If you've been following IBM's Watson project and like food, you may have noticed growing excitement among chefs, gourmands and molecular gastronomists about one aspect of its development. The main Watson project is an artificial intelligence that engineers have built to answer questions in native language -- that is, questions phrased the way people normally talk, not in the stilted way a search engine like Google understands them. And so far, it's worked: Watson has been helping nurses and doctors diagnose illnesses, and it's also managed a major "Jeopardy!" Now, Chef Watson -- developed alongside Bon Appetit magazine and several of the world's finest flavor-profilers -- has been launched in beta, enabling you to mash recipes according to ingredients of your own choosing and receive taste-matching advice which, reportedly, can't fail. While some of the world's foremost tech luminaries and conspiracy theorists are a bit skeptical about the wiseness of A.I., if it's going to be used at all, allowing it to tell you what to make out of a fridge full of unloved leftovers seems like an inoffensive enough place to start. I decided to put it to the test.

Having close access to ultra-successful people can yield some pretty incredible information about who they really are, what makes them tick, and, most importantly, what makes them so successful and productive. Kevin Kruse is one such person. He recently interviewed over 200 ultra-successful people, including 7 billionaires, 13 Olympians, and a host of accomplished entrepreneurs. In analyzing their responses, Kruse coded the answers to yield some fascinating suggestions. What follows are some of my favorites from Kevin's findings.

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--According to the latest research study released by Technavio, the global FinTech investment market is expected to grow at a CAGR of over 53% until 2020. This research report titled'Global FinTech Investment Market 2016-2020', provides an in-depth analysis of market growth in terms of revenue and emerging market trends. This market research report also includes up to date analysis and forecasts for various market segments and all leading regions. "FinTech companies seek new means to store, analyze, and search vast amounts of data. Such analysis is anticipated to help them segment customer populations, identify opportunities for new products and services, and optimize pricing mechanisms. A key example is this is seen with the pooling of social network data with fund management and investments in relation to company analysis and management. The use of big data and new data can improve investment decisions, and also help arrive at a comprehensive credit scoring mechanisms," said Soumya Mutsuddi, one of Technavio's lead research analysts for gaming.

Netflix, Facebook, and Google can offer suggestions about TV shows, products, and companies that a user might be interested in based on trends. This is often done with machine learning, a computer science sub-field that uses pattern recognition and computational learning. In addition to providing suggestions for the next show you should binge-watch, researchers at the UW School of Medicine and the Yale University School of Medicine hope to use this technique to predict sepsis mortality in the emergency care setting. "I think we're surpassing our ability to account for these interactions [on our own]," said Dr. Kennedy Hall, acting instructor of emergency medicine at the UW. "This is where machine learning can come in as an adjunct to help us out."

So for the last few months we've been in the lab figuring out ways for teams to be able to order Taco Bell even more quickly to help them keep on keepin' on. And soon you'll be able to order Taco Bell whenever the mood strikes through the magic of artificial intelligence. From there connect your ta.co account, choose your pickup location and order up your favorite Taco Bell item. Think your Slack team is ready to contribute to TacoBot's artificial intelligence?

No matter how slammed, stressed, or on a roll you might be, no one should work hungry. So for the last few months we've been in the lab figuring out ways for teams to be able to order Taco Bell even more quickly to help them keep on keepin' on. Enter Slack, a company that is currently disrupting the workplace (in a very good way). Slack is a powerful messaging platform that makes working with groups better. The ultimate goal is to get you working less and living more so Slack made things like centralizing conversations, sharing files and communicating via GIFs way easier.

You can place an order with Domino's just by tapping an icon on your phone's home screen. Taco Bell is working on something a bit more engaging, and it's powered by artificial intelligence. They've got a new chat bot called TacoBot that's ready to serve hungry customers -- at least a select few beta testers who want to help them polish things up before TacoBot becomes a full-time employee. The goal isn't necessarily to make ordering as fast as possible, it's to bring a human touch back to the online ordering experience. Think of it as Siri or Cortana, but dressed in a Taco Bell uniform… and maybe not so much someone you'd go to for directions or for help laying out your schedule for the day.

Ever wished you could order Taco Bell for everyone in the office using a simple chat bot? No? Well, you'll soon be able to it anyway. Taco Bell has blessed the world with TacoBot, a chatbot for the popular workplace chat app Slack. Tell TacoBot what you want, and it keeps a running tally of your order, just like that screen at the drive-thru. When you're done, pay through TacoBot and pick up your order at the Nearest Participating Taco Bell.

Building technology companies worth tens of billions of pounds often requires one or two exceptionally talented individuals with strong computer science backgrounds and entrepreneurial spirits. Finding these people can be time consuming and difficult, which is why a couple of UK organisations have turned to artificial intelligence and software. In the last month, Founders Forum, a network of successful startup founders and business leaders, and company builder Entrepreneur First, have both revealed they are using artificial intelligence (AI) and custom-built software to identify the UK's most promising founders. Founders Forum, set up by serial entrepreneur and lastminute.com "An AI simulates what a human might do but at scale; with more data and no bias," said Dr Tom Bowles, data scientist and founder in residence at Founders Factory, a startup accelerator launched by Brent Hoberman.

JERSEY CITY, NEW JERSEY – With the push of a button, a perfectly healthy 34-year-old museum-goer named Ugo Dumont was transformed into a confused 85-year-old man with cataracts, glaucoma and a ringing in his ears known as tinnitus. Dumont had volunteered at Liberty Science Center on Tuesday to don a computer-controlled exoskeleton that can be remotely manipulated to debilitate joints, vision and hearing and shared with the crowd what aging feels like decades before his time. Headphones muffled his hearing while goggles left him with only peripheral vision due to macular degeneration while the suit's joints were adjusted to simulate the stiffness of rheumatoid arthritis. The 40-pound (18 kg) suit also gave Dumont a taste of the weight gain people typically experience as they age. "Wow," Dumont gasped as he struggled to walk on a treadmill facing a video titled "Walk on the Beach."