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TED curator Chris Anderson just announced the world’s biggest speaking fee — a $4.5m (£3.1m) cheque to be awarded to a speaker at the 2020 TED conference. There’s just one catch: the speaker must be an artificial intelligence, which convinces the audience that it has mastered the art of the 18-minute TED talk.

The IBM Watson AI X Prize, announced on Wednesday at the TED conference in Vancouver, will offer $4.5 million to the team that develops an artificial intelligence showing “how humans can collaborate with powerful cognitive technologies to tackle some of the world’s grand challenges”.

Peter Diamandis, chairman of the X Prize Foundation, said the winner would be chosen by the TED audience in 2020, when three finalists — either AIs or AI human partnerships — “come on stage to deliver jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring TED talks”.

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Well, US is failing on building a competitive waiter to go up against China’s version.


America is getting crushed by China. Not in trade or weapons or any of those things that don’t matter. We’re losing the war of the Roseys. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the new robot above, serving up deliciousness at a farmhouse restaurant in Sanmenxia, China.

Or look at this December photo of Tete, a robot in Qingdao, China. Tete can communicate over 200 words and has no trouble delivering dishes.

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And, who said Transformers were only in movies — think again.


A shape-shifting robot could work alongside human troops to bring military capabilities to the next level. The unmanned ground vehicle developed by Estonian defence company Milrem has an adaptable build, so components can be swapped out to suit the needs of different missions

A shape-shifting robot could work alongside human troops to bring military capabilities to the next level. The unmanned ground vehicle developed by Estonian defence company Milrem has an adaptable build, so components can be swapped out to suit the needs of different missions.

Meet the Nikkei Magic Man.


On the 10th day of every month, Junsuke Senoguchi has just one thing on his mind: the closing level of the Nikkei average.

That is because Senoguchi, an unassuming man in his late 40s, has built a machine that has been predicting the direction of Japanese shares, and once a month he gets a progress report on its success. The model makes a simple call — whether the equity index will be higher or lower after 30 days — and over almost four years it has been right 68 percent of the time.

“I’m so happy” when it works, said Senoguchi, a senior equity strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities Co. in Tokyo. “It’s because I feel I can predict the future.”

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Many know that who ultimately lands in the US White House can impact how US Tech Companies respond as well as their investors. This article discusses some of the potential impacts resulting in a GOP President for Apple and Google https://lnkd.in/bxWft89


Equity markets tend to overreact to the potential for major political policy changes, but a new report by UBS analyst Steven Milunovich indicates that some of the biggest U.S. companies could be facing a real possibility of major tax bills if a Republican is elected president in 2016.

According to Shane Lieberman, Federal Affairs Manager in the U.S. Office of Public Policy for UBS Americas, companies with large hordes of cash overseas, such as Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) may have a lot more riding on the election than investors realize.

Related Link: New Apple Supplier Data Are Highly Correlated With Revenue.

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