Archivo de la categoría: AI

AI, AR, E3, Facebook, News & Analysis, Sony, VR

Facebook launches 30 made-for-VR games at E3

junio 14, 2016 Business Cloud News

Facebook, Bethesda Softworks and Sony are among the names to have announced new made-for-VR games at E3, reports Telecoms.com.

Facebook has launched 30 made-for-VR games for the Oculus Touch as it continues efforts to diversify its portfolio. Aside from those being released in the coming months, the Oculus team have also stated it has ‘hundreds’ more titles in the pipeline, though it hasn’t established when the Touch motion controllers might ship. The announcement also included the launch of Oculus Ready PCs, made by Alienware, Lenovo, and HP.

Bethesda Softworks also claims its Fallout 4 will become first big open-world game to get an official, studio-released virtual reality mode, as well as Sony announcing its Resident Evil title will receive the ‘full VR experience’.

While the shift towards VR and AR offers healthy potential for brands and gaming companies alike, it could present the same challenges for network players as the rise of mobile. VR could provide similar stress on the network as smartphone mass-adoption and the subsequent reduction in the price of data did. Deloitte estimates 2.5 million VR headsets and 10 million game copies could be sold in 2016 alone.

From a VR perspective, the gaming industry represents a healthy opportunity for brands such as Oculus. Research from intelligence firm Newzoo estimates gamers worldwide could generate a total of $99.6 billion in revenues in 2016, up 8.5% compared to 2015. Mobile will account for $36.9 billion, exceeding PC revenues for the first time, and growth is expected to continue at a healthy 6.6% CAGR through to 2019, potentially reaching $118.6 billion in total.

One of the main challenges for the VR industry currently is the levels of adoption and normalization of the technology itself. Currently the hardware is generally perceived as a luxury item and VR revenues will remain marginal for the short- to mid-term future until uptake has moved into the mainstream market. Newzoo expect the majority of revenues to be generated by hardware sales, spectator content, and live viewing formats, though this is likely to be the platform where consumers communicate with each other and interact with content in the long run.

Elsewhere in the industry, Sony has confirmed its first steps into the world of high-end VR, by announcing the release of PlayStation VR. The headset will be available later this year; October 13^th and will be priced at $499 when bundled with the camera and Move controllers it needs to be fully functional.

While Sony is slightly later to the market than the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, should the team be able to capitalise on strong performance in recent months the move could prove to be a successful venture. During the final quarter of 2015, Sony’s gaming division reported a 10.5% year-on-year increase revenue brought on by strong PlayStation hardware and software sales totalling $4.89 billion. Operating income for the gaming unit was 45.5% higher owing partly to the fact the company sold more than sold over 35 million PlayStation 4 consoles.

AI, Artificial intelligence, Big Data, cognitive computing, IBM, Interactive Advertising, News & Analysis, Watson

IBM launches interactive ads on Watson

junio 6, 2016 Jamie Davies

IBM has announced the launch of Watson Ads to harness the AI potential of its cognitive computing platform and create interactive ads, personalized to individual customers. The first offerings of the initiative will be made available through The Weather Company sub-brand.

Personalized advertising has proved to be big business in recent months as brands aim to move away from the blanket marketing approach, as towards a proposition where one-to-one communications are the norm. IBM believe Watson’s ability to understand and comprehend natural language will enable advertisers to interact with customers on a more personal level, and also on a wide scale.

“The dawn of cognitive advertising is truly a watershed moment. Now as part of IBM, we have even more tools and technologies at our disposal to inspire innovations within advertising, artificial intelligence and storytelling,” said Domenic Venuto, GM of Consumer products at The Weather Company. “This is a huge opportunity to expose consumers to all of the surprising and delightful experiences that Watson has in store for them – and to make advertising a truly valuable interaction for both our fans and our marketing partners, which is always our goal.”

IBM claim the new proposition will aide advertiser in numerous ways including a better understanding of brand perception and customer favourability, helping customers make a more informed decision, improve overall experience, optimize creative and advertising strategies, as well as helping marketers use data more effectively.

As part of the initiative, the team will also create the Watson Ads Council, a collection of marketers from various verticals, who will act as a sounding board for the latest innovations leveraging Watson Ads and cognitive advancements in advertising.

“Transforming ourselves and industries is part of The Weather Company DNA,” said Jeremy Steinberg, Global Head of Sales at The Weather Company. “We’ve embraced big data and leveraged it to improve every aspect of our business, from forecast accuracy to ad targeting. Now we’ve set our sights on cognition. We believe human interaction is the new ‘search,’ and that cognitive advertising is the next frontier in marketing – and we’re leading the charge to make it a reality.”

Watson Ads will launch first exclusively across The Weather Company properties, but this is expected to have broad implications for other marketing channels, including out of home, television, connected cars and social media platforms.

AI, Artificial intelligence, China, Dell, Enterprise IT, News & Analysis

Dell targets SMBs in China with launch of new company

mayo 26, 2016 Business Cloud News

Dell has prioritized growing its presence within the Chinese market targeting SMBs and public sector organizations, according to China Daily.

Speaking at the China Big Data Industry Summit in Guiyang, Dell CEO Michael Dell announced the launch of a new company, alongside its local partner, to gain traction within the lucrative market. Guizhou YottaCloud Technology will now act as a means for Dell to access the local market, prioritizing small and medium-sized enterprises and local governments in the first instance.

“China will play an increasingly important role in the big data era and the United States-based tech giant will speed up efforts to develop new products for the market,” said Dell at the conference.

Dell is one of a number of organizations who have prioritized local partnerships in the Chinese market, as locals tend to favour Chinese businesses and technologies over foreign counterparts, quoting security as the main driver. The country itself is a big draw for Dell as a business, representing its second largest market worldwide, only behind the US. The company also highlighted in September it plans to invest $125 billion in the Chinese market over the next five years, with cloud computing being the focal point.

Last year Dell launched it’s ‘In China for China’ strategy, which not only included the above investments, but also a drive from its Venture Capital arm in China to encourage entrepreneurialism, expanding its R&D function in the country, as well as establishing an artificial intelligence and advanced computing joint-lab, with the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The AI research will focus on the areas of cognitive function simulation, deep learning and brain computer simulation.

“The Internet is the new engine for China’s future economic growth and has unlimited potential,” said Dell in September. “Being an innovative and efficient technology company, Dell will embrace the principle of ‘In China, for China’ and closely integrate Dell China strategies with national policies in order to support Chinese technological innovation, economic development and industrial transformation.”

AI, Artificial intelligence, CRM, Financial Results, Marc Benioff, News & Analysis, Salesforce

Marc Benioff backs AI as Salesforce reports 28% growth

mayo 19, 2016 Jamie Davies

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff

Salesforce reported healthy results over the course of Q1, growing 28%, as CEO Marc Benioff backed AI as the next major growth driver, during the company’s quarterly earnings call.

While social and mobile has facilitated Salesforce growth in recent years, the team are backing artificial intelligence as the next major trend to take the company through the targeted $10 billion annual revenue target. Benioff highlighted that in the same way the company is now known for being a social and mobility brand, the ambition is for Salesforce to be perceived as “an AI first company”.

“When I look at kind of the next major trend for Salesforce and our industry that will drive tremendous growth is got to be artificial intelligence,” said Benioff. “And as we look out into the future and we start to look at extreme improvement and advances in artificial intelligence whether it’s machine learning, whether it’s deep learning, whether it’s machine intelligence itself, I think that those kind of capabilities appearing inside our applications that is going to be a major growth capability going forward.”

One of the newest product launches for the company, Salesforce Inbox, uses these AI and machine intelligence opportunities to gives companies a perspective on how they can be more efficient in the sales, service, and marketing processes. SalesforceIQ is another offering which uses the same capabilities as it has an artificial intelligence front end, whereas Benioff also highlighted Sales Cloud has a machine learning front end.

While others in the industry have been very vocal about their progress within the AI field, Salesforce has seemingly been sneaking in under the radar with additional acquisitions including Tempo AI and PredictionIO. SalesforceIQ, an AI-driven calendar app which can prioritize work schedules for sales employees, was incorporated into the product portfolio following the $390 million acquisition of RelateIQ in 2014. These acquisitions, as well as organic development, are aiding the company in adapting to what Benioff described as “an AI first world”.

Salesforce’s new efforts will focus on the new, digitally enabled customers and consumers, who could be seen to driving the transformation worldwide. This new generation is defined by technology and speed, as Benioff highlighted they want services faster and easier than ever before, as well as being ever more reliant on social and mobile technologies. Companies who do not adapt themselves to this new proposition but remain in a more traditional model are those who will struggle to remain competitive.

“We’re in the midst of a massive generational shift; a new generation of customers and consumers is clearly emerging,” said Benioff. “We have been calling them here at Salesforce C generation customers. I mean this is really part of a huge shift that’s happening in computing. We’ve gone from the first generation of computing which was very much about systems of record to the second generation which was systems of engagement we talked about that on these calls many times over the last 10 years.

“And we are clearly moving into this incredible world that the system of intelligence that’s all yielding these incredible systems of customers or C generation customers that are — that our customers are connecting to. And that’s we’re so excited about.”

In terms of financials, revenues for Q1 grew to nearly $2 billion, up 28% in constant currency. Sales Cloud demonstrated 15% year-over-year growth, Service Cloud grew 32%, Marketing Cloud grew 29%, whereas Apps Cloud and other business units grew 45%. Growth in Sales Cloud was the highest recorded in the five previous quarters, which Benioff attributing to a number of new innovations including its Lightning platform, where the team have recently released an updated government edition, as well as Pardot and SteelBrick capabilities.

The team are also raising 2017 revenue guidance to $8.16 billion to $8.2 billion, and are expecting revenues of between $2.005 billion to $2.015 billion in Q2.

“I’m also thrilled to announce we’re raising full-year revenue guidance $80 million raising the guidance we feel really excited about that, $8.2 billion is the high-end of our range and our current outlook puts us on its square path, look we are going to see now that we’re going to realize very shortly our $10 billion dream,” said Benioff. “This is amazing I think that one of the reasons that we are doing so well is because Oracle and SAP are doing so poorly in the cloud”

AI, Artificial intelligence, News & Analysis, Sony

Sony leans on AI to give technological advantage

mayo 18, 2016 Jamie Davies

Sony has announced its latest investment into Cogitai, taking the company’s interests into the world of artificial intelligence.

Artificial intelligence has been claiming column inches in recent months, as numerous technology companies including Facebook and Google aim to gain traction in a potentially profitable marketplace. The company has subtle experience in the AI space, having incorporated a number of face and speech recognition capabilities into previous products, though the company has not specifically stated where Cogitai’s technology will fit into the mix. Financials of the agreement have not been released to date.

“We believe that AI will be incorporated into numerous products and will eventually become commonplace,” said Hiroaki Kitano, CEO of Sony Computer Science Laboratories. Kitano’s division is responsible for future innovation in the business, where the team is current investigating the role of AI in enhanced the music experience for customers, as well as how the company can improve its own internal manufacturing processes.

“As this evolution happens, the most important thing to focus on is the benefit the technology brings to consumers. Because of this, the choice of domains, value propositions, and how one can align technologies to enable them to work together will be crucial. From this perspective the collaboration between Cogitai and Sony is a major milestone for the next wave of AI.”

The company’s first venture into the AI market focused around the launch of robotic dog AIBO in 1999 and humanoid robot QRIO in 2003. While these launches received a healthy amount of attention at the time, the last products were produced in 2006 due to the company’s need to concentrate on fighting back competition in its core consumer electronics business. Having restructured the consumer electronics business, the team could be using the integration of AI to provide technological advantage in the market segment.

Sony’s current AI activities are centred within the System R&D Group which is based in Sony Headquarters, and is also responsible for the development of augmented reality and other emerging technology areas. The team have implemented various AI capabilities in a number of current products including Xperia Agent, a voice activated robot which provides information in a similar manner to Siri and Project N, a wearable device, though the capabilities don’t appear to be as advanced as others in the market.

Accenture, AI, Artificial intelligence, Digital Transformation, IPsoft, News & Analysis

Accenture and IPsoft team up to launch AI initiative

mayo 16, 2016 Jamie Davies

Accenture has expanded its partnership with IPsoft to accelerate the adoption and implementation of artificial intelligence technologies.

As part of the relationship the team will launch the Accenture Amelia Practice, a new consulting arm for Accenture which will develop go-to-market strategies using the IPsoft’s product offering to build virtual agent technology for customers. In the first instance, the team will target the banking, insurance and travel industries.

“Artificial intelligence is maturing rapidly and offers great potential to reshape the way that organisations conduct business and interact with their customers and employees,” said Paul Daugherty, Accenture’s CTO “At the same time, executives are overwhelmed by the plethora of technologies and many products that are advertising AI or Cognitive capabilities.”

“With our new Accenture Amelia practice, we are taking an important step forward in advancing the business potential of artificial intelligence by combining IPsoft’s world-class virtual agent platform with Accenture’s broad technology capabilities and industry experience to help clients transform their business and operations.”

The extended partnership will focus on creating practical implementations for AI within the current business world, using automation at scale to increase organizational efficiencies. The IPsoft team have implemented the same concept with a number of customers including programs to answer invoicing queries from suppliers and front-line customer service bots.

Artificial intelligence is seemingly one of a number of new areas being prioritized by the Accenture team, as industry continues trends towards a more digitally enabled ecosystem. Recent research from highlighted the digital economy accounted for roughly 22% of the world’s total economy, with this figure predicted to rise to 25% by 2015. This figure was as low as 15% in 2005. The same research also predicts growth of new technology will continue on an upward scale, as 28% of the respondents believe the pace of change will increase “at an unprecedented rate”.

While Accenture’s business has predominantly been focused around traditional IT to date, the team’s future business will shift slightly towards disruptive technologies, building on its new business mantra ‘Every Business is a Digital Business’. AI is one of those prioritized disruptions, as it described artificial intelligence and intelligent automation as the “essential new co-worker for the digital age”.

It would appear Accenture are betting heavy on these new technologies as it claims 70% of executives are making significantly more investments in artificial intelligence technologies than they did in 2013, and 55% state that they plan on using machine learning and embedded AI solutions (like Amelia) extensively.

AI, Alibaba, Artificial intelligence, Database, News & Analysis, Public Cloud, SB Cloud, Softbank

Alibaba and Softbank launch SB Cloud for Japanese market

mayo 13, 2016 Jamie Davies

Alibaba and Softbank have announced the establishment of SB Cloud Corporation, a new joint venture to offer cloud computing services in Japan.

The demand for public cloud in Japan and surrounding countries has been growing in recent years, with Japan leading the way as the most advanced nation. A report from Gartner last year estimated the total public cloud services spending in the mature APJ region will rise to $11.5 billion by 2018. Alibaba has targeted the region to grow its already healthy cloud business unit.

“I’ve really enjoyed working with the Alibaba Cloud team on the joint venture over the past few months,” said Eric Gan, the new CEO of SB Cloud and EVP of SoftBank. “During the business planning discussions, I quickly felt that we were all working very much as one team with one goal. I believe the JV team can develop the most advanced cloud platform for Japanese customers, as well as for multinational customers who want to use the resources we have available in Japan.”

SB Cloud will enable Alibaba to increase its presence in the market, where it already offers services to SoftBank’s business customer base in Japan, which primarily comprises of global organizations. SB Cloud will open a new data centre in the country, where it will now serve customers outside of established SoftBank customer base, offering data storage and processing services, enterprise-level middleware as well as cloud security services.

A recent report from the US Department of Commerce highlighted the Japanese market is one of the most competitive worldwide, though five of the six major vendors are American, Amazon Web Services, Google, IBM, Microsoft and Salesforce. Domestic companies, such as Fujitsu, have announced aggressive expansion plans. Fujitsu claims to be to investing $2 billion between 2014 and 2017 to capture an increased market share in cloud computing, primarily focused on the growing IoT sub-sector.

While Alibaba’s traditional business has been in the Chinese market, the company has been making efforts over the last 12-18 months to diversify its outreach. Last year, the company launched a new data centre in Singapore, as well as in Silicon Valley. It also launched what it claims is China’s first cloud AI platform last August, DT PAI. The purpose-built algorithms and machine learning technologies are designed to help users generate predictive intelligence insights, claiming the service features “drag and drop” capabilities that let users easily connect different services and set parameters, seemingly following IBM’s lead in designing a more accessible offering for the industry.

AI, Artificial intelligence, Big Data, HP, HPE, IoT, News & Analysis

New HP Tech Venture Group may lead to HPE overlap

mayo 11, 2016 Jamie Davies

HP has announced the launch of HP Tech Ventures, the new corporate venture arm of the business, which will invest in IoT and artificial intelligence start-ups that could end up competing with HPE.

The team will aim to develop partnership and identify potential acquisitions within the new era of disruptive technologies. HP Tech Ventures, which will be based out of offices in Palo Alto and Tel Aviv, will be led by Chief Disrupter, Andrew Bolwell targeting new technologies in 3D transformation, immersive computing, hyper-mobility, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and smart machines in the first instance.

Following the split of Hewlett-Packard into two separate organizations, HP took the PC and printer assets, while HPE is now focused on enterprise-orientated technologies. Over the last several months, HPE has made numerous product launches and investments in cloud, machine-learning and IoT technologies, and HP Tech Ventures targeted technologies (IoT, AI, smart machines etc.) could potentially make the once combined companies, competitors. HPE also has its own venture arm, where it has invested in various cloud, big data and security start-ups.

“The next technology revolution is shifting towards strategic markets that speak to HP’s strengths,” said Shane Wall, HP Chief Technology Officer and head of HP Labs. “With our global brand and broad reach into consumer and commercial markets worldwide, HP can help start-ups bring product to market, build their business and scale in the global marketplace as they grow.”

The company has claimed it will be able to offer rapid scale to innovative start-ups, through its technology network, as well as its channel and distribution partners. The launch would appear to be one of HP’s strategies to counter the negative impact which declining PC sales is having on its traditional business, entering into new markets through potential acquisitions as opposed to organic growth.

AI, Artificial intelligence, BlueMix, cognitive computing, IBM, News & Analysis, SK C&C, Watson

IBM teams up with SK C&C to teach Watson learns Korean

mayo 9, 2016 Jamie Davies

SK C&C has continued Korea’s efforts to increase the usage and adoption of cloud computing within the region, announcing a new strategic alliance with IBM focused on the Watson cognitive computing platform.

As part of the agreement, IBM will train Watson to understand and comprehend Korean, and South Korea-based developers will create a number of localized API’s and services to increase adoption rates of such advanced cloud computing technologies in the region. Korean will be Watson’s eighth language, lining up with English, French, Italian, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese, and Arabic.

“Watson remains at the forefront of cognitive computing: advanced systems that learn at scale, understand with meaning, reason with purpose and interact with humans in natural ways,” said David Kenny, GM for IBM Watson. “The South Korean marketplace is moving quickly to embrace the disruptive opportunities from next generation technology.

“Our strategic alliance with SK Holdings C&C will put cognitive services in the hands of more businesses and developers, allowing them to apply Watson within their organizations to help transform entire industries and professions.”

Korea has been making positive strides in recent months to increase the adoption rate of cloud computing within the country, announcing a number of initiatives in March. Adoption rates are reported to be as low as 6.4% within the country currently, which could be perceived as low considering the number of tech companies which has grown out of Korea, though the government is planning to increase this to 13% over the next twelve months. Over the same period, the government also plans to increase the number of Korean cloud companies from 353 to 500.

While this announcement focused on cloud computing as a broader technology set, the government also announced plans to invest 100 billion won (approximately $87.2 million) to foster the development of supercomputers. The Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning said it would invest 10 billion won annually for the next 10 years to boost the growth of artificial intelligence, big data, the Internet-of-Things technologies and other emerging industries through supercomputers. The ambition is to create a supercomputer with a data-processing speed of 1 petaflop (PF) in five years, eventually reaching 30 PF by 2025.

As part of the partnership between IBM and SK C&C, the telco will run Watson and Bluemix from its Pangyo Cloud Centre, to foster the growth of cognitive computing and artificial intelligence. More specifically SK C&C is hoping the introduction of the technologies will improve mobile device experience, as well as consumers’ call centre interactions. SK C&C will also become IBM’s preferred distributor for cognitive solutions in South Korea.

“This alliance highlights SK’s dedication to growing our artificial intelligence-based data services business, strengthening our Ai leadership position, as well as spurring innovation and Ai adoption across Korea,” said Park Jung-ho, CEO of SK Holdings C&C.

The partnership between IBM and SK C&C is one of a number of examples of IBM’s efforts to broaden the appeal to the international audience. SK C&C will assist in developing Watson’s advanced conversational capabilities in Korean, in the same way SoftBank is aiding for Japanese, Mubadala for Arabic and GBM in South America. Each of these companies, including SK C&C, are developing local communities of developers to build, explore and create new applications in their native languages. Korean language Watson services are expected to become available early next year.

ICLOUD PE