Summary: A great story about an AI-powered massive on-line open learning platform focused on STEM education. The platform and its content is to be available across many languages to serve students anywhere in preparing for a better life in STEM careers. If you're from the US you're probably feeling some angst as our K-12 students seem to slip further and further back on STEM studies. Imagine how bad it is in the lesser developed countries where shortages of STEM teachers and basic tech resources make it almost impossible for young people to prepare for a better life through a tech career. Worse still, UNESCO says there are 100 million young people around the world who do not attend school at all.

It's been a year of change in the enterprise software market. SaaS providers are fighting to compete with one another, machine learning is becoming a reality for businesses at a larger scale, and containers are growing in popularity. Here are some of the top trends from 2016 that we'll likely still be talking about next year. As more companies adopt software-as-a-service products like Office 365, Slack and Box, there is increasing pressure for companies that compete with each another to collaborate. After all, nobody wants to be stuck using a service that doesn't work with the other critical systems they have.

Due to Apple's success with a closed-platform solution, many software companies have opted to forgo an open-platform to provide a more consistent user experience, and of course, for the benefit of increased profits. But, when it comes to chatbots, a closed-platform completely defeats the purpose of a chatbot solution. Closed platforms are walled gardens that isolate the chatbot from a world of possibility. A chatbot on a closed platform can never become the ultimate solution because it can't be customized to address the specific problems a company faces. For example, integrating with internally developed software would likely be a lengthy process and at the discretion of the software developer. Any changes or added functionality to the platform have to be reviewed, approved, and implemented by the vendor.

The gold rush for artificial intelligence (AI) is officially in full swing. Big players like Google and Facebook and small teams alike are in an all-out sprint toward the goal of creating the next generation of AI assistants that will fundamentally change how we live and work. I am in awe at the pace of progress, because every week it feels like a new barrier is breached, a tool grows more robust, or a new startup is launched with the ability to transform an industry. However, the most surprising observation continues to be people's underestimation of AI. Specifically how the general population seems so unable, or unwilling, to imagine that a machine could ever match a human's ability in any job -- particularly their own.

Google isn't the only company trying to figure out eye-tracking for virtual reality -- Oculus VR is on the case too. The Facebook-backed VR company has confirmed that it recently acquired Danish startup The Eye Tribe, a firm best known for creating software developer kits that bring gaze-based controls to smartphones, tablets and PCs. Now, that technology belongs to one of the highest profile VR headset makers on the market. Although Oculus was happy to confirm the acquisition, mums the word on details: we don't know how much the company was acquired for, what the Eye Tribe's future is outside of Oculus or when we might see this technology in a future product. Still, the aim of the purchase seems obvious -- The Eye Tribe has been working on a foveated rendering for VR, which increases VR performance by only rendering the part of the simulation the user is directly looking at.

SYS-CON Events announced today that Technologic Systems Inc., an embedded systems solutions company, will exhibit at SYS-CON's @ThingsExpo, which will take place on June 6-8, 2017, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY. Technologic Systems is an embedded systems company with headquarters in Fountain Hills, Arizona. They have been in business for 32 years, helping more than 8,000 OEM customers and building over a hundred COTS products that have never been discontinued. Technologic Systems' product base consists of a wide variety of off-the-shelf PC/104 single board computers, computer-on-modules, touch panel computers, peripherals and industrial controllers. They also offer custom configurations and design services.

Past civilizations built grand libraries to organize the world's knowledge. These repositories of information focused on cataloging, aggregating, organizing and making information accessible so that others could focus on learning and creating new knowledge. AI and machine learning systems also need repositories of information from which to learn -- and right now everyone is building their own. If different groups of people focus on organizing data versus building AI, the progress of intelligent computers will massively accelerate. Despite all the progress in machine learning (ML), most of our computers (and their applications) leave much to be desired.

No, it's Ford's latest self-driving development car, which the company unveiled Wednesday ahead of what's expected to be a crush of autonomous competitors at the CES trade show next week in Las Vegas. That luggage rack and antlers hold state-of-the-art camera and sensor technology that Ford hopes will keep it ahead of the increasingly crowded pack. For instance, compared to the company's prior autonomous research vehicle (going on three years old), the new model has a much faster computer and more powerful LiDAR sensors. The dual LiDAR extend from the sides of the car, mounted on antlerlike arms attached on the A-pillars, above the sideview mirrors. Where the prior research vehicle needed four such sensors, the latest generation needs only two.

The computing industry progresses in two mostly independent cycles: financial and product cycles. There has been a lot of handwringing lately about where we are in the financial cycle. Financial markets get a lot of attention. They tend to fluctuate unpredictably and sometimes wildly. The product cycle by comparison gets relatively little attention, even though it is what actually drives the computing industry forward.

Though it's been around for a few years, voice artificial intelligence systems are slowly becoming a staple of the automated household. While there are still many holdouts, resistance to this technology is fading and more people are buying it to explore the possibilities. Not only do these systems understand your vocal commands, but they also respond and are starting to mimic human speech. Who knew that a talking computer could make things so much easier, but let's see what these products can do and where the technology is heading. Most of these products are "smart speakers."