It turns out GE Digital's acquisition of ServiceMax on Monday and its Meridium buy in September weren't the company's only recent moves to expand its industrial IoT expertise. Two deals for small startups, completed recently and announced on Tuesday, add interesting technologies that should help the company develop new capabilities and help enterprises meet challenges in industrial IoT. Both were announced at GE Digital's Minds Machines conference in San Francisco and didn't come with publicly announced price tags. In mid-October, the company bought Wise.io, a startup that GE says can refine machine-learning algorithms through a process like natural selection. In the industrial world where GE Digital operates, recommendations based on machine learning carry higher stakes than they do on e-commerce sites.

Need help picking a gift? The 2016 holiday is fast approaching. That means one thing: gadget time. These are the TIME technology team's suggestions for everything from stocking stuffers, like Nintendo's NES Classic, to high-end cameras like Fujifilm's X-T2. Our suggestions are sorted by budget, from least to most expensive. We've also included a few lines about why we like each gadget we've picked for the list. Why we like it: They're a pair of neon-orange clip-on plastic extensions that make it easier to take down targets with the current or last-gen PlayStation and Xbox controllers. After using them to play games like Overwatch, Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, we'll never go back. What to know: Purists may consider using these to be cheating. Why we like it: These Bluetooth-powered tags play a little song when prompted, so you can find them if they are within 100 feet of your cellphone. Tile Slim is just the width of two credit cards, letting it slip in a wallet with minimal heft, and Tile Mate is 25% smaller than the original tile -- making it a perfect keychain fob. What to know: Out of range doesn't mean out of luck. Selecting "notify when found" taps the community of Tile owners, anonymously. So, when someone walks past your lost item, their app will detect it and report it to the service, which will reveal its location on your app. Uber Gift Card ($25) Suzanne Darcy for TIME Who's it for: Anyone who lives in an area where Uber is available, especially in cities. Why we like it: It's an easy way to treat a friend or family member to a free ride, since recipients just need to enter the Gift Code in the Payments section of the app. Gift cards are sold in retail chains such as Walmart, Target, and CVS. What to know: Uber gift cards can't be used to make purchases through the company's other services, like UberEATS and UberRUSH. Why we like it: There are plenty of affordable streaming options out there, but the Chromecast makes browsing content as easy as using your smartphone. Since the Chromecast runs compatible apps from your phone on your TV, you don't need to log into apps on your TV or get used to a new interface. What to know: Your phone must be nearby in order to use and control the Chromecast.

Microsoft's continued investment in artificial intelligence and machine learning technology is paying dividends. The company has partnered with OpenAI, a non-profit company founded earlier this year to advance the field of machine intelligence for the benefit of humanity. As part of the deal, announced Tuesday, OpenAI will use Microsoft Azure as its primary cloud provider, an important win for Microsoft as it competes with the likes of Amazon, Google, and IBM to power the next generation of intelligent applications. OpenAI is backed by the likes of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, controversial investor Peter Thiel, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and Y Combinator Partner Jessica Livingston. On top of that, Microsoft also launched a set of cloud services all aimed at furthering intelligent applications. The new Azure Bot Service makes it easier for people to spin up intelligent chat bots in Microsoft's cloud, while Azure Functions lets customers run compute functions without provisioning servers.

This'Digital meets Transport' networking session will open doors to larger brands that are looking to the digital community to implement agile innovation. The session will showcase companies developing disruptive data capture technologies, innovative data-driven applications, artificial intelligence algorithms, cyber-security solutions and open-source payment systems. The event will take place from 14:00-17:00 on Thursday 8th December at the Digital Engineering Test Centre in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London. Up to 16 of the most innovative companies to apply to attend will be invited to meet with established industry brands, for an afternoon of facilitated networking. Nissan: The global automotive business and world-class manufacturer are looking for innovative solutions to gain improvements in cost, quality & delivery performance in a very lean, high volume manufacturing environment.

It's been hard to ignore bots and virtual assistants lately. Google is integrating its Google Assistant into its smartphones, home devices, and Allo messaging service. Amazon's smart-home Echo device is becoming an "unlikely hit" among American households, selling an estimated 3 million devices since its launch in 2014. And, of course, every day sees a new article about a new bot service, smart messaging service, or digital virtual assistant. In the coverage of bots and AI, however, everything seems to bleed together -- AI, chatbots, personal assistants, voice control, and self-driving cars.

Many executives ask me what artificial intelligence can do. They want to know how it will disrupt their industry and how they can use it to reinvent their own companies. But lately the media has sometimes painted an unrealistic picture of the powers of AI. (Perhaps soon it will take over the world!) AI is already transforming web search, advertising, e-commerce, finance, logistics, media, and more. As the founding lead of the Google Brain team, former director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and now overall lead of Baidu's AI team of some 1,200 people, I've been privileged to nurture many of the world's leading AI groups and have built many AI products that are used by hundreds of millions of people. Having seen AI's impact, I can say: AI will transform many industries.

Feature AI are often seen as cold, calculating machines, devoid of any warmth or humanity. One way to make AI more relatable and human-like could be encouraging them to take part in human activities like making music. Using AI is one of the geekiest ways to make tunes, and has been around since the 80s. It's a thriving area of research with dedicated academic conferences. And with the recent boom in machine learning, it also means the quality of music created by AI seems to be getting better too.

GE Digital today announced that it has acquired Wise.io, a machine-learning powered service that helps businesses find patterns and trends in their vast data stores. At first glance, that may seem like an odd acquisition for a company like GE. It's important to keep in mind, though, that with Predix, GE already offers its customers a service that focuses on helping them monitor their equipment, whether that's an industrial tool or an aircraft engine, and predict issues based on the monitoring data. As GE CIO Jim Fowler told me, the company's developers wrote a few hundred different models for lots of different assets in Predix. The service has some rudimentary AI capabilities, but the addition of Wise.io's technology -- which can find patterns on its own -- and its team will allow GE to offer a far more flexible model.

SEATTLE General Electric said on Tuesday it has acquired two tech startups to build its artificial intelligence capability, a move that helps it compete with IBM's Watson product.GE said the acquisitions of Bit Stew Systems and Wise.io will expand its Predix platform for industrial internet applications, which connects big machines such as power plants...

SALT LAKE CITY, UT--(Marketwired - Nov 14, 2016) - SC16 -- To help companies join the AI revolution, NVIDIA today announced a collaboration with Microsoft to accelerate AI in the enterprise. Using the first purpose-built enterprise AI framework optimized to run on NVIDIA Tesla GPUs in Microsoft Azure or on-premises, enterprises now have an AI platform that spans from their data center to Microsoft's cloud. "Every industry has awoken to the potential of AI," said Jen-Hsun Huang, founder and chief executive officer, NVIDIA. "We've worked with Microsoft to create a lightning-fast AI platform that is available from on-premises with our DGX-1 supercomputer to the Microsoft Azure cloud. With Microsoft's global reach, every company around the world can now tap the power of AI to transform their business."