We’ve seen two sides of Microsoft over the past two weeks. Last week, we learned that Microsoft was working with a Chinese military university on AI. This week, we learned they declined to sell their facial recognition technology to California law enforcement. While encouraging to hear given the current privacy and civil rights violations associated with many facial recognition technologies, the fact that they’re operating in China on this topic should still leave us all concerned. More weekly news can be found below.
Company developments:
Microsoft refused to sell facial recognition tech to law enforcement – Apr. 17, 2019 (Mashable)
- Microsoft President Brad Smith delivered some surprisingly principled news about his company while speaking at Stanford University on Tuesday. Recently, Smith said that Microsoft declined to sell its facial recognition technology to both a California law enforcement agency and an unnamed capital city because of human rights concerns, according to Reuters
- That’s in contrast to Amazon, which defends its contracts with law enforcement agencies that use its Rekognition software, and has sought to discredit an ACLU study that showed racial bias in Rekognition. The ACLU study and others have found that facial recognition AI is less accurate at identifying women and minorities than white men. Because of this bias, Smith said that use by law enforcement could disproportionately harm these groups
Apple in talks with potential suppliers of sensors for self-driving cars – sources – Apr. 17, 2019 (Reuters)
- Apple Inc has held talks with at least four companies as possible suppliers for next-generation lidar sensors in self-driving cars, evaluating the companies’ technology while also still working on its own lidar unit, three people familiar with the discussions said
- Apple is seeking lidar units that would be smaller, cheaper and more easily mass produced than current technology, the three people said. The iPhone maker is setting a high bar with demands for a “revolutionary design,” one of the people familiar with the talks said. The people declined to name the companies Apple has approached
Facebook’s AI can convert one singer’s voice into another – Apr. 16, 2019 (VentureBeat)
- In a paper published on the preprint server Arxiv.org (“Unsupervised Singing Voice Conversion“), scientists at Facebook AI Research and Tel Aviv University describe a system that directly converts audio of one singer to the voice of another
- All the more impressive, it’s unsupervised, meaning it’s able to perform the conversion from unclassified, unannotated data it hasn’t previously encountered
M&A:
Intel acquires UK’s Omnitek to double down on FPGA solutions for video and AI applications – Apr. 16, 2019 (TechCrunch)
- Intel’s strategy to build out its FPGA processor business continues apace. Today the company announced that it was acquiring Omnitek, a company based out of England that has developed FPGA solutions specifically geared to video and AI applications
- Terms of the deal are not being disclosed, but from what I understand the price is not material to Intel. Omnitek has been around since 1998 and has raised almost no funding. Intel will be picking up Omnitek’s 40 employees — all based out of Basingstoke, England — along with the rest of Omnitek’s business, which included more than 220 FPGA IP cores and accompanying software
Evolve IP Acquires NLP and Speech Analytics Firm – Apr. 15, 2019 (UC Today)
- Evolve IP, the Cloud Strategy Company, recently announced their acquisition of natural language technology and speech analytics firm, Jog.AI. The new purchase will enhance the company’s cloud communication strategy with advanced solutions to help users retrieve and record the things that happen within a phone call
- According to Evolve IP, the acquisition will open new markets for the company, and make it easier for them to deliver exceptional solutions in verticals like Finance, Healthcare, and Legal. The tech is well-suited to contact centres, executives, sales professionals, and all businesses with compliance or transcription requirements
Fundraising / investment:
Phantom Auto closes Series A funding, expands plans for remote-controlled autonomous vehicles – Apr. 18, 2019 (CNBC)
- The money will help Phantom Auto expand development of technology that allows remote drivers to operate vehicles or robots from thousands of miles away
- Since its founding in 2017, the company has worked with firms testing and developing autonomous vehicles that drive on public roads
Uber’s self-driving car unit raises $1B from Toyota, Denso and Vision Fund ahead of spin-out – Apr. 18, 2019 (TechCrunch)
- The development has been speculated for some time — as far back as October — and it serves to both remove a deeply unprofitable unit from the main Uber business, helping Uber scale back some of its losses, while giving Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group (known as Uber ATG) more freedom to focus on the tough challenge of bringing autonomous vehicles to market
- The deal values Uber ATG at $7.25 billion, the companies announced. In terms of the exact mechanics of the investment, Toyota and Denso are providing $667 million, with the Vision Fund throwing in the remaining $333 million
Astroscreen raises $1M to detect social media manipulation with machine learning – Apr. 18, 2019 (TechCrunch)
- Astroscreen is a startup that uses machine learning and disinformation analysts to detect social media manipulation. It has now secured $1 million in initial funding to progress its technology. And it has a heritage that suggests it at least has a shot at achieving this
- The funding round was led by Speedinvest, Luminous Ventures, UCL Technology Fund (which is managed by AlbionVC in collaboration with UCLB), AISeed and the London Co-investment Fund
Aidoc, the AI solution for medical imaging analysis, raises $27M Series B – Apr. 17, 2019 (TechCrunch)
- Aidoc, the Tel Aviv startup using AI to analyse medical scans, has raised $27 million in Series B funding. The round is led by Square Peg Capital and brings total funding to date to $40 million. The company’s previous backers include Israeli VC TLV Partners, Magma Ventures and Emerge
- Offering a solution aimed at radiologists — and already deployed commercially across 100 sites — Aidoc claims to be able to detect high-level visual abnormalities from various types of medical scans. The idea is that by working in tandem with humans, it’s able to flag the most critical and urgent cases where a faster diagnosis and treatment could save lives
PathAI raises $60 million for AI pathology and diagnostic tools – Apr. 17, 2019 (VentureBeat)
- PathAI, a startup that employs machine learning techniques to improve diagnostic accuracy, today announced that it’s raised $60 million in series B funding led by growth equity firm General Atlantic, with General Catalyst participating
- It brings its total venture capital raised to about $75 million, following an $11 million series A financing round, which CEO and cofounder Dr. Andy Beck said will be used to enhance PathAI’s existing offerings, drive improvement of its platform, and fuel research and development into new tools and devices
NuvoAir raises $3M to help patients monitor respiratory diseases with AI – Apr. 17, 2019 (TechCrunch)
- NuvoAir is a new digital therapeutics startup that is also tackling this problem. It has now closed a financing round of $3 million led by venture capital firm Industrifonden, one of the largest life science and tech investors in the Nordics. The round also saw participation from existing investor Investment AB Spiltan
- NuvoAir aims to make respiratory diseases measurable and more treatable. Established in 2015, NuvoAir launched a smartphone-connected “spirometer,” making real-time lung function assessment possible at home. It has now collected more than 500,000 spirometry tests in the last three years. These tests power its machine learning algorithms to provide insights to patients, their physicians and pharma companies
Cytora secures £25M Series B for its AI-powered commercial insurance underwriting solution – Apr. 16, 2019 (TechCrunch)
- Cytora, a U.K. startup that developed an AI-powered solution for commercial insurance underwriting, has raised £25 million in a Series B round. Leading the investment is EQT Ventures, with participation from existing investors Cambridge Innovation Capital, Parkwalk and a number of unnamed angel investors
- A spin-out of the University of Cambridge, Cytora was founded in 2014 by Richard Hartley, Aeneas Wiener, Joshua Wallace and Andrzej Czapiewski — although both Wallace and Czapiewski have since departed
Amenity Analytics raises $18 million for AI that parses regulatory filings and earnings calls for key points – Apr. 15, 2019 (VentureBeat)
- Amenity Analytics, a New York-based startup developing what it describes as a “text-mining” AI platform for enterprise, today announced that it’s raised $18 million in series B financing led by Starr Companies, with participation from Allstate, Intel Capital, and State of Mind Ventures
- It brings the company’s total raised to around $25.6 million, following a $7.6 million series A round in 2017, and will help further grow its team, said CEO Nathaniel Storch
Partnerships:
NCI Partners with Machine Learning Company Tanjo to Enhance AI Platform – Apr. 21, 2019 (Washington Exec)
- Information Systems, Inc. is teaming with North Carolina-based machine learning company Tanjo Inc. to leverage its technology and infuse new data analytics capabilities into NCI’s artificial intelligence platform
- The platform is called Scaling Humans with Artificial Intelligence, or Shai, and it delivers real-time insights and intelligence to NCI’s federal customers. The company plans to enhance Shai with Tanjo’s machine learning technology that studies the volume, velocity and variety of big data — in this case, government data
Qualcomm joins Tencent and Vivo on new AI initiative for mobile gaming – Apr. 19, 2019 (VentureBeat)
- The companies announced their joint partnership earlier today during Qualcomm AI Day in Shenzhen, China. According to a press release, Project Imagination is meant to “to bring smarter, more efficient, and more immersive experiences to consumers” through AI
- Additionally, Vivo is planning on creating an all-AI esports team on mobile called Supex. It plans on optimizing the team by putting it through MOBA games like Honor of Kings. In the press release, Vivo’s general manager of creative innovation Fred Wong said Supex will “ultimately deliver better competition experiences to mobile esports.”
Research / studies:
Missouri S&T Engineers Use Artificial Intelligence To Help Drivers Avoid Flooded Roads – Apr. 19, 2019 (St. Louis Public Radio)
- The system could warn drivers to stay off flooded roads. Researchers began the yearlong project to use artificial intelligence to enhance flood evacuation plans in February for transportation agencies in the Midwest, including the Missouri Department of Transportation. The work focuses on the Meramec River basin in eastern Missouri and the areas of Nebraska and northwest Missouri that experienced record-breaking floods in late March from the Missouri River
Huge AI breakthrough could bring us much closer to nuclear fusion energy – Apr. 18, 2019 (Silicon Republic)
- A team at the US Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has found a way to use the power of deep learning artificial intelligence (AI) to predict any disruptions that halt fusion reactions and damage doughnut-shaped tokamak reactors
- Crucial to this new deep learning algorithm – called the Fusion Recurrent Neural Network (FRNN) – has been its access to 2TB of data provided by two major fusion facilities: the DIII-D National Fusion Facility in California and the Joint European Torus (JET) in the UK
AI estimates depression severity from sight and sound – Apr. 17, 2019 (VentureBeat)
- Enter new research from scientists at the Indian Institute of Technology Patna and the University of Caen Normandy (“The Verbal and Non Verbal Signals of Depression — Combining Acoustics, Text and Visuals for Estimating Depression Level”), which examines how nonverbal signs and visuals can drastically improve estimations of depression level
- The steadily increasing global burden of depression and mental illness acts as an impetus for the development of more advanced, personalized and automatic technologies that aid in its detection,” the paper’s authors wrote
An AI Invented a Weird Sport Called “Speedgate” – Apr. 16, 2019 (Futurism)
- Digital product agency AKQA says it has taught an artificial intelligence to invent a sport by feeding it data about 400 existing ones, TechCrunch reports. The resulting never-played-before sport, called “Speedgate,” is an unusual mix of soccer and rugby — with a touch of Quidditch
- Speedgate is by turns familiar and bizarre. Two opposing teams of six players pass and eventually kick or throw a ball through one of three gates at either end of a field — as long as it’s not the middle one. The team is composed of three forwards and three defenders. Only one defender can be in a gate at a time. No pushing is allowed
Harvard Medical School’s AI can detect genetic defect that causes some cancers – Apr. 15, 2019 (VentureBeat)
- Scientists at Harvard Medical School have developed an AI screening system — SigMA — which they claim can successfully “read” the molecular signature of HR deficiencies highly accurately and efficiently, and which furthermore works with existing screening methods. It’s described in a report published today in the journal Nature Genetics
- “Pinpointing actionable genetic biomarkers and treating patients with drugs that specifically target the relevant cancer-driving pathways is at the heart of precision medicine. We believe our algorithm can greatly enhance physicians’ ability to deliver such individualized therapy,” said study senior author Peter Park, a professor of biomedical informatics in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS, in a statement
Government / policy:
Iowa House passes autonomous vehicle bill – Apr. 17, 2019 (KCRG)
- It says cars can ‘self operate’ on highways, but only if it can do three things: pose a minimal risk in case of malfunction, comply with state traffic and vehicle safety laws and manufacturers must certify the vehicle for federal safety standards
Events:
UAE to host the world’s foremost AI summit ‘Ai Everything’ – Apr. 15, 2019 (Intelligent CIO)
- The two-day event will be held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai and will be hosted by the UAE’s National Program for Artificial intelligence with the support of global association partners International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), and in strategic partnership with Smart Dubai