TC Roundup: Google bolsters artificial intelligence efforts, partners with Oxford

Google bolsters artificial intelligence efforts, partners with Oxford: Google Inc is expanding its artificial intelligence initiative, hiring more than half a dozen leading academics and experts in the field and announcing a partnership with Oxford University to "accelerate" its efforts.

Google will make a "substantial contribution" to establish a research partnership with Oxford's computer science and engineering departments, the company said on Thursday regarding its work to develop the intelligence of machines and software, often to emulate human-like intelligence.(Reuters)

Facebook launches pseudonymous app "rooms" that lets you create forums about any topic: It's not quite anonymous, but forums standalone app Rooms is Facebook's first product that allows you to ditch your real name. Rooms lets you set up a mobile-only in-app discussion space about any topic, customize the look and moderation settings, set a screen name for the room, and choose who to invite to share text, photos, videos, and comments with others in the Room. It's a bit like forums inside an Instagram-style vertical feed. Rooms doesn't require a Facebook account or even an email address to sign up. It employs an innovative QR-code invite system where people take a photo or screenshot of a Room's code to gain entry. (Tech Crunch) Twitter to open learning center for low-income and homeless in San Francisco next summer: Twitter, the microblogging giant whose headquarters sit on a section of San Francisco's Market Street that's not exactly fancy, is set to open a learning center for the homeless next summer.

The learning center, which the company announced in partnership with Compass Family Services last May, will be located across the street from Twitter, at Essex Fox Plaza, 1390 Market Street, and will open next summer, according to a San Francisco Chronicle report. The company is investing $1 million into it. (Venture Beat)