AI Technology & Industry Review
Facing a shortage of seasonal workers and rising labour costs, kiwifruit growers may get some relief from robots equipped with a new AI-powered fruit detection system.
Covariant last month secured a US$40 million Series B funding round led by Index Ventures to push its total funding to US$67 million.
Google teamed up with researchers from Synthesis AI and Columbia University to introduce a deep learning approach called ClearGrasp as a first step to teaching machines how to “see” transparent materials.
Synced Global AI Weekly January 19th
Synced Global AI Weekly January 12th
In a scene that looks like it came from a science fiction movie, a pair of robot arms twist and turn overhead as they serve shoppers in Huawei’s new SOTA staffless Wuhan Optics Valley retail outlet.
Synced 10 AI Failures of 2019
In an exclusive interview with Synced, the 56-year-old professor shared his thoughts on humanoids, human nature, human-robot interaction, knowledge and intelligence.
A new paper from researchers at the University of Bristol, Telecomm ParisTech and Sorbonne University introduces a multi-layer, silicone “SkinOn” membrane that mimics the layers of human skin.
After running the industrial robot operating system startup “Cobot” for three years, founder Miao Li has decided to axe 98 percent of the company’s “fancy services” and just focus on drug logistics and sorting mushrooms.
The MIT researchers’ novel method can speed up the grasp-planning process from more than 10 minutes to less than a second.
Synced Global AI Weekly October 20th
We’ve lost the brain race, but humans still have unmatched dexterity, right? Wrong. OpenAI’s humanlike five-fingered gripper Dactyl just single-handedly solved a Rubik’s cube.
In an attempt to unlock the science behind hugs, a team of researchers from Arizona State University slapped wearable sensors on 33 humans and collected data on their more than 350 huggings with the humanoid remote-controlled robot “Baxter.”
Based on users’ votes, IEEE Spectrum also compiles rankings of today’s Top Rated, Most Wanted, and Creepiest Robots. Join Synced as we take a stroll through the uncanny valley and meet the world’s top-three creepiest robots.
Artificial intelligence can help companies navigate a global human resource market that is projected to reach US$30 billion by 2025, due in large part to technological proliferation.
A group of researchers from ETH Zurich have introduced a robotic system that can perform animation of real-world string puppets, aka marionettes.
In the late 2000s Fortune Global 500 healthcare companies ramped up AI deployment in the industry, from in-hospital diagnosis and treatment to drug supply chain and out-of-hospital scenarios.
Respected AI pioneer and visionary Nils John Nilsson passed away early this morning at age 86.
In a YouTube video released today, Spot looks a lot more like a workhorse, harnessed up and hauling a box truck up a hill.
After eight-months of development efforts, the “Open AI Five” exacted their revenge today against one of the world’s top teams in a highly anticipated best-of-three 5v5 Dota 2 showdown in San Francisco.
Robots pitching politics, charities, sales, surveys, and scams of every stripe and in every tongue. Increasingly that’s the voice on the other end of a global citizen’s next incoming telephone call.
Synced Global AI Weekly March 3rd
Every year as the calendar turns from February to March, the world’s leading electronics and telecommunications companies, startups, inventors, and a herd of tech journalists and analysts head to the Mobile World Congress.
Having notched impressive victories over human professionals in Go, Atari Games, and most recently StarCraft 2 — Google’s DeepMind team has now turned its formidable research efforts to soccer. In a paper released last week, the UK AI company demonstrates a novel machine learning method that trains a team of AI agents to play a simulated version of “the beautiful game.”
There’s a lot more to a friendly game of Jenga than meets the eye. Strategies are informed by a complex set of tactile and visual stimuli — by touching a block and observing the tower, we not only see but also feel our actions and their consequences. The MIT Jenga robot thus marks an important step in AI’s transition to the physical world.
Every January, thousands of companies head to Las Vegas to launch new products at CES (Consumer Electronics Show), the world’sContinue Reading
In the past two weeks, news related to the field of human-computer interaction and voice interaction has been focused on technology giants Amazon and Google. Amazon upgraded its Fire TV Cube and the Amazon Music system, which enhances the diversity of voice interactions.
Last December Synced compiled its first “Artificial Intelligence Failures” recap of AI gaffes from the previous year. AI has achieved remarkable progress, and many scientists dream of creating the Master Algorithm proposed by Pedro Domingos — which can solve all problems envisioned by humans.
Sorting a bunch of differently coloured toy trucks and action figures seems like child’s play, right? Unfortunately this remains a challenging task in the world of machine learning. So why not have humans simply show the machines how to do it?
The robotics star company Boston Dynamics today posted a Youtube video of its humanoid robot Atlas doing parkour. It was a wow moment when Atlas smoothly jumps over the log and leaps up steps (40 cm step height) without breaking its pace.
UC Berkeley researchers have published a paper demonstrating how Deep Reinforcement Learning can be used to control dexterous robot hands for complicated tasks. Learning Complex Dexterous Manipulation with Deep Reinforcement Learning and Demonstrations proposes a low-cost and high-efficiency control method that uses demonstration and simulation techniques to accelerate the learning process.
Google Brain Research Scientist Ian Goodfellow has tweeted an alarm about IoT hacking of a particularly nightmarish type, after Brown University security researchers were able to remotely access and control a robot in a university research lab. The research also showed that many robotic labs worldwide may be vulnerable to such a takeover technique.
The Technical University of Munich (TUM) had lured Cheng from a Japanese research institute. At TUM he founded the Institute of Cognitive Systems (ICS). With eight employees in a central office on Karlstraße 45, Cheng set to work on his arduous task: recreating the complexities of human skin and wiring it all to a brain.
At the Big Data & Spatial Information Expo in Changsha city today, Chinese Internet giant JD demonstrated a series of intelligent technology applications, including Drones, Delivery Robots and Routing Inspection Robots, etc. The company also unveiled a new set of HD Maps.
On July 10th, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang looking on, Siemens AG signed a partnership agreement with Alibaba Cloud — the cloud-computing arm of Internet conglomerate Alibaba — to bring an Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) upgrade to China’s manufacturing industry.
Shanghai-based computer vision company Yitu announced today that it has acquired an additional US$100 million in funding, with China Industrial Asset Management as the sole investor this round.
At the recent IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Brisbane, Australia, the Best Student Paper award went to ETH Zurich Autonomous Systems Laboratory (ASL)’s Miguel de la Iglesia Valls et al. for Design of an Autonomous Racecar: Perception, State Estimation and System Integration.
In a new video posted by IEEE Spectrum, a 7.38-kilogram red robot composed of 12 interlinking modules swiggles through a 60 cm gap before rising and floating in mid-air like the mythical Dragon it is named after.
Founded in 2014, ROOBO received US$100 million in Series A financing from iFlytek, and in September 2017 announced B Round financing of US$53 million led by Seven Seas Capital.