The Pioneers'18 conference happening this week in Vienna, Austria, is focused on early-stage startups and investing. The startup conference season is now officially opened in Europe with some of the continent's largest entrepreneurship events happening this month of May, like The Next Web (TNW) in Amsterdam, Vivatech in Paris, France, Infoshare in Poland or Latitude 59 and Arctic 15, in Estonia and Finland respectively, for startups in the Nordics region. However, Pioneers'18, formerly the Pioneers Festival which is happening this week in Vienna, Austria, is quite unique with its maniacal focus on early-stage startups and investing and emerging and future technology themes (space, artificial intelligence, robotics, virtual reality, science…). "Over the years, Austria has emerged as an early-stage startup hub," told me ahead of the event Oliver Csendes, the CEO of Pioneers. "And this year, we've handpicked 550 early-stage startups, from all over the world, to attend the event and pitch hundreds of investors, corporations, public sector representatives and media."

Vital for the building and maintaining of successful business relationships, networking is now easier and more effective than ever before. Invacio Network is a relevancy-driven web desktop that offers a suite of features designed to help you to build meaningful business and personal relationships with the right people, whoever and wherever they may be... Powerful yet extremely elegant, Network gives immediate access to a broad range of Invacio products and services, including Data, Agnes, Invmail, Alise and Consumer, as well as up to the minute content that is tailored exactly to your use by the work of our groundbreaking multi-agent system AI. Whether you wish to follow company and market tickers and charting with one click or to get real time information on the things that matter to you from the entire web, there is never sponsored content, never the clutter of advertising ...only the information you need when you need it, whatever your purpose. The hassle is taken out of arranging business meetings with our Meet Me feature. Simply choose to broadcast the location of your next trip and let other users know when you're in their area seeking business meetings or perhaps even just a friendly face to have dinner with.

AI is about to head to the office. Already these "voice assistants" are learning to recognize different voices within one conversation and respond accordingly. When you ask Google Home about your calendar it will know to reply with the events on your calendar and not your wife's calendar. Likewise, when your wife queries Google home, it will respond using her data.

The most underappreciated application for the combination of augmented reality (A.R.) and artificial intelligence (A.I.) is persistent lie detection. Smartphones and smart glasses will soon support apps that show you in real time whether the person you're talking to is telling the truth or lying. Imagine how that will affect business meetings, sales presentations, job interviews and department status updates. Some 35 years ago, late-night talk show host Johnny Carson imagined what it would be like if politicians were hooked up to lie detectors.) Soon, you won't have to imagine it.

When you're having a lazy day, it can be tough to drag yourself away from the sofa. But a bizarre new driverless vehicle concept could soon mean that you don't have to. InMotion is the world's first self-driving room, which ditches the steering wheel and driving column in favour of a spacious area, for comfort on the go. InMotion is the world's first self-driving room, which ditches the steering wheel and driving column in favour of a spacious area, for comfort on the go The InMotion vehicle was revealed by National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) at the CES technology show in Shanghai this week for the first time. Its designers see it as a vision on how we can travel safely in the future without owning a car, and without a driver.

After the idea first surfaced in the 1980s, virtual reality has finally started to take off - having established its place in video gaming, social networks and even porn. Now experts say soon VR could be coming to the workplace. Virtual business meetings will replace conference calls, as the technology has started to be tested in offices worldwide - and this could happen in the next couple of years. Experts say soon VR could be coming to the workplace. Virtual business meetings will replace conference calls, as the technology has started to be tested in offices worldwide - and this could happen in the next couple of years.

Lunch dates, business meetings, and social gatherings sound like random events, but they all share two things in common: personal interactions and scheduling. Social dynamics include the behaviors, relationships and interactions of individuals and groups. We know the reason companies invest so much in automated systems is in an effort to save time and money. MeetVibe integrates the latest technology to reduce the time required for the act of scheduling so that people can make the most of their time with the ones who are important to them.

Lunch dates, business meetings, and social gatherings sound like random events, but they all share two things in common: personal interactions and scheduling. Some exchanges are spontaneous while at work or on the go. Other meetings are scheduled in advance by saving the date and confirming an appointment. Social dynamics include the behaviors, relationships and interactions of individuals and groups. Relationships play a role in every interaction, and individuals are influenced by one another's behavior.

There's nothing more frustrating than having your point of view ignored in professional discussions. You've put a lot of time into analyzing the situation, and have important insights to add, but nobody is listening! It's particularly frustrating when it's about the project you're working on, since it's so annoying to implement a design that you don't believe in. When you find yourself in a situation where you can see a bad decision forming like a thunderstorm, is there anything you can do to stop it? Why does it seem like nobody is listening to you?

The underlying AI isn't allowed to make further inferences as to what to do next without asking the user for approval.