Customer interactions with brands will soon become managed by AI via messaging platforms -- and companies need to be ready. We live in the age of mobile applications. There are currently several million apps available. This profusion of choices means it can be difficult for users not only to choose which apps to download, but to manage them all -- a phenomenon we call "app fatigue." This situation creates both a need and an opportunity to engage users on a single platform.

What if you and your wearable could have a conversation? Not a conversation involving command prompts or specific phrases, but a natural, fluid discussion about the weather, or what kind of run you should go on today. That's the idea behind Asteria: claiming to be'True AI', which learns everything about you but doesn't just crunch numbers to throw them back at your face. Rather, it turns the data into personalized pieces of information relevant to you - through a conversation. It sounds like a film or novel, something romanticized and created to whet our appetites for genuine AI, but Asteria co-founders CEO Dan Gailey and COO Nathan Ross believe it's possible - and that they're well on their way to making it real.

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) recently created a new AI and Research Group, staffed by 5,000 engineers and computer scientists, as its fourth engineering group alongside Windows, Office, and Azure. The new division merges its Microsoft Research and Information Platform Groups with the teams working on Bing, Cortana, robotics, and "ambient computing" environments, which are responsive to the presence of people. The group will be led by Harry Shum, a 20-year Microsoft veteran who previously served as the company's Executive VP of Technology and Research. Microsoft stated that the group will use a "four-pronged approach" to "democratize AI": by offering intelligent services in "agents" like Cortana, infusing applications with features like Skype translate, adding services with facial recognition and machine analytics, and expanding its cloud infrastructure to "build the world's most powerful supercomputer with Azure." At Microsoft's Ignite conference in late September, CEO Satya Nadella declared that "AI is at the intersection of our ambitions."

Software giant Google is beginning an aggressive foray into hardware production with the launch Tuesday of a smartphone and other devices that will bring the company into direct competition with other leading tech firms, including its longtime partner Samsung. The launch signals a major shift for one of the world's most profitable companies as it seeks to adapt to a technology landscape increasingly dominated by mobile and other connected hardware. Google must find a way, analysts say, to keep acquiring user data for targeting ads as Web search -- traditionally done from laptop or desktop computers -- is supplanted by newer technologies. Google's new smartphone, the Pixel, will employ artificial-intelligence technology that users can converse with, allowing them to sidestep keyboards as they access online information and make purchases such as movie tickets, say people familiar with the company's plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal information ahead of its official release. The company also plans to release other new hardware, including a voice-based assistant for the home to rival Amazon's Echo and a virtual-reality headset to rival Facebook's Oculus.

We construct a large scale of causal knowledge in term of Fabula elements by extracting causal links from existing common sense ontology ConceptNet5. We design a Constrained Monte Carlo Tree Search (cMCTS) algorithm that allows users to specify positive and negative concepts to appear in the generated stories. cMCTS can find a believable causal story plot. We show the merits by experiments and discuss the remedy strategies in cMCTS that may generate incoherent causal plots.

NVIDIA's (NASDAQ:NVDA) quarterly revenues have been surging at double-digit rates in the last three quarters and, looking at the guidance for the next quarter, it's clear that the company is expecting the growth rate to continue unabated in the near future. One of the key factors that has added fuel to their engines is NVIDIA's new growth drivers: the data center segment and auto segment. In the most recent quarter, NVIDIA's data center unit reported 151 million in sales, a growth of 109.72% The growth in data center revenues is much higher than other segments, and there are several reasons why this growth can, in fact, continue its breakneck pace for several more quarters. NVIDIA's expertise in the GPU segment has given it a range of must-have products for hyperscale data centers.

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Microsoft is bringing Cortana, its voice-activated virtual assistant, to Xbox One this summer as part of a larger software update. The new version will also include a refreshed Game Collection interface, the addition of PC games on Xbox Live and combined Xbox and Windows stores, Sarah Perez writes.

Google is expected to announce two new phones Tuesday, but information seemingly posted early by a British retailer may have given us all a sneak peek. All unofficial leaks, no matter where they come from, should be taken with a grain of salt. With that in mind, however, the leak from retailer Carphone Warehouse does back up a few things already suspected about the phones, according to 9 to 5 Google. The Carphone Warehouse leak, for example, supports what we have heard about the new phone's name. For several years, Google has released phones under the "'Nexus" brand name.

Google Pixel Tomorrow, Oct 4, is Google's day with the tech giant expected to launch products from new Pixel smartphones to showcase what Android can do ( and already leaked as below), to the much hyped about smart home hub, the Google Home speaker. This product, which will make use of its voice-enabled AI Google Assistant, is meant to be a direct rival to Amazon's Alexa. But as voice-control heats up, and consumers grow more comfortable running their homes by just saying what they want, tech companies are eager to be the app used to run people's lives. Images of Google Pixel phones were leaked late last night by a retailer Carphone Warehouse, before images were taken down. California has just given the greenlight to self-driving cars--without drivers.