AI News
The latest news and reviews on artificial intelligence software, hardware and AI research.
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Amazon reportedly working on Alexa-enabled 'smart glasses'
Amazon wants to make Alexa a more formidable competitor to Google Assistant and Siri by letting you put it on your face and take it anywhere, according to a Financial Times report (paywall). The company is said to be developing a pair of normal-looking eyeglasses that tether to your smartphone and allow you hear, and presumably speak to, Alexa via a bone-conduction audio system. There won't, however, be a screen or camera on the model as with Google Glass.
Make a 3D model of your face with a selfie and AI
It's incredibly difficult to construct a 3D face from a two-dimensional photograph. That's because a single image makes it very hard to approximate different facial expressions across lighting conditions. But now, a team at The University of Nottingham and Kingston University have come up with a way to construct a 3D face from a single image.
AI can detect Alzheimer's 10 years before symptoms show up
Various researchers around the globe are developing ways to detect Alzheimer's as early as possible. After all, early detection gives people the power seek treatment that can slow down the condition's effects, as well as enough time to get their legal and financial affairs in order. Some decided to focus on blood and cerebrospinal fluid tests, while others are developing gadgets that can look for early signs. A team of researchers from the University of Bari in Italy, however, believe the answer lies in artificial intelligence. They developed an algorithm that can spot tiny structural changes in the brain caused by the disease a decade before symptoms even appear.
Facebook opens a new AI research lab in Montreal
Facebook's Artificial Intelligence Research team is expanding. The company announced a brand new AI lab that just opened in Montreal, which joins the network of existing labs based in Menlo Park, New York City and Paris. "The Montreal lab will house research scientists and engineers working on a wide range of ambitious AI research projects, but it will also have a special focus on reinforcement learning and dialog systems," Facebook's chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, said in a post.
Audi wants autonomous cars to run errands while you're at work
Audi laid out its plans for autonomous vehicles and how it intends to use AI to us back in July, and now the automaker is ready to show off what it's been working on. At this year's IAA auto show in Frankfurt, Audi debuted the AIcon and ElAIne (above and below), a pair of cars capable of Level 4 autonomy (conditional, but fully automated driving) that it claims are empathetic to their drivers' needs. "They will be able to continually interact with their surroundings and passengers, and thus adapt themselves in a better way than ever before to the requirements of those on board," Audi wrote in a lengthy press release.
Adobe taps your car for targeted ad data
If it wasn't already clear that targeted ads are invading connected cars, it is now. Adobe has unveiled an extension of its Experience Cloud service that helps automakers and app developers interpret in-car data for the sake of personalization. The platform (not shown above) uses machine learning and other techniques to scoop up behavioral data, such as voice commands and preferences, in a way that helps companies tailor info to specific drivers. There are some genuinely practical advantages that could stem from this, but Adobe isn't shy about the main reason -- this is to help deliver focused ads, often while you're driving.
Google wants its Assistant to be your personal translator
Two of the biggest digital assistants are taking different pathways to find more users. Amazon recently made its intentions clear: It wants to play nice with its rivals. And so we're getting Microsoft Cortana integration with Alexa, and vice versa. That's on top of the thousands of third-party skills Amazon's AI already has. Google, on the other hand, is focussing on making its tech more self-reliant. Judging by its latest demonstration, its efforts are paying off. The company just unveiled a bunch of impressive features at a Google Developer Days keynote. They indicate that Google Assistant now possesses better contextual awareness. Not only will it be able to answer some of your vaguest questions, but it will also come in handy on your travels.
Lyft cars with self-driving AI will hit San Francisco streets
Lyft has been expanding rapidly over the last few months, and they've been open about their interest in self-driving tech. While they've made it clear they will always have human drivers, they've partnered with various companies, such as Waymo, to explore autonomous ridesharing. And now they've taken another step in that direction: Lyft announced that it's partnered with Drive.ai, a company that produces AI for self-driving cars, for a pilot program in the Bay Area.
IBM is installing a Watson AI lab at MIT
Both MIT and IBM are leaders in the field of Artificial Intelligence and now they're teaming up. IBM announced on Thursday that it had reached a 10-year research partnership agreement with the university worth nearly a quarter of a billion dollars. That investment will see more than 100 researchers from both organizations collaborating to advance four key focus areas within the AI field.
John Deere bought an AI company to optimize crop spraying
Want to know how pervasive AI is becoming in seemingly all facets of daily life? Just ask Deere & Company. The John Deere brand owner just acquired Blue River Technology, which uses machine learning and computer vision to target herbicide spraying at just the weed-infested portions of a farm field. The technology can minimize both waste and the amount of input needed while spraying, saving farmers headaches and money in the process.
Smartphones could someday assess brain injuries
Researchers at the University of Washington are developing a simple way to assess potential concussions and other brain injuries with just a smartphone. The team has developed an app called PupilScreen that uses video and a smartphone's camera flash to record and calculate how the pupils respond to light.
Mobile AI is Huawei's not-so-secret weapon
Smartphone makers are betting on camera features to help their flagship devices stand out. Samsung launched its first dual cameras on the Note 8, Sony introduced super slow-mo video recording on its XZ Premium and XZ1 series, and LG equipped the V30 with a glass lens that boasts a wide f/1.6 aperture. But Huawei has chosen a different route. In lieu of a new phone, the company showed off its Kirin 970 chip at IFA 2017, calling attention to the chipset's AI capabilities. The Kirin 970 will power Huawei's next flagship phone, the Mate 10, which is set to launch at a separate October event in Munich.
The Trainline is using big data to predict when ticket prices rise
Just like flights, hotels and Uber rides, train ticket prices rise when rail operators anticipate there will be increased demand for their services. It often leaves passengers scrambling to find a combination of tickets that won't break the bank, even when they're booking weeks before they travel. Train companies obviously want to protect profits by keeping their pricing structures a secret, but independent ticket retailer The Trainline believes it can now accurately predict when things will start to get expensive.
Google's new Street View cameras help AI map the real world
Google's Street View cameras haven't changed significantly in 8 years, and that's a problem when the technology world most certainly has. How is the company supposed to fulfill its AI ambitions with 2009-era hardware? Thankfully, it won't have to. Google has revealed to Wired that it's implementing a brand new camera design that should not only produce higher quality Street View imagery, but will prove crucial to Google's use of AI to index real-world locations.
Pixelmator Pro is an AI-powered Photoshop alternative for your Mac
Pro image editing tools like Adobe Photoshop are vital in the creative world, but let's face it: not everyone can justify paying $10 or more per month, every month, just to get more than rudimentary tools. You may not have to in the near future, though. The Pixelmator team is previewing Pixelmator Pro, an upgraded version of its long-serving (and historically more affordable) Mac app geared toward serious creatives. The editor promises many of the features you'd expect in a high-end app, and a little bit beyond -- there's even a dash of AI-like technology involved.
Putin says the country that perfects AI will be 'ruler of the world'
Forget the arms race or space race -- the new battle for technological dominance revolves around AI, according to Vladimir Putin. The Russian President told students at a career guidance forum that the "future belongs to artificial intelligence," and whoever is first to dominate this category will be the "ruler of the world." In other words, Russia fully intends to be a frontrunner in the AI space. It won't necessarily hog its technology, though.
Jaguar's steering wheel of the future revolves around AI
The steering wheel as we know it doesn't have a bright future -- in fact, it might disappear altogether as self-driving cars hit the road. Jaguar Land Rover, however, has an idea as to how it might survive. The British automaker has unveiled a concept steering wheel, Sayer, that's designed for an era where cars normally drive themselves and personal ownership is a thing of the past. The wheel would have its own AI system, and would follow you from car to car -- you'd just hook it in to bring your experience with you.
Huawei's next mobile chipset is ready for our AI-powered future
A big part of Huawei's multi-year push to improve its image has been improving the hardware it builds to go inside them, and its latest processor is more than up to the challenge. Unveiled today at IFA 2017, the Kirin 970 chipset goes beyond the initial machine learning implementation of previous designs and is ready to be an AI processing powerhouse. Earlier this year Huawei introduced "the intelligent phone" with its Mate 9 (pictured above), but the new hardware could help fix some annoying AI-related drawbacks of the device. While AI work done in the cloud is one thing, on-device AI computation will continue to grow, with the need for sensors to operate without waiting to send any information back and forth over wireless connections. Native AI processing will enable faster image and voice recognition, as well as "intelligent photography." A few people first spotted some specifications at the company's IFA booth, showing that it's sticking to last generation's octa-core setup with four 2.4Ghz Cortex-A73 processors and four 1.8GHz Cortex-A53 cores, but produced using an improved 10nm process instead of the old 12nm.
AI writes Yelp reviews that pass for the real thing
On any given day, hordes of people consult online reviews to help them pick out where to eat, what to watch, and products to buy. We trust that these reviews are reliable because they come from everyday folk just like us. But, what if the feedback blurbs on sites ranging from Amazon to iTunes could be faked -- not just by nefarious humans, but by AI? That's what researchers from University of Chicago tried to do, with surprising results. Not only did the Yelp restaurant reviews written by their neural network manage to pass for the real thing, but people even found the posts to be useful.
Facebook will use AI to help correct skewed 360-degree photos
Ever since Facebook added 360-degree photos to your news feed last year, more and more images of this type have appeared. You can even take and share these full-circle images right from your mobile device, as well, making them even more ubiquitous. Finding them is even easier with Facebook's Gear VR app, too. As reported by VentureBeat, the social network is now using deep neural networks to analyze 360-degree photos to fix the image orientation for a better viewing experience, especially in VR.
