First water-resistant BlackBerry will not have keyboard

TCL, the Chinese conglomerate that produces phones under the BlackBerry name, is going to broaden its appeal to more than just keyboard devotees. The company has revealed to Engadget that it will launch a full touchscreen device under the BlackBerry name at some point in October. It may not be a Z10, or even a Storm (or Thunder), but if you were looking to get your mitts on a keyboard-free BlackBerry, it's coming.
Granted, TCL's DTEK 50 and 60 phones were also all-screen, but this is different. Details are, perhaps obviously, fairly scarce about the as-yet unannounced device, but we managed to glean tidbits from TCL's François Mahieu. Mahieu explains that TCL will respect BlackBerry's reputation for building hard-wearing devices for clumsy international travelers who will be working in all weathers. The main feature, beyond the full-touchscreen, is the (planned) IP67 water and dust-proofing, as well as a battery rated to last for more than 26 hours of mixed use. Mahieu believes that durability and longevity will be two of the biggest selling points, a long-lasting phone that'll keep going long after your iPhone has conked out.
Mahieu feels bold enough to claim that he expects a number of iPhone and Galaxy users to "make the switch" to BlackBerry come October. Of course, these handsets now run Android, which means that it's far harder to make it stand out from the crowd. Mahieu continues to believe that BlackBerry's security know-how will enable TCL to deliver the "most secure Android phone in the world." Although given the failure of so many ultra-secure Android devices to sell, his confidence seems — at least right now — misplaced.
But TCL is used to combating cynicism with people looking down their nose at BlackBerry in its new after-life as a white label brand. Mahieu said that users shouldn't write off BlackBerry just because it doesn't stand toe-to-toe against Apple and Samsung. "We are there to play," he explained, "we're just playing with different cards," mostly by pushing its strengths of battery life, security and durability. As for pricing, it's likely that the device will cost less than other flagships.
Of course, we've already seen a BlackBerry device with a large display unencumbered by a physical keyboard. The Priv hid its physical input device in its slider, and so could actually work as a phone for touchscreen devotees. And given how well that device sold — prompting BlackBerry to abandon producing hardware altogether — it's going to be interesting to see how TCL can avoid history repeating.
TCL is banking on certified water and dust-resistance as a draw, and it's not clear how many people were waiting for that as a reason to make the switch. But Mahieu is hinting that the company is "marching towards millions" of device sales, although it's not clear how many models it needs to shift before it can be considered a success.

On-Demand-Video powerhouse, Iflix set sights on Nigeria

Iflix, the world’s leading Subscription Video on Demand (SVoD) service for emerging markets, announced the launch of its revolutionary service in Nigeria last Thursday at their offices famously known as “The Playground”.

The online video streaming platform which boasts of partnerships with over 220 studios and distributors allows users have access to international, regional and local content which ranges from Asian, European, American and African movies, TV shows, Documentaries and cartoons for as low as ₦799 monthly or an annual subscription at the rate of ₦6,392.

Speaking at the launch, Ngozi Madueke-Dozie, country manager, said the subscription service is targeted at the mass market.

‘We are excited to launch Iflix in Nigeria, we have a lot to offer from our wide range of movie selection from around the globe’, said Ngozi Madueke-Dozie.

She said, “The SVoD will be characterised by local contents that the Nigerian audience can relate with. We are excited to launch Iflix in Nigeria because we have a lot to offer from our wide range of movie selection from around the globe.

“We are especially thrilled to launch Iflix here because it offers affordability, variety, and convenience by giving our users an amazing selection of the best TV shows and movies from all over the world, to stream or download on any device of their choice for less than N800.

"You can watch 20 minutes of video content with 33MB of data so that means you can watch whole shows and movies without exhausting too much data in the process.”

Madueke-Dozie further said that the contents to be supplied by Iflix would meet up with local and global censorship.

But for this innovative company, it has not always been easy being Iflix. When you run a business called iflix that streams movies and box-sets into homes from Iraq to Indonesia, being known as the “Netflix of emerging markets” is inevitable. But it is an inevitability that causes co-founder and chief executive Mark Britt to bristle. Rather, he prefers to highlight the similarities to Spotify — content on both the music streaming service and iflix is curated by celebrities and aficionados.

Certainly the battles facing Mr Britt, an Australian based in Kuala Lumpur, in building the two-year-old company are far removed from those faced by his opposite number at Netflix. Reed Hastings never had to work out a way of collecting money without credit cards, or to fret about data servers — actual physical boxes holding 170 terabytes of House of Cards et al — being stranded at ports.

And Netflix makes money. Iflix, valued at about $600m and backed by Rupert Murdoch’s Sky TV and Liberty Global, is generating annual sales of $100m. “Are we making revenues? Absolutely. Are we making money? No,” says Mr Britt, speaking in Hong Kong at the Rise technology conference last month.

Price and local content is iflix’s competitive edge on Netflix, argues Mr Britt. Yet building the first emerging market video platform has entailed some unconventional methods. By way of market research Mr Britt, a lawyer by training, talked to stores selling pirated DVDs, assuming they would know what was hot.

Iflix launched in Nigeria last week. 

Things the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 can do that the Galaxy S8 can't

Beyond a slightly larger display and a somewhat boxier design, the Note 8 has kept a few features to itself when compared to the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus.

Write on the screen
A staple of the Note line has always been a big screen and the S-Pen. The Note 8's S-Pen is waterproof, more sensitive, and has a smaller tip for easier writing.
Samsung improved two S-Pen features on the Note 8, including Screen Off Memo and translation using the pen.
Screen Off Memos is now capped at 100 pages of notes, reminders, sketches or whatever you want. Translate is no longer restricted to single words and can now do complete sentences.

Camera tricks
This is an obvious one, given that it would require a hardware upgrade in order for the S8 to gain an extra camera.
With the second lens on the back of the Note 8, you can take photos that contain more depth-of-field information, which leads to a bokeh effect. In other words, the subject of your photo is in focus while the background is blurry. And with the Note 8, you can actually adjust just how much bokeh is used, before or after the photo is snapped when using the

Live Focus feature.
Another cool feature, Dual Capture, gives you the ability to zoom out on a photo captured with both rear cameras, showing the entire scene instead of just the original subject.

Live Messages
Similar to Apple's Digital Touch feature, Live Messages will let you draw or write a message, and then share it in animated form.
Using the S-Pen you can draw on top of a photo or handwrite a message, and the Note 8 will record every pen stroke. The shared image is a standard animated GIF and should be playable regardless of the service used to send it.

App Pair
Multiwindow apps are nothing new to Samsung devices, with the Korean company implementing the feature well before Google integrated it into Android Nougat. With the Note 8, Samsung is making it easier to repeatedly use two apps at the same time.
The feature is called App Pair and is part of the Edge screen feature. Using App Pair, you pick two apps, say Calendar and Messages, as a shortcut. Then when you tap on the pair, both apps are opened in multiwindow mode.
You can set any two apps as a pair, as long as each one supports multiwindow mode.

Samsung Experience
Some of these features, Live Messages and App Pair, for example, don't rely on hardware. There's nothing stopping Samsung from updating the Samsung Experience software running on all current Galaxy devices with these same features.
A Samsung representative confirmed to CNET some of the software-based features would indeed eventually make their way to the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus, but stopped short of providing a time frame or specific list.

StarTimes boosts Digital Switch Over with Digital TV sets

As part of efforts targeted at encouraging the transition from analogue to digital transmission in Nigeria, Startimes has made available in the country, digital television sets, even at a lowered price.

The pay TV Company said it is committed to new innovations and technologies that enhance digital TV experience for Nigerians over the years, and is now offering one of the most endurable Digital LED TVs at affordable prices.

The new StarTimes integrated digital TV sets are built with an upgradeable operating system, full HD LED screen category, 2 HDMI ports, 5MM Bezel, 1920*1080 resolution, 8W*2 digital noise filter system and 100-240V, 75W Voltage. It has 12 months’ warranty and are all pre-installed with over 100 pay TV and free-to-air channels that allow users enjoy instant access to digital TV.

The Marketing Director, Qasim Elegbede, said as the fastest-growing digital TV operator in Africa, StarTimes is passionate about the digital TV revolution. Nigerians will continue to enjoy the best of digital television entertainment and experience with a plethora of enjoyable programs in higher definition (HD) images at very pocket-friendly rates.

“StarTimes Digital TV will enhance the viewing experience of Nigerians while offering credible, quality and outstanding entertainment experience at a quite competitive price. With five sound modes and an earphone port, the rich acoustics delivered crisp surround sound effect to keep you on the edge of your seat. It enables you to conveniently enjoy movies, music and other audio and visual resources stored in your flash disks, hard disks or other devices via the USB Port or HDMI port with a cinematic experience,” he added.

Amazon, Facebook, Google, other Tech majors face less patronage in Donald Trump white house

Google is not alone in a fall from grace. Tech companies -- including Facebook Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. -- that were previously lauded as innovators are facing increased scrutiny over their size, their hiring practices and whether online news feeds skew liberal.
"The mood in Washington, at least on the right side of the aisle, is more critical of companies like Google and Amazon,” said Fred Campbell, a former Republican FCC aide and director of Tech Knowledge, which promotes market-based policies.
The shift in tone comes as Congress and the Trump administration consider changing tax, energy and immigration policies important to Silicon Valley. A regulation that protects data flows is already slated for gutting by the Federal Communications Commission, and, in Congress, a law has been proposed that would bring internet companies under a privacy regulator. Another would increase legal liability for website operators as a way to combat online sex trafficking.
Meanwhile, tech’s made no secret of its distaste for Trump policies. Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Apple Inc. and Facebook issued critical statements after the president proposed a ban on transgender people in the military, stepped away from the Paris climate accords and issued a ban on travel from majority Muslim nations.
Advisory Councils
The Aug. 12 street violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, provoked another rift. After the president said “both sides” shared blame for the fighting, Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook told his staff he disagreed with Trump. So many executives, including Intel Corp.’s Chief Executive Officer Brian Krzanich, quit White House advisory councils last week in protest that Trump ended up disbanding them.
Amid the turmoil, Trump unloaded on Amazon, tweeting that the company is hurting other retailers, and causing shares in the online retailer to fall. “Towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt - many jobs being lost!” Trump said in the tweet.
It was the latest conservative broadside on the technology companies over their size, influence and promotion of social policies on immigration, transgender rights and other matters.
More: Trump Says in Tweet Amazon Does ‘Great Damage’ to Retailers
Oregon Republican Representative Greg Walden, the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, challenged tech and broadband executives to appear next month as his committee considers undoing the Obama-era net neutrality rules that Silicon Valley supports. In what could be interpreted as a snub, executives didn’t respond to the invitation by the deadline -- which has been extended.
“Republicans have always been fine with most of tech, because Republicans have usually defaulted pro-business,” said Bruce Mehlman, a Republican lobbyist and former Commerce Department official said in an interview. “This is less about any one issue and more about the new populist wing of the Republican party -- populism is suspicious of bigness, and the biggest companies now are tech.”
In this atmosphere, public-policy asteroids can strike suddenly and dent tech’s image in the capital. Google dismissed James Damore, an engineer who wrote about gender differences and said the company had a “left bias” that silenced dissenters. Washington noticed.
Why Republicans Want to Nix U.S. Net Neutrality Rules: QuickTake
“The mistreatment of conservatives and libertarians by tech monopolies is a civil rights issue,” Representative Dana Rohrabacher said in a tweet using the hashtag #googlememo. The California Republican is concerned tech giants may be excluding top talent for political reasons, said his spokesman, Ken Grubbs.
Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway tweeted an op-ed that Damore wrote in the Wall Street Journal about his firing, in which he called Google “ideologically driven and intolerant of scientific debate and reasoned argument.”
Fox News’s Tucker Carlson said Damore’s dismissal showed Google couldn’t be trusted, for instance in ways its algorithms determine where to rank fake news when returning search results. “Google should be regulated like the public utility it is, to make sure it doesn’t further distort the free flow of information to the rest of us,” Carlson said on his Aug. 14 show.
Others on the right are sounding similar themes. Dominant companies such as Facebook, Twitter Inc. and Google “represent themselves as politically neutral while systematically promoting liberal views and limiting or even banning conservatives,” Phil Kerpen, head of the American Commitment policy group said in a memo urging congressional action that was obtained by Bloomberg News.
Why Google’s Gender Struggle Echoes Across Tech: QuickTake
Kerpen advocated “clear disclosure of how traffic is treated” and “enforcement actions if they violate those representations,” according to his memo. Kerpen, a strategist who has worked for groups including the billionaire Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, didn’t return phone calls and emails.
Amazon has become a target at least in part because of its size. The company with about 70 percent of all e-book sales and 30 percent of all U.S. e-commerce drew criticism from Trump that had started on the campaign trail when Trump said in February 2016: “Believe me, if I become president, do they have problems. They’re going to have such problems.” Trump’s also objected to coverage by the Washington Post, which is owned by Amazon’s Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos, for instance calling the newspaper "FAKE NEWS" in a June tweet.
In July, a Democratic lawmaker from Rhode Island, David Cicilline, called for hearings on the online retailer’s proposed purchase of grocer Whole Foods Market Inc. Experts and analysts have largely dismissed antitrust threats, in part because the food-store chain has just 1.6 percent of the U.S. grocery market, according to Euromonitor.
Trump, Tech Clash Over Visas for Skilled Immigrants: QuickTake
Democrats in their “Better Deal” package of policy proposals released in July called for tougher merger reviews. Regulators must “must explicitly consider the ways in which control of consumer data can be used to stifle competition or jeopardize consumer privacy,” according to the proposals.
Tech companies are spending more to make their case in the new Washington, and staffing up for better footholds in the Trump administration. Google hired Max Pappas, a veteran of Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz’s office and the libertarian FreedomWorks PAC.
Google boosted its lobbying expenditure to $9.5 million in the first half of this year, a nearly 18 percent increase from about $8 million a year earlier, according to disclosure filings. Facebook’s first-half lobbying expenditures rose too, by about 12 percent to $5.6 million from almost $5 million. Amazon spent $6.1 million, up from $5.7 million for the same period a year earlier.

Google once had Barack Obama’s ear, served as a revolving door for White House staff and saw its political agenda advance. In Donald Trump’s Washington, some conservatives say it’s gotten so powerful it should be regulated like a public utility.

Via: Bloomberg news

SAP Africa Code Week launches in Ghana...appoints new head of education

The 2017 edition of Africa Code Week (ACW) arrived in Ghana this week with a series of Train-The-Trainer (TTT) workshops that took place.

Jointly organised by SAP, Dreamoval and the Ghana Education Service in Accra and Kumasi, these workshops are equipping local parents, teachers and educators with the coding skills and teaching materials they need to train children and youth in their immediate communities.

Africa Code Week was started in 2015 by SAP Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) EMEA together with public and private sector partners, with a long-term goal of empowering more than 200 000 teachers and positively impact the lives of 5 million children and youth within the next 10 years.

With over half a million young Africans introduced to coding across 30 countries so far, Africa Code Week key partners (SAP, UNESCO YouthMobile, the Cape Town Science Centre and the Galway Education Centre) have set new ambitious goals for 2017: impact the lives of 500 000 youth across 35 African countries over the course of an eight-day period from 18 to 25 October.

Ghana joined Africa Code Week in 2015, engaging 730 children and youth in the first year. Last year, the Dreamoval Foundation became the implementing partner for ACW in Ghana: with their support, 590 teachers were trained as part of the Train-the-Trainer sessions and an astounding 51 710 children and youth engaged in October 2016 – 56% of which were girls. Dreamoval will be, once again, the Implementing Partner for Africa Code Week 2017 in Ghana.

We have set ourselves the target of training 800 teachers this week and 150 000 young Ghanaians from October 18- 25,” says Francis Ahene-Affoh, head of business development and marketing at Dreamoval.

Train-The-Trainer workshops were held at the GNAT Hall at the Accra Polytechnic in Kumasi, with Ghana’s Deputy Minister of Education, Barbara Ayisi Acher, attending the launch. The Africa Code Week delegation also met with several Ghanaian dignitaries during the course of this training week, including Ghana Vice President His Excellency Dr Mahamudu Bamumia. For Vice President Bamumia, who has assured his full support to the initiative, “Africa Code Week is a powerful leverage for the public sector to wide-spread digital literacy on a nation-wide scale.”

According to Claire Gillissen-Duval, Director of EMEA Corporate Social Responsibility at SAP and Global Lead for Africa Code Week: “The initiative’s effectiveness in empowering the next generation of Digital Economy workers in Ghana requires knowledgeable instructors who are able to provide mentorship and skills transfer to participating youngsters.”

In a related development, SAP Africa has announced the appointment of a top executive to lead digital transformation education across the African continent. SAP Africa announced the appointment of Goutam Dev as its new Head of Education for Africa.

The newly appointed executive has been with the enterprise services company since 2005. He has held various leadership roles in services, sales, strategy, and general management across a range of geographies.

According to SAP Education, they position themselves as the world's largest IT education provider and a recognised market leader by successfully delivering customer and partner enablement. Noteworthy, Dev regards the digital skills gap as one of the top barriers to digital transformation among SAP Africa’s customers and partners.

“As a business, it is our stated objective to help companies with their digital transformation initiatives. By combining SAP's broad range of knowledge offerings in both a classroom and digital setting, we aim to focus on driving a comprehensive, rapid, and easy-to-consume learning and enablement strategy, which we see as being key to our customers' success and growth in Africa. Further, by extending the reach of enablement across the continent, we are able to unlock the tremendous growth potential in Africa, which is the largest market for SAP Education in the EMEA region", says Dev.

Dev has previously served in an executive role as the Chief of Staff to the Office of the SAP Africa CEO where he was tasked with the execution and strategic decisions of the CEO across all lines of business and also across 54 African countries.

Intel readies new 'Ice lake' chip that'll supercede 8th-generation processors

As Intel prepares to unveil its 8th-generation Coffee Lake processors next week, the company has released basic information on an upcoming 10-nanometer "Ice Lake" chip, which will serve as the successor to the 14-nanometer Coffee Lake and 10-nanometer Cannon Lake chips.

Details on the Ice Lake architecture, which will be made on Intel's 10nm+ process, have been shared on Intel's codename decoder.

"The Ice Lake processor family is a successor to the 8th generation Intel(R) CoreTM processor family. These processors utilize Intel's industry-leading 10 nm+ process technology," reads the site.

As AnandTech points out, Intel's decision to share details on Ice Lake is odd because the company has not announced or shared details on Cannon Lake, the first chips that will be built on its 10-nanometer architecture, and Intel is also referring to Ice Lake as the successor to its soon-to-be-announced 14-nanometer Coffee Lake chips, leading to confusion about its upcoming processor lineup and how Cannon Lake fits in.

Intel's current Kaby Lake chips were built on a second-generation 14nm+ architecture, while Coffee Lake is a third-generation 14nm++ architecture. Both Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake are available for both desktops and laptops, but it appears the 10-nanometer Cannon Lake chips succeed Coffee Lake chips in laptops, while desktops won't see 10-nanometer architecture until the release of Ice Lake.

AnandTech speculates that the chip confusion is the result of the difficulty behind developing a 10-nanometer architecture. Intel needs to perfect 10-nanometer chips for smaller processors before moving on to larger desktop processors.

Simply put, the first generation of 10nm requires small processors to ensure high yields. Intel seems to be putting the smaller die sizes (i.e. anything under 15W for a laptop) into the 10nm Cannon Lake bucket, while the larger 35W+ chips will be on 14++ Coffee Lake, a tried and tested sub-node for larger CPUs. While the desktop sits on 14++ for a bit longer, it gives time for Intel to further develop their 10nm fabrication abilities, leading to their 10+ process for larger chips by working their other large chip segments (FPGA, MIC) first.

Intel's 14nm++ Coffee Lake chips will be officially unveiled on August 21, and these are the chips that we are likely to see in Apple notebooks and standard iMac desktops in the coming year, but again, it's unclear how Cannon Lake fits into the lineup and whether those chips will be available for some machines in time for 2018 refreshes.

As the successor to Intel's 8th-generation chips, Ice Lake is not likely to be available until late 2018 or 2019, with an exact timeline to be determined by Intel's success in improving its 10-nanometer architecture.

Renault-Nissan establishes technology innovation lab

The Israel Innovation Authority’s (IIA) “Technological Innovation Labs” Program has reached a new milestone this week as it selected the five franchise holders to operate the labs for a three-year pilot period.

The labs, funded by the IIA, will provide technological infrastructure and knowhow to entrepreneurs, including Renault-Nissan Alliance, to establish their proof of concept.

Throughout this period, the Authority will assist in funding the establishment of the labs’ technological infrastructure for the benefit of the entrepreneurs and their start-ups, with a budget of up to NIS 4 million.

The Authority will also cover ongoing operational costs of up to a half million shekels per year. The start-ups accepted to the labs will receive up to 85 percent of funding or NIS 1 million to establish their proof of concept.

The target audience for the program is entrepreneurs and startups, with innovative ideas in the relevant verticals, who are interested in getting a proof of concept and developing their idea into a product.

The program also focuses on attracting leading multinational corporations focused on adopting open innovation and in supporting startups through the labs by making unique technological infrastructure accessible, especially technological infrastructure, which is not currently available in Israel.

The Renault-Nissan Alliance will operate a technological lab established in the entrepreneurial complex in Tel Aviv’s Kiryat Atidim business center, focusing on smart urban mobility.

The other four companies are Merck-Flex, which researches innovation for electronic devices; Enel-Shikun & Binui Holdings Ltd. focusing on smart infrastructure of construction, transportation and energy; Ham-Let (Israel-Canada) Ltd., focusing on industrial data, and Frutarom, aimed at developing unique, functional raw materials for the food and beverage industries.

Aharon Aharon, CEO of the IIA, said the project “puts great emphasis on introducing innovation to the manufacturing industry. We received 16 outstanding proposals, indicating a real need that the program addresses.”

He further noted that the lab program will “serve as a platform for connecting the manufacturing industry with the culture of entrepreneurship and innovation for which Israel has become renowned. It will help give Israeli companies a competitive edge globally.”

Anya Eldan, IIA Vice President and head of the Start-Up Division, said that “the lab program enables the development of innovation ecosystems in a variety of fields in advanced manufacturing by leveraging the technological infrastructure and knowhow of large companies – in Israel and around the world – for the benefit of start-ups. The program joins our successful Technological Incubator Program at the Start-Up Division of the Israel Innovation Authority.”

High-end flip phones are back. Meet the Samsung Leader 8: dual-display flip phone

You might have thought that flip phones were out of fashion, but Samsung is doing its best to prove you wrong. On Thursday, following weeks of leaks and rumors, Samsung unveiled the Leader 8 flip phone on its website. Previously known only by its model number (SM-G9298), the Leader 8 is an Android-based, dual-display flip phone with surprisingly competitive specs and a stunning design.
Set to launch in China in the coming days, the Leader 8 feature two 4.2-inch displays — one on the front and one inside. Both are Full HD Super AMOLED screens, with the front display allowing users to quickly check information like the date, the time or call reminders. Leader 8 users will also be able to change the background image and the style of the clock on the front display of the phone.
In addition to the two HD displays, the phone also features a Snapdragon 821 processor, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of internal storage, 2,300 mAh battery, 12-megapixel rear camera and 5-megapixel front camera. The Leader 8 also has a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner and supports wireless charging.
At a glance, the Leader 8 almost looks like a miniature Galaxy S8. Of course, once you flip the phone open, your perception changes entirely. Inside the phone, you’ll find a control pad surrounded by inlaid buttons, one of which can be configured to serve as a customizable hotkey. Below the control pad is a fairly standard key pad, which look like pretty much another other flip phone’s key pad.
So far, the Leader 8 has only been confirmed for release in China, though Samsung has yet to announce a price. We very much doubt that this phone will make it overseas, but our fingers are crossed.

Via: MSN

Stratagem design Machines that Gamble Like No Human can!

Listening to Andreas Koukorinis, founder of UK sports betting company Stratagem, and you’d be forgiven for thinking that soccer games are some of the most predictable events on Earth. “They’re short duration, repeatable, with fixed rules,” Koukorinis tells The Verge. “So if you observe 100,000 games, there are patterns there you can take out.”

Stratagem is a British company that takes bets on soccer games. Currently, it employs some 65 human experts who study matches across the globe and uses machine learning to automate parts of the process of betting, like figuring out when people like to gamble the most.

The mission of Koukorinis’ company is simple: find these patterns and make money off them. Stratagem does this either by selling the data it collects to professional gamblers and bookmakers, or by keeping it and making its own wagers. To fund these wagers, the firm is raising money for a £25 million ($32 million) sports betting fund that it’s positioning as an investment alternative to traditional hedge funds. In other words, Stratagem hopes rich people will give Stratagem their money. The company will gamble with it using its proprietary data, and, if all goes to plan, everyone ends up just that little bit richer.

But what's down the pike, founder Andreas Koukorinis tells potential investors and The Verge, is an AI that can watch a game in real time, and, with thousands upon thousands of data points, predict who can win. "They're short duration, repeatable, with fixed rules," Koukorinis tells The Verge. "So if you observe 100,000 games, there are patterns there you can take out." The company is raising money for a £25 million ($32 million) fund to test those patterns out.

The number of possible bets on soccer or any other sport are limited only by the imagination of the bookies, ranging from coin flips to red flags to what color shoes Beyonce will wear at halftime. So Strategem is starting with the basics, trying to get its AI to understand goal chances. Koukorinis has his AI hooked up to regular broadcasts, which can get tricky with instant replay. But the AI marks up the screen with various boxes as players slash through the midfield and make an attempt on a goalie. It's similar to what a self-driving car AI sees.

Currently, Kokorinis tells The Verge that the AI is doing 50-50 so far, which might not seem so impressive. But it took a while for SABR to catch on as well, when baseball scouts were convinced that athletic potential could only be assessed through the naked eye. Stratagem is taking a bet on betting and assuming a similar revolution is coming.