Anthony Levandowski is back in the news again. This time it’s for his new autonomous trucking startup Pronto.ai, where he completed a 3,099 mile cross-country trip in one of his trucks. If verified it would be the longest known journey for an autonomous truck. Levandowski just keeps finding ways to stay relevant.
Other weekly news can be found below.
Company developments:
Apple’s AI boss has been bumped up to the company’s executive team – Dec. 20, 2018 (TechCrunch)
- Apple has just confirmed that John Giannandrea, the ex-Googler machine learning veteran who joined the company back in April, has joined the likes of Tim Cook, Jony Ive, Eddy Cue and Angela Ahrendts on the executive team
- His role on the executive team will be “Senior Vice President of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Strategy,” signaling just how key AI and machine learning will be to Apple moving forward. Giannandrea has been leading Apple’s Siri and Core ML team for months, bringing the two previously distinct teams together under one leader
Alibaba uses AI to speed up detection of pregnant pigs seven times, boosting efficiency of China’s hog farms – Dec. 19, 2018 (South China Morning Post)
- Using facial-recognition cameras, Alibaba Group Holding’s cloud unit said it has developed an algorithm that can accurately diagnose pregnancy in pigs by observing changes in their behaviour, physical appearance and eating patterns after mating
- The solution, which can also detect a failed pregnancy as early as the third day after mating compared to 21 days the conventional way, is designed to increase the number of newborns on pig farms, according to Alibaba Cloud. The solution is expected to be put to use in some of Alibaba Cloud’s partner farms in southwest China’s Sichuan province early next year
AI security startup Lighthouse shuts down, offers refunds to customers – Dec. 19, 2018 (VentureBeat)
- Lighthouse, a San Francisco home security startup backed by Andy Rubin’s Playground Ventures, today announced that it’s ceasing operations and extending refunds to customers who return their purchases. In a message on the company’s website, CEO Alex Teichman cited a lack of “commercial success” as a contributing factor
- Lighthouse emerged from stealth in May 2017 with $17 million in funding from Playground, in addition to Eclipse Ventures, SignalFire, Start, and individual investor Sebastian Thrun, director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Stanford University. The three-year-old company, which employed around 30 people and had offices at Playground Ventures’ incubator space in Palo Alto, developed a security camera that leveraged computer vision not only to detect and monitor activity within a home, but to alert users to disturbances — like a break-in, for example, or unruly pets and kids — via text or voice message
Box releases Skills, which lets developers apply AI and machine learning to Box content – Dec. 18, 2018 (TechCrunch)
- When you have as much data under management as Box does, you have the key ingredient for artificial intelligence and machine learning, which feeds on copious amounts of data. Box is giving developers access to this data, while letting them choose the AI and machine learning algorithms they want to use. Today, the company announced the general availability of the Box Skills SDK, originally announced at BoxWorks a year ago
Anthony Levandowski’s new Pronto.ai startup has already autonomously driven 3099 miles cross country – Dec. 18, 2018 (Electrek)
- In a profile in the Guardian, Levandowski discusses his recent 3099 mile cross country journey that began at the Golden Gate Bridge and ended up on the George Washington Bridge in Manhattan (time-lapse video below). If verified, it would be the first autonomous US cross country drive, though it appears that stops for gas/breaks were made with the help of the driver and might be disqualifying
Alphabet’s Jigsaw expands AI-powered toxic comment detection technology to Spanish – Dec. 17, 2018 (VentureBeat)
- Alphabet’s in-house incubator, Jigsaw, has revealed that it is opening up its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered abuse-detection technology to more languages, starting with Spanish
- Perspective kicked off last year in English, starting with the New York Times, and it later expanded to other outlets, including the Guardian, the Economist, and Wikipedia. Now Jigsaw said it’s working with Spanish-language newspaper El País to “improve conversations” on its website
Fundraising / investment:
Israeli firm closes $3 million to bring remote assistance to autonomous vehicles – Dec. 22, 2018 (Times of Israel)
- Ottopia, a technology company focused on remote assistance for self-driving cars, announced today it has closed $3 million in seed funding. The round was led by MizMaa Ventures with participation from Glory Ventures, Plug and Play and NextGear
- Amit Rosenzweig (CEO) and Leon Altarac (CTO) founded Ottopia in 2018. Prior to that, Leon founded the Robotics and AV branch of the Israeli Army, where he spent the last decade designing various AVs and teleoperation solutions for real-life missions. Amit was Head of Product for Microsoft’s leading cybersecurity offering, as well as VP of product for a low-latency video transmission company. Before that, he led research and development projects for Israeli intelligence and graduated from the prestigious Talpiot program
Cherry Labs raises $5.2 million for AI that detects when elderly users fall – Dec. 20, 2018 (VentureBeat)
- Cherry Labs, a Cupertino startup founded in 2016 by entrepreneurs Max Goncharov, Stas Veretennikov, and Nick Davidov, aims to prevent those sorts of injuries with an artificially intelligent (AI) in-home system — Cherry Home — that’s able to detect and track users with vision sensors and microphones. It today announced a $5.2 million funding round led by GSR Ventures, which it says will fuel a pilot program set to kick off in the coming weeks with TheraCare, a caregiving service, and TriCura, a tech platform that uses mobile apps to capture and share information among families, caregivers, and agencies
- Cherry Home officially launched in October, and is currently testing with 15 families in the Bay Area. Its kits ship with a binocular battery-powered camera with a 165-degree field of view, 1TB of internal storage, and a bevy of sensors, including an infrared sensor (for night vision), a motion sensor, an accelerometer, an altimeter, and a compass
AI start-up Fourth Paradigm, formed by Huawei veterans, becomes China’s latest unicorn – Dec. 19, 2018 (South China Morning Post)
- The start-up – known also as 4Paradigm – said in a statement it’s scored more than US$150 million of funding at a valuation of about US$1.2 billion. With that financing, its investors and paying customers now include four of China’s five largest banks: a major boost for a little-known outfit hoping to compete with the likes of Alibaba Group Holding and Ant Financial in the massive undertaking of wrenching a state-dominated US$37 trillion banking arena into the digital age
- Unlike other Chinese AI players are developing consumer apps or facial recognition, Fourth Paradigm works in a more mundane field. It essentially hands its clients a suite of software tools that let them run complex algorithms on their data without needing to employ highly trained engineers. Its main service provides tools for banks to detect fraud, identify customers and perform other analysis
AI chip startup Graphcore closes $200M Series D, adds BMW and Microsoft as strategic investors – Dec. 18, 2018 (TechCrunch)
- UK AI chip startup Graphcore has announced a $200 million Series D round today that’s jointly led by an existing investor, European VC Atomico, along with new investor Sofina, an investment holding firm
- Graphcore says the Series D values the company at $1.7BN. We’ve confirmed the valuation is $1.5BN before including the new capital raised. We’re also told that all the new money is inbound, with no cash-outs at this growth stage
Baidu leads US$87 million investment in Chinese smart lock start-up YunDing – Dec. 18, 2018 (South China Morning Post)
- Apart from the financial injection, Baidu said in a statement that it will power YunDing with its cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and smart cloud service to “further complete its smart home ecosystem”
- The investment is Baidu’s latest effort to bring AI into people’s everyday lives. The company has teamed up with several home appliance majors in China, including Haier Group and TCL Corp, to make voice-controlled speakers as well as smart fridges and televisions
Ada raises $14 million to help companies develop their own customer service chatbots – Dec. 18, 2018 (VentureBeat)
- Ada, a Canada-based startup that is setting out to help companies develop their own automated customer service tools, has raised CAD$19 million (USD$14 million) in a series A round of funding led by New York-based VC firm FirstMark Capital, with participation from Leaders Fund, Burst Capital, Bessemer, Version One, and computer scientist Barney Pell
- Founded out of Toronto in 2016, Ada develops chatbots and related artificial intelligence (AI) software to help companies manage inbound customer queries. The company shouldn’t be confused with Berlin-based Ada Health, which also works in the chatbot realm
Meeshkan raises €370K for its ‘ChatOps’ bot for training machine learning models – Dec. 17, 2018 (TechCrunch)
- Meeshkan, a Finnish startup that made quite a splash at the recent Slush conference, has quietly raised €370,000 in pre-seed funding to continue developing its “ChatOps” product for machine learning developers
- Deployed on Slack, the bot allows developers to “rapidly stop, restart, fork, tweak, monitor, deploy and test machine learning models” without interrupting the collaborative workflows they are accustomed to or being forced to go back and forth between disparate developer tools
K Health raises $25M for its AI-powered primary care platform – Dec. 17, 2018 (TechCrunch)
- K Health, the startup providing consumers with an AI-powered primary care platform, has raised $25 million in Series B funding. The round was led by 14W, Comcast Ventures and Mangrove Capital Partners, with participation from Lerer Hippeau, BoxGroup and Max Ventures — all previous investors from the company’s seed or Series A rounds. Other previous investors include Primary Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners
- Co-founded and led by former Vroom CEO and Wix co-CEO Allon Bloch, K Health (previously Kang Health) looks to equip consumers with a free and easy-to-use application that can provide accurate, personalized, data-driven information about their symptoms and health
Partnerships:
IBM Africa and Hello Tractor pilot AI/blockchain agtech platform – Dec. 20, 2018 (TechCrunch)
- IBM Research and agtech startup Hello Tractor have developed an AI and blockchain-driven platform for Africa’s farmers. The two companies will pilot the product in 2019 through an ongoing partnership co-financed by IBM
- Dubbed Digital Wallet in beta, the cloud-based service aims to support Hello Tractor’s business of connecting small-scale farmers to equipment and data analytics for better crop production
Luminar collaborates with Audi’s Autonomous Intelligent Driving on driverless vehicles – Dec. 18, 2018 (VentureBeat)
- Palo Alto startup Luminar today announced a collaboration with Autonomous Intelligent Driving (AID), Audi’s driverless technology spinoff and a supplier for Volkswagen Group brands, such as VW and Porsche, to accelerate the latter’s goal of bringing to market fully self-driving cars by 2021
- This marks the second such partnership between the two companies, which teamed up in June to outfit prototypical autonomous cars with object-detecting lidar sensors. According to Alexandre Haag, AID’s chief technology officer, Luminar remains a “key player” in the company’s broader deployment plans
Research / studies:
Google has completed over 100 ethical reviews of AI ‘projects, products, and deals’ – Dec. 18, 2018 (VentureBeat)
- Kent Walker, senior vice president of global affairs at Google, said in a blog post that a formal review structure to assess new “projects, products and deals” has been established, and that more than 100 reviews have been completed so far. Some have resulted in decisions to modify research in visual speech recognition and to hold off on commercial offerings of technology like general-purpose facial recognition
- Google’s AI ethics review team as it exists today consists of researchers, social scientists, ethicists, human rights specialists, policy and privacy advisors, legal experts, social scientists who handle initial assessments and “day-to-day operations,” and a second group of “senior experts” from a “range of disciplines” across Alphabet — Google’s parent company — who provide technological, functional, and application expertise. A council of senior executives navigates more “complex and difficult issues,” including decisions that affect Google’s products and technologies
Cien to open AI, data science center in Barcelona after raising €1.6M – Dec. 18, 2018 (Cien)
- AI-powered sales productivity app maker Cien announces today that it is building an AI and data science “Center of Excellence” in Barcelona after raising €1,575,000
- The leading provider of AI-powered sales productivity solutions, today announced it closed a seed equity round and obtained financing, via Spain’s Center for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI)
Government / policy:
California grants Zoox first permit to transport passengers in driverless vehicles – Dec. 22, 2018 (VentureBeat)
- Self-driving car startup Zoox has become the first company to receive approval from California regulators to operate an autonomous ride service for public passengers, state regulators said on Friday
- The California Public Utilities Commission said Silicon Valley-based Zoox is the first company to join a state pilot program in which self-driving cars will transport members of the public, marking a step forward in the development of fully autonomous urban transportation options
U.S. Safety Agency Streamlines Autonomous Vehicle Approvals – Dec. 19, 2018 (Insurance Journal)
- The U.S. auto safety regulator said on Tuesday it is speeding up the process for reviewing whether automakers can deploy self-driving vehicles without devices such as brakes and steering wheels
- Automakers must currently meet nearly 75 auto safety standards, many of them written with the assumption that a licensed driver would be able to control the vehicle using traditional human controls. On Tuesday, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it issued a final regulation streamlining the review process. NHTSA eliminated a requirement that calls for the agency to determine a petition is complete before publishing a summary for public comment
Uber approved to resume autonomous car tests in Pittsburgh – Dec. 18, 2018 (Seattle Times)
- The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has approved Uber’s request to resume testing of autonomous vehicles on public roads in the Pittsburgh area
- The approval, effective Monday and lasting for one year, comes about nine months after one of Uber’s autonomous test vehicles hit and killed an Arizona pedestrian. Testing was suspended after March 18 crash in Tempe, Arizona