Today at Apple's "Loop You In" event the company had plenty to announce, including an update for its Apple TV. The fourth version's headline features are its App Store and new Siri Remote, and its next update will make both of those easier to use. Consistent with what we've seen in recent beta tests, Tim Cook just announced that an update arriving today will add folders, dictation, Siri voice search for the App Store, access to users' iCloud Photo Libraries,and support for Live Photos. Get all the news from today's iPhone event right here, and follow along with our liveblog!

Radical advances in artificial intelligence, along with greater processing power, are pushing cognitive computing and deep learning into the mainstream. Since the dawn of computing, the goal of engineers, designers and developers has been to imbue machines with greater intelligence so they can think more like humans. Today, marked leaps in processing power and incredible advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are pushing the concept from the pages of science fiction novels to our homes and workplaces. "The growing complexity of computing and information--and the need for more intelligent automation--is leading to the next wave of transformation, including cognitive systems," says Paul Brody, technology sector strategy leader for the Americas at consulting firm EY. Systems such as IBM's Watson, as well as interfaces such as Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana and Google Voice, are transforming the way data and information are routed to people.

Jonathan Seal, Strategy Director for Mando presents the key headlines from Mando's recent whitepaper, compiling findings from senior marketers from British and global brands. Guy Levine, CEO and Founder at Return on Digital presented about the future of AI and Marketing. Closing the event, Parry Malm, CEO at Phrasee posed the question: 'Can a machine write better than you?'. If you weren't able to come along to our event or would simply like to watch again or share with colleagues, the films of the three talks and full slide decks are below. And to download the whitepaper "Siri and Cortana have applied for your job: The rise of AI in Marketing", please visit here.

One of the biggest problems with Apple TV is that in order to log into applications, users have to enter usernames and passwords into their set-top box one letter at a time using a remote control. Apple is aiming to fix that with a forthcoming update to tvOS, the operating system powering the Apple TV. Users will soon be able to dictate text to Siri, including usernames and passwords, so they don't have to hunt and peck out long strings of text. What's not clear is how Apple will secure users' spoken password data; Apple TV will have to record and process people literally speaking out their passwords. The company will release tvOS 9.2 (which was previously in beta) late Monday, the company said.

Despite the various, and staggering, leaps made by computer scientists, critics argue that machines will never truly match humans until they gain consciousness. Considered a uniquely human trait, consciousness includes being sentient and self-aware, as well as aware of your surroundings. However, many scientists argue animals are as conscious as humans, and the theory of Phi could one day be used to determine if droids are capable of showing such behaviour. Matthew Davidson, PhD Candidate in the neuroscience of consciousness at Monash University has explained what the Phi theory is, and why it is significant, in an article for The Conversation. How and why circumstances may give rise to consciousness remain some of the most puzzling questions in science. Do you think that the machine you are reading this story on, right now, has a feeling of'what it is like' to be in its state?

Artificial intelligence (AI) may conjure up far-fetched ideas of robot assistants, or perhaps an all-seeing presence like HAL 9000, the sentient machine in the movie 2001. But the likelier truth is that AI will come in the form of software running in your data center. And it will be coming very soon: Research firm Gartner predicts that "smart machines" will have a widespread impact on business within the next four years. In general terms it's likely that AI will be able to help IT departments do their job - and help businesses be more productive – by ensuring that "processes get applied, stuff is accurate, errors are eliminated, and compliance is met," according to Dr Stuart Anderson, a research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford. It will also be quite unremarkable, according to some.

This week, banker's fears were confirmed and the robot revolution has begun. The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) will sack hundreds of face-to-face advisers and replace them with a robo-advisory online service, after the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) approved this technology. "Our customers increasingly want to bank with us using digital technology. As a result, we are scaling back our face-to-face advisers and significantly investing in an online investing platform that enables us to help a new group of customers with as little as 500 to invest," a RBS and NatWest spokesperson said in a statement according to the BBC. More and more banks are searching for digital options because they are cheaper and easier to use, and this attitude is advocated by the FCA.

Always-on digital assistants like "Hey Siri" and "OK Google" add an important layer of simplicity, but thus far they've not made it to laptops, mostly due to battery reasons. A new Intel partnership with Sensory is hoping to solve that. The problem with always-on voice recognition is that it requires the device to always be listening. That's at odds with the sleep functions that are so important to preserving battery life on modern laptops, so thus far, always-on assistants have for the most part stayed on smartphones. Intel's aiming to change that, thanks to a partnership with Sensory that could see customized low-power voice recognition chips coming to any Intel-powered laptop.

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!

If you need a scalable recommendation library you probably look at MlLib from Spark. Is it always a good choice? Is it the best solution for You? In this presentation I help you to understand what are strong and week points of MlLib and when MlLib is not for you. It could happens (and probably will), that MlLib is not for you.