Liberia has lost access to the entire internet in apparent preparation for shutting down the entire internet. Repeated attacks are flooding the country's network with requests and taking it down entirely. That has intermittently knocked the entire web offline, meaning that people can't access any websites or web services. The attacks appear to be a way for hackers to test a variety of ways of attacking internet connections and taking offline. In that way they resemble the attacks launched recently, when hackers brought down many of the world's biggest websites.

Are robots coming to work? Not entirely, but something that is going to be a game changer is about to take over the world of HR. Artificial Intelligence or AI is coming to an HR department near you and maybe sooner than you think. Artificial intelligence is going to do for HR what the car did for transportation. It's going to transform how we look at data, what data is worth considering and help us to interpret the intricacies of big data.

Big things are on the horizon. So what does it mean for the average person? We reported recently on the Insomnobot 3000, a dream come true for anyone who can't seem to get a good night's sleep. This particular Chatbot functions on an SMS level, but you know, if I'm tossing and turning, it's better than nothing. Granted this is only one form of artificial intelligence. But the success of the Insomnobot begs the question: "In the bigger scheme of things, where does this AI journey end?"

Much of the internet appears to have gone down in Turkey. People in the country are having problems accessing much of the internet's biggest websites and services, including Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, Twitter and more. The website Down Detector confirmed problems in the country, particularly in the west. Some have reported that the sites are simply slow, but that it is still possible to access them. Others say they are down entirely.

Ben Dickson is a software engineer and the founder of TechTalks. While machine learning is introducing innovation and change to many sectors, it also is bringing trouble and worries to others. One of the most worrying aspects of emerging machine learning technologies is their invasiveness on user privacy. From rooting out your intimate and embarrassing secrets to imitating you, machine learning is making it hard to not only hide your identity but also keep ownership of it and prevent from being attributed to you words you haven't uttered and actions you haven't taken. Here are some of the technologies that might have been created with good-natured intent, but can also be used for evil deeds when put into the wrong hands.

A company that develops Software as a Service to help consumers navigate health insurance options is rolling out a new solution that uses machine learning and the computing capabilities of IBM Watson. Welltok is offering its Virtual Benefits Agent, developed by its Applied Cognitive Computing Practice. The company says the solution that addresses the majority of health coverage and preventative care questions before they reach a customer service representative, presenting health plans with the potential to save millions of dollars. The Virtual Benefits Agent was created by Welltok's Applied Cognitive Computing Practice, which applies proprietary technologies, IBM Watson and expertise to solve complex healthcare challenges. Recently, the team worked with a major national health plan, building on an existing framework and leveraging available content, to expedite development of the Virtual Benefits Agent capability.

The former belongs to the realm of explanatory models, the latter to the realm of predictive analytics. Explanatory models, often involving linear regression, are concerned with explaining a given phenomenon and finding causal relationships between an output (dependent) variable, and a host, often very few, input (independent) variables. The objective is to find a good regression model that fits the data very well which meets the underlying assumption of linear regression. The emphasis here is on hypothesis testing, p-values, confidence intervals,…Once a good model is found, one can use it for estimating the value of the output variable for given values of the input variables. It is OK to estimate an output value based on interpolation, but one must use extreme caution in estimating output values based on extrapolation because the regression model is an explanatory model, not a predictive one.

Artificial Intelligence is poised to disrupt the entire eCommerce industry. An interesting convergence is taking place; one that will have enormous implications in the way retailers sell their products and services and the way consumers buy them. Artificial Intelligence capabilities and applications are attempting to solve real-world issues that eCommerce industry are facing. How Artificial Intelligence in e-commerce can play an important and game changing role, moving beyond customer segmentation to help them achieve the best possible results? The visual Search engine is one of the most exciting trends of Artificial Intelligence in eCommerce.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Nov 3, 2016) - While many fans dreamed the Chicago Cubs would make it to the World Series, few fans or pundits actually predicted it. But UNU, the world's first Artificial Swarm Intelligence, made a bold set of baseball predictions back in early July, naming all eight teams to make the playoffs and asserting the Cubs would win their first pennant since 1945 and first World Series since 1908. For good measure, UNU also correctly picked the Cubs' opponent, the Cleveland Indians. It was way back at midseason, during the All-Star break, when the Boston Globe challenged Unanimous A.I. to use their UNU system to do something audacious -- predict the full outcome of the 2016 baseball season. Unanimous delivered a set of picks to the Globe, which they published and have been tracking ever since.