AI has become a game-changer tool in the IT sector. Artificial intelligence and automation have significantly transformed how organizations run their production lines. As AI tools can garner real-time insights, it has facilitated the companies' design and product innovation techniques. When applied correctly, AI and automation can help develop better, faster, and cheaper business techniques. Automation tools can be deployed to automate repetitive tasks, allowing the IT staff to focus on strategic tasks instead of administrative work.

When you download a dating app, fill out a profile with some of your most private information, and select "allow app to access location" to locate nearby potential love interests, you may feel a little exposed, but you proceed anyway, in order to find those dates. But there is reason to believe that by using these sites, you may be unknowingly submitting to government tracking--and we can't know for sure because of all of the secrecy involved with deals that data brokers make with government agencies. It's yet another demonstration of the need to bring transparency to the data-collection industry. Dating apps ask users for a variety of highly personal information and retain it indefinitely, potentially forever. This can include photos and videos, text conversations with other users, and information on gender, sexual orientation, political affiliation, religion, desire to have children, location, HIV status, and beyond.

The last few years saw customers shift their preference from buying clothes at retail outlets to conveniently buying online on their gadgets. This change in customer behavior was further accelerated by COVID-19 as customers had to depend on buying online for most of their shopping needs. Despite COVID-19 beginning to ease off slowly, customers believe that shopping online is a lot more convenient than having to go from store to store to get what they're looking for. E-commerce brands are thus doing their best to keep their hard-earned customers engaged on their platform by delivering personalized user experiences. We caught up with Mohit Panjwani, Associate Director- Revenue Growth at Myntra to understand how e-commerce fashion brands like Myntra are leveraging the power of customer data and marketing analytics to craft memorable and personalized shopping experiences.

The last few years saw customers shift their preference from buying clothes at retail outlets to conveniently buying online on their gadgets. This change in customer behavior was further accelerated by COVID-19 as customers had to depend on buying online for most of their shopping needs. Despite COVID-19 beginning to ease off slowly, customers believe that shopping online is a lot more convenient than having to go from store to store to get what they’re looking for. E-commerce brands are thus doing their best to keep their hard-earned customers engaged on their platform by delivering personalized user experiences. We caught up with Mohit Panjwani, Associate Director- Revenue Growth at Myntra to understand how e-commerce fashion brands like Myntra are leveraging the power of customer data and marketing analytics to craft memorable and personalized shopping experiences. Myntra is India’s leading e-commerce company committed to making fashion and lifestyle products accessible to everyone. From its birth as a customization company in 2007 to being technology and fashion pioneers today, Myntra has grown to become the ultimate destination for fashion and lifestyle, being host to a wide array of merchandise including clothing, footwear, accessories, jewellery, personal care products, etc. Mohit shares his thoughts on: * Major customer engagement and retention challenges faced by e-commerce brands * Importance of adopting an omnichannel approach to effectively engage with customers across all touchpoints of the user journey * Need to have a consistent messaging across channels beyond website and app- thoughts on product recommendations, personalized emails, and app push notifications * How predicting customer churn through ML is critical to increasing retention * Innovative campaigns and ideas used to increase customer engagement and repeat purchase behavior * 3 biggest e-commerce trends that can pick up steam in 2021 Tune in to gain insights on how the best in the business caters to customer needs and requirements by delivering customer experiences at scale.

Modern recommender systems (RS) work by processing a number of signals that can be inferred from large sets of user-item interaction data. The main signal to analyze stems from the raw matrix that represents interactions. However, we can increase the performance of RS by considering other kinds of signals like the context of interactions, which could be, for example, the time or date of the interaction, the user location, or sequential data corresponding to the historical interactions of the user with the system. These complex, context-based interaction signals are characterized by a rich relational structure that can be represented by a multi-partite graph. Graph Convolutional Networks (GCNs) have been used successfully in collaborative filtering with simple user-item interaction data. In this work, we generalize the use of GCNs for N-partite graphs by considering N multiple context dimensions and propose a simple way for their seamless integration in modern deep learning RS architectures. More specifically, we define a graph convolutional embedding layer for N-partite graphs that processes user-item-context interactions, and constructs node embeddings by leveraging their relational structure. Experiments on several datasets from recommender systems to drug re-purposing show the benefits of the introduced GCN embedding layer by measuring the performance of different context-enriched tasks.

It turns out that Apple's iOS 14.5 update won't actually let you change your default music service that you use with Siri. Beta users had originally noticed that it appeared as if early versions of the update might allow you to change the default service that launches when you ask Siri to play a song. This meant that rather than specifying a third-party music app with each request, Siri would remember your preference and launch with the service you had originally specified. While all that still seems to be the case, TechCrunch reports that Apple has apparently "clarified" that it "doesn't consider this feature the equivalent to'setting a default.'" That's because the feature relies on "Siri intelligence," which can track your music-listening habits over time and predict which app you're more likely to want at that moment.

Amazon and Microsoft are adding a new Amazon Alexa app to the Xbox with a number of capabilities, including the ability to remotely browse your home's camera system via Microsoft's game console. The new Alexa app for Xbox isn't quite live, though; it's listed as "Coming Soon" on the Microsoft Store. Controlling your Xbox via an Alexa-powered speaker isn't new--Microsoft launched the capability to Windows Insider beta testers in 2018 via what it called a "skill"--but it's the first time we've seen such tight Alexa integration on the Xbox itself. Microsoft says the app will run on both the Xbox One (presumably including the Xbox One X) as well as the latest Xbox Series X and S consoles. You'll need an Amazon Echo or other Alexa-powered device too, of course.

Nami Hamaura says she feels less lonely working from home thanks to her singing companion Charlie, one of a new generation of cute and clever Japanese robots whose sales are booming during the pandemic. Smart home assistants such as Amazon's Alexa have found success worldwide, but tech firms in Japan are reporting huge demand for more humanlike alternatives, as people seek solace during coronavirus isolation. "I felt my circle became very small," said 23-year-old Hamaura, a recent graduate who has worked almost entirely remotely since April 2020. With socializing limited, life in her first job at a Tokyo trading company was nothing like she had imagined. So she adopted Charlie, a mug-sized robot with a round head, red nose and flashing bow-tie, who converses with its owner in song.

Microsoft has slowly opened the Xbox platform to non-Cortana home automation voice assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, but now Amazon is going one step further. Now an Alexa app for Xbox is poised to roll out "in the coming days" -- you can see it in the Microsoft Store here but it's not available for download yet. While you've already been able to use Alexa to control certain Xbox features, installing the app will apparently enable visual features that pop up on your TV and add a few more interactions. Once it's available, the app should work on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S consoles. There is one caveat -- in this Kinect-less future we live in, you'll need an Amazon Echo or other compatible Alexa device nearby to actually receive the commands and relay them to your linked Xbox.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are buzzwords that nearly everyone has heard these days. But, even those who aren't familiar with them encounter these new technologies almost every day. Research shows that 77% of the devices that we currently use have AI built into them. From a bevy of "smart" devices to Netflix recommendations to products like Amazon's Alexa and Google Home, AI is the force behind many modern technological comforts that are now part of our day-to-day lives. Besides, there are tons of innovative uses for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.