Why Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google all desperately need you to know that the robots are coming

It's been an unusual year in tech: Apart from maybe #Snapchat 's elusive Spectacles, there hasn't been a truly game-changing, mass-market piece of technology that's totally dominated the conversation. Instead, the biggest companies in tech, especially #Facebook, #Microsoft, #Google , and #Amazon , spent their 2016 hyping up something a little more abstract: their ongoing quests to build a so-called "general artificial intelligence," and all the extra smarts they're adding to the product while they're at it. Just in the last few weeks, Google released a bunch of code from its famed #DeepMind as free open source. #Facebook issued a series of videos explaining, in simple terms, exactly how #artificialintelligence works. #Microsoft released a huge set of data to help train virtual assistants like #Siri and #Cortana. And Amazon announced #AmazonLex, a service for developers to build Alexa-like intelligence to their apps. If you ask the CEOs of these companies, it's all about building new features and functions to their apps - from facial recognition in #GooglePhotos and instantly translating comments on Facebook, to more subtle things, like using AI to intelligently route internet traffic and make it possible to virtually "teleport" with #MicrosoftHoloLens.

http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-amazon-google-artificial-intelligence-2016-12

Line’s shares jump 26 percent in IPO, but the messaging service has serious hurdles ahead

When cloud software company #Twilio went public last month with a nice share price pop, tech industry observers mostly concluded that it’s now safe for unicorns to follow suit. Today’s tech IPO — the public offering of the Japanese messaging service Line — will probably lead Silicon Valley to the same conclusion. It’s the biggest tech stock offering of the year (so far), and Line’s stock rose more 26 percent to close around $41.50 a share. But while Line’s IPO proves that there’s a healthy appetite among investors for tech stocks, that’s not necessarily a vote of confidence in Line’s long-term business. The company initially wanted to go public around the time #Alibaba did in 2014, but then scrapped those plans (twice), hoping for more favorable market conditions. Since then, Line’s user growth has slowed down tremendously. The all-in-one messaging, commerce and media app dominates in Japan, Thailand and Taiwan, but rivals like #Facebook and #Snapchat are catching up.

http://www.recode.net/2016/7/14/12192432/line-ipo-hurdles-ahead?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWVRVNE5UazFNV0ZrWVdVMyIsInQiOiJqZXdNUzkwc2FoZlk0WFE2dlcyb09jSTRGTm5rXC8zQ2pDTGM4R1JmK2MwUjE5djJ5TEFWK1REeWFqdW1VRXBld04rSTRWY3ZpdTR0UHBrOU5SN2NLTFg5cXBRR1ZtTW9aT0o4b21MTWZuS0U9In0%3D