The Daily Crunch 09/29/16

Is Microsoft's next life the artificial kind, and is Nvidia looking to cash in on the same kind of transformation? All that and more in The Daily Crunch for September 29, 2016. And if you're currently betting big on being a VR production house, I wish you the best.

1. Microsoft's AI ambitions

The way Microsoft is going, it could be primarily an AI company in the next few years. The company's Ignition conference in Atlanta saw Satya Nadella talking up Redmond's AI work, and now it has a dedicated AI business group led by Microsoft Research EVP Harry Shum. Meanwhile, it's also signed up to a cooperative AI effort alongside Facebook, Amazon, Google, and IBM, which should help float all AI boats. Clippy's sentient awakening is just around the corner.

2. Nvidia's really doubling down on car smarts

Nvidia has had a steady string of announcements regarding autonomous car technology, and it made a few more at the inaugural GPU Tech Conference in Europe. First, it showed off its own test car, which used deep learning and observation of human drivers exclusively to learn how to drive itself. This is different from a typical algorithmic rules based or hybrid approach that combines those with deep learning, and it's impressive to see it work so well. Nvidia also previewed its next-gen in-car SoC, which is a supercomputer with minimal power draw in a tiny package.

3. Your Apple Watch, subsidized

Getting the Apple Watch on more wrists is resulting in interesting commercial arrangements with Apple, including one with Aetna. The U.S. healthcare provider is launching iOS-specific health applications, and investing in Apple Watch by buying one for all of its 50,000 employees. That's a big get for Apple, and for the furniture of the Watch in health and wellness, which seems to be where Cupertino is focusing its attention with the wearable.

4. Bank with buddies

Why bank alone when you can bank with a friend? Simple's new joint accounts don't require spousal qualifications to share an account, and instead are designed to work for basically anyone who wants to pool their resources towards a common cause, like paying the rent, for instance. The simple sharing looks good, provided you have the correct social dynamics in place to make this work – but that's on you, humans.

5. EV week at Paris Motor Show

It's time for everyone to reveal their answer to Tesla, and Paris Motor Week is it for at least Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz. Both companies revealed their EV concepts, which should at least resemble upcoming production vehicles destined for the 2020-ish time frame.

Both the Volkswagen ID and the Mercedes-Benz Generation EQ share some similarities, including design that leans heavily on autonomy features, and maximum efficiency through choice of materials and restraint in terms of the size and number of cabin features. Both companies also seem to be preparing for the possibility that car ownership looks very different in a few years' time.

6. Running a VR production studio looks expensive

Any kind of film production gets pricey, quick, but VR seems especially so. Here's a look inside one of the leading VR content studios, Here Be Dragons, which so far might be creating content for a very limited audience, based on what we can tell about VR consumer market size.

7. Robo-investing is great, but what about ethics?

That's what Grow wants to address with their new socially responsible automated investment app. It's a good twist on a model that's proven very successful thus far, and an option that's likely to strike a chord with millennials when they're looking for places to put their money that aren't just about maximizing return.