Customer service can be frustrating for consumers, expensive for businesses, and time-consuming for both. But emerging technologies on the cusp of wide adoption--including augmented reality, the Internet of Things, and AI-powered virtual assistants--offer the potential to transform the customer experience while reducing cost. Demonstrations at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco provide a glimpse of where things are heading. In one example, a Wi-Fi-enabled Yamaha dirt bike showed how augmented reality could reshape the way field service technicians and owners work on machines. The motorbike essentially operates as an IoT device on wheels, uploading health and status information daily that is integrated into Oracle Service Cloud. A smartphone application from IoT specialist ThingWorx recognizes the bike and presents the user with a variety of information options superimposed on the bike's real-life image.

A couple who met on a dating website have gone on trial accused of plotting a terror attack using a homemade bomb. Munir Mohammed, 36, of Leopold Street, Derby, allegedly volunteered for a "new job in the UK", via Facebook with a man he believed was an IS commander. The Old Bailey heard he met pharmacist Rowaida El-Hassan, 33, of Willesden Lane, north-west London, online and she provided chemical expertise. Both deny the charge of preparing terrorist acts. At the time of his arrest in December, Mr Mohammed had two of the three elements of explosives, the jury was told.

Ken Jennings holds the record for the longest winning streak on the TV game show Jeopardy! Jennings' historic string of wins resulted in total cash winnings of $2,520,700. His breadth of knowledge (and in some cases, timely wagers) made him one of the best, if not the best, contestants to ever play Jeopardy! His success may only be second to Brad Rutter, winner of 19 regular season and tournament games of Jeopardy! On February 14th, 2011, both Rutter and Jennings were introduced to their greatest trivia opponent: Watson, an IBM supercomputer equipped with cognitive computing capability.

Earlier this month, the toy-giant Mattel announced it had pulled the plug on plans to sell an interactive gadget for children. The device, called Aristotle, looked similar to a baby monitor with a camera. Powered by artificial intelligence, Aristotle could get to know your child -- at least that was how the device was being pitched. "Aristotle is designed to comfort, entertain, teach and assist," according to a company release issued in January. It was designed to "displace essential parenting functions, like soothing a crying baby or reading a bedtime story," says Josh Golin, executive director of the advocacy group Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood.

TensorRec is a Python recommendation system that allows you to quickly develop recommendation algorithms and customize them using TensorFlow. TensorRec lets you to customize your recommendation system's embedding functions and loss functions while TensorRec handles the data manipulation and scoring to generate recommendations. It uses this data to learn to make and rank recommendations. For more information, and for an outline of this project, please read this blog post. The following examples show what user/item features and interactions would look like in a TensorRec system meant to recommend business consulting projects (items) to consultants (users).

Recommendation systems occupy an expanding role in everyday decision making, from choice of movies and household goods to consequential medical and legal decisions. The data used to train and test these systems is algorithmically confounded in that it is the result of a feedback loop between human choices and an existing algorithmic recommendation system. Using simulations, we demonstrate that algorithmic confounding can disadvantage algorithms in training, bias held-out evaluation, and amplify homogenization of user behavior without gains in utility.

Toyota is very invested in love. The automaker has a central philosophy of making vehicles that inspire'Aisha,' a concept that literally means "beloved car" in Japanese. But the nature of'Aisha' is changing, necessarily, just at the nature of automobiles themselves are fundamentally changing as we usher in automated and semi-autonomous driving. The key to making'Aisha' work in this new era, Toyota believes, lies in using artificial intelligence to broaden its definition, and to transform cars from something that people are merely interested in and passionate about, into something that people can actually bond with – and even come to think of as a partner. To create a bond between a person and a car that's more than just skin (or topcoat) deep, Toyota believes that learning and understanding drivers, combined with automated driving, and an AI agent that's more companion than virtual assistant, is key.

While we may not always be aware of it, artificial intelligence (AI) is deeply engrained in our everyday lives. From Apple's Siri to Amazon's Alexa, and from Netflix recommendations to Google search predictions, AI is everywhere. But this is just the beginning. AI and its role in our lives will continue to grow, profoundly changing the human experience. The need to manage a personalised, contextual and intuitive engagement journey is greater than ever.

Our overall winner in the category was, perhaps unsurprisingly, Google Assistant. It answered more questions correctly than either Siri or Alexa, as well as generally giving context and often citing a source website for the information. Given that it's backed by Google's powerful search technology, that's to be expected. It fell down only on a couple of questions: It couldn't tell me when the next episode of Arrow aired (though it could interpret that as a TV listing); it gave me departure time for an upcoming flight even though I asked for the arrival time; and in a question about the American League Championship Series, it gave me recent scores, but not the overall standing of the series. However, it was the only one that could tell me how long chicken stays good in the fridge; gave me detailed information about the distance to Jupiter; and correctly identified what most scholars believe to be Shakespeare's first play.

The Google Pixel 2 smartphone relies on artificial intelligence, not cutting-edge specs, to make its sales pitch to customers. Way back in 1965, Intel cofounder Gordon Moore predicted that computers would get twice as powerful every two years -- a prediction which has mostly come true, and is now enshrined as "Moore's Law." However, many, including Moore himself, now believe Moore's Law is screeching to a halt. It's going to mean a huge shift for the technology industry. "To be honest, it's going to be tougher and tougher for people to develop new and exciting products every year," said Google hardware boss Rich Osterloh, on stage at the company's recent Pixel 2 phone launch event.