It's definitely a great direction to pursue for many businesses since it gives them the ability to deliver tremendous value in a fairly quick and easy way. The demand for machine learning skills is at an all time high. There's a nice comprehensive report done by McKinsey about how AI is shaping industries and where the opportunities are. Hey, we need a machine learning research team really quick! We'll get the best scientists with lots of publications and pay them lots of money so we can get some machine learning in our business.

It's definitely a great direction to pursue for many businesses since it gives them the ability to deliver tremendous value in a fairly quick and easy way. The demand for machine learning skills is at an all time high. There's a nice comprehensive report done by McKinsey about how AI is shaping industries and where the opportunities are. But wait just a minute… As a business, do you really need a machine learning research team? How much do you even need Machine Learning at all?

News emerged last summer that Google had snapped up computer vision startup AIMatter, the Belarusian company behind the popular funky photo-effects app Fabby. While Fabby continues today under Google's guidance, the app was really a public-facing showcase for AIMatter's underlying technology, which is basically a neural network-powered platform and SDK for detecting and processing images. And that is what Google was really buying into as it battles it out with other major technology companies to secure the most promising AI brain power. The acquisition further highlights the burgeoning computer vision startup scene in Eastern Europe, which saw Facebook acquire Belarusian startup Masquerade; Snapchat snap up Looksery, which has Ukrainian roots; and Russia's Prisma gain widespread attention for its computer vision-powered art photo app. Nearly one year after AIMatter's sale to Google, VentureBeat caught up with Yury Melnichek, the Belarusian serial entrepreneur who was a founding investor in AIMatter and who previously worked as a software engineer at Google and eBay.

Usually machine learning is discussed in terms of its impact on marketing or enterprise data, but its next frontier could be considerably more mobile, according to a research director with consulting firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd. In fact, in its annual technology, media, and telecommunications predictions for 2017, released this month, Deloitte's global arm has predicted that some 300 million smartphones – more than one fifth of all units sold – will incorporate machine learning, Duncan Stewart, director of technology, media, and telecommunications research for Deloitte Canada, tells ITBusiness.ca. The present numbers are being driven by smartphone chip manufacturer Qualcomm Inc.'s latest Snapdragon processors, Stewart notes, but Apple is rumoured to be developing a similar technology for their next iPhone too. "It's a boon for smartphone users," he says. "It means you get results faster, use less data, and can even complete certain tasks without being connected to a network."

One of the core ideas we set out to explore at Solid is "design beyond the screen" -- the idea that, as software moves into physical devices, our modes of interaction with it will change. It's an easy concept to understand in terms of consumer electronics: the Misfit Shine activity tracker has a processor and memory just like a computer (along with sensors and LEDs), but you don't control it with a keyboard and monitor; you interact with it by attaching it to your clothing and letting it gather data about your movement. At its most elegant, design beyond the screen minimizes interaction and frees humans to spend their mental energy on things that humans are good at, like creative thinking and interacting with each other. Design beyond the screen is a much broader and more transformative concept than just that, though: it encompasses changes in the relationships between humans and machines and between machines and other machines. Good design beyond the screen makes interaction more fluid and elevates both people and machines to do their best work.