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Windows 10's next major update includes an AI platform
How important is AI to Microsoft? So important that it's making the technology a staple of its software. The company has revealed that the next big Windows 10 update will include an AI platform, Windows ML, that lets developers use pre-trained machine learning systems in their apps. This will save them the hassle of writing their own AI systems, of course, but it could also lead to faster AI. App creators can have machine learning tasks run on your PC instead of the cloud, and draw on hardware acceleration from processors and graphics chips (including from AMD, Intel, NVIDIA and Qualcomm).
Google is helping US military train AI to study drone footage
The US military's Project Maven is getting some help using AI to interpret drone footage from a not-entirely-unexpected source: Google. The company has confirmed a Gizmodo report that it's offering TensorFlow programming kits to the Defense Department as part of a pilot that helps Project Maven process the glut of drone footage quickly. Google stresses that the machine learning technology is involved in "non-offensive uses only," and that it's flagging material for "human review." This isn't helping with drone strikes, then, but it has still raised concerns inside Google's ranks.
Google Clips review: A smart, but unpredictable camera
A few months ago, I met my favorite dog. I was standing in my friend's living room when Tassie, a little black and white chonzer puppy, came sniffing by my feet. She looked up at me, got up on her hind legs and placed her two front paws on my shin. A second later, she leaned forward, crossing her paws behind my calf and hugged my leg. I froze, my heart stopped and I melted into a puddle on the floor. I didn't dare to move in case she stopped hugging me. But then I thought, "This is a moment I want to memorialize!" So I reached for my phone, and as I shifted my weight slightly, Tassie walked away. I tried to get her to hug me again, but to no avail. My heart had been won, but the moment was lost.
Microsoft and Xiaomi will pair up on AI-powered speakers and hardware
In July, Chinese tech giant Xiaomi jumped into the smart speaker race with its answer to Amazon's Alexa and Google Home, the $45 Mi AI -- though it probably won't find its way to American shores, given how had a time it's had penetrating the US and European markets. Today, the company made a different move with artificial intelligence, signing a deal with Microsoft to partner up on projects involving AI, cloud computing and hardware to help the device company expand into other markets.
Google uses AI to place ads across the internet
Google's ubiquitous AdSense ads are already heavily automated by their nature (they're targeted based on a look at a site's content), but it's taking that hands-off approach one step further. The search firm has officially launched Auto Ads, a system that uses machine learning to not only determine the types of ads you see, but how they're placed. The AI technology will decide how many ads are appropriate for a page and where to put them. Advertisers have to give up control, but Google has bet that they won't mind the results. A long beta test saw publishers rake in an average of 10 percent more revenue.
Sony may launch an AI-powered taxi hailing system
Sony definitely isn't the first name you think of when you're looking for a ride, but that might change soon in its native Japan. Nikkei has learned that the tech heavyweight is leading an alliance of taxi companies (Checker Cab, Daiwa Motor Transportation, Green Cab, Hinomaru Kotsu and Kokusai Motorcars) in the creation of an AI-powered hailing platform. The algorithmic system would dispatch taxis more effectively by studying a host of conditions like traffic, weather and events. It might send a horde of drivers near the end of a concert, for instance.
ARM's latest processors are designed for mobile AI
ARM isn't content to offer processor designs that are kinda-sorta ready for AI. The company has unveiled Project Trillium, a combination of hardware and software ingredients designed explicitly to speed up AI-related technologies like machine learning and neural networks. The highlights, as usual, are the chips: ARM ML promises to be far more efficient for machine learning than a regular CPU or graphics chip, with two to four times the real-world throughput. ARM OD, meanwhile, is all about object detection. It can spot "virtually unlimited" subjects in real time at 1080p and 60 frames per second, and focuses on people in particular -- on top of recognizing faces, it can detect facing, poses and gestures.
Boston Dynamics' robots are the politest 'pets' you'll meet
We hope you weren't planning on sleeping tonight. Boston Dynamics has posted a video showing that its SpotMini robot can hold the door open for its fellow automatons. If one bot needs a helping hand, it'll signal to another machine nearby that can pry the door open and let it through. It's very polite... and more than a little unsettling, especially since it's not clear they'll extend the same courtesy to humans. At least the robots will have manners when they take over.
Facebook tries giving chatbots a consistent personality
Dig into the personalities of chat bots and you'll find that they're about as shallow as they were in the days of Eliza or Dr. Sbaitso. They respond with canned phrases and tend to be blithely unaware of what you've said. Facebook wants to fix that. Its research team has tested a new approach that gives bots more consistent personalities and more natural responses. Facebook taught its AI to look for patterns in a special 164,000-utterance data set, Persona-Chat, that included a handful of facts about a given bot's persona. An AI trying to mimic a real person would have five biographical statements to work with, such as its family and hobbies, with each of them revised to say the same things in a different way. Train existing chat bots from that and you get AI that 'knows' what it likes, but still maintains the context of a conversation and speaks relatively fluently.
IBM is sending Watson to the Grammys
After winning Jeopardy and designing cancer-treatment plans, IBM Watson is now strutting off to the red carpet of the 60th Annual Grammy Awards. The tech giant's versatile AI system will be curating and distributing award-show content and images of everyone's favorite music stars in real time, straight from the red carpet to people's social media feeds.
'Artificial synapse' points the way toward portable AI devices
Tech titans like Intel and IBM have already begun developing chips for AI that mimic the way the human brain works -- it is, after all, the most powerful computer there is. The field of "neuromorphic computing" is still in its very early stages, though, and one of its pioneers' greatest challenges is copying neural synapses. Those are the small structures where information passes when it moves from one neuron to the next. That's why a team of MIT engineers have set out to develop an artificial synapse that works like the real deal and have successfully come up with a design that can "precisely control the strength of an electric current flowing across it, similar to the way ions flow between neurons."
Facebook shakes up its AI research team
Yann LeCun has been the face of Facebook's AI research efforts since 2013, but you'll have to get used to some new people in the mix. An interview with LeCun at Quartz has revealed that he's stepping down from his position as part of a shakeup meant to place AI on an even higher pedestal at the company. LeCun will still be around as the chief AI scientist, but he's being replaced with IBM and BenevolentTech alumni Jérôme Pesenti, who'll take over both the research spot and the Applied Learning Group that rolls AI into products like the News Feed. The newcomer will "oversee all the AI at Facebook," LeCun said, and not just the experimental work.
AI helps Danish emergency dispatchers diagnose heart attacks
Emergency dispatchers have a tough job assuring callers while trying to ask questions that could save the patient's life. But soon they could get backup from AI. Starting in 2016, dispatchers in Copenhagen began getting help from an artificial intelligence named Corti that understands the words and sounds during calls to recognize cardiac arrest, then prompts the emergency professional with the right questions to get a more accurate diagnosis.
Intel teams up with Ferrari for AI-powered drones to analyze races
Normally when you think Intel, your mind wanders to computer chips and those four tones from their commercials. You definitely don't imagine Ferraris racing around a track with drones overhead capturing video and analyzing it with AI. But that's exactly what's going to happen.
NVIDIA and Volkswagen team up to build an AI co-pilot
Volkswagen's been talking about its intelligent co-pilot system for upcoming vehicles since last year's CES when it introduced Yui. So it's no surprise that this year it announced it's teaming up with NVIDIA to bring that plan to fruition. Both companies appeared on stage at NVIDIA's press event alongside the I.D. Buzz electric microbus for the announcement.
Canada will track suicide risk through social media with AI
The Canadian government is partnering with AI firm Advanced Symbolics to try to predict rises in regional suicide risk by monitoring social media posts. Advanced Symbolics will analyze posts from 160,000 social media accounts and will look for suicide trends. The company aims to be able to predict which areas of Canada might see an increase in suicidal behavior, which according to the contract document includes "ideation (i.e., thoughts), behaviors (i.e., suicide attempts, self-harm, suicide) and communications (i.e., suicidal threats, plans)." With that knowledge, the Canadian government could make sure more mental health resources are in the right places when needed.
Ubisoft's new AI wing melds gaming and scientific research
Game developers were researching AI well before it became a tech industry trend, but they haven't had much incentive to share their work with the academic world. It's a competitive advantage, after all. Ubisoft, however, is trying to find a happy middle ground. It recently established an AI research wing, La Forge, that aims to harmonize research for both gaming and science. The new unit has academics and Ubisoft employees working together on projects that will ideally advance gaming and lead to real-world breakthroughs that scientists can publish.
2017 laid the foundation for faster, smarter AI in 2018
"AI is like the Wild West right now," Tim Leland, Qualcomm's head of graphics, told me earlier this month when the company unveiled its latest premium mobile chipset. The Snapdragon 845 was designed to handle AI computing tasks better. It's the latest product of the tech industry's obsession with artificial intelligence. No company wants to be left behind, and whether it's by optimizing their hardware for AI processing or using machine learning to speed up tasks, every major brand has invested heavily in artificial intelligence. But even though AI permeated all aspects of our lives in 2017, the revolution is only just beginning.
LG will release new AI products under the 'ThinQ' brand
LG is getting serious with artificial intelligence and will launch products and services that use AI under a new sub-brand called "ThinQ" starting in 2018. All its upcoming TVs, fridges, even electronic devices and services under the new brand will have features developed with deep learning techniques and will be able to communicate with one another. LG says you can expect its new offerings to use its own AI tech, DeepThinQ, as well as its partners', but it didn't elaborate further or listed possible features.
London police will use AI to look for child porn on seized devices
Around this time last year, Interpol revealed it was using an AI system to track down child porn on P2P networks in the global hunt for predators. Tech firms like Google and Microsoft have been using their own tools in the fight against child exploitation for years, too. Now, the UK's Metropolitan Police say they want AI recognition software of their own that's capable of identifying images and video of abuse on confiscated devices like smartphone and computers.
