In a blog post, Amy Nicholson, technical evangelist at Microsoft, explains how she used the Cortana Intelligence Gallery, together with Azure ML Studio, to help her start building her own ML (machine learning) models "as well as my knowledge about this space." Azure ML is a fully managed cloud service on Microsoft Azure that helps you easily build, deploy and share predictive analytics solutions, Nicholson writes. All of this in a simple drag-and-drop interface to go from an idea to the deployment of a ML API in a matter of clicks." To learn more, visit the Cortana Intelligence and Machine Learning Blog.

For the last two years, the popular x.ai virtual personal assistant has been helping Google Calendar users manage their meetings. Today, x.ai is finally coming to Microsoft calendars, with support for Office 365 and Outlook.com, as the company moves closer to the release of its paid business edition later this year. "Microsoft pretty much owns the enterprise, and as we move towards the launch of our professional edition, this could not come at a better time. Getting market share and working with Microsoft somewhat rhymes," x.ai CEO and founder Dennis R. Mortensen says. Just copy "amy@x.ai" to your email, and "Amy Ingram," your personal AI assistant, will handle the annoying parts of finding a time that works for both parties.

That's the simple and iconic slogan Apple used during the second coming of Jobs, during his reinvention and revitalization of the company in the late '90s. Yes, there are second acts in American life. Jobs gave one to Apple, and it's still living it. But the world, of course, keeps changing, and computing changes, and Apple itself may need to think different. This year has been the year of artificial intelligence, natural language processing, machine learning, and computer vision.

Simonite goes on, "A new version of Apple's Photos app, coming this fall with a new version of Apple's mobile operating system, will use facial recognition to maintain virtual albums of snaps containing people you frequently photograph. It will also look at the contents of your photos, so you can search your collection using keywords such as'horses' or'mountains.' Federighi said those features are powered by deep learning, a technique that underpins significant recent progress in artificial intelligence. They are also playing catch-up with Google, which introduced a photos service with those same features over a year ago (see'Google Rolls Out New Automated Helpers'). But Federighi said that Apple didn't want its algorithms to spill data to Apple about the content of user photos. 'When it comes to performing advanced deep learning and intelligence of your data, we're doing it on your device, keeping your personal data under your control,' he said."

The founder and CEO of Bumble, Whitney Wolfe, said the new development will add another factor to people's choice to swipe. "For us, it's all about giving our users more fun and meaningful ways to connect," she told The Huffington Post. "Music has such convening power and we're excited to see what insights come from users connecting based on a shared love of music." But Bumble is also working on a feature that'll put the damper on that: users will soon be able to hide certain artists from the feed. If you're like us, you probably don't want your future significant other to know you sit alone in your room listening to Billy Joel for hours on end. But our own self-indulgence aside, this is pretty disingenuous.

SugarCRM has put AI at the core of its product plans and is working on a new intelligence service along with a Siri-like agent named Candace. Tapping the company's recent acquisitions of Stitch and Contastic, the new technology will be designed to help businesses spend less time entering data into their customer relationship management software and more time learning from and acting upon it. SugarCRM is scheduled to demonstrate the new capabilities Wednesday at its SugarCon conference in San Francisco. "In the CRM space, we want people to focus on what they're good at: relating to others, such as customers and partners," Rich Green, SugarCRM's chief product officer, said in an interview last week. "As data becomes more and more available, it typically has required quite a bit of labor to ensure that your CRM system stays up to date," Green explained.

There's been a lot written the past couple days about Microsoft acquiring LinkedIn, the business focused social network. The business rationale is focused on Microsoft combining its Office products together with the information available on LinkedIn to create new services for its users. For example, as you head into a meeting that's on your Outlook calendar, Microsoft's Cortana (its digital assistant) can provide you background on each of the attendees that it has gleaned from their LinkedIn profiles. Another example used is the potential opportunity to embed Office tools into the LinkedIn platform to make collaboration on Word documents, spreadsheets, Powerpoint presentations, and so on, easier. On another front, Facebook has recently announced partnerships with POS solution providers to gain access to transaction data which it is combining with location services to understand what stores a shopper goes to and creating a link between Facebook advertising and products purchased.

Do you remember JARVIS, the computerized personal assistant who helps Tony Stark manage his complex super hero affairs in the Iron Man movies? With the rise of conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI) like Google Home or Amazon Echo, or the smartphone-based Viv, Siri, Cortana, etc., similar JARVIS-like services may be available in the not-so-distant future. Yet to date, the impact of conversational technology – and popular discussion about its use – often remain limited to modern conveniences like ordering household supplies or receiving restaurant recommendations, reminders and hands-free directions. While it's helpful for everyday tasks, the technology that underlies these services can be put to more ambitious uses. Indeed, it can amplify existing impacts and overcome significant technical barriers to unlocking commercial, educational and connectivity services for the next four billion emerging mobile users in developing markets – people who will soon access the internet for the first time.

Qloo Inc. closed a 4.5 million Series A round of venture funding to support the growth of its cultural recommendation engine. Investors included: Academy Award-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio; Starwood Hotels founder Barry Sternlicht; Pierre Lagrange of GLG Partners; and Adriaan Ligtenberg's AllMobile Fund, along with other individual angel investors. According to the startup's co-founder and CEO Alex Elias, New York City-based Qloo combs through proprietary and open source data online to learn about consumers' preferences, and how their tastes correlate across eight major categories: music, film, television, dining, nightlife, fashion, books and travel. The cultural correlations can sometimes surprise marketers. Tomorrow, the Cleveland Cavaliers will face off against the Golden State Warriors in game 6 of the NBA Finals in Ohio.

Apple's Siri made a big splash when the wisecracking digital assistant debuted on the iPhonefive years ago. But as other tech giants jockey to build intelligent "chat bots" and voice-controlled home systems capable of more challenging artificial-intelligence feats, Siri at times no longer seems cutting edge. On Monday, Apple is expected to demonstrate an upgrade to Siri's smarts as it kicks off its annual software conference. It's a potentially momentous time for the company; sales of its flagship iPhone are slowing, and AI is emerging as a key tech battleground. Apple, Google, Facebook and others are racing to create digital services that consumers will find indispensable for shopping, chatting, controlling other appliances and simply getting through their daily lives. And while Siri has gained new abilities over the years, some experts believe Apple still lags in the AI race, hindered in part by its unwillingness to pry too deeply into your personal information.