Why companies like Twitter are paying top dollar for AI startups July 12, 2016 Big tech firms acquiring artificial intelligence startups are paying top dollar for them and are increasingly looking for those yet to bring in revenue, bucking the trend of wider tech M&A. “A good AI engineer is worth more than many company chief executives right now,” said Victor Basta of advisory firm Magister Advisors which identified the pursuit of talent in AI as one [...]
Soon VW cars will let you control your home from the driving seat July 6, 2016 Troubled car maker Volkswagen is taking another step forward in its drive towards a technological future (and away from that emissions scandal) in a new tie up with electronics giant LG. Fresh from inking an investment in Uber rival Gett in a bid to become a "mobility company" rather than a traditional car manufacturer, the maker of VWs, Audis and Porsches [...]
Could AI halt blindness? DeepMind and this London hospital are finding out July 5, 2016 DeepMind, the pioneering British artificial intelligence company owned by Google, is researching how the technology may help save people's sight in a new partnership with leading London eye hospital Moorfields. The firm's machine learning technology, which has already demonstrated its ability to beat humans at the chess-like game Go, will be used to analyse two [...]
Demand for Accenture’s consulting services has pushed up the firm’s revenue, sending the share price higher in the pre-market June 23, 2016 An up-swing in Accenture's consulting business has helped the company beat analyst expectations in its third quarter. The Dublin-based company reported a better-than-expected 8.6 per cent rise in quarterly revenue to $8.43bn (£6.44bn) from $7.77bn in the same period last year. Net income rose to $897.2m, or $1.41 per share, for the three months to the end of May, [...]
Robot rubbish: Most workers don’t fear automation June 21, 2016 The robots are coming, or so say experts, pundits and commentators. The World Economic Forum predicted that expanded automation and artificial intelligence (AI) would mark the fourth industrial revolution, which could lead to the biggest upheaval in the labour market in a century. Meanwhile, the Bank of England’s Andy Haldane has hypothesised that up to [...]
The UK is about to become a world leader in artificial intelligence June 20, 2016 With the news that Magic Pony has been acquired by Twitter, we are witnessing a crucial turning point – five of the world’s biggest technology companies have now purchased UK-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) companies. See Magic Pony Technology and Twitter, SwiftKey and Microsoft, VocalIQ and Apple, DeepMind and Google, and Evi and Amazon. Over the coming days [...]
Twitter just acquired very cool London-based AI startup Magic Pony June 20, 2016 Twitter has acquired a London-based startup, Magic Pony, in a bid to ramp up its artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning capabilities, in a deal reportedly worth $150m (£102m). "Machine learning is increasingly at the core of everything we build at Twitter," said Twitter boss Jack Dorsey in a blog post today. "It’s powering much of the work [...]
VR doctors and drone delivered pizza: The six ways tech will change our lives in the next 20 years June 20, 2016 We're hurtling towards a world that's free of cold hard cash and we'll see virtual reality doctors in the future, but we'll still be ordering takeaway pizza – only it will be delivered by drone instead, people predict. These are just some of the technologies of the future envisioned as the most likely to be part [...]
Meet Rolls-Royce’s crazy driverless supercar and the glass-fronted Mini concept car of the future June 16, 2016 Rolls-Royce has created a super luxury car of the future ditching a chauffeur and any kind of driver entirely while serving the super rich with a robot concierge. The car delivers passengers to their destination in the style of Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" with a canopy roof opening up to allow owners to stand up fully as [...]
Apple had plenty of “I’d definitely use that” moments at WWDC June 13, 2016 Once again the Apple faithful dutifully attended or watched its annual developer update to see what the company had in store. Apple’s momentum with developers is staggering. It claims to have over 30m developers and since the iPhone launched, the company claims to have shared nearly $50bn (£35bn) of shared revenue with app makers. It remains the [...]