About three weeks ago, I was in a Pittsburgh casino for the beginning of a 20-day man-versus-machine poker battle. Four top human pros were beginning to take on a state-of-the-art artificial intelligence program running on a brand new supercomputer in a game called heads-up no-limit Texas Hold'em. The humans' spirits were high as they played during the day and dissected the bot's strategy over short ribs and glasses of wine late into the evening. On Monday evening, however, the match ended and the human pros were in the hole about $1.8 million. For some context, the players (four men and the machine, named Libratus) began each of the 120,000 hands with $20,000 in play money, and posted blinds of $50 and $100.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is conquering the world. At the center of networking the devices are Big Data, which brings in one of the challenges to IoT. It is becoming increasingly important to process data as early as possible. "The amount of data related to the Internet of Things is enormous – they have to be filtered. A processing directly in the device is already often more efficient. To achieve this, new analytics solutions are needed ", said Dr. Joachim Schaper, the Vice President & Head of AGT International, a pioneer in IoT and Social data management, Big Data integration and advanced analytics.

Email marketing of the future is exciting and fuelled by innovation, and for business willing to adapt, the opportunities are enormous. Here's a sneak peek at some of the changes email marketing is set to undergo. Chatbots are essentially artificial intelligence-powered software designed to streamline complex predefined tasks without the need for a human to be involved directly. They're also revolutionising the way email marketing is being carried out. Think of Siri, which is probably the most famous bot of all.

Years ago I had coffee with a friend who ran a startup. He had just turned 40. His father was ill, his back was sore, and he found himself overwhelmed by life. "Don't laugh at me," he said, "but I was counting on the singularity." My friend worked in technology; he'd seen the changes that faster microprocessors and networks had wrought. It wasn't that much of a step for him to believe that before he was beset by middle age, the intelligence of machines would exceed that of humans--a moment that futurists call the singularity.

One month into the New Year, now is a good time for every chief human resource officer and his/her team to take stock of the big bets they should be making in 2017. After a tumultuous 2016 on this front, we're seeing stronger interest from CEOs and CHROs in clearly expressing their company's brand purpose and values, especially to establish a stronger connection with talent and customers. When evaluating a potential employer, job candidates cite "culture and values" as their most important consideration, according to the latest LinkedIn Global Recruiting Trends Report. "Mission and vision" is the third most important consideration. Given the CHRO's role as the top HR leader, he or she plays a crucial part in articulating what it means to work for your organization, and why talented people should commit to it over other organizations.

From left, Dr Michael Tompsett (UK), Professor Eric Fossum (USA) and Professor Nobukazu Teranishi (Japan) are announced as the winners of the 2017 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering at Carlton House Terrace on Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2017 in London. Taking a selfie is one of the easiest and quickest things you can do on your smartphone. But as with any landmark invention, it took decades and plenty of graft to develop the camera technology that lives in your pocket. A trio of engineers behind the invention of the image-sensing technology found in billions of smartphones, camera phones, PCs and hospital scanning technology, won the £1 million ($1.3 million) Queen Elizabeth Prize for engineering on Wednesday, and spoke about where the image-sensor technology they developed should go in the future. "I feel gobsmacked and very thankful to the Queen Elizabeth prize for this honor," said one of the engineers, Eric Fossum.

Remember all the buzz around "Big Data" just 5 years ago? It was all the rage in the tech industry and you could barely read an industry article or interact with a tech vendor without a reference to "Big Data". That early hype eventually led to a maturing market and big data is now a proven reality with IDC forecasting sales to reach $187 billion by 2019. That's quite a staggering amount especially when you compare it to Gartner's estimate of the Business Intelligence and Analytics market being $16.9 billion in 2016. Nowadays, there's a whole new set of technology trends which are dominating the technology landscape similar to the way big data dominated things just a few years ago.

Recently, I've been learning about Gradient Descent. It's a really beautiful algorithm that helps find the optimal solution to a function, and forms the foundations of how we train intelligent systems today. It's based off a very simple idea -- rather than figuring out the best solution to a problem immediately, it guesses an initial solution and steps it in a direction that's closer to a better solution. The algorithm is to repeat this procedure, until the solution is good enough. My theory is that this is the way we humans work.

SYS-CON Events announced today that SD Times BZ Media has been named "Media Sponsor" of SYS-CON's 20th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 6-8, 2017, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY. BZ Media LLC is a high-tech media company that produces technical conferences and expositions, and publishes a magazine, newsletters and websites in the software development, SharePoint, mobile development and commercial UAV markets. All major researchers estimate there will be tens of billions devices - computers, smartphones, tablets, and sensors - connected to the Internet by 2020. This number will continue to grow at a rapid pace for the next several decades. With major technology companies and startups seriously embracing Cloud strategies, now is the perfect time to attend @CloudExpo @ThingsExpo, June 6-8, 2017, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY and October 31 - November 2, 2017, Santa Clara Convention Center, CA.

The Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (CFI) invites applications for a postdoctoral Research Associate for the project'Policy, Responsible Innovation and the Future of AI'. The appointment will be for 3 years, and is based in Cambridge. CFI is an exciting new interdisciplinary research centre addressing the challenges and opportunities posed by artificial intelligence (AI). Funded by the Leverhulme Trust, CFI is based at the University of Cambridge, with partners in the University of Oxford, Imperial College, and UC Berkeley, and close links with industry partners and policymakers. This project examines the prospects for a robust safety and benefits culture within the AI industry, in anticipation of the development of increasingly powerful AI systems that will present ever-greater real-world opportunities and challenges.