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Hey there, here are your top news stories from eWEEK, sponsored by Dell and Intel. Today's
topics include the release of Microsoft's Machine-Learning beta, JPMorgan Chasewill
launch its own mobile payment service, Oracle puts software in its SPARC M7 chip to improve
security, and IBM buys the weather company’s digital assets.
Developers looking to build intelligent apps that understand natural language no longer
have to wait for an invitation to participate in Microsoft's Project Oxford private beta.
Project Oxford is Microsoft's collection of machine-learning application programming interfaces
(API) and services. During this year's Build developer conference, the technology helped
the company score a rare viral hit with its age-guessing site, How-Old.net. Within hours
of being launched, the site garnered hundreds of thousands of image submissions as users
tested the site's attempts to figure out the ages and genders of photo subjects, sometimes
to comedic effect. JP Morgan Chase is jumping into the expanding
mobile payments marketplace with a planned Chase Pay service, which is scheduled to launch
in mid-2016. It will compete with established services from Apple, Google and Samsung. According
to the banking company, the Chase Pay service will allow customers to pay for goods and
services in-store through mobile apps or for online purchases at retailers including Walmart,
Target, Best Buy and Shell. The service will be available to some 94 million Chase credit,
debit and pre-paid card account holders. Over the past five years, Oracle has steadily
upgraded the SPARC chip architecture and the servers that run on it. At the company's OpenWorld
2015 user conference this week, Oracle officials unveiled the latest processor, the SPARC M7,
and a family of systems powered by the chip. However, the M7 is the first chip completely
designed by Oracle. The new processor includes software features integrated onto the silicon
that are designed to bring improved data security and database performance.
IBM announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire The Weather Company’s
business-to-business mobile and cloud-based web properties, including WSI, weather.com,
Weather Underground and The Weather Company brand. The news of the acquisition played
heavily at the IBM Insight 2015 conference in Las Vegas. IBM made a series of announcements
with The Weather Company, including building a set of new IBM Cloud Insight Services with
the company and hosting a two-hour segment of the Weather Underground TV show onsite
at the Insight conference. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Thanks for watching. Follow the links on this page to learn more about the stories mentioned
in this broadcast. And check back every weekday for another Daily Tech Briefing from eWEEK.com.