Apple hires a Carnegie Mellon professor to improve its AI

Apple isn't letting Samsung's acquisition of Viv go unanswered. The Cupertino crew has hired Russ Salakhutdinov, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, as a director of artificial intelligence research. Interestingly, he isn't giving up his school work -- he may well be publishing research at the same time as he's upgrading your iPhone or Mac. It's not certain what he'll be working on, although Recode observes that his recent studies have involved understanding the context behind questions. We've asked Apple if it can comment.