As technology advances, it's becoming more and more difficult to differentiate science from science fiction. Today, Doctors are equipped with advanced tools and technologies to diagnose, monitor and treat more health conditions than ever before. Moreover, the pace of healthcare IT advancements shows no sign of slowing. Technologies like Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning will have a significant impact on health outcomes in 2017 as it helps mine and analyze vast amounts of healthcare data. Recently, Quest Diagnostics and Watson declared a partnership called IBM Watson Genomics that combines genomic sequencing and cognitive computing to offer more precise treatments for cancer.

Recent advances in voice recognition technology, in the form of virtual assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Cortana, are revolutionizing the way that humans interact with machines. But while Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have produced some of the most popular general speech recognition software available, it doesn't mean that smaller companies can't compete. A new voice AI platform called Voysis, headed by Ian Hodson, Google's former head of global text to speech efforts--responsible for powering things like Google Assistant, Google Maps, and Android apps--is giving enterprises an option for customizable voice recognition software to fit specific needs. With the huge advances in voice recognition technology, Hodson said he sees fewer challenges to customer acceptance than there were 15 years ago.

Recent advances in voice recognition technology, in the form of virtual assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Cortana, are revolutionizing the way that humans interact with machines. But while Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have produced some of the most popular general speech recognition software available, it doesn't mean that smaller companies can't compete. A new voice AI platform called Voysis, headed by Ian Hodson, Google's former head of global text to speech efforts--responsible for powering things like Google Assistant, Google Maps, and Android apps--is giving enterprises an option for customizable voice recognition software to fit specific needs. Using Alexa, for instance, which is trained on general speech, makes it "difficult to get those tailored in a very good way to another entity's product line or intentions," said Hodson. "A furniture store might have 10,000 items in your inventory, but it's a very specific set of items and with specific pronunciations, descriptions and spellings."

Apple is consciously avoiding direct competition with its obvious rivals.Don't compare Apple's HomePod to Amazon's Echo When Apple unveiled the HomePod at WWDC, it was tempting to draw immediate comparisons to the Amazon Echo and Google Home -- a lot of us did. If anything, Apple is consciously avoiding direct competition with Echo-like speakers -- it's playing up audio quality while downplaying the whole Siri part. The first episode is free.Apple Music's'Planet of the Apps' reality show debuts tonight Apple debuted its new original TV show last night. They could become a source of clean energy in the future.Researchers create hydrogen fuel with artificial photosynthesis Scientists all over the world have been attempting to recreate photosynthesis in the lab in hopes of being able to mimic the process to create fuel.

Federighi announced new APIs that help coders building apps for Apple devices do things like recognize faces or animals in photos, or parse the meaning of text. The reasoning goes that if you can make your phones, operating system, or cloud the best place to build smart new software that leverages AI, more users and revenue will follow. For example, Federighi boasted that Apple's new tools help developers run machine learning on data without it having to leave a person's device, giving performance and privacy benefits. A company that needs to run image recognition inside apps on both Apple and Android devices might prefer to use Google's cloud machine learning APIs instead, for example.

Digital growth accelerated over the last few years in Asia Pacific. There are more than four billion mobile phone subscriptions across the region and more than 1.4 billion Asian consumers now use social media every month, with 95% of them accessing platforms via mobile devices – the highest ratio in the world. New technology offers exciting opportunities for businesses, governments, and society; and the rapid growth and speed of change we're seeing as a result of this digital connectivity is shaping the everyday lives of the people in this region. For businesses, new technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) will have a significant implication on the future workplace as a means to make computers and mobile devices more hands-free. The future of hands-free human-machine interfaces is highly dependent on how well these devices can understand human behaviour and respond to it.

This story was delivered to BI Intelligence Apps and Platforms Briefing subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here. At its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Jose, California, on Monday, Apple offered a first look at iOS 11, the next iteration of its OS. The upcoming updates are focused largely on technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, that make it easier for users to interact with their devices. The voice assistant, which reaches 375 million monthly active users globally, will be the overarching interface that ties together Apple's multiple operating systems: iOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS. Siri is being supercharged with deep-learning capabilities, meaning it can change intonations to sound more expressive and natural; it can also translate from English into several other languages.

In implementing AI, Alibaba is applying numerous complex machine-learning methods and disciplines, such as online machine learning, transfer learning, deep learning, artificial neural networks and reinforcement learning. The latter mimics the way the human brain learns through experience. Simply put, the computer "learns" to recognize patterns in data that lead to right and wrong answers through an iterative process, similar to the way a child learns by trial-and-error to throw a ball. This technology depends on the creation of software algorithms that enable computers to reach correct conclusions by being fed huge numbers of examples, building up a base of "experiences" that can be applied to recognize patterns and solve problems in new situations. These learning machines become smarter and more accurate as they are given more and more data. This means Alibaba, with its vast computer resources and access to online data from hundreds of millions of consumers, is well positioned to introduce practical, real-world AI applications into everyday use. The company over the last 17 years has built up one of the world's largest distributed-computing networks, allowing it to marshall the computational horsepower necessary for AI. Alibaba's cloud computing subsidiary, one of the world's top 5 public cloud providers, has developed an operating system called Apsara that organizes data centers into a computational engine that can process more than 175,000 transactions a second.

In April, United Airlines hit a huge pocket of public relations turbulence after a passenger was forcibly removed from one of its partners' airplanes. The incident raised questions about blindly following procedures, passenger rights, and United's executive leadership. Here's another question it raised: Could artificial intelligence (AI) have prevented the embarrassing drama from even happening? Get the latest insights with our CIO Daily newsletter. AI and machine learning are already impacting many areas of business, such as marketing, as well as most industries, including retail.

As artificial intelligence, innovation and digitalization continue to grab headlines, the one thing that sparks deep discussions is the subject of disruption. An ongoing theme that continues to affect individuals, industries and governments globally, disruption isn't solely a shift in economics, products or market trends (though it continues to be a key influencer), but it also has consequences for the new age customer, shaped by very different needs, behaviors and demands. So how does technology evolve financial services? What types of disruptions will emerge to reshape the entire industry? What does the future of financial services look like?