Competition Aims to Improve Early Detection of Lung Cancer: Low-dose computed tomography (CT) scans can reduce lung cancer deaths by 20 percent, as demonstrated in National Cancer Institute (NCI) sponsored screening trials. This reduction would save more lives each year than any cancer-screening test in history. However, there are significant challenges as low-dose CT scans have a high false-positive rate, creating patient anxiety and potentially leading to costly and unnecessary diagnostic work like invasive biopsies that put patients at risk for collapsed lungs and other complications. Reducing the false positive rate is a critical step in making these scans available to more patients. Participants Will Use Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to Scan Lung Images: Using a data set of anonymized high-resolution lung scans provided by the Cancer Imaging Program of the National Cancer Institute, Data Science Bowl participants will develop artificial intelligence algorithms that accurately determine when lesions in the lungs are cancerous, and thereby dramatically decrease the false positive rate of current low-dose CT technology.

As the World Economic Forum unraveled last week in Davos, Switzerland, many leaders highlighted areas of future growth and how to shape the global economy – to promote an economy that will only serve to help improve our lives. Ginni Rometty, CEO of IBM, was also there discussing how IBM can contribute to this starting with artificial intelligence – or augmented intelligence/cognitive as we say at IBM. Why does IBM choose to use "augmented intelligence" or "cognitive" over "artificial intelligence"? What we've witnessed during each of these stages is some form of mechanics or machinery developed to augment our performance, thereby improving our outcome. The world has a lot of opportunity to gain and make our lives better with augmented intelligence – it'll make our lives far smoother and more enjoyable.

In a report by World Economic Forum, over 5 million jobs will be lost as a result of developments in artificial intelligence, genetic, robotics and other technological changes, this is expected to happen in near future which is 2020. According to WEF founder Klaus Schwab and managing board member Richard Samans, it is projected that about 7 million jobs will be lost and 2 million gained as a result of changes in technological advancement in 15 major developed and emerging economics. The findings are taken from a survey of 15 economies covering about 1.9 billion workers, or about 65 percent of the world's total workforce.

In 2014, Professor Hawking warned that: The development of (true) artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race, (Cellan-Jones, Technology correspondent, BBC). In a follow up later this month, he is again reported as saying that artificial intelligence could be humanity's greatest disaster

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the biggest technology marketing story of 2017. Siri, the voice that lives in our pockets, is a product of AI; films recommended to us on Netflix are brought to our consciousness by AI; even food we order from Just Eat is delivered through a process involving AI. Now customer insights can be driven by it. And yet, other than a select few, how many marketers in the B2B industry can confidently say they know much about it? If you are one of those few, please bear with this brief overview.

In 2011, 'supercomputer' Watson beat human contestants in a quiz game show Jeopardy!, sparking speculation on whether machines would one day replace human beings in the workforce. In the last six years, Watson has come a long way. It is now a cognitive technology platform that uses natural language processing and machine learning to reveal insights from unstructured data. For example, it can assist doctors by recommending possible diagnosis and lines of treatment. Sriram Raghavan, Director of India Research Labs, IBM, spoke recently on the rapidly evolving cognitive technology, and how it is being applied in different areas.

Earlier this month we had CES 2017 in Las Vegas, a techie's mecca of new whiz-bang products set to hit the market, in some cases later this year, but in others in 2018 and beyond. A person tracking the CES trade shows over the years likely remembers the changes in inputs from clunky keyboards and standalone number pads to rollerball driven mice to laser based ones, which gave way to trackpads and touchscreen technology. Among the sea of announcements this year, there were a number that focused on one aspect of our Disruptive Technology investing theme that is shaping up to be the next big change in interface technology -- voice recognition technology. Over the years, there have been a number of fits and starts with voice technology dating all the way back to 1992 when Apple's own "Casper" voice recognition system that then CEO John Sculley debuted on "Good Morning America." As the years have gone by and the technology has been further refined, we've seen more uses for voice recognition technology in a variety of applications and environments ranging from medical offices to interacting with a car's infotainment system.

Corporate venture capital (CVC) is an investment by a corporate (fund) into external startups in order to make a financial return or to gain a competitive advantage. CVC is a polarizing subject and opinions are divided. Fred Wilson from Union Square Ventures believes that it's evil and corporates should not invest in startups but simply buy them. While Marc Andreessen from Andreessen Horowitz on the other hand is co-investing with corporations such as General Electric. Whatever the opinions are, fact is that CVC is on the rise, also in the old continent.

Have you ever spent time at work looking at something on your monitor that isn't work related? Afraid your boss might catch you? A programmer with the same problem built Boss Sensor, a system that uses deep learning AI to switch your screen to something work-related when your boss is near. Hiroki Nakayama explains Boss Sensor in a post on the blog Ahogrammer. First, he trained a convolutional neural network (CNN) to recognize his boss's face.

He enrolled in the NYC Data Science Academy 12-week full time Data Science Bootcamp program taking place between July 5th to September 23rd, 2016. This post is based on their third project - Web Scraping, due on 6th week of the program. The original article can be found here. The eBook business is thriving. The likes of Amazon Kindle, Apple iBookstore, and Google eBookstore all provide a robust variety of channels by which to publish any eBook on any subject you could think of.