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ecobee named CIX 2018 Innovator of the Year (BETAKIT)
ecobee has developed a smart thermostat, which includes built-in Amazon Alexa voice command functionalities coupled with Apple HomeKit compatibility.
Salesforce Recommends: Connected customers, eh? The Canadian perspective on exceeding expectations in customer experience. (SALESFORCE)
“Using AI might also position early adopters as more innovative, which speaks to the 55% of Canadians who said companies need to offer ‘cutting edge’ experiences to keep their business.”
Is Google’s new set of principles enough to calm fears over militarized AI? (CBC)
While the company’s effort to draft ethical guidelines is a start, critics say more needs to be done.
POTLOC raises $2.5 million to help retailers predict the success of new locations (BETAKIT)
Jane.ai, which allows employees to search through its corpus using conversational language, raised the funding from a network of private and angel investors.
Microsoft is buying AI startup Bonsai (TECHCRUNCH)
Bonsai specializes in reinforcement learning, a kind of trial and error approach to teach a system within the confines of a simulation. That learning can be used to train autonomous systems to complete specific tasks.
This AI helps find great startups before the world discovers them (FASTCOMPANY)
Swedish VC firm EQT Ventures’ Motherbrain uses machine learning to identity unknown companies with big potential.
Photo scanner app Photomyne raises $5M in Series A (FISNMES)
Photomyne, which provides an AI powered app that allows users to bring old photo prints online, plans to use the funding to expand its team and scale the company in Japan and Southeast Asia.
Engineer.ai aims at build-an-app platforms by using AI for speed and cost (TECHCRUNCH)
Engineer.ai’s Builder platform claims to combine AI with crowdsourced teams of designers and developers to build bespoke digital products at twice the speed and less than a third of the cost of traditional software development.
The inside story of how AI got good enough to dominate Silicon Valley (QZ)
Alex Krizhevsky didn’t get into the AI business to change the course of history. Krizhevsky, born in Ukraine but raised in Canada, was just looking to delay getting a coding job until he decided to enter the ImageNet competition, a test for AI consisting of a huge database of online images.
Recruiting company Hired raises $30M in Series D funding (FINSMES)
Hired, which provides a platform that matches tech workers with innovative companies, raised the funding from Investment Management Corporation of Ontario.
Kanata North Business Association launches autonomous vehicle ecosystem directory (BETAKIT)
The directory will provide a comprehensive overview of contributors to Canada’s autonomous vehicle ecosystem.
PayPal to buy Simility, a specialist in AI-based fraud and risk management, for $120M (TECHCRUNCH)
Acquiring Simility makes sense on two levels for PayPal: not just for its own systems, but for that of its customers, who make PayPal-powered transactions on the web, on mobile and at physical points of sales.