As enterprise enters further into the digital age, data has become the strategic asset that knowledge workers, small or large, rely on to guide their decisions. However, managing such large volumes of data has exposed some unprecedented challenges for the enterprises. Enterprises have learned that the data that they hold, comes in a variety of formats, resides in different and distributed systems and is specific to the organization and its domain. Setting these challenges as the backdrop, IBM's Watson division has built solutions that not only allow for data connectivity but also the analysis of unstructured data and its customization to an enterprise domain. IBM Watson Explorer is Watson's flagship product for text analytics and discovery.

Chatterbox Labs is a Cognitive data science company focused on delivering real world business outcomes that drive multi-million dollar outcomes. As a company we often find ourselves explaining the key differences between RPA and Cognitive. Fundamentally, RPA and Cognitive are two completely different offerings that both have merit, however, we describe RPA as the "Finger Tapping" as opposed to the "Brain Mapping" of Cognitive. RPA is a different and lower value proposition compared to Cognitive. Cognitive is built and ready to address 90% of the worlds data that is unstructured and not monetized…..RPA cannot address this market Cognitive is focused on processing 148K documents per second and achieving accuracy of 80% which is higher than human accuracy.

Machine learning has had fruitful applications in finance well before the advent of mobile banking apps, proficient chat bots, or search engines. Given high volume, accurate historical records, and quantitative nature of the finance world, few industries are better suited for artificial intelligence. There are more uses cases of machine learning in finance than ever before, a trend perpetuated by more accessible computing power and more accessible machine learning tools (such as Google's Tensorflow). Today, machine learning has come to play an integral role in many phases of the financial ecosystem, from approving loans, to managing assets, to assessing risks. Yet, few technically-savvy professionals have an accurate view of just how many ways machine learning finds its way into their daily financial lives.

Economist Milton Friedman was in favor of replacing the Federal Reserve with a computer. Maybe he was on to something. To the contrary, as a monetarist he wanted the Fed to increase the stock of money at a constant, 3%-5% rate a year, a task he thought a computer quite capable of performing. The Fed's lagged response to the 2008 financial crisis and an anemic recovery since then have given a new sense of urgency to the quest for a monetary rule or rules. For economists, the main benefit of a rule is to make monetary policy transparent and predictable. Everyone knows where the ship is headed and can plan accordingly.

Identity fraud, in which a slice of your identity ranging from new credit cards to entire bank accounts is taken over by criminals, rose by 49 per cent in 2015 on the previous year. That totalled almost 170,000 cases, according to data collected by Cifas, the financial industry's non-profit fraud advisory service. The reason for the rise is that more and more we use the internet for financial transactions, but have very few ways to verify our identity without cumbersome systems involving human interaction, which are also vulnerable to fraud. Cifas' 2015 Fraudscape report shows that 86 per cent of identity fraud happened online, with bank accounts and credit or debit cards most targeted, closely followed by loans and communications, typically mobile phone accounts. Traditionally, companies dealing with such problems have acted after the fact, trying to unravel complex or opportunistic frauds by working back through audit trails.

In H. G. Wells's classic The War of the Worlds, the narrator pauses a moment to rue the fact that he didn't react sooner to the arrival of an "intelligence greater than man's"--in his case, Martians landing on earth. Comparing himself to a comfortable dodo in its nest, he imagined those ill-fated birds also dithering as hungry sailors invaded their island: "We will peck them to death tomorrow, my dear." As intelligent technologies take over more and more of the decision-making territory once occupied by humans, are you taking any action? Are you sufficiently aware of the signs that you should? To help you get the head start you may need, here are the signs that it's time to fly the nest.

Any business that sells goods or services online is vulnerable to attack by fraudsters. This can be using stolen credit card details for purchases online, creating false accounts and even voucher code abuse. The cost of this fraud can be calculated in the multi millions, with chargebacks and related costs plaguing online businesses. In the UK it is the most common crime of all, with 2.47M offences in 2015/16 alone. The traditional approach to tackling this problem is to use heuristic rules and business logic to try to'predict' whether a new transaction that the business is seeing is fraudulent or not.

At Microsoft's recent Worldwide Partner Conference, CEO Satya Nadella laid out his vision for a world in which A.I.-powered chatbots "fundamentally revolutionize how computing is experienced by everybody." Bots, according to Nadella, will become the next interface, shaping our interactions with the applications and devices we rely on. Of course, granting bots more control over our apps and devices naturally requires that we create rules to govern how they operate. Nadella earlier outlined a set of rules for bots that prioritizes empathy, efficiency and assistance. "A.I. must be designed to assist humanity," he wrote.

NAIROBI – Japanese and African leaders on Sunday pledged to fight terrorism and emphasized the importance of rules-based maritime order as they wrapped up a Japan-led international conference on the continent's development. In the Nairobi Declaration adopted at the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), the leaders also agreed to promote investment in infrastructure that leads to job creation in the fast-growing region. "Japan's public and private sectors will offer cooperation for the development that is led by Africa itself," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a news conference after wrap-up of the sixth TICAD, convened in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta told the same news conference that Japan does not press its own views on the continent and continues to be a force for African development. The triennial conference was held outside Japan for the first time, as Tokyo seeks to strengthen its economic and political presence in the continent amid China's increasing influence.

NAIROBI – Japanese and African leaders on Sunday pledged to fight terrorism and emphasized the importance of rule-based maritime order as they wrapped up a Japan-led international conference on the continent's development. In the Nairobi Declaration adopted at the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), the leaders also agreed to promote investment in infrastructure that leads to job creation in the fast-growing region. The sixth TICAD, convened in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, was held outside Japan for the first time, as Tokyo seeks to strengthen its economic and political presence in the continent amid China's increasing influence. In the declaration, the leaders said they will seek to maintain maritime order based on rules, and strengthen security and safety at sea by international and regional cooperation in accordance with international law. The reference to maritime security comes as tensions remain high in the South China and East China seas amid China's growing assertiveness.