Nvidia, OpenAI to Collaborate With Microsoft's AI Efforts

Today's topics include Microsoft's partnership with Nvidia and Open AI, Mozilla's introduction of its new Firefox Focus Browser, Google's release of a new Application Programming Interface to improve employee search and Snapchat's filing for an Initial Public Offering.

It's no secret that Microsoft is banking on artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver next-generation IT services to its corporate customers as they embark on their digital transformation journey.

This week during the SC16 supercomputing conference in Salt Lake City, the company joined computer graphics hardware maker Nvidia to announce they would collaborate to bring AI-enabled business processes and workflows to practically any enterprise.

The companies are working together on an AI framework and platform that runs Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit, the open-source deep learning solution that mimics how the human brain processes information.

Separately, Microsoft and OpenAI, a non-profit AI research organization whose sponsors include Tesla's high-profile co-founder, Elon Musk, announced Azure will be the primary cloud platform to run OpenAI's experiments.

There's a new web browser in the Apple AppStore today as Mozilla's Firefox Focus makes its debut as a privacy-focused approach to mobile web browsing.

The new browser follows multiple Mozilla efforts in recent years to improve security for both mobile and desktop users and debuts just two days after Firefox 50 for desktop was released.

In December 2015, Mozilla released its Focus by Firefox content blocker for Apple's IOS. With Focus by Firefox, Mozilla brought the Tracking Protection privacy feature that first debuted in Firefox 42 to IOS users.

The Firefox Focus browser can block various forms of tracking technologies including cookies that can be used by websites for advertising and analytics.

Google has released a new Application Programming Interface (API) that it says can help organizations improve their employee recruiting. Google developed the Google Cloud Jobs API for enterprise career sites, applicant tracking systems and job boards.

The API uses machine-learning techniques to understand and anticipate a job seeker’s preferences and match them to available or even anticipated job openings.

The API is the result of ongoing efforts at Google to try and tap machine-learning methods to improve the way in which people search for jobs and companies find high-quality job candidates.

Snapchat, the social-network messaging app that turned down a $3 billion buyout offer from Facebook three years ago, has filed for an initial public offering, Reuters reported Nov. 15.

The wire service said Snapchat, which has about 100 million users worldwide, could go public as soon as March at potential values of $20 billion to $25 billion, making it the largest initial public offering since Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's (BABA.N) went public in 2014 valued at $170.9 billion.

It potentially could be the largest U.S. technology IPO since Facebook Inc's debut in May 2012 with a value of $81.2 billion.