A few months ago I wrote about a consulting agency, Sweet Baby Inc, that found itself at the centre of a conspiracy theory: aggrieved gamers on a Steam forum had erroneously concluded that this small agency was somehow mandating the inclusion of more diverse characters in games. Depressingly but unsurprisingly, the result was a tremendous amount of targeted harassment towards the people who work at Sweet Baby and every journalist who reported on it (particularly the women). It was a disturbing echo of Gamergate, an online harassment campaign 10 years ago that initially sprung from the wild accusations of a game developer's vindictive ex-boyfriend. The language has changed a bit in the past decade: they used to be upset about "SJWs", or social justice warriors, and now they've taken issue with a different acronym, DEI (diversity, equality and inclusion), or just good ol' "woke". But the sentiment from this group is the same: games are for us, and for us only, and if you want games to change, or to tell stories outside the straightforward male-oriented power fantasies that we grew up with, then, well, that's not allowed.

When (and if) if the Afeela electric car from Sony Honda Mobility goes on sale, it will use the Snapdragon Digital Chassis from Qualcomm -- an automotive technology platform that combines safety and connectivity systems, entertainment, customization, and upgradability all into one product. For automakers, finding the right technology partner means simplifying a vehicle's architecture and unlocking new revenue streams in the form of passenger entertainment and downloadable upgrades. The Qualcomm Snapdragon Digital Chassis is comprised of four automotive systems -- Snapdragon Auto Connectivity includes connected systems like 5G and vehicle-to-vehicle technologies, Snapdragon Cockpit Platform supplies the digital instrument clusters and infotainment controls, Snapdragon Car-to-Cloud makes over-the-air software updates possible, and the Snapdragon Ride Platform supplies driver assistance technologies and autonomous driving capability. "There is a tremendous amount of opportunity to reinvent the car," Nakul Duggal, Qualcomm's senior vice president and general manager for automotive, tells Wired. "And a tremendous amount of that reinvention is happening because the car is becoming a truly digital product."

In the grand scheme of things, artificial intelligence (AI) is still in the very early stages of adoption by most organizations. However, most leaders are quite excited to implement AI into the company's business functions to start realizing its extraordinary benefits. While we have no way of knowing all the ways artificial intelligence and machine learning will ultimately impact business functions, here are 10 business functions that are ready to use artificial intelligence. Not only can AI help to develop marketing strategies, but it's also instrumental in executing them. Already AI sorts customers according to interest or demographic, can target ads to them based on browsing history, powers recommendation engines, and is a critical tool to give customers what they want exactly when they want it.

New York-based insurance provider Travelers, with 30,000 employees and 2021 revenues of about $35 billion, is in the business of risk. Managing all of its facets, of course, requires many different approaches and tools to achieve beneficial outcomes, and Mano Mannoochahr, the company†s SVP and chief data & analytics officer, has a crow†s nest perspective of immediate and long-term tasks to equally strengthen the company culture and customer needs. We needed to think about those disciplines together and make progress to maximize the benefit to our customers and our business overall.†Another focus is on finding and nurturing talent. It†s a pressing issue not unique to Travelers, but Mannoochahr sees that in order to deliver on those disciplines advancing analytics to foster a healthier business, he and his team recognize the need to cast a wider net. This is kind of a team sport for us, so it†s not just data scientists but software engineers, data engineers, and even behavioral scientists to understand how we empathize and best leverage the experience that our frontline employees have, as well as position these capabilities in the best way so we can gain their trust and they can start to trust the data and the tool to make informed decisions.

The Internet has enhanced communications, increased commerce, and brought people together socially. Unfortunately, it has also enabled malicious activity with data breaches, ransomware, destroyed systems, and the Dark Web. Cyberattacks have become so common that only the large ones make the news now. The United States is arguably the most "wired" country in the world, with everything from cars to refrigerators to security cameras connected online, making us also the most vulnerable. Because the open Internet is driven by cost and speed and not by security, continual cyberattacks have pushed us into a new kind of Cold War -- with artificial intelligence (AI) serving as the basis of this arms race. From Moonlight Maze in the late 1990s to the recent SolarWinds attack, we have seen malware and ransomware planted in our infrastructure and systems.

In the grand scheme of things, artificial intelligence (AI) is still in the very early stages of adoption by most organizations. However, most leaders are quite excited to implement AI into the company's business functions to start realizing its extraordinary benefits. While we have no way of knowing all the ways artificial intelligence and machine learning will ultimately impact business functions, here are 10 business functions that are ready to use artificial intelligence. Not only can AI help to develop marketing strategies, but it's also instrumental in executing them. Already AI sorts customers according to interest or demographic, can target ads to them based on browsing history, powers recommendation engines, and is a critical tool to give customers what they want exactly when they want it.

There is a tremendous amount of data generated today -- so much that our normal databases cannot manage. It is estimated that by 2020, every person will be generating 1.7 megabytes of data in just a single second. If you think 1.7MBs are small then you might be thinking about data in terms of storage. But this is in terms of storage; in simple terms, a single character like A, B or 7 accounts for 1 byte, a document containing only 100 characters without any overhead such as symbols would use 100 bytes. One megabyte contains 1,000,000 bytes or one million characters. This means every second one person will be generating 1.7 million characters and subsequently 102 million characters every minute or 6.1 billion characters every hour.

Even though early experiments in computer vision started in the 1950s and it was first put to use commercially to distinguish between typed and handwritten text by the 1970s, today the applications for computer vision have grown exponentially. By 2022, the computer vision and hardware market is expected to reach $48.6 billion. It is such a part of everyday life you likely experience computer vision regularly even if you don't always recognize when and where the technology is deployed. Here is what computer vision is, how it works and seven amazing examples in practice today. What is Computer Vision (CV)?

If you became concerned about a mole on your back -- perhaps it had become painful or looked unsightly -- your doctor might decide to remove it and have it evaluated. She'd send it to a pathology lab, where a sample of the tissue would be prepared in the form of a slide. It would then be sent to a pathologist, who would examine the slide to determine whether the tissue had any problematic elements, like cancer. After taking a look, the pathologist might ship it to a specialist at another lab for a second opinion. Each time the slide is moved, it is packed up and shipped to a different address.

AI solutions such as automated emails and predictive analytics can act as a force multiplier for B2B marketing teams. Megan Wharton is an excellent sales assistant. She's been at her job only a few months, but she's easily the best person at qualifying promising leads on her team. Megan has a remarkable knack for chatting with potential customers over email, and knows exactly what to write to get prospects talking with a salesperson. While her counterparts disqualify leads after a few attempts, she keeps pushing.