Company developments:
Yandex shows off the first tests of self-driving cars on Moscow roads – Feb. 16, 2018 (TechCrunch)
- Russian search and internet services giant Yandex has been working on its autonomous driving program, and its most recent achievement is a public self-driving pilot of its self-driving test car in Moscow, the first such test on public roads in the Russian capital
- heir recent testing, which kicked off in December of last year, included some days following heavy snowfalls, which are difficult conditions for any autonomous vehicle to navigate because of how they obscure road markers and other guiding indicators used by optical cameras systems, among other challenges
Amazon is reportedly following Apple and Google by designing custom AI chips for Alexa – Feb. 12, 2018 (The Verge)
- Amazon has started designing a custom artificial intelligence chip that would power future Echo devices and improve the quality and response time of its Alexa voice assistant, according to a report today from The Information
- While Amazon is unlikely to physically produce the chips, given its lack of both fabrication experience and a manufacturing presence in China, the news does pose a risk to the businesses of companies like Nvidia and Intel
- Amazon, which seeks to stay competitive in the smart home hardware market and in the realm of consumer-facing AI products, has nearly 450 people with chip expertise on staff, reports The Information, thanks to key hires and acquisitions the e-commerce giant has made in the last few years
Partnerships:
Artificial intelligence is being used to raise better pigs in China – Feb. 15, 2018 (Quartz)
- “Alibaba’s Cloud Unit signed an agreement on Feb. 6 with the Tequ Group, a Chinese food-and-agriculture conglomerate that raises about 10 million pigs each year (link in Chinese), to deploy facial and voice recognition on Tequ’s pig farms”
- “According to an Alibaba representative, the company will offer software to Tequ that it will deploy on its farms with its own hardware. Using image recognition, the software will identify each pig based on a mark placed on its body”
- “Tequ’s CIO stressed that taking care of pigs is no easy task for large pig farms. “If you have 10 million pigs, relying on manpower is already not enough,” he said (link in Chinese), according to a report by local publication Tianxia Wangshang, adding that it’s impossible to manually count each pig given how many are born every day”
Aurora will power Byton EV’s autonomous driving features – Feb. 9, 2018 (TechCrunch)
- “Aurora, the self-driving startup founded by Google self-driving car project alum Chris Urmson, along with Tesla Autopilot developer Sterling Anderson, CMU robotics expert and Uber vet Drew Bagnell, and a team of industry experts, will be making the autonomous smarts for Byton’s forthcoming electric vehicle. Byton, a startup that had a splashy debut at CES earlier this year”
- “Aurora, despite officially breaking cover only just last year, is already working with a range of automakers on their autonomous driving technology, including Volkswagen and Hyundai. Aurora CEO Chris Urmson explained that its goals mean it’s happy to work with companies at all stages of development and maturity to help make self-driving a practical reality”
- “For Byton and Aurora, this partnership will kick off with pilot test driving in California sometime soon, and Byton hopes to eventually tap Aurora with its goal of fielding premium electric consumer vehicles with SAE Level 4 and Level 5 autonomous capabilities”
Fundraising / investment:
CommonSense Robotics raises $20M for robotics tech for online grocery fulfilment – Feb. 15, 2018 (TechCrunch)
- “CommonSense Robotics, an Israel-based startup developing AI and robotics tech to help online grocery retailers speed up fulfilment and delivery, has raised $20 million in Series A funding”
- “The round was led by Playground Global, with participation from previous investors Aleph VC and Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors. It brings the company’s total funding to $26 million”
- “The funds will be used to scale up CommonSense Robotics’ facility deployment rate, develop their next generation of robotics and AI, and expand global operations and sales,” says the startup
Universities / Academia:
MIT teaches drones to fly with uncertainty – Feb. 14, 2018 (TechCrunch)
- “MIT researchers are working on a new steering system for drones that uses uncertainty to ensure that they don’t hit obstacles as they fly autonomously. The system is a bit complex but it’s called NanoMap and it quite simply finds ways to get from point A to point B without crashing and while handling random objects in its path”
- “Spectrum describes the system in detail but basically the drone takes a depth measurement as it moves along a path. Each time it takes a measurement and is about to move forward it looks back at previous measurements which could include some information pertinent to the current motion. If it can’t find anything useful it slows down and assesses the area and if it does find previous information it keeps flying, avoiding obstacles as it goes”
MIT’s new chip could bring neural nets to battery-powered gadgets – Feb. 14, 2018 (TechCrunch)
- “MIT researchers have developed a chip designed to speed up the hard work of running neural networks, while also reducing the power consumed when doing so dramatically – by up to 95 percent, in fact. The basic concept involves simplifying the chip design so that shuttling of data between different processors on the same chip is taken out of the equation”
- “The big advantage of this new method, developed by a team led by MIT graduate student Avishek Biswas, is that it could potentially be used to run neural networks on smartphones, household devices and other portable gadgets, rather than requiring servers drawing constant power from the grid”
Mumbai to have India’s first artificial intelligence centre – Feb. 14, 2018 (Hindi News)
- “In a first in the country, the State government will be setting up an institute for artificial intelligence (AI) in Mumbai. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis will unveil the plan for the institute during the Magnetic Maharashtra Summit, and at the Global Economic Conference in Canada next month”
- “We have discussed cooperation in artificial intelligence and other port-led development. Maharashtra has already become the first state to unveil a FinTech Policy,” said the Chief Minister, while setting up a joint working group for AI cooperation with the government of Canada on Tuesday
Governments / policy:
UK outs extremism blocking tool and could force tech firms to use it – Feb. 13, 2018 (TechCrunch)
- “The Home Secretary has announced a machine learning tool, developed with public money by a local AI firm, which the government says can automatically detect propaganda produced by the Islamic State terror group with “an extremely high degree of accuracy”
- “The technology is billed as working across different types of video-streaming and download platforms in real-time, and is intended to be integrated into the upload process — as the government wants the majority of video propaganda to be blocked before it’s uploaded to the Internet”
“We’re in a diversity crisis”: cofounder of Black in AI on what’s poisoning algorithms in our lives – Feb. 14, 2018 (MIT news)
- Great Q&A session with Timnitm Gebru, co-founder of Black in AI and a postdoctoral researcher at Microsoft Research, New York City in the FATE (Fairness Transparency Accountability and Ethics in AI) group
Research reports:
Artificial Intelligence Trends To Watch In 2018 – Feb. 2018 (CB Insights)
- Great read overall. Click the hyperlink and enter a business email to download the free report