Technology consultant and software developer Prakelt has announced that its new chatbot, Feersum Engine, is ready to start talking using WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and other established messaging platforms to interact with end users in a way that feels familiar and comfortable. Feersum Engine is a chatbot that can engage people in conversation using natural language processing and machine learning. Tipped for exponential growth, chatbots and conversational interfaces are already being adopted by many banks and financial services around the world, and their applications are becoming more varied as designers better understand the technology. Streamlining interaction Locally-built Feersum Engine brings artificial intelligence and conversational interaction to large audiences for customer support, brand marketing or public service outreach. One use case for Feersum Engine, for example, is to cut down the number of simple to answer requests that overwhelm support and service agents, and is claimed to be its flexible enough to work in any environment from product support to government healthcare initiatives.

TEDxMontreal, which had Perspectives as its theme in 2016, aims to stimulate curiosity by showcasing a diversity of viewpoints from the Montreal community. It is among the TEDx program of self-organized events, designed to bring a TED-like experience to local cities. This year, the conference was held on Nov. 12 at Espace DCMTL, located in Parc-Extension. This neighbourhood is away from the spotlight of downtown, and was chosen to represent the uncovering of underground ideas and culture in Montreal. Created in 2008, TEDx is a global event in which communities worldwide self-organize day-long TED conferences, all with a common mission to foster innovation and spread ideas.

Artificial intelligence (AI) can become a game changer for Vietnamese technology startups, say experts, as they are betting big on the potential to deploy chatbots and image recognition to deep learning in the country. "AI can be integrated into many verticals because the ultimate purpose of AI is to assist, or even to replace, human efforts in doing things in a more effective way," Nghiem Xuan Bach, project director at Cinnamon AI Lab, told DEALSTREETASIA. Consider some of the recent developments in this space: Cyberagent Ventures-backed healthcare app ViCare is applying AI technology, with a chatbot to solve users' queries. It is reportedly the first chatbot to be launched in Vietnam. Users interact with the bot through Facebook Messenger to ask for information about clinic facilities, doctor identity and remedies, as ViCare claims to have a database of over 21,000 healthcare facilities and 22,000 doctors across the country.

Amazon Web Services is reportedly launching its own artificial intelligence service to tie into its cloud offerings, according to The Information, citing sources close to Amazon. AWS is just the latest among major cloud providers looking to integrate deep learning technology into cloud offerings, recognizing the potential it has to improve businesses. Colin Sebastian, an analyst for R.W. Baird, recently said he believes Google's machine learning and AI efforts give it an edge over Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services in the enterprise. "Google would ultimately be able to differentiate its enterprise offering from competitors by leveraging advanced ML capabilities and monetize ML through a range of business services," said Sebastian Last week, Google announced it's creating a new Google Cloud Machine Learning group that will focus on delivering cloud-based machine learning solutions to businesses. The group will be led by prominent machine intelligence researchers Fei-Fei Li and Jia Li.

We are at an incredible moment in technology history. Thanks to cloud computing power, more advanced algorithms and the availability of massive amounts of data, the artificial intelligence (AI) field has exploded – allowing computer scientists to create technology many of us only dreamed about just a few years ago. Using deep learning, computers today can recognize the words in a conversation about as well as a person does and provide real-time translation. Thanks to advances in fields such as reinforcement learning, we are making tangible progress in the effort to build systems that have true artificial intelligence. At Microsoft, we believe everyone deserves to be able to take advantage of these breakthroughs, in both their work and personal lives.

While AI is getting powerful very quickly, and more and more jobs are threatened with automation, we are not yet at the point of science fiction where we are communicating as equals with robots. Sure, some robots already understand the concepts of trust and regret, but machines can't yet think, reason, or communicate at an advanced level. Microsoft's Tay Bot--which tried to learn humanity from reading Twitter and quickly became an angry racist--serves as a clear example of the limitations of today's technology. She can can give you the weather forecast for your zip code but can't describe her feelings on mass incarceration or even comb through the fine print of that contract you've been asked to sign. Teaching machines to think, and behave, more like us is what Mo Musbah and the team at Maluuba are working on.

One apparently innocuous video can break your phone. The new video is exploiting a bug that can lead to phone's gradually slowing down until they crash. The trick – being sold as a prank – is next to impossible to avoid and people who are experiencing it might not even be aware of the fact. The video only lasts three seconds and is being shared on an app called Miaopai. But people might not know that before being subject to the attack, because all that needs to happen is someone clicks on an otherwise innocuous-looking link.

Small drones are already effective weapons for urban warfare--when armed with miniature warheads, these stealthy spies can turn into lethal assassins. So far their biggest limitation is battery life, but Boeing's patent for a drone battle station sets out to overcome that. The aerospace giant's'Vehicle Base Station' resembles Amazon's proposed recharging stations on street lights, but with a different mission. John Vian, a research fellow at Boeing, says the station's main applications are likely to be civil and commercial--used for firefighting and search-and-rescue, for example--but the patent has a decidedly military slant. "The unmanned aerial vehicles may monitor for undesired activity… [which] may be the placement of an improvised explosive device in roadway."

The Lovie Awards were privileged to honour Yann LeCun with the 2016 Lovie Lifetime Achievement Award for his work as a pioneer in the creation of neural networks. LeCun's contributions to the science of machine learning, mobile robotics and computational neuroscience among other learned fields, is legendary. As a founder of Neural Nets, LeCun applied biological methods of perception to computer processors. Currently continuing his forward-thinking work as the Head of Artificial Intelligence at Facebook, LeCun is poised to see his genius bear inventive innovations to the social media platform that will affect a global user base. As he continues to inform and experiment with the future of mediums such as the incredibly fast-growing arena of machine learning, LeCun's work will only improve upon the already impressive technologies he has brought to fruition.

The latest Google drones have just started taking flight in the real world. But the team behind the technology is slowing down, trimming headcount and shelving initiatives as the experimental unit becomes the latest target of tightening budgets across parent company Alphabet Inc. Project Wing, a unit of Alphabet's X research lab, nixed a partnership with coffee giant Starbucks Corp., according to people familiar with the decision. Following the departure of project leader Dave Vos in October, the unit also froze hiring and began asking some staff to seek jobs elsewhere in the company, according to some of those people. They asked not to be identified speaking about private company moves. The decisions are part of a broader Alphabet effort to rein in spending and try to turn more experimental projects from loss-making risky bets into real businesses.