When it comes to sports teams, marketing is everything. You have to sell tickets, merchandise and get the deals for TV coverage, though the latter is usually covered by a deal with the league. Now the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers is teaming up with Microsoft in an effort to obtain the data it needs to increase its revenue. To accomplish that goal the team is turning big data and the power of the Cortana Intelligence Suite, Microsoft's digital assistant. The goal is selling more season tickets, a tough sell given that most ticket buyers tend to not change their habits from… [Continue Reading]
Soon enough, you can expect Google’s AI to start sending you love letters. And judging by the information you are just about to read, those might be some of the best love letters ever written, in the history of robotkind. Or humankind. Or both, I guess. Here’s what’s going on. Google says its AI engine’s answers to human questions are too factual. Imagine the answers as being purely robotic. Subject, predicate, adverbial clause. Google, on the other hand, wants those answers to be more human -- it wants the robot to be able to answer the same question in different words,… [Continue Reading]