Tag Archives: mobile
#431808 Should you get your child an AI doll ...
The technological revolution has hit the doll aisle this holiday season in the form of artificial intelligence dolls. The dolls blend a physical toy with either a mobile device and app, or technological sensors, to simulate signs of intelligence. Continue reading
#431599 8 Ways AI Will Transform Our Cities by ...
How will AI shape the average North American city by 2030? A panel of experts assembled as part of a century-long study into the impact of AI thinks its effects will be profound.
The One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence is the brainchild of Eric Horvitz, technical fellow and a managing director at Microsoft Research.
Every five years a panel of experts will assess the current state of AI and its future directions. The first panel, comprised of experts in AI, law, political science, policy, and economics, was launched last fall and decided to frame their report around the impact AI will have on the average American city. Here’s how they think it will affect eight key domains of city life in the next fifteen years.
1. Transportation
The speed of the transition to AI-guided transport may catch the public by surprise. Self-driving vehicles will be widely adopted by 2020, and it won’t just be cars — driverless delivery trucks, autonomous delivery drones, and personal robots will also be commonplace.
Uber-style “cars as a service” are likely to replace car ownership, which may displace public transport or see it transition towards similar on-demand approaches. Commutes will become a time to relax or work productively, encouraging people to live further from home, which could combine with reduced need for parking to drastically change the face of modern cities.
Mountains of data from increasing numbers of sensors will allow administrators to model individuals’ movements, preferences, and goals, which could have major impact on the design city infrastructure.
Humans won’t be out of the loop, though. Algorithms that allow machines to learn from human input and coordinate with them will be crucial to ensuring autonomous transport operates smoothly. Getting this right will be key as this will be the public’s first experience with physically embodied AI systems and will strongly influence public perception.
2. Home and Service Robots
Robots that do things like deliver packages and clean offices will become much more common in the next 15 years. Mobile chipmakers are already squeezing the power of last century’s supercomputers into systems-on-a-chip, drastically boosting robots’ on-board computing capacity.
Cloud-connected robots will be able to share data to accelerate learning. Low-cost 3D sensors like Microsoft’s Kinect will speed the development of perceptual technology, while advances in speech comprehension will enhance robots’ interactions with humans. Robot arms in research labs today are likely to evolve into consumer devices around 2025.
But the cost and complexity of reliable hardware and the difficulty of implementing perceptual algorithms in the real world mean general-purpose robots are still some way off. Robots are likely to remain constrained to narrow commercial applications for the foreseeable future.
3. Healthcare
AI’s impact on healthcare in the next 15 years will depend more on regulation than technology. The most transformative possibilities of AI in healthcare require access to data, but the FDA has failed to find solutions to the difficult problem of balancing privacy and access to data. Implementation of electronic health records has also been poor.
If these hurdles can be cleared, AI could automate the legwork of diagnostics by mining patient records and the scientific literature. This kind of digital assistant could allow doctors to focus on the human dimensions of care while using their intuition and experience to guide the process.
At the population level, data from patient records, wearables, mobile apps, and personal genome sequencing will make personalized medicine a reality. While fully automated radiology is unlikely, access to huge datasets of medical imaging will enable training of machine learning algorithms that can “triage” or check scans, reducing the workload of doctors.
Intelligent walkers, wheelchairs, and exoskeletons will help keep the elderly active while smart home technology will be able to support and monitor them to keep them independent. Robots may begin to enter hospitals carrying out simple tasks like delivering goods to the right room or doing sutures once the needle is correctly placed, but these tasks will only be semi-automated and will require collaboration between humans and robots.
4. Education
The line between the classroom and individual learning will be blurred by 2030. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) will interact with intelligent tutors and other AI technologies to allow personalized education at scale. Computer-based learning won’t replace the classroom, but online tools will help students learn at their own pace using techniques that work for them.
AI-enabled education systems will learn individuals’ preferences, but by aggregating this data they’ll also accelerate education research and the development of new tools. Online teaching will increasingly widen educational access, making learning lifelong, enabling people to retrain, and increasing access to top-quality education in developing countries.
Sophisticated virtual reality will allow students to immerse themselves in historical and fictional worlds or explore environments and scientific objects difficult to engage with in the real world. Digital reading devices will become much smarter too, linking to supplementary information and translating between languages.
5. Low-Resource Communities
In contrast to the dystopian visions of sci-fi, by 2030 AI will help improve life for the poorest members of society. Predictive analytics will let government agencies better allocate limited resources by helping them forecast environmental hazards or building code violations. AI planning could help distribute excess food from restaurants to food banks and shelters before it spoils.
Investment in these areas is under-funded though, so how quickly these capabilities will appear is uncertain. There are fears valueless machine learning could inadvertently discriminate by correlating things with race or gender, or surrogate factors like zip codes. But AI programs are easier to hold accountable than humans, so they’re more likely to help weed out discrimination.
6. Public Safety and Security
By 2030 cities are likely to rely heavily on AI technologies to detect and predict crime. Automatic processing of CCTV and drone footage will make it possible to rapidly spot anomalous behavior. This will not only allow law enforcement to react quickly but also forecast when and where crimes will be committed. Fears that bias and error could lead to people being unduly targeted are justified, but well-thought-out systems could actually counteract human bias and highlight police malpractice.
Techniques like speech and gait analysis could help interrogators and security guards detect suspicious behavior. Contrary to concerns about overly pervasive law enforcement, AI is likely to make policing more targeted and therefore less overbearing.
7. Employment and Workplace
The effects of AI will be felt most profoundly in the workplace. By 2030 AI will be encroaching on skilled professionals like lawyers, financial advisers, and radiologists. As it becomes capable of taking on more roles, organizations will be able to scale rapidly with relatively small workforces.
AI is more likely to replace tasks rather than jobs in the near term, and it will also create new jobs and markets, even if it’s hard to imagine what those will be right now. While it may reduce incomes and job prospects, increasing automation will also lower the cost of goods and services, effectively making everyone richer.
These structural shifts in the economy will require political rather than purely economic responses to ensure these riches are shared. In the short run, this may include resources being pumped into education and re-training, but longer term may require a far more comprehensive social safety net or radical approaches like a guaranteed basic income.
8. Entertainment
Entertainment in 2030 will be interactive, personalized, and immeasurably more engaging than today. Breakthroughs in sensors and hardware will see virtual reality, haptics and companion robots increasingly enter the home. Users will be able to interact with entertainment systems conversationally, and they will show emotion, empathy, and the ability to adapt to environmental cues like the time of day.
Social networks already allow personalized entertainment channels, but the reams of data being collected on usage patterns and preferences will allow media providers to personalize entertainment to unprecedented levels. There are concerns this could endow media conglomerates with unprecedented control over people’s online experiences and the ideas to which they are exposed.
But advances in AI will also make creating your own entertainment far easier and more engaging, whether by helping to compose music or choreograph dances using an avatar. Democratizing the production of high-quality entertainment makes it nearly impossible to predict how highly fluid human tastes for entertainment will develop.
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#431543 China Is an Entrepreneurial Hotbed That ...
Last week, Eric Schmidt, chairman of Alphabet, predicted that China will rapidly overtake the US in artificial intelligence…in as little as five years.
Last month, China announced plans to open a $10 billion quantum computing research center in 2020.
Bottom line, China is aggressively investing in exponential technologies, pursuing a bold goal of becoming the global AI superpower by 2030.
Based on what I’ve observed from China’s entrepreneurial scene, I believe they have a real shot of hitting that goal.
As I described in a previous tech blog, I recently traveled to China with a group of my Abundance 360 members, where I was hosted by my friend Kai-Fu Lee, the founder, chairman, and CEO of Sinovation Ventures.
On one of our first nights, Kai-Fu invited us to a special dinner at Da Dong Roast, which specializes in Peking duck, where we shared an 18-course meal.
The meal was amazing, and Kai-Fu’s dinner conversation provided us priceless insights on Chinese entrepreneurs.
Three topics opened my eyes. Here’s the wisdom I’d like to share with you.
1. The Entrepreneurial Culture in China
Chinese entrepreneurship has exploded onto the scene and changed significantly over the past 10 years.
In my opinion, one significant way that Chinese entrepreneurs vary from their American counterparts is in work ethic. The mantra I found in the startups I visited in Beijing and Shanghai was “9-9-6”—meaning the employees only needed to work from 9 am to 9 pm, 6 days a week.
Another concept Kai-Fu shared over dinner was the almost ‘dictatorial’ leadership of the founder/CEO. In China, it’s not uncommon for the Founder/CEO to own the majority of the company, or at least 30–40 percent. It’s also the case that what the CEO says is gospel. Period, no debate. There is no minority or dissenting opinion. When the CEO says “march,” the company asks, “which way?”
When Kai-Fu started Sinovation (his $1 billion+ venture fund), there were few active angel investors. Today, China has a rich ecosystem of angel, venture capital, and government-funded innovation parks.
As venture capital in China has evolved, so too has the mindset of the entrepreneur.
Kai -Fu recalled an early investment he made in which, after an unfortunate streak, the entrepreneur came to him, almost in tears, apologizing for losing his money and promising he would earn it back for him in another way. Kai-Fu comforted the entrepreneur and said there was no such need.
Only a few years later, the situation was vastly different. An entrepreneur who was going through a similar unfortunate streak came to Kai Fu and told him he only had $2 million left of his initial $12 million investment. He informed him he saw no value in returning the money and instead was going to take the last $2 million and use it as a final push to see if the company could succeed. He then promised Kai-Fu if he failed, he would remember what Kai-Fu did for him and, as such, possibly give Sinovation an opportunity to invest in him with his next company.
2. Chinese Companies Are No Longer Just ‘Copycats’
During dinner, Kai-Fu lamented that 10 years ago, it would be fair to call Chinese companies copycats of American companies. Five years ago, the claim would be controversial. Today, however, Kai-Fu is clear that claim is entirely false.
While smart Chinese startups will still look at what American companies are doing and build on trends, today it’s becoming a wise business practice for American tech giants to analyze Chinese companies. If you look at many new features of Facebook’s Messenger, it seems to very closely mirror TenCent’s WeChat.
Interestingly, tight government controls in China have actually spurred innovation. Take TV, for example, a highly regulated industry. Because of this regulation, most entertainment in China is consumed on the internet or by phone. Game shows, reality shows, and more will be entirely centered online.
Kai-Fu told us about one of his investments in a company that helps create Chinese singing sensations. They take girls in from a young age, school them, and regardless of talent, help build their presence and brand as singers. Once ready, these singers are pushed across all the available platforms, and superstars are born. The company recognizes its role in this superstar status, though, which is why it takes a 50 percent cut of all earnings.
This company is just one example of how Chinese entrepreneurs take advantage of China’s unique position, market, and culture.
3. China’s Artificial Intelligence Play
Kai-Fu wrapped up his talk with a brief introduction into the expansive AI industry in China. I previously discussed Face++, a Sinovation investment, which is creating radically efficient facial recognition technology. Face++ is light years ahead of anyone else globally at recognition in live videos. However, Face++ is just one of the incredible advances in AI coming out of China.
Baidu, one of China’s most valuable tech companies, started out as just a search company. However, they now run one of the country’s leading self-driving car programs.
Baidu’s goal is to create a software suite atop existing hardware that will control all self-driving aspects of a vehicle but also be able to provide additional services such as HD mapping and more.
Another interesting application came from another of Sinovation’s investments, Smart Finance Group (SFG). Given most payments are mobile (through WeChat or Alipay), only ~20 percent of the population in China have a credit history. This makes it very difficult for individuals in China to acquire a loan.
SFG’s mobile application takes in user data (as much as the user allows) and, based on the information provided, uses an AI agent to create a financial profile with the power to offer an instant loan. This loan can be deposited directly into their WeChat or Alipay account and is typically approved in minutes. Unlike American loan companies, they avoid default and long-term debt by only providing a one-month loan with 10% interest. Borrow $200, and you pay back $220 by the following month.
Artificial intelligence is exploding in China, and Kai-Fu believes it will touch every single industry.
The only constant is change, and the rate of change is constantly increasing.
In the next 10 years, we’ll see tremendous changes on the geopolitical front and the global entrepreneurial scene caused by technological empowerment.
China is an entrepreneurial hotbed that cannot be ignored. I’m monitoring it closely. Are you?
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#431175 Servosila introduces Mobile Robots ...
Servosila introduces a new member of the family of Servosila “Engineer” robots, a UGV called “Radio Engineer”. This new variant of the well-known backpack-transportable robot features a Software Defined Radio (SDR) payload module integrated into the robotic vehicle.
“Several of our key customers had asked us to enable an Electronic Warfare (EW) or Cognitive Radio applications in our robots”, – says a spokesman for the company, “By integrating a Software Defined Radio (SDR) module into our robotic platforms we cater to both requirements. Radio spectrum analysis, radio signal detection, jamming, and radio relay are important features for EOD robots such as ours. Servosila continues to serve the customers by pushing the boundaries of what their Servosila robots can do. Our partners in the research world and academia shall also greatly benefit from the new functionality that gives them more means of achieving their research goals.”
Photo Credit: Servosila – www.servosila.com
Coupling a programmable mobile robot with a software-defined radio creates a powerful platform for developing innovative applications that mix mobility and artificial intelligence with modern radio technologies. The new robotic radio applications include localized frequency hopping pattern analysis, OFDM waveform recognition, outdoor signal triangulation, cognitive mesh networking, automatic area search for radio emitters, passive or active mobile robotic radars, mobile base stations, mobile radio scanners, and many others.
A rotating head of the robot with mounts for external antennae acts as a pan-and-tilt device thus enabling various scanning and tracking applications. The neck of the robotic head is equipped with a pair of highly accurate Servosila-made servos with a pointing precision of 3.0 angular minutes. This means that the robot can point its antennae with an unprecedented accuracy.
Researchers and academia can benefit from the platform’s support for GnuRadio, an open source software framework for developing SDR applications. An on-board Intel i7 computer capable of executing OpenCL code, is internally connected to the SDR payload module. This makes it possible to execute most existing GnuRadio applications directly on the robot’s on-board computer. Other sensors of the robot such as a GPS sensor, an IMU or a thermal vision camera contribute into sensor fusion algorithms.
Since Servosila “Engineer” mobile robots are primarily designed for outdoor use, the SDR module is fully enclosed into a hardened body of the robot which provides protection in case of dust, rain, snow or impacts with obstacles while the robot is on the move. The robot and its SDR payload module are both powered by an on-board battery thus making the entire robotic radio platform independent of external power supplies.
Servosila plans to start shipping the SDR-equipped robots to international customers in October, 2017.
Web: https://www.servosila.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/servosila/videos
About the Company
Servosila is a robotics technology company that designs, produces and markets a range of mobile robots, robotic arms, servo drives, harmonic reduction gears, robotic control systems as well as software packages that make the robots intelligent. Servosila provides consulting, training and operations support services to various customers around the world. The company markets its products and services directly or through a network of partners who provide tailored and localized services that meet specific procurement, support or operational needs.
Press Release above is by: Servosila
The post Servosila introduces Mobile Robots equipped with Software Defined Radio (SDR) payloads appeared first on Roboticmagazine. Continue reading