Natural language processing (NLP) is quickly becoming one of the foundational big data technologies that will allow healthcare to move forward with complex analytics, according to a series of market reports predicting significant growth for NLP products over the next few years. As healthcare organizations seek new strategies for extracting insights from unstructured data from electronic health records, Internet of Things devices, imaging studies, and elsewhere, they will create an NLP marketplace worth $2.65 billion by 2021, says ReportsnReports. "The market is growing rapidly because of the huge surge in clinical data, increasing use of connected devices, and evolving consumer needs," the report says. Natural language processing may play an instrumental role in precision medicine, predictive analytics, population health management, clinical decision support, and EHR documentation improvement. The NLP market is divided into several segments: interactive voice response and speech analytics technologies, optical character recognition (OCR), automatic coding, text analytics, and pattern and image recognition.

Intel began promoting its first commercial drone in the U.S. this week, as it seeks to carve out a place for itself in the fast-expanding market. The Falcon 8 drone, which was announced two weeks ago, was on show at the Commercial UAV Expo in Las Vegas that opened on Tuesday. Intel has been building its drone expertise throughout the year with a series of acquisitions, and the Falcon 8 has grown out of its January purchase of Germany's Ascend Technologies. The drone has eight rotors arranged in a distinctive V-shape, designed that way so the rotors at the front don't get in the way of a payload, said Natalie Cheung, a drone marketing manager at Intel. "We've really thought about what are some of the issues commercial customers face today and when they want to get that crisp, hi-res image, you don't want any of the rotors in the image," she said. Redundancy is a key feature of the device -- it can continue flying even if up to two rotors on either side stop spinning.

While it's difficult to predict what path the Artificial Intelligence industry will take one thing is for sure - the world's biggest tech giants are investing heavily in this. AI is also taking the banking industry by storm with fin-tech. One of Canada's largest banks, CIBC, just announced a deal to team with AI-enabled lender Borrowell to allow consumers to apply for small loans. Globalive Capital Chairman Anthony Lacavera tracked all of the latest trends at one of the top AI conferences in Toronto titled CDL Machine Learning. He says banks could soon use machine algorithms to measure, for example, which clients could default and when.

Earlier this year, David Kenny, from IBM Watson, took to the SDC Keynote stage to share how they've been working to help people better understand machine, and help machines better understand us. Their APKs take data patterns and turn them into algorithms allowing developers to take those algorithms and turn them into life-changing experiences. Watson developers have created really great experiences – just look back at the TechCrunch Disrupt hackathon winners. Next week, at Watson Developer Conference, hundreds of developers will join industry leading experts like Uber, Slack, Cyber Code Twins and Omni Earth, to talk about best practices in machine learning and cognitive methodology to create knowledge from both internal and external data. This is a MUST ATTEND event for anyone interested in AI.

No human could possibly read the entirety of medical literature, personal health records, and case file histories that might inform a doctor's professional opinion when trying to save a cancer patient's life. Rob Merkel, health care and life sciences lead at IBM Watson, the company's machine learning group, demonstrated the computer system's ability to digest a vast amount of material, weigh alternatives, and spit out possible treatment options for patients on Wednesday. "What we see here are patient cases," said Merkel, standing in front of an open laptop in front of an audience at Fortune's inaugural Brainstorm Health conference in San Diego, Calif. Get Brainstorm Health Daily, Fortune's health and biopharma newsletter. Merkel pulled together a profile for hypothetical person diagnosed with stage 2B breast cancer.

Intel is getting serious about drones, with a string of announcements about unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology. The company is known best for its processors, but the Internet of Things makes computers harder to recognize. While yesterday's computing was done in a heavy rectangular box, today's processing takes place in everyday objects and tiny gadgets. "We see them as flying computers," Anil Nanduri tells ZDNet. He is Vice President and General Manager of Intel's UAV Segment.

Technology predictions for next year are already filtering in, with artificial intelligence and full-blown analytics and other platforms increasingly seen as among the keys to opening the big data floodgates in 2017. Market watcher Forrester forecasts that AI spending will triple next year as companies "convert customer data into personalized experiences." Application drivers include advanced analytics, machine learning and cognitive computing platforms. The AI spending prediction is bolstered by recent investments in emerging machine and deep learning technology developers. For example, U.K. AI chip developer Graphcore emerged from stealth mode this week with a $30 million funding round aimed at advancing its "intelligent processing unit" (IPU) strategy that combines advanced parallel processing with software tools and libraries. The startup's IPU card plugs into PCI buses to boost the performance of x86 servers.

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Credit Pulse" newsletter to their offering. A criminal whose name has been added to a sanction list compiled by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is highly unlikely to use that exact name when opening a bank account. I handle the news around here.

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.