Jack Ma and Elon Musk Debate AI in Shanghai; Apple Makes A Rare Apology; Self-Driving Taxi Concerns
Synced Global AI Weekly September 1st
Tag: self-driving car
Cars, Cockpits, & Intelligent Pilot
A hot topic today is Intelligent Pilot Systems, an automotive driving concept comprising a smart vehicle assistant that enables a user to interact with the vehicle via voice; and intelligent mechanized function control for car entertainment, safety, autonomous driving and navigation.
Sidewalk Labs Releases $900 Million Blueprint for Toronto’s Tomorrow; Autonomous Vehicle Enterprises Explore New Roads
Synced Global AI Weekly June 30th
Roadstar.ai: The Rise and Fall of a Self-Driving Startup
A year ago, Shenzhen-based self-driving start-up Roadstar.ai was cruising along promisingly. In May 2018 the company announced a US$128 million funding round led by Wu Capital and state-backed Shenzhen Capital Group — one of the largest autonomous driving investments ever in China.
Car Makers Are Expanding & Diversifying Self-Driving Business
Synced Global AI Weekly March 17th
Huge Investment In Self-Driving Companies: These Startups Are Noteworthy
Synced Global AI Weekly February 17th
2018 in Review: 10 AI Failures
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.
The DeepMap Approach: “Your Data, Your HD Map”
In a near future, when self-driving cars have replaced human drivers, it’s believed that high-definition (HD) maps can play a similarly useful role, as “the memory of robot drivers”.
Will Alibaba’s Smart Roads Pave the Way for L5 Autonomous Vehicles?
In the 1950s the philosophy informing the futuristic vision of autonomous vehicles was to “make the road guide the car” via electronics and mechanical devices embedded in high tech roadways.
Baidu Announces Autonomous Taxi & Bus Fleet for Hunan
Baidu today announced plans for a comprehensive self-driving taxi and bus service in Changsha, the capital of southern Hunan province and birthplace of Mao Zedong. Baidu has signed a partnership agreement with the Changsha Municipal People’s Government and Hunan Xiangjiang New Area Development Group that aims to reinvent the local commute.
Shanghai Spawns a New Generation of AI Startups
A typical JD motorcycle deliveryman in Shanghai delivers 100 packages per day, racing along the city’s waterfront, navigating tiny alleyways and darting between the city’s skyscrapers. That may seem impressive but JD is still striving to improve motorcycle delivery efficiency with new tech — much of it AI-powered.
Tencent Licensed for Self-Driving Vehicle Testing on Beijing Roads
The Beijing Traffic Management Bureau yesterday issued new licenses for self-driving vehicle testing in the Chinese capital, with tech giant Tencent receiving authorization to operate an autonomous vehicle on designated roads for the first time.
The Golden Age of HD Mapping for Autonomous Driving
The market for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and Autonomous Vehicles (AV) will rise from US$3 billion in 2015 to US$96 billion by 2025, according to a Goldman Sachs report.
Meituan Announces Autonomous Delivery Open Platform
Meituan, one of China’s biggest group buying service providers, today announced an ambitious strategy to support autonomous delivery vehicles: “The company is going to use self-driving technologies to build the world’s largest interactive platform for intelligent delivery, and to speed up the development of unmanned delivery technology.”
Innoviz Envisions Mass Produced Self-Driving Cars With Solid State LiDAR
Innoviz is a two-year-old Israeli provider of LiDAR remote sensing solutions. The company took a leap forward in the solid state LiDAR field recently by scoring a couple of important partnerships: BMW chose solid-state Innoviz LiDAR sensors and computer vision tech to enable its Level 3-5 autonomous vehicles in April…
Self-Driving Startup Pony.ai Raises Another $102 Million
Chinese autonomous driving solution provider Pony.ai has reported an additional US$102 million in Series A1 funding — just six months after scoring US$112 million — to bring its Series A total to US$214 million.
Pittsburgh Mayor vs Uber: Can Stricter Safety Regulations End the Impasse?
David Danks commented on self-driving vehicle testing on the streets of his Pittsburgh neighbourhood: “They’re boring. You don’t notice them anymore because you see them five to ten times every day. People started to walk more and more frequently directly in front of the Uber cars, disproportionately more than they would ever in front of a human-driven car.”
AI Biweekly: 10 Bits from May W3 – May W4
Fujitsu and Japan Publishing Co. (Nissha) together introduce SeleBoo, an AI solution the leverages information on 3.5 million books and some 3,000 bookstores nationwide to automatically stock books based on characteristics of each bookstore…
Year-Old Self-Driving Startup Roadstar.ai Gets $128 Million Birthday Present
Shenzhen City-based self-driving startup Roadstar.ai today announced US$128 million in Series A Funding, setting a single round private financing record for China’s autonomous driving industry.
Drive.AI Launches Self-Driving Car Service in Texas; Demo Video Now Available (Updated)
Starting in July, a Drive.ai fleet of vehicles will operate with fixed pick-up and drop-off locations in a geofenced area of the city comprising retail, entertainment, and office space.
Baidu to Test Self-driving Food Delivery with Meituan
Chinese media is reporting that Baidu will launch a series of self-driving delivery tests in cooperation with Meituan-Dianping, a group-buying service for local food and retail businesses. The first tests will take place in Xiongan, about 100 kilometres southwest of Beijing…
Alibaba Gears Up for Self-Driving Road Tests
China’s self-driving industry has just welcomed another major player: Alibaba Group is developing Level 4 autonomous driving technology and is ready to test its self-driving cars on public roads, Chinese media reported today.
China OKs Self-driving Tests on Public Roads
New Chinese regulations will permit self-driving vehicle testing on public roads across the country.
The Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Public Security, and Ministry of Transport yesterday jointly issued the Intelligent Connected Vehicle Road Test Management Standards…
NVIDIA CEO Says “FGPA is Not the Right Answer” for Accelerating AI
Chip giant NVIDIA Founder and CEO Jensen Huang created a bit of a stir at yesterday’s GPU Technology Conference in Santa Clara, USA, when he appeared to dis one of these chips’ appropriateness for autonomous vehicle system development: “FPGA is not the right answer,” he said.
Baidu to Begin Testing Self-Driving Cars on Beijing Roads
It came as somewhat unexpected news when on March 22nd the Beijing Municipal Government gave tech unicorn Baidu the green light to test driverless cars on the city’s public roads.
Baidu Drops Lawsuit Against JingChi as the Two Team Up on Self-Driving Tech
Baidu announced today that self-driving startup JingChi has joined its open-source autonomous driving platform Apollo as a cooperative partner. JingChi’s new CEO Tony Han said in a statement, “JingChi is pleased to join Apollo, and is willing to grow fast with Apollo’s help.”
Chinese Self-Driving Startup CEO Suddenly Steps Down
Jin Wang, CEO of China’s self-driving startup JingChi, has stepped down just 11 months after founding the company.
JingChi said in a statement that “Jin Wang left the company due to family issues. Despite that, the company remains unchanged.”
Program Lead Jake Lussier on Udacity’s New Flying Car Nanodegree
Online education platform Udacity thrilled flying car enthusiasts with its announcement of the world’s first flying car program.
Chinese-American Startup Partnership Promises a Self-Driving Electric SUV by 2020
Chinese electric car startup BYTON says it will produce a self-driving SUV by 2020. The bold pledge came with the announcement of a partnership with Aurora…
CES 2018 Autonomous Driving Tech Review
At CES 2018, 555 companies or organizations participated in the “Automotive/Vehicle Technology” category, 23% of which were companies using autonomous driving technologies.
Baidu at CES: Developing AI at “China Speed”
China is undergoing a revolutionary transformation as AI rapidly penetrates industries from transportation to communication — a growth rate phenomenon that Baidu Group President & COO Qi Lu calls “China speed.”
2017 in Review: 10 AI Failures
At Synced we are naturally fans of machine intelligence, but we also realize some new techniques struggle to perform their tasks effectively, often blundering in ways that humans would not.
MIT-CHIEF 2017 Conference Recap
The conference was held November 17-19th, and attracted research scientists, industry influencers, venture investors, and entrepreneurs from the Greater Boston Area.
Under the Hood of a Self-Driving Taxi, a Look at Computation and Other Core Self-Driving Car Systems
The objective of Voyage’s self-driving vehicles is to deliver fully functional autonomous taxis within five years.
Shenzhen Based RoboSense is the Next DJI for LIDAR
The global market for this versatile, high-precision, long-distance measuring “eye” will reach US$36 billion in 2030.
AutoX Wants to Put a Self-driving Car in Your Driveway in Two Years
Jianxiong Xiao (肖健雄), founder of startup AutoX, developed his first self-driving car in six months with seven cameras costing a total of just US$500.
A Self-Driving Wheelchair
Autonomous wheelchair developed by researchers at MIT and in Singapore promises improved independence for the disabled Abstract After building self-drivingContinue Reading
Deep Learning in Real Time – Inference Acceleration and Continuous Training
In this report, we will touch on some of the recent technologies, trends and studies on deep neural network inference acceleration and continuous training in the context of production systems.
Andrew Ng Unveils Deeplearning.ai – New DL Courses on Coursera
Andrew Ng, one of the top minds in deep learning, loves teaching. And so, the Stanford University professor decided toContinue Reading
Apple is in a Dilemma on iPhone’s 10-year-old Birthday
Apple is confused about what its next big thing will be.