We have seen the likes of Google, Facebook, Amazon and many more come out in open and acknowledge the impact machine learning and deep learning had on their business. Last week, I published top videos on deep learning from 2016. I was blown away by the response. I could understand the response to some degree – I found these videos extremely helpful. So, I decided to do a similar article on top videos on machine learning from 2016.

That was 4 months ago, and at that time I determined my existential purpose in life to be to do everything I can to move the field of artificial intelligence towards general AI. There's a bunch of reasons I want to do this and it's giving me a lot of value and meaning in my life, but that's irrelevant to this thread. I am currently enrolled in university and am majoring in Computer Engineering. I chose this major because it would give me a lot of knowledge in both the hardware and software aspects of computer systems and I think it's overall pretty flexible. At least that's what I've been told.

Only Homo sapiens, of all the descendants of Homo erectus, survived on earth whereas other species such as homo soloensis, homo denisova, Homo neanderthalensis, Homo floresiensis faded away more than 40,000 years ago. What advantages did Homo sapiens possess that helped them to flourish while other species are extinct? Apparently a cognitive revolution (according to Prof. Yuval Harari in his famous book Sapiens) triggered by some kind of genetic mutation provided Homo Species with more cerebral power and thus they acquired an ability not possessed by any other species – ability to imagine things that did not exist. This ability helped them to invent things including powerful communicative languages, religion, tools and more. Does current cognitive revolution ushered under various nomenclatures such as artificial intelligence, cognitive computing etc provide more powers, this time to machines and bring in unprecedented progress to human life? Are public and private institutions geared towards initiating, leading and supporting this change?

Back in the 1990s, when IBM was close to becoming irrelevant as technology moved from mainframes to personal computing, Louis Vincent Gerstner, the then CEO of the over 100-year old company, embarked on a transformational journey. Two decades later, current chief Ginni Rometty is on a similar journey. With new technologies like mobility, cloud and artificial intelligence changing processes and systems, Rometty is in the middle of a transforming IBM to a solutions company. At the centre of her strategy is cognitive computing, which she believes will impact every sphere of our lives. BusinessLine was part of a select media round table where Rometty explained her strategy and how India fits into her scheme of things.

Computer programs' odor predictions are on the nose. Predicting color is easy: Shine a light with a wavelength of 510 nanometers, and most people will say it looks green. Yet figuring out exactly how a particular molecule will smell is much tougher. Now, 22 teams of computer scientists have unveiled a set of algorithms able to predict the odor of different molecules based on their chemical structure. It remains to be seen how broadly useful such programs will be, but one hope is that such algorithms may help fragrancemakers and food producers design new odorants with precisely tailored scents.

Rather than focus on attack signatures, these AI solutions look for anomalous network behavior, flagging when a machine goes rogue or if user activity or traffic patterns appear unusual. "A really simple example is someone with high privilege who attempts to get onto a system at a time of day or night that they never normally log in and potentially from a geolocation or a machine that they don't log in from," said Kelley. Another example would be a "really rapid transfer of a lot of data," especially if that data consists of the "corporate crown jewels." Such red-flags allow admins to quickly catch high-priority malware infections and network compromises before they can cause irreparable damage. IBM calls this kind of machine learning "cognitive with a little'c'" – which the company was already practicing prior to Watson.

It was one of those amazing "we're living in the future" moments. In an October 2013 press release, IBM declared that MD Anderson, the cancer center that is part of the University of Texas, "is using the IBM Watson cognitive computing system for its mission to eradicate cancer." Well, now that future is past. The partnership between IBM and one of the world's top cancer research institutions is falling apart. The project is on hold, MD Anderson confirms, and has been since late last year.

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Analysis If you are reading this article, it's probably that you wonder why to associate intelligence with unmanned cars. After all, it's only codes that programmers from Google, Tesla or Uber or a smaller startup wrote. Even if it were possible to make cars more intelligent, why bother about it? Aren't they already operating quite well with embedded personal computers (PCs)? You might think they are probably using PCs with a beefed-up version of their multicore processors for extra raw processing power.

Those rumors of Apple exploring facial recognition for sign-ins might just have some merit. Calcalist reports that Apple has acquired RealFace, an Israeli startup that developed deep learning-based face authentication technology. The terms of the deal aren't public, but it's estimated at "several million dollars." Cupertino would mainly be interested in the promise of the technology than pure resources, in other words. We've reached out to Apple for comment on the reported deal and will let you know if it has something to add. However, RealFace recently took its website down and left nothing but a skeleton server behind.