Amazon.com's Alexa has mastered Hindi in just a few years. The voice assistant introduced to India in 2017 gets a major local makeover for one of the largest retail markets. From Wednesday, Amazon launches a version that now speaks Hindi and Hinglish -- a unique blend with English. It can also switch automatically between all three. The new, improved Alexa and Echo speakers hit the market in time for the Diwali shopping season.

The term Artificial Intelligence was coined in 1956, but AI has become more popular today thanks to increased data volumes, advanced algorithms, and improvements in computing power and storage. In the 1960s, the US Department of Defense took interest in this type of work and began training computers to mimic basic human reasoning. For example, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) completed street mapping projects in the 1970s. And DARPA produced intelligent personal assistants in 2003, long before Siri, Alexa or Cortana were household names. This early work paved the way for the automation and formal reasoning that we see in computers today, including decision support systems and smart search systems that can be designed to complement and augment human abilities.

Oracle just concluded Oracle OpenWorld 2019, its annual user conference hosted in San Francisco. Larry Ellison, Chairman and CTO of Oracle Corporation is more bullish about the company's cloud strategy than ever. Larry's keynote focused on the core differentiating factors of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. He claimed that only Oracle has the best cloud infrastructure, platform, and SaaS offerings. Ellison emphasized on the enhancements made to Gen 2 Cloud Infrastructure, Autonomous Database, and some of the new services such as the Digital Assistant Bot and a Machine Learning platform.

It seems that we've already seen more than we were ready to VR in video games, IoT in medicine and smart cities being brought to life. We are really close to living in some sort of sci-fi so it's a good idea to have a look at the most possible and promising machine learning and AI trends for the upcoming 2018 and ask ourselves if we are ready for them. Healthcare is one of the biggest and most crucial industries in the world so no wonder it's the one that is heavily using the latest technologies – because it's the matter of life and death. First of all, due to artificial intelligence and work with Big Data, a scientist will soon get the opportunity to prevent certain diseases, like cancer. This can be done by analyzing patient's history and all their records so AI will be able to understand the mechanism of disease, thus enabling doctors to be proactive instead of reacting.

The doggie raincoat was cute the first time around, modeled by an adorable mutt and found through an intentionally clicked link. But then, like an Internet phantom, the canine outerwear kept showing up, in ads along the right-hand side of an email browser, in Facebook, and in several news articles. A product seen on a website visited once reappeared as if multiplying. It's an experience that just about anyone who does anything on the web these days has likely had: Click on a link or visit a website and suddenly, that item follows your electronic path. The strategy is called ad remarketing, and it's intended to capture the 98% of would-be consumers who view a product but don't buy it.

In 2016, Microsoft announced an AI-powered bot called Calendar.help. Since then, the bot, which uses Cortana to help users schedule meetings, entered private preview. It looks like Microsoft is about ready to make that chatbot -- renamed Scheduler -- generally available. URL now redirects to calendar.help. And there are a couple of AI-powered scheduling sessions slated for Microsoft Ignite, Microsoft's IT-pro-focused conference happening the first week of November.

With all the excitement and hype about AI that's "just around the corner"--self-driving cars, instant machine translation, etc.--it can be difficult to see how AI is affecting the lives of regular people from moment to moment. What are examples of artificial intelligence that you're already using--right now? In the process of navigating to these words on your screen, you almost certainly used AI. You've also likely used AI on your way to work, communicating online with friends, searching on the web, and making online purchases. We distinguish between AI and machine learning (ML) throughout this article when appropriate. At Emerj, we've developed concrete definitions of both artificial intelligence and machine learning based on a panel of expert feedback. To simplify the discussion, think of AI as the broader goal of autonomous machine intelligence, and machine learning as the specific scientific methods currently in vogue for building AI.

Digital experience technology is at its best when it disappears. When it melts into the customer's day. Its history has been one of incrementally removing friction from experiences until you forget the digital interface is there. Consider the humble checkout: from a multi-field form-fill for every purchase, to auto-populating upon login, to one-click, to a passing comment at a virtual assistant. The e-shopping example is an embodiment of the pursuit of the digital experience holy trinity: convenience, speed and usability.

SAN FRANCISCO--Guiding Oracle's development of its latest generation of cloud applications are three main business imperatives: help customers innovate rapidly, create nimble processes, and make the most of their mobile, social, and other communications channels. Speaking at Oracle OpenWorld, Steve Miranda, executive vice president of applications development, emphasized the considerable work the company has done incorporating machine learning algorithms into its comprehensive, tightly integrated suites of cloud applications. "We're ready to run your business in the cloud," Miranda said. At Oracle OpenWorld, Steve Miranda, Oracle's executive vice president for applications development, outlines machine learning capabilities in the company's cloud applications. An intuitive, easy-to-use, voice-enabled user interface that runs on various computing platforms but is especially suited to mobile devices.

The phrase "artificial intelligence" in pop culture often conjures up dystopian images such as the sentient computer Hal 9000 from the 1968 film "2001: A Space Odyssey" that killed people for its self preservation; or the cyborg assassin with a metal endoskeleton in director James Cameron's "The Terminator." In recent years, our fascination with the potential of AI has taken a more starry-eyed turn, as shown in the 2013 sci-fi drama "Her," where the main character falls in love with a virtual assistant. In reality, artificial intelligence (AI) technology is quickly permeating every aspect of our lives. From Amazon's voice-activated Alexa to writing technology that helps managers craft job postings, AI is in our hearts, homes and workplaces. And it's only going to become a bigger part of our lives: Experts call the rise of AI the driving force behind the fourth industrial revolution. On a recent afternoon at the NVIDIA robotics research lab in Seattle's University District, researchers use a simulated kitchen to test robots' ability to perform simple tasks such as grabbing objects.