We cover many emerging markets in the startup ecosystem. Previously, we published posts that summarized Financial Technology, Internet of Things, Bitcoin, and MarTech in six visuals. This week, we do the same with Artificial Intelligence (AI). At this time, we are tracking 855 AI companies across 13 categories, with a combined funding amount of $8.75billion. To see all of our AI related posts, check out our blog!

Microsoft's push into the connected car space has moved up a gear with a new patent licensing agreement with Toyota. The world's second-largest auto maker will have access to a range of Microsoft patents as part of the deal announced this week. Rather than trying to build a high-tech automobile of its own, Microsoft is focusing on providing carmakers with the tools they need to create smarter vehicles and the Toyota deal is the first of what it hopes will be a series of such agreements. Microsoft offers an entire suite of cloud services aimed at aiding the development of internet-enabled automobiles and is also integrating its Cortana virtual assistant into cars alongside PCs, phones and other devices. In the future, a connected car could become a rolling extension of a user's office, with Office 365 integrations.

Someday soon, you'll be able to tell Siri to book a flight to Chicago, get you a hotel on the Miracle Mile, reserve a table at Morton's, and get you tickets for the Cubbies. Today, to accomplish the same task, you need to dive into five or six different apps for hotels, flights, dinner reservations, sports tickets, and transfers between all the locations, and spend maybe 30 to 60 minutes sweating the details. But the day might be coming sooner rather than later that Siri can do it all for you. Today, Apple announced that it has acquired Workflow, an innovative iOS app that glues together functionality from multiple apps into a single, simple ... flow. Workflow currently allows you to take pictures and automate editing of them, or enter data and flow it to multiple places, or make PDFs out of web pages, or just about anything else you can imagine.

A 4-year-old boy in the U.K. saved his mom's life after he used Siri to call an ambulance, telling emergency services that "she's closing her eyes and she's not breathing." The boy used his unconscious mother's iPhone to contact police, according to a statement released this week by London's Metropolitan Police. The 4-year-old unlocked the device by pressing her thumb to the phone and used Siri to call for help by dialing 999 for emergency services. Police also released part of the boy's heart-breaking call. "Can you go and get mummy?"

There were a few things that sent me into a panic about turning 40, but the biggest -- looming larger than the golden ring of a book deal or a staff job or, like, finally going back to yoga -- was what it meant for me to still be single and actively looking for a partner at that age. Not so much even that I was single, but that I cared and what that implied. It just felt really basic, to be frank. There are plenty of things I simply do not give a single solitary fuck about when it comes to what women my age are supposed to be doing. So why did this one detail bother me?

There is no doubt the search industry has evolved. Just one look at how search engine results pages are currently laid out shows how things have changed. We have come a long way from 10 blue links. But have we gone far enough? At SXSW earlier this month, information access was a hot topic.

If you choose to pay for membership, you'll be able to see your matches' activity report, like in the image below. It shows how likely they are to send the first message, how long it usually takes them to reply and the last time they were active. You'll also see read receipts when the other person has already seen your messages. That way, you won't have to waste time waiting for responses that'll never come. Finally, you'll get 6,000 "Beans" to spend on the service's various features, such as the ability to see you and your matches' mutual friends.

Tinder has repeatedly made top ten lists of the best and most popular dating apps, but is it effective? A recent survey showed that despite its high usership, not even five percent of the young people swiping right are looking for relationships. The majority of people on the app are young: an estimated 80 percent of Tinder users qualify as millennials, according to a survey by LendEDU, a website that provides student loan guidance. But only 4.16 percent of those users are looking for a relationship. Twenty-two percent said they were looking for a hookup, while 44.44 percent said they used it "confidence-boosting procrastination."

The future of machine learning technology in marketing sounds promising. Machines will not only fulfill ordinary, everyday tasks but accomplish things humans cannot even conceive of by deriving predictive models with powerful, automated technology. Customers stand to benefit too, as machine learning will apply advanced algorithms to offer spot-on, personalized recommendations, improving customer experiences and brand interactions. And while it's easy to get caught up in the hype and promise, remember what really matters in growing a business -- the people who buy and use the products. Customer empathy will continue to be a key attribute startups must master in order to compete with, and outperform the giants in their industry.

In his regular courses at Georgia Tech, the computer science professor had at most a few dozen students. But his online class had 400 students -- students based all over the world; students who viewed his class videos at different times; students with questions. Maybe 10,000 questions over the course of a semester, Goel says. It was more than he and his small staff of teaching assistants could handle. "We were going nuts trying to answer all these questions," he says.