Breakthroughs / studies:
Artificial intelligence can make power firms more efficient: consultancy – Mar. 12, 2018 (Reuters)
- Utilities can increase their efficiency by using more artificial intelligence (AI) technology, such as software to predict demand swings in the power grid or to control home appliances, consultancy Roland Berger said
- European utilities could achieve efficiency gains of up to a fifth over the next five years using such technology, it said, adding that less than a quarter of firms had a strategy to do this
- E.ON, one of Germany’s largest energy companies, struck a deal last week with San Francisco-based start-up Sight Machine to offer software that uses machine learning to improve manufacturing processes and lower energy costs
Fundraising:
The red-hot AI hardware space gets even hotter with $56M for a startup called SambaNova Systems – Mar. 15, 2018 (TechCrunch)
- SambaNova joins an already quite large class of startups looking to attack the problem of making AI operations much more efficient and faster by rethinking the actual substrate where the computations happen
- The GPU has become increasingly popular among developers for its ability to handle the kinds of lightweight mathematics in very speedy fashion necessary for AI operations
- SambaNova today said it has raised a huge $56 million series A financing round was co-led by GV and Walden International, with participation from Redline Capital and Atlantic Bridge Ventures
Government / policy:
Pentagon Wants Silicon Valley’s Help on A.I. – Mar. 15, 2018 (NY Times)
- On Thursday, Robert O. Work, a former deputy secretary of defense, announced that he is teaming up with the Center for a New American Security, an influential Washington think tank that specializes in national security, to create a task force of former government officials, academics and representatives from private industry
- Their goal is to explore how the federal government should embrace A.I. technology and work better with big tech companies and other organizations
- Mr. Work was the driving force behind the creation of Project Maven, the Defense Department’s sweeping effort to embrace artificial intelligence. His new task force will include Terah Lyons, the executive director of the Partnership on AI, an industry group that includes many of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies
China to publish guideline on AI development: minister – Mar. 10, 2018 (Shine)
- China will soon publish a guideline and detailed regulations on artificial intelligence (AI) development to make breakthroughs in critical technologies, Minister of Science and Technology Wan Gang said on Saturday
- China is speeding up the research in the new generation of AI, Wan told a press conference on the sidelines of the annual session of the National People’s Congress
China makes open-source platform to boost Artificial Intelligence – Mar. 10, 2018 (Financial Express)
- China’s science and technology minister said on Saturday that the government had made an open-source platform to boost the development of artificial intelligence (AI), as part of a plan to make China a world-leader in this field by 2030
- “Open-source platforms are needed because AI can play a bigger role in development and make it easier for entrepreneurs to have access to resources,” Wan Gang said in a press conference to mark a session of the National People’s Assembly
Minnesota Gov. Dayton orders autonomous vehicle testing, creates advisory board – Mar. 8, 2018 (State Scoop)
- Gov. Mark Dayton issued an executive order Wednesday to create a 15-member advisory council to study how the widespread adoption of autonomous and connected vehicles will affect the state
- Minnesota joins 21 other states that have passed legislation and six others that have issued executive orders related to the governance of the emerging transportation technology
- Dayton is also calling on the Minnesota Department of Transportation to conduct new pilot tests of the technology. Those projects, which Transportation Commissioner Charlie Zelle has said will happen on private roads and limited public roads, extend the work already underway on testing autonomous shuttles during inclement weather
Partnerships:
Automated Insights Announces Partner Program to Increase Business Intelligence Adoption with Role-Based Natural Language Generation – Mar. 13, 2018 (PR Newswire)
- Automated Insights (Ai), the leader in natural language generation (NLG) for the enterprise, today announced its launch of the Automated Insights Partner Program. Through the Partner Program, Ai adds a group of system integrators, technology resellers, and solutions providers that focus on business intelligence (BI) deployments to its powerful list of platform partnerships and integrations
- The incorporation of written analytics through Ai’s platform provides a contextual layer across an entire dashboard or dataset, generating a cohesive analysis that tells viewers exactly what their data means and what they need to do about it. As a result, enterprises are empowered with a better understanding of their data and more confident, efficient decision-making
- Companies included in the initial launch of the Automated Insights Partner Programs include: Analysis Factory, Genware Computer Systems, Icimo, Kleer Data and Point Focal
American Heart Association and Duke partner to accelerate machine learning and AI – Mar. 13, 2018 (Modern Healthcare)
- The American Heart Association and the Duke Clinical Research Institute on Monday unveiled a partnership to try out machine-learning techniques to find new ways to analyze data and drive scientific discoveries and treat cardiovascular diseases
- The two organizations will use the heart association’s cloud-based Precision Medicine Platform—hosted by Amazon Web Services—which includes data related to cardiovascular health from the Duke Clinical Research Institute, AstraZeneca, Intermountain Healthcare and others
- So far, the association has facilitated the exchange of data from 23 million people via the platform
After JingChi CEO Steps Down, the Company Joins Baidu’s Apollo Autonomous Driving Platform – Mar. 13, 2018 (FutureCar)
- Days after founder and CEO Wang Jing stepped down from his role at autonomous driving startup JingChi, the two companies have seemed to have settled their differences. JingChi announced that it has joined Baidu’s Apollo autonomous driving platform as an official partner
- Apollo is Baidu’s open, collaborative platform designed to speed up development of autonomous driving technology
- JingChi describes itself as a mobility company powered by artificial intelligence. The company is developing technology including high definition maps for autonomous driving, using LiDAR for perceiving objects around the vehicle, and deep learning-powered path planning and perception in the driving environment
SoftBank and ANA team up to roll out autonomous vehicles in the next few years – Mar. 10, 2018 (Nikkei)
- On a recent February day, a mini bus made by Hino Motors cautiously made its way along a public road near Tokyo’s Haneda Airport at a speed of about 10kph. There were no passengers, and more surprisingly, no driver either. The exercise was a trial run of a self-driving bus being carried out by the Japanese tech giant SoftBank Group and All Nippon Airways, with the eventual aim of commercializing driverless transport at airports from around 2020
- Japans high-tech industry sees airports as having great potential for improvement using the latest robotics and artificial intelligence technologies.
Company developments:
Report shows Machine learning is helping make Google Play a whole lot safer – Mar. 15, (Digital Trends)
- According to the report, as many as a whopping 60.3 percent of potentially harmful apps, or PHAs, were detected through machine learning in Google Play Protect, which is a service that’s enabled on any phone running Android 4.3 or later. Not only that, but Google expects the number of PHAs detected with machine learning to go up in the future
- Earlier this year, Google revealed that 700,000 apps had been removed from Google Play in 2017 for violating Google’s policies — but at the time it didn’t reveal too much about how those apps were detected in the first place. Now we know that it was Google’s implementation of machine learning that largely contributed to making Google Play safer. In 2016, 0.77 percent of devices had installed a PHA, compared to 0.56 percent in 2017. We can only assume that figure will be even better in 2018
BMO launches AI-powered chatbots on Facebook and Twitter – Mar. 15, 2018 (The Globe and Mail)
- The deployment of such technology is the latest move by a Canadian bank to beef up its digital capabilities as customers increasingly conduct their banking on mobile phones and computers, rather than over the phone or in a brick-and-mortar branch
- However, these chatbots – developed in partnership with Finn.ai – will only answer customer questions such as how to view their account balances or transfer money. They will not perform transactions, such as paying a bill, themselves, even though the Vancouver-based financial technology startup has the capability and some financial institutions are adopting it already
- BMO is exploring adding further functions to the virtual robots’ repertoire, but is treading slowly to ensure customers’ personal information discussed on platforms outside of their own digital properties is secure, said Brett Pitts, BMO’s chief digital officer
GM’s driverless cars will be made in Michigan – Mar. 15, 2018 (MarketWatch)
- General Motors Co. said Thursday it plans to make its self-driving, no-steering-wheel Cruise AV at assembly plants in Michigan, and it is on track to sell the first vehicles in 2019. The car, which would also have no pedals or manual controls, would be built at the GM GM, -3.25% plant in Orion Township, with roof modules at GM’s Brownstown plant
- GM will invest more than $100 million to upgrade both facilities, it said. Roof module production has already begun and production of the fourth-generation Cruise AV is expected to begin in 2019
- Autoworkers at the Orion plant have assembled three generations of Cruise self-driving test vehicles, including those used to test driverless-car capabilities in San Francisco. More than 200 of the test vehicles have been assembled at Orion, GM said
Microsoft says its AI can translate Chinese as well as a human – Mar. 14, 2018 (Engadget)
- Rather than use the conventional translation technique (statistical machine translation), Microsoft used deep neural networks that more closely mimic human behavior. Its team used a dual learning system where the AI would reverse the translation to gauge how well it did
- The company also relied on deliberation networks, which mimic the repetitive process people use to revise writing, as well as joint training that used English-to-Chinese translations to boost the training samples for Chinese-to-English work. The AI would even change the direction of its translation (left to right and vice versa) and promote results that were similar both ways
- It’s not clear that this is ready for prime time. Microsoft based its claim based on a lone test (albeit a thorough one) focused on news stories. You’d ideally pit the AI against informal writing examples like social network posts to see how it handles grammatical errors, slang and other twists
Vail Resorts Introduces Siri Like Program Snow Conditions – Mar. 14, 2018 (303 Magazine)
- Earlier this week, Vail Resorts launched the first digital mountain assistant, Emma, which can answer any questions mountain visitors may have on their ski trip
- Skiers and snowboarders can text Emma a question and will receive an answer in real time for up-to-date information on the mountain. Questions can be about snow conditions, lift wait times and even where to eat on or off the resort
- In the future, Vail Resorts anticipates Emma will integrate with Facebook messaging, voice assistance, wearable technoogy and integration with Vail’s EpicMix app
Lyft to Bring Driverless Car Tech to Broader Auto Industry – Mar. 14, 2018 (New York Times)
- Lyft said Wednesday that it had reached a deal with Magna International, one of the world’s biggest auto suppliers, to jointly develop and manufacture self-driving car systems
- The companies said they will work together to introduce autonomous vehicles to Lyft’s ride-hailing network. At the same time, Magna can sell the driverless-car technology to any customer — including other technology companies
- Magna also said it would invest $200 million in Lyft’s latest fund-raising round, lifting the San Francisco-based company’s valuation to $11.7 billion
Google uses machine learning to make computers faster as they age – Mar. 14, 2018 (Digital Journal)
- Google has released a research paper which details how computers could be sped up as they age. The technique uses machine learning to enhance the performance of “prefetching,” a mechanism used to pull information out of memory in advance of its use
- Although the company’s not provided any demonstrations of speed increases, the MIT Technology Review notes the system could offer a considerable real-world performance boost. Machine learning lends itself well to scenarios that require iterative refinement of predictive algorithms, so prefetching may be an ideal target for the technology
- The project is part of a larger Google effort to enhance computer hardware using AI. The team behind the project said it could be used to optimise every computer component. Intelligence will enable hardware and software to integrate more seamlessly, while giving the overall system the ability to anticipate its user’s actions
Waymo Autonomous Trucks Haul Freight in Atlanta – Mar. 14, 2018 (Transport Topics)
- Alphabet Inc.’s autonomous vehicle division Waymo began this month operating an autonomous freight truck in the Atlanta area, carrying server equipment, racks and related material to Google data centers’
- Waymo’s project joins competitors Uber Freight, TuSimple and Embark in developing autonomous technology for the freight hauling industry. Waymo said it will be operating Class 8 Peterbilt trucks on Atlanta-area freeways and local roads with a test driver in the cab at all times
- A Waymo spokesperson said the goal of its Atlanta project is to operate freight trucks at a Level 4 capability. If successful, it will integrate its technology “into the operations of shippers and carriers, with their network of factories, distribution centers and ports and terminals.”
Former Microsoft AI Principal Researcher He Xiaodong Joins JD.Com – Mar. 13, 2018 (China Money Network)
- He Xiaodong, former principal researcher at Microsoft Research’s artificial intelligence unit will join JD.com as vice president working at JD.com’s AI lab, according to local media
- He Xiaodong previously worked for Microsoft for more than a decade. At Microsoft’s deep learning group, he led the efforts to develop algorithms, models, and systems in deep supervised and unsupervised learning, deep reinforcement learning, and neural-symbolic reasoning. He led the image captioning effort at Microsoft Cognitive Services that supports CaptionBot
- JD has increased its efforts to attract global talent. Its financial arm, JD Finance, hired Zheng Yu, former urban computing group research manager at Microsoft, and hired Bo Liefeng, former principal research scientist at Amazon.com Inc., as chief scientist of its artificial intelligence lab last October
Austin is already planning for the future of autonomous vehicles, according to SXSW panel – Mar. 13, 2018 (Community Impact Newspaper)
- Representatives from Austin, Pittsburgh and Washington D.C. joined the panel on Monday and discussed how autonomous vehicles give cities the opportunity to revise their infrastructure
- “Austin’s really eager for this new technology to take place in our city,” said Rob Spillar, Austin’s transportation director. “When we think about automation, we think about how we can solve our affordability issues here in Austin, how can we solve our congestion and mobility issues, how we can put people in direct contact with opportunities for greater lifestyle.”
Apple Facing Patent Lawsuit Over Siri’s Natural Language Capabilities – Mar. 10, 2018 (Gadgets 360)
- Non-practicing entity Portal Communications has filed a lawsuit against Apple for alleged infringement of three patents related to natural language voice query systems – the technology being used by the iPhone-maker in its products in the form of the Siri virtual assistant
- According to tech website AppleInsider, in its filing with the Eastern Texas District Court, Portal Communications said that the three related patents were invented by Dave Bernard, CEO of technology solutions firm The Intellection Group
- All the patents titled “Multimodal natural language query system and architecture for processing voice and proximity-based queries,” were transferred from The Intellection Group to Portal Communications in January
Reuters is taking a big gamble on AI-supported journalism – Mar. 10, 2018 (Wired)
- Reuters is building an AI tool to help journalists analyse data, suggest story ideas, and even write some sentences, aiming not to replace reporters but instead augment them with a digital data scientist-cum-copywriting assistant
- Called Lynx Insight, it has been trialled by dozens of journalists since the summer, and will now be rolled out across Reuters newsrooms
- Reg Chua, executive editor of editorial operations, data and innovation at Reuters, says the aim is to divvy up editorial work into what machines do best (such as chew through data and spot patterns), and what human editorial staff excel at (such as asking questions, judging importance, understanding context and — presumably — drinking excessive amounts of coffee)
Lyft to send its own self-driving cars out on the country’s biggest test track – Mar. 8, 2018 (Digital Trends)
- The ridesharing company will test its technology at GoMentum Station, the former U.S. Navy weapons station in Concord, California, which features some 20 miles of paved roads around a private, 5,000-acre site
- GoMentum Station, which opened as a test site for driverless vehicles in 2014, also features a range of buildings that help simulate an urban setting for the car trials. While many companies are already testing self-driving cars on public streets, the closed-off site allows engineers to try out new technology that might not yet be reliable enough for public highways
Events:
Global Autonomous Driving Engineers Join Efforts to Make Driverless Cars in Guiyang – Mar. 14, 2018 (PR Newswire)
- About 30 global autonomous driving engineers and 10 mentors from 12 countries gathered in southwest China’s Guiyang City to join an open collaboration camping program which kicked off on March 9. The “Move it Hackthon” program will see two autonomous vehicles made and tested on roads within five days, according to the Publicity Department of the CPC Guiyang Committee
- “Move it” is a global innovative open source community on autonomous driving dedicated to the development, manufacturing and promotion of latest automobile technologies. The “Move it Hackathon” is the community’s first offline activity, aiming to address common challenges facing autonomous driving by cooperation. The solutions will be shared to reduce innovation and application thresholds of driverless cars and expand the technology’s use
- The engineers and mentors who participate in this collaborative camp all come from first-class self-driving enterprises and universities. The activities covered wire control technology transformation, algorithm debugging, automatic driving sample car installation and commissioning, mentor sharing and so on