College of Computing Professor Ashok Goel teaches Knowledge Based Artificial Intelligence (KBAI) every semester. And every time he offers it, Goel estimates, his 300 or so students post roughly 10,000 messages in the online forums -- far too many inquiries for him and his eight teaching assistants (TA) to handle. That's why Goel added a ninth TA this semester. Her name is Jill Watson, and she's unlike any other TA in the world. Jill is a computer -- a virtual TA -- implemented, in part, using technologies from IBM's Watson platform.

On Wednesday, Google formally infiltrated Amazon territory with Google Home, a small speaker capable of answering voice commands through a new digital assistant. The assistant is similar to Alexa, the artificial intelligence voice assistant powering Amazon Echo, which has surged in popularity in recent months. Although Google Home doesn't launch until the fall, there are some early indicators of how much competition Google will offer Amazon. Here's a look at three reasons Google Home is better, plus three arguments for why Amazon's Echo will continue to dominate: Because Google assistant is connected to the best search engine available, Home is going to provide much smarter results for queries. As a demo during I/O showcased, assistant will also provide better follow-up questions when seeking information.

This is the fourth article of the "Big Data Processing with Apache Spark" series. Please see also: Part 1: Introduction, Part 2: Spark SQL and Part 3: Spark Streaming. Machine learning, predictive analytics, and data science topics are getting a lot of attention in recent years for solving real world problems in different business domains in several organizations. Spark MLlib, Spark's Machine Learning library, includes several different machine learning algorithms for Collaborative Filtering, Clustering, Classification and other machine learning tasks. In the previous articles in "Big Data Processing with Apache Spark" series, we have looked at what Apache Spark framework is (Part 1), how to leverage the SQL interface to access data using Spark SQL library (Part 2) and real-time data processing & analytics of streaming data using Spark Streaming (Part 3). Compose makes it simple to deploy production-ready databases in minutes in the cloud or on your own servers. In this article, we'll discuss machine learning concepts and how to use Apache Spark MLlib library for running predictive analytics.

Google Assistant is a conversational successor to Google Now. And of course, it's also being positioned to take on Amazon's Alexa and its Echo speaker. Assistant in many ways looks like the future of Google, but at this point it's also pretty confusing. Engadget's Chris Velazco tries to figure sort out what it means in the video above.

If you were wondering what Microsoft's response would be to the next-generation, conversational Google Assistant that debuted at Google I/O, a job posting may have revealed it: Bing Concierge. ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley unearthed a job posting for what Microsoft calls the Bing Concierge Bot, a natural language agent that fulfills tasks on behalf of the user. But while Assistant appears to restrict itself to the Android platform, Microsoft seems to believe Bing Concierge could run on any number of instant-messenger platforms. "In Bing Concierge Bot... we are building a highly intelligent productivity agent that communicates with the user over a conversation platform, such as Skype, Messenger, SMS, WhatsApp, Telegram, etc.," the job listing reads. Why this matters: Just as Google moves on from Google Now, Microsoft appears to be evolving beyond Cortana.

Google this week hosted its annual I/O developers conference, announcing new products that highlight the tech giant's focus on artificial intelligence. Google Translate Product Lead Barak Turovsky lent some content in a post to the company's corporate blog: "The assistant is conversational – an ongoing two-way dialogue between you and Google that understands your world and helps you get things done. It makes it easy to buy movie tickets while on the go, to find that perfect restaurant for your family to grab a quick bite before the movie starts, and then help you navigate to the theater. Turovsky said the company views the current technological landscape as at a "seminal moment. Many of these advances have been thanks to machine learning and artificial intelligence – specifically, areas like natural language processing, voice recognition and translation – and they have helped us build an increasingly useful and assistive experience for users.

Alphabet's (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google IO developer conference highlighted progress in key areas such as Android and especially Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI is going main stream, becoming an essential part of platform operating systems and cloud services. As the creator of AlphaGo, the first AI to defeat a human Go player, Google is arguably out in front in AI services. Leveraging AI to confer competitive advantage for its various platforms is the centerpiece of Google's business strategy. My title for this article was meant to be more tongue-in-cheek than alarmist.

Many say that programmatic reached a tipping point in 2015, because for the first time last year, programmatic transactions surpassed non-search digital ad spending. That's an important milestone, but there's still a big gap for marketers who want to automate the ad buying process. The customer journey -- especially for considered purchases -- rarely happens entirely online. Our purchasing habits are not only becoming more digital -- they are becoming more omnichannel. Take the example of buying insurance.

Today at I/O, Google took the wraps off its latest foray into the world of communications: the company announced Allo, a smart messaging app supercharged with machine learning and Google's new Google Assistant service (its answer to Amazon's Alexa), giving users the ability not just to chat to each other with animated graphics and enlarging/shrinking text, but to call in Google (and later other third-party apps) to share media, plan events, buy things, and even think of what to say to each other. The iOS and Android app is being unveiled today, but it will only be live this summer, Google says. If you are a Google news watcher, Allo may not come as a complete surprise: back in December the WSJ reported that the company was working on an AI-based messaging app: this appears to be that very product. The app comes at an interesting time for Google. The company has made a number of attempts at building social products over the years, but products like Google, Wave and Buzz never really caught on at a time when other products like Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat have taken off.

Alphabet's ( GOOGL) Google kicked off its I/O developers conference yesterday. While analysts and consumers alike want to hear about developments such as a virtual reality device to rival Facebook's ( FB) Oculus Rift headset and new and improved artificial intelligence software, the unveiling of another new gadget took over the headlines and has the potential to bring in some exciting profits for investors. Google Home is a "smart speaker" designed to compete with the Amazon (AMZN) Echo. The Echo, a voice-intelligent personal assistant, has been one of Amazon's biggest sleeper hits. Building on the sort of technology that powers the Apple (AAPL) iPhone Siri system, the Echo is a touch-free device that can answer questions and perform commands from switching on Spotify to turning on the house lights.