China's e-commerce giant Alibaba has announced plans to invest more than $15 billion over the next three years in researching emerging technologies including artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Jack Ma, Alibaba's executive chairman, announced his decision to establish the Alibaba DAMO Academy (DAMO stands for Discovery, Adventure, Momentum, and Outlook) on the first day of the company's 2017 Computing Conference, which opened on Wednesday. Ma said the academy will do research aimed at "solving problems" related to the Internet of things, fintech, quantum computing, and AI. It will open seven research labs in China, the U.S., Russia, Israel, and Singapore. Chinese tech companies are increasingly looking to invest in cutting-edge research, especially artificial intelligence (see "China's AI Awakening").

I was about to plug my new Google Home Mini into the wall outlet this weekend when I froze. What kind of a commitment was I about to make? Google had handed out freebies of its puck-sized, fabric-coated gizmo at a press event last week. It seemed like a good, low-risk opportunity to dip my toes in the home voice-assistant waters. Scott Rosenberg is an editor at Backchannel.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If that's true, Amazon must be tickled pink right now. The obvious inspiration for last year's Google Home was the Amazon Echo, and it's just as obvious that the new Google Home Mini is taking cues from the Echo Dot. To be fair, it's a logical strategy: by packaging all of Alexa's features into a smaller and cheaper package, Amazon expanded the Echo ecosystem and made it easier to blanket your house with voice-activated assistants. Google is now doing the same, right down to the price. The $49 Home Mini does almost everything the larger Home does, at a price that makes the idea of buying three or four to place around the house a lot more palatable.

Google's Assistant app is capable of lots of things, but before today, controlling a cast session by voice wasn't really possible. Android Police reports that now the mobile app can do so, and you can even specify which Chromecast in your house is the target. Adjusting the volume, skipping or repeating tracks and tasking Assistant to play Urfaust's latest on your Chromecast Audio while you beam a Minecraft video to the kids' room all can be done with a simple voice command now -- and all without a Google Home. On our iPhone with the Assistant app it worked as you'd expect, but Android Police says its devices weren't working just yet; the publication received tips from readers about the functionality prior. Are you having any luck?

We've introduced machine learning concepts and approaches in some of our earlier blog posts, we've also discussed how some of these can be applied to your business to drive business efficiencies and to identify actionable data. Inc.com offers a quick read to bring you up to date. In this post, we look ahead throughout the remainder of 2017, highlight trends that we're noticing and what 2018 may bring from a machine learning perspective. Some of the key topics we'll cover include: In the past, chatbots were often implemented as crude Q and A mechanisms that identified specific phrases or keywords and returned a specific response. They had limited use and weren't very flexible.

But I encountered a significant difference using Google Home devices to control my Vivint Smart Home system compared to Amazon's Echo. When I say "OK Google, turn on my kitchen lights," the Google Assistant responds "OK, here's Vivint." He said if Vivint were to choose the other method, which would allow the Google Assistant to control the home more directly, Vivint would need to allow Google to access the state of the home on a full-time basis. I was told it explains how Google's smart home API works for third parties that integrate directly.

For a device that was at the forefront of the home streaming revolution, Apple TV has always been a bit behind the times. The first generation required a computer to stream content. Third-party app support didn't arrive until the fourth generation. And it's only the most recent model that embraces the most popular video standards. It would be easy to dismiss Apple TV 4K as a me-too release.

Gartner released its Top Strategic Predictions for 2018 and beyond on 29th September. I heaved a sigh of relief when I saw that one of the predictions by my esteemed colleagues read, "By 2021, early adopter brands that redesign their websites to support visual and voice search will increase digital commerce revenue by 30%." It goes on further to predict that "by 2019, half of major commerce companies and retailers with online stores will have redesigned their commerce sites to accommodate voice searches and voice navigation."Phew. This ties in perfectly with my research note, How to Exploit Conversational AI to Drive Digital Commerce, which I feared was running too far ahead of the digital commerce clients I was voicing out to since early August . Often, the conversations were met with skepticism from business unit leaders who were far too concerned about day-to-day commerce operations.

What changes will AI bring to your sales team? Do we really need this technology to navigate today's market? Artificial Intelligence (AI) typifies the love-hate relationship that many people have with technology. They love the ease of using voice-controlled assistants like Siri and Alexa, but they don't fully trust whatever is making it work. They have no problem with using chatbots and self-checkout lanes, but they baulk at the idea of "robots" taking human jobs.

Investment has been growing in AI, and this is expected to grow by around 300% throughout the rest of this year. A third of the world's population is using Social Media, and AI is playing a huge part in how businesses are communicating with potential prospects online. Talking about the social media platforms, more than 2.5 billion people are already using various social media platforms as per the statistic. This is nearly a 1/3 population of the whole planet. The artificial intelligence has a long way to go; however, it's thriving in a very quick pace.