AI | Pixr8 News

10Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

CHINA

China’s Tencent Partners with a UK Firm to Boost AI in Health Space

China’s Tencent Holdings is tying up with a technology firm from the United Kingdom called Medopad Ltd to use artificial intelligence for the purpose of improving Parkinson's disease treatment. The company is collaborating with Medopad to develop a system to remotely monitor patients with severe movement disorder. The company said that the basic goal is to allow doctors to set drug doses and modify care without patients having to go to the hospital. Healthcare is increasingly "not only about what happens in the clinic, but what happens in the real world", Wei Fan, Tencent's executive director for medical AI research said. "The reason we want to work with Medopad is they're experts in monitoring patients." Founded in 2011, Medopad has received funding from German pharmaceuticals firm B...

AI Firm Machinify Raises $10 Million in Series A Round

9Oct By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

AI Firm Machinify Raises $10 Million in Series A Round

Artificial intelligence company Machinify has reportedly raised funds amounting to $10 million in Series A funding round. The round was led by Battery Ventures with participation from GV and Matrix Partners. Through Machinify, the companies feed the system raw data, specify what they’re trying to optimize for. Based on past decisions, the machine can figure out the right thing to do. “Our core notion is that today, enterprises are collecting a ton of data,” Machinify founder and CEO Prasanna Ganesan stated. “But if you look at how many of them are successful in turning it into smarter decision-making to drive efficiency, very few companies are succeeding.” Machinify is laser-focused on the critical operational issues created by the deployment of what we often call Software 2.0 within ...

Uber to Invest $154 million to Boost Canadian Operations

15Sep By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

Uber to Invest $154 million to Boost Canadian Operations

Global cab aggregator Uber has announced that it would invest up to $154 million (Can$200 million) over five years for the purpose of expanding its Toronto lab which is concerned with developing artificial intelligence for self-driving cars. Along with this, the company is planning to open a new engineering office in Canada's largest metropolis in early 2019. Uber's new engineering hub will join the company's efforts to launch the new features for its app. Also, they would expand into other modes of transportation such as electric bikes and scooters, as well as partnerships with public transit. In the 15 months since the Uber lab led by University of Toronto professor and machine learning expert Raquel Urtasun opened, it has delivered "significant technical breakthroughs towards m...

6Aug By Gauri SinghNo Comments

FUNDING

Pre-School App OckyPocky Raised Angel Funding from ah! Ventures

India’s personalized app for pre-school students called OckyPocky has reportedly secured funds the amount of which has not been disclosed yet. The particular round of angel funding was led by Mumbai-based ah! Ventures which is a start-up focused growth catalyst. The funds raised by the kid-tech startup will be utilized for the expansion of the company’s user base to the pre-school market in Tier 2 and Tier 3 centres. Also, it aims to tap the kids in the NRI market with cultural connect to India through a Hindi learning curriculum. Apart from this, the company is also planning to boost up its operations and enhance the technology. Founded in2015 by Amit Agrawal, the former YouTube India Head and IIM Bangalore alumnus, OckyPocky is an app that works on tech-for-good and offers English ...

30Jul By NitishNo Comments

FUNDING

AI Startup Antworks Raises $15 Million Funding

Singapore based AI platform AntWorks raises USD 15 million (about Rs 103 crore) from SBI Investment Co Ltd, a subsidiary of Japan's SBI Holdings, Inc. The funding will use in enterprise RPA (Robotic process automation), fuel R&D and foray into newer markets. Antworks has delivery centers and offices in Singapore, Australia, India, the Philippines, Qatar, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Co-founded by Asheesh Mehra and Govind Sandhu in 2015, Antworks have more than 450 customers globally. In October 2015, the company purchased Benchmark Systems, a company based in the United States. At the time, AntWorks primary delivery system was in Pune, India. Its first year, the company had $11 million in revenue. The funding will help AntWorks and SBI Holdings t...

Microsoft Launches New AI Capabilities For Microsoft 365

13Jul By Gauri SinghNo Comments

Tech

Microsoft Launches New AI Capabilities For Microsoft 365

The global technology firm Microsoft has launched fresh artificial intelligence (AI) powered capabilities in its Microsoft 365. This new feature will enable the people in an organization to make live and on-demand events. With the introduction of this new feature, events can now be seen in real-time or on-demand, with high-definition video and interactive discussion. "Today, we are introducing new ways Microsoft 365 connects people across their organization and improves collaboration habits, including new AI-infused capabilities," said Ron Markezich, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft. Microsoft 365 was inaugurated a year back and its usage has increased by more than 100 percent, building on over 135 million commercial monthly Office 365 users, 200 million Windows 10 commercial devic...

PayPal To Employ 600 Techies In AI and ML Domain Soon

2Jul By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

PayPal To Employ 600 Techies In AI and ML Domain Soon

The American online payment company Paypal is considering India as a market for increasing growth and therefore, is planning to appoint over 600 techies by the end of this year that is by December, in the machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) sector. Paypal is one of the largest online payment services till date that supports online money transfers and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods like cheques and money orders. "We plan to increase the headcount by 600 in 2018. Some of the job roles that PayPal intends to hire for include application developers- Java, Node JS; back-end developers- data engineers, data experts and product managers," Guru Bhat, GM Technology & Head of Engineering, PayPal said. "For PayPal, the India centres are key...

Microsoft Acquires a Startup To Bolster AI Potential

21Jun By Gauri SinghNo Comments

ACQUISITION

Microsoft Acquires a Startup To Bolster AI Potential

The world’s largest PC software company Microsoft has officially announced that according to an agreement, it is soon going to acquire an artificial intelligence (AI) startup called Bonsai. Founded in 2014, the AI company Bonsai is headquartered in San Fransisco and the primary motive of Microsoft behind this acquisition is to enhance and bolster its AI and machine learning potential. Microsoft stated that Bonsai has developed technology that will let experts with AI experience work with autonomous systems. “To realize this vision of making AI more accessible and valuable for all, we have to remove the barriers to development, empowering every developer, regardless of machine learning expertise, to be an AI developer,” said Gurdeep Pall, Microsoft Corporate VP. “Bonsai has made tremend...

Google Steps Back from Continuing the Military AI Project

4Jun By Gauri SinghNo Comments

USA

Google Steps Back from Continuing the Military AI Project

The Google employees have lately discovered that the most popular multinational technology company will withdraw from a contract to assist the military in making use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to examine drone videos, followed with a disapproval by the workers. On Friday, An executive from Google's cloud team proclaimed and told the employees that the company would not attempt or desire to renew the disputable deal after it expires next year. When the company came across the fact that the military was associated with the US Department of Defence, it thrived the feeling of rebellion inside the internet titan. An internally drawn request or petition appealing for the authority of Google to remain away from the "business of war" gathered end number of signatures, however, some work...

Agritech Startup Raises $14 Million From Gates Foundation & Others

31May By NitishNo Comments

FUNDING

Agritech Startup Raises $14 Million From Gates Foundation & Others

Bengaluru based Agritech startup Stellapps raises $14 million funding led by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and IndusAge Partners, among others. Stellapps Technologies have one of the largest dairy IoT platforms in India and they will use the current funding for product development and operation expansion including for monitoring the quantity and quality of milk, storage facilities, creating wearable devices for tracking cattle health and infrastructure for housing the cattle. Ultimately, the focus is on reducing costs for the farmer by ensuring there are higher milk yields and consistent health of their cattle. The company is also backed by Flipkart founder Binny Bansal and Omnivore Ventures. The Indian government currently holds 40% of the dairy space. In 2017, the comp...

10May By Sheldan RungasamyNo Comments

FUNDING

AI Driven Analytics Startup Raises $145 Mn Funding

ThoughtSpot, an artificial intelligence driven analytics company announced that it raised $145 million in a funding round led by existing investors. Investors such as Lightspeed Ventures, Future Fund, Khosla Ventures, and General Catalyst participated in this funding round which witnessed the entry of Sapphire Ventures in the AI firm investors’ team. The funds raised will serve the purpose of upgrading its analytics capabilities, expanding in newer markets such as EMEA and APAC, improve is R&D activities in its centers based in Palo Alto, Seattle, Dallas and Bangalore. Since inception in 2012, ThoughtSpot raised a total of $306 million in funding and the company states to have poured over $10 million to operate efficiently in India. ThoughtSpot also revealed that the $203 b...

TCS Launch Business 4.0, Target $5 Billion Digital Revenue

23Apr By Lavina TolaniNo Comments

News

TCS Launch Business 4.0, Target $5 Billion Digital Revenue

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, India's largest IT firm is betting big on 'Business 4.0' to propel its revenues from new age-technologies like automation, cloud, and the Internet of Things to over $5 billion this year. Rajesh Gopinathan, MD, and CEO at TCS reported, There are numerous components of digital technologies, there is cloud, automation, analytics, IoT. People have been looking to various technologies each of which has its own value and importance, the point, however, lies in the fact how one stitches them together helping in business growth. Business 4.0 is a thought based leadership framework that helps customers leverage digital technologies to direct their growth and transformation agendas, as told by CEO Rajesh Gopinathan. While asserting the fact that TCS is not a 'd...