Here's a new title that is a "must have" for any data scientist who uses the R language. It's a wonderful learning resource for tree-based techniques in statistical learning, one that's become my go-to text when I find the need to do a deep dive into various ML topic areas for my work. The methods discussed represent the cornerstone for using tabular data sets for making predictions using decision trees, ensemble methods like random forest, and of course the industry's darling gradient boosting machines (GBM). Algorithms like XGBoost are king of the hill for solving problems involving tabular data. A number of timely and somewhat high-profile benchmarks show that this class of algorithm beats deep learning algorithms for many problem domains.

In the near term, Defense Information Systems Agency officials plan to strategically employ artificial intelligence capabilities for defensive cyber operations. "First of all, the threat has never been higher. It's also been commoditized: Malware has become commercialized as essentially organized crime on an international scale," Deputy Commander of the Joint Force Headquarters-Department of Defense Information Network Rear Adm. William Chase III, told reporters during a media roundtable last week. "So, one of the first questions we have to ask ourselves is: 'What are we actually vulnerable to?'" The press event was associated with DISA's Forecast to Industry and the release of its strategic plan for 2022 through 2024.

I'm a big believer that voice-recognition technology will play an increasingly prominent role in how we interact with technology -- so much that I've made a bet on Nuance Communications (NAS: NUAN) accordingly as the clear technological leader in the field. So when the CEO of a small voice-recognition software company, Datria, reached out to me for a conversation, I jumped at the chance. Datria is a small private player with about 50 employees, and it resells Nuance's speech engine while also counting software giant SAP (NYS: SAP) as an investor. Jim Greenwell has been CEO for 12 years, and he provided valuable insight into the industry at large, as well as what trends users and investors should be on the lookout for. Who will rally the troops?