While it may feel novel to mess around with a customer service chatbot, there may come a day in the future where artificial intelligence, or AI, is the primary way you interact with companies. That's one of the big trends outlined in IT consulting firm Accenture's report, out today, on the technology that will change businesses in the next three years. Once tech like AI filters through the powers that be, it may very well land right in front of you, the consumer. Accenture surveyed more than 5,400 business and IT executives. And yes, AI and other technologies are on their minds.

Researchers at Stanford University have created an AI algorithm that can identify skin cancer as well as a professional doctor. The program was trained on nearly 130,000 images of moles, rashes, and lesions using a technique known as deep learning. It was then tested head-to-head against 21 human dermatologists, where its creators say it performed with an accuracy on par with humans ("at least" 91 percent as good). In the future, they suggest it could be used to create a mobile app for spotting skin cancer at home. Each year in the United States, some 5.4 million new cases of skin cancer are diagnosed.

There was no shortage of gadgets at CES, and there will be no shortage at Toy Fair next month, of robots and gadgets promising artificial intelligence -- and generally falling short. But a more modest approach from an actual AI researcher has produced a clever and accessible way to create lifelike behavior through a simple and elegant modification of a popular existing robot. The kit is called bots_alive, and it's looking for a mere $15,000 on Kickstarter. I talked with creator Brad Knox about the tech at CES, and came away pleased with the simplicity of the design at a time when overbearing, talking, dancing robot toys seem to be the norm. It works like this: you start with a Hexbug Spider, a remote control legged toy robot you can buy for $25. They're normally operated with a tiny infrared controller.

Sky is going to let people watch all of its TV channels without a satellite dish for the first time ever. The company is going to let people watch its full TV service through broadband instead of installing an entire satellite dish on their house. The move is apparently an attempt to stop the rate of "churn" at Sky – how many people join the service and then leave. The announcement came as Sky revealed surging numbers of people leaving to competitors like BT – up to 11.6 per cent from 10.2 per cent last year. Those same results showed a 9 per cent fall in earnings because of the increased price of football rights.

Windows 7 turns eight this year. It's as old as the iPhone 3GS, yet it remains the most popular flavor of Windows by far. Microsoft has updated Windows twice since then, but Windows 7 runs on roughly twice as many machines across the globe as Windows 10, the most recent version of the venerable OS. Here in the US, Windows 10 usage recently surpassed that of Windows 7, but Microsoft wants it running on every Windows machine. That's because the company calls it "the last version of Windows," a code base designed to be improved and augmented, not replaced.

One of the big topics that was discussed in financial technology (fintech) circles at length in 2016 ― and will continue to be discussed at even greater length as we enter 2017 ― is artificial intelligence (AI). Machine learning is emerging as the field within AI that is seeing the most amount of real-world applications and use cases among financial institutions, especially in the area of fraud. Take, for example, a historic event that unfolded in March 2016 that demonstrated the power of machine learning: the victory of program AlphaGo of Google DeepMind over professional gamer Lee Se-dol. This exciting technological breakthrough demonstrates how far AI has come, even in just the past year, and how it is now able to catch humans out. It's true, though, that the idea of computers learning autonomously has been around for decades.

Technology has transformed the way we communicate. From the early telegrams through to email, social media and smart phones, it has been an area of life that has been constantly evolving. Now, a Catz Fellow is pioneering a new method of interaction in the form of semi-autonomous telepresence robots. Shimon Whiteson, Associate Professor, Fellow and Tutor in Computer Science is the scientific coordinator for the TERESA project which has developed'socially intelligent' telepresence robots, which allow people to interact with others without being there physically. In telepresence systems, a human controller remotely interacts with people by guiding a remotely located robot, allowing the controller to be more physically present than with standard teleconferencing.

Earlier this morning, our CEO - Josh Ziegler, spoke with Dan Murphy on CNBC about artificial intelligence, chatbots, and IBM Watson in relation to how ZUMATA is using these technologies to assist our clients and partners like Expedia, Amadeus, DHISCO, and Paytm.

Smart machines and digitalization will boost rather than cut employment -- but people must get used to constant retraining to keep pace with change, the development chief of German software giant SAP tells Handelsblatt. SAP is the world's biggest supplier of business software and is shifting its business model towards cloud computing services. People are too negative about digitalization and artificial intelligence and should embrace new technologies as job creators rather than job killers, Bernd Leukert, the head of development at German business software giant SAP told Handelsblatt at the Davos World Economic Forum last week. Mr. Leukert, 49, who has worked at SAP since 1994 and joined the management board in 2014, said the German education system, the government and firms weren't doing enough to prepare people for a future in which there will be a constant need for new job training. "I think there's there's too much talk of negative scenarios in the discussion about digitalization and new technologies," he said.