leading to misdiagnoses and more serious consequences. Now a Tel Aviv University lab is engineering practical solutions to meet the demands of radiologists. Prof. Hayit Greenspan's Medical Image Processing Lab in the Department of Biomedical Engineering in the TAU Faculty of Engineering has developed a wide variety of tools to facilitate computer-assisted diagnosis of X-rays, CTs and MRIs, freeing radiologists to attend to complex cases that require their full attention and skills.

If you wanted relief from stories about tyre factories and steel plants closing, you could try relaxing with a new 300-page report from Bank of America Merrill Lynch which looks at the likely effects of a robot revolution. But you might not end up reassured. Though it promises robot carers for an ageing population, it also forecasts huge numbers of jobs being wiped out: up to 35% of all workers in the UK and 47% of those in the US, including white-collar jobs, seeing their livelihoods taken away by machines. Haven't we heard all this before, though? From the luddites of the 19th century to print unions protesting in the 1980s about computers, there have always been people fearful about the march of mechanisation.