Elon Musk's startup builds AI to make robotic hand move like humans

Image Source : OpenAI Blog

OpenAI is a company that was co-founded by Elon Musk in 2015 as a non profit research company that aims to discover and enact the path to safe artificial general intelligence (AGI).

One of the most remarkable features that evolution has bestowed upon us other than our brain is our hands. It is a belief among many scientists that our opposable thumbs are in fact, what allowed us to become a superior species ahead of other highly intelligent creatures like Dolphins and Elephants.

In a blog post published by OpenAI on Monday, they claim to have harnessed the power of AI and deep learning to bestow the dexterity of the human hand to robots. Their system named Dactyl is trained entirely in simulation and is able to apply this training in the real world.

Here are the examples of the complex movements the robotic hand is capable of performing:

 

Video source : blog.openai.com

The degree of freedom of a robot, to explain in a simplified way, is the number of ways it can move. In most Industrial applications a robotic arm with 7 degrees of freedom is considered quite advanced. The Dactyl trained arm of OpenAI has 24 degrees of freedom. Furthermore, it has the capability to work with partial information from its sensors and manipulate objects of different geometry.

Here is a schematic of how OpenAI trains the Robot:

Image Source : OpenAI Blog

As can be understood by the above illustration,  the robot is trained entirely in simulation. This allows it to be taught much faster. Also, the setup uses normal RGB cameras to see the object by running orientation estimation algorithms in neural networks. This means that it does not need special objects that are designed for camera tracking, to function. 

This can have amazing applications in handling objects harmful to humans. The success of the technology could be extrapolated to other movements possible by humans to one day build complete humanoid robots like the ones we saw in the Movie "I,Robot".

Google unveils tiny AI chips for offline Machine Learning inference

Google's Edge TPU | Image Source : cdn.vox-cdn.com

Machine Learning services provided by Google until now have completely been cloud based. This means that the Cloud had to be used not only for storing Data but also for analysis and inference by the Machine Learning algorithms being run by Google's Tensor Processing Units (TPU) located in its data centers.

Google's TPU | Image source : cdn.vox-cdn.com

As you can very well guess, this kind of setup has the drawbacks of being dependent on internet connectivity and being more vulnerable to attacks by hackers trying to steal live machine data. This has been one of the main reasons that OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) have been reluctant to utilize Google's Machine Learning services.  

The newly unveiled Edge TPU seeks to overcome that hurdle by providing the inference part locally on the device to which it is attached. The customer can store older machine data in Google's cloud, use it to train the Edge TPUs and then integrate them into their Machines to provide intelligent inference without having to connect to the cloud.

Here is Google's illustration explaining the setup:

Click to view larger | Image Source : blog.google

Google cloud's Vice President of IoT, Injon Rhee said “Edge TPUs are designed to complement our Cloud TPU offering, so you can accelerate ML training in the cloud, then have lightning-fast ML inference at the edge. Your sensors become more than data collectors — they make local, real-time, intelligent decisions.”

Google is also making a development kit available so that users can test out the technology before deciding to incorporate it into there machines. It has a system on module (SOM) that combines Google’s Edge TPU, a NXP CPU, Wi-Fi, and Microchip’s secure element in a compact form factor.

Image Source : blog.google

 Here are what some of Google's customers are saying about the new technology:

“Our Intelligent Vision Inspection solution enables us to deliver enhanced quality and efficiency in the factory operations of various LG manufacturing divisions. With Google Cloud AI, Google Cloud IoT Edge, and Edge TPU, combined with our conventional MES systems and years of experience, we believe Smart Factory will become increasingly more intelligent and connected,” says Shingyoon Hyun, the CTO of LG CNS. “With Intelligent Vision Inspection, we are eager to make a better working place, raise the quality of product, and save millions of dollars each year. Google Cloud AI and IoT technologies with LG CNS expertise make this possible.”

"Smart Parking enables our customers to deploy and manage frictionless parking services for both on-street and off-street situations. We are very excited about our ability to use Cloud IoT Edge and Edge TPU for building ML-enabled parking experiences for our customers,” says John Heard, CTO of Smart Parking. “At Smart Parking, our mission is to re-invent the parking experience for every solution user. The introduction of Cloud IoT Edge, Google Cloud IoT enables us to deliver on this promise in new ways within our SmartSpot gateway products.”

“At XEE, we’re working to make driving simpler, safer and more economical through our connected car platform,” explains Romain Crunelle, CTO at XEE. “Cloud IoT Edge and Edge TPU will help us to address use cases such as driving analysis, road condition analysis, and tire wear and tear in real time and in a much more cost efficient and reliable way. Enabling accelerated ML inference at the edge will enable the XEE platform to analyze images and radar data faster from the connected cars, detect potential driving hazards and alert drivers with real-time precision."

"Trax is helping retailers build a sound foundation for digital transformation,” says David Gottlieb, General Manager, Global Retail at Trax. “Cloud IoT Edge and Edge TPU will help address critical use cases such as improving on shelf availability (OSA), optimizing click-and-collect processes, and modernizing the shopping experience. This Google technology will enable accelerated machine learning at the edge—in-store images are captured and flowed through the Trax platform, where those digitized shelf images are analyzed at an increasingly faster rate providing retailers with the agility to both respond to issues in real time and to consistently delight shoppers.”

With all major companies pushing towards Industry 4.0 solutions, the Edge TPUs could really help Google bound ahead in capturing the 11.1 Trillion Dollar IoT market predicted by McKinsey. 

Do leave your comments and thoughts below.

Waymo partners with Walmart to provide Grocery pickups in Driverless Cars.

Image Source : wired.com

Waymo has announced numerous partnerships with multiple Businesses in Phoenix area in a bid to aggressively bring its driverless Cars into the mainstream. This comes after its previous announcement stating that its Cars have covered 8 Million Miles.

The current announced partnerships are as follows:

1. Walmart

Image Source : digitaltrends.com

Later this week Walmart and Waymo are launching a test Pilot that will transport customers to and from Walmart stores to collect groceries they have ordered online. Additionally, early riders will also get discounts on their orders.

2. Ahwatuke Foothills Towne Center

Image Source : ddr.com

The Ahwatukee Foothills Towne Center is a shopping center in Phoenix and Waymo will provide shoppers and diners rides to it which will of course relieve the users if Parking Space hassles.

3. Element Hotel

Image Source : ntmresizer.azureedge.net

Waymo has tied up with the Element Hotel in Chandler to provide provide selected guests like business travelers who need to commute to and fro from their Offices during frequent stays.

4. AutoNation

Image Source : cargurus.com

AutoNation is responsible for maintaining the fleet of Waymo's driverless Cars in Phoenix. AutoNation is now offering its customers Waymo driverless rides instead of loaner cars while their own vehicles gets serviced.

5. Avis Group

Image Source : www.avis.com

The Avis Group refuels, recharges and makes Waymo's cars presentable to the customers. They will also be providing Waymos to help users pick up and drop off rental cars, beginning in two Chandler locations.

By providing their technology to widely used services in the Phoenix Area and eventually throughout the US, Waymo is ensuring that it gains wide user acceptability of a technology that is currently to costly to privately own. 

Do leave your comments and reactions below.

Qualcomm's new chips small enough to make 5G smartphones a reality by 2019

Image Source : cdn.vox-cdn.com

On Monday, Qualcomm unveiled it new QTM052 millimeter wave and QPM56xx sub 6GHz radio frequency antenna modules that it says will bring super fast 5G speeds to smartphones by the first half of 2019. Qualcomm says that with this technology realistic speeds of up 1.4 Gbps can be expected which is much faster than the peak 4G speeds of 70 Mbps.

Image Source : www.qualcomm.com

If the technical jargon is overwhelming you, then here is a really nice video that explains the various aspects of 5G technologies:

As you have learnt in the video, the problem with millimeter waves is that they are very susceptible to blockages and absorption by obstacles. MIMO and Beam Forming technologies helped to take care of that problem from the cellular antenna point of view to a large extent. However, there still remained a problem that the user's hand on the phone would be enough to block its signal path. In addition, the modems initially developed by Qualcomm were so large that they had to be lugged around in a cart as can be seen in their video from early 2017:

The newly developed chips however are so small that three of them can be easily fitted inside smartphones of current dimensions, although the X50 modem can handle four such chips. This means that spreading them out across the phones would ensure that at least one chip would have proper connectivity.

Image Source : cdn.vox-cdn.com

With the dawn of the era of big data and streaming of high resolution visual content becoming the norm, the need for more and more data at faster rates is only going to become increasingly insatiable. Smartphone makers as well as the telecom giants all want to be the first to tap this high potential market. Qualcomm's breakthrough could revolutionize these two industry sectors to say the least.

Do leave your reactions and comments below.

Fuchsia OS from Google - The Android Killer?

Image Source : www.howtogeek.com

Android has become an inseparable part of the lives of the people who are altogether using over 2 billion Android devices around the world among which are three quarters of the world's smartphones. It has spread like wildfire since its first use in a commercial device back in September 2008. However since Android came into existence with the rise of touchscreen phones, it wasn't really designed for voice interactions powered by Machine Learning and AI capabilities that Google envisions for the future.

A team of Google engineers have thus been secretly working on an open source Operating System called Fuchsia with voice interaction capabilities at its core, that they hope will replace Android as the world's dominant mobile Operating System.The current strength of this secretive team stands at 100 including talented people like Matias Duarte, Vice President of Material Design at Google. 

Image Source : thumbs.dreamstime.com

Fuchsia uses a kernel called Zircon and this move away from Linux allows the developers to build from scratch a more optimized OS with better security and is easier to upgrade. The ability to start from scratch has allowed the developers to incorporate many changes which they felt necessary learning from their mistakes with Android. One such example being Google being dependent on device manufacturers to roll out the latest software updates which the manufactures don't have much incentive to do.

Fuchsia aims at being the single Operating System which is capable of running all of Google's Products like Pixel phones and smart speakers as well as third party devices which currently run on Android OS or Chrome OS.

Image Source : cnet

The first target of Fuchsia is to be embedded in all smart speakers like the Google Home speakers in the next three years and then move on to larger devices like Laptops. In the next five years they aim to replace Android in all smartphones.Fuchsia is being developed with adaptation to multiple screen sizes in mind making it suitable for use across all device types.

Android currently supports a huge number of hardware devices, developers and advertisement agencies and so it is going to be anything but easy to replace it. Also, there is no publicly announced roadmap from Google with regards to Fuchsia. Added to this are some reportedly fierce internal debates with respect to tighter privacy principles inherent in fuchsia which could affect Google's ad revenue as they depend heavily on user data to deploy targeted ads.

Fuchsia OS Preview | Image Source : cdn0.tnwcdn.com

Even though it seems that a lot is stacked up against Fuchsia OS, history clearly say that nothing can stop a technology when its time has come. The push by Google in its last keynote to voice interactions, the increasing entry into smart home devices by many major companies coupled with the problems of Android with respect to performance, security and rolling out of updates clearly indicates that the time for Fuchsia has come.

How soon do you think Fuchsia OS will become prevalent?

Do leave you comments and reactions below.

Self-Driven Car Waymo - How it covered 8 Million Miles in the Real World!

Image Source : Techcrunch.com

Waymo is the former self-driving project of Google which is now directly under its parent company - Alphabet. Before we get into the details of the figures published by Waymo, let us try and understand how the Technology in Waymo works:

The Waymo cars are fitted with numerous sensors and are powered by software that enables it to detect pedestrians, cyclists, vehicles, road work and more. This is achieved by LiDAR technology which can create a 3D image of the environment of the Car up to three football fields away coupled with powerful Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning algorithms.

The LiDAR technology works by releasing millions of laser beams per second in all required directions and using the time required for the laser beams to bounce back to its sensor to calculate the distance to the obstacles. The principal is exactly the same as in Radar, the difference being that Lasers are used in LiDAR instead of radio waves. This technology can give extremely accurate distance measurements (+-2Cm).

Image Source : cdn-images-1.medium.com | Click Image to view Larger

The illustration demonstrates how Waymo detects all Cars, cyclists and pedestrians at a crossing. It also illustrates how it uses its machine learning capabilities, which relies on 8 Million Miles/12.87 Million Kilometers (you read that correct) of real world experience, to predict the behaviour of all the road users it has detected.

Image Source : waymo.com | Click Image to view Larger

In this example, Waymo says that the sensors detect the outstretched left arm of the cyclist and its software is able to predict from this that the Cyclist will be moving to the left side of the lane. On the basis of this prediction the software then makes the Car slow down allowing the cyclist to pass safely in front of it.

Image Source : waymo.com | Click Image to view Larger

Waymo published that it has driven 8 Million Miles/12.87 Million Kilometers since 2009, which averages at 25,000 Miles/40,000 Kilometers per day. The total distance mentioned would take an average American 300 years to cover. These numbers have been put out by Waymo since everybody knows that Machine learning, much like human learning, gets better and better with experience but unlike us humans, it never forgets what it learns. Waymo presently has a fleet of 600 self-driven minivans in 25 American cities.

Image Source : waymo.com | Click Image to view Larger

400 residents of Phoenix have already been trialing an app to hail Waymo's Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid Minivans and this has received much attention. The company is further looking to apply its technology to three other areas - logistics, public transportation and personally owned vehicles.

Here is a list of very informative FAQ's published by them : https://waymo.com/faq/

Check out Zoox, another promising self-driving car company that aims to rival Uber with a completely new approach to autonomous cars. 

Do leave your comments and reactions below and don't forget to subscribe to stay updated.

WhatsApp - 6 latest features you must know about!

Image Source : ggpht.com

WhatsApp has recently been taking a lot of steps to curb the spread of malicious fake news on its platform the most noticeable of them being the full page advertisements it published in all the leading newspapers in India as written about here.

If you are like the millions of people who use WhatsApp as the main source of communication then you must know about these six new features that WhatsApp is either testing or has already made available:

1. WhatsApp forwarded label
   
   This feature that is now available to users on Android and iOS, places a "Forwarded" label on texts that have been forwarded. This lets those who receive the message understand that it was not originally composed by the sender. It must be noted however that copied and pasted text or media that has been downloaded and re-attached does not get this label.

Image Source : gadgets360

2. "Mute" and "Mark as read" options in the Notification Panel
   
   Now users will reportedly have the ability to mute chats directly from the notifications centre but only when more than 50 messages have been received from the contact. Users will also be able to mark messages as read from the notification centre itself, where currently only the reply option is present. The mute feature is available in Android beta version 2.18.216.

 

Image Source : Cloudfront

3. Stickers
   The ability to send cute and fun stickers, as present in many other messaging platforms, has been a feature craved by WhatsApp users since the beginning. In Facebook's F8 conference this feature was at last announced and its preview is currently available for Android beta Version 2.18.218.

Image Source : sftcdn

 

4.  Suspicious links detection
   This feature currently being tested will detect the redirection of a link to a different website and mark it with a red label. Additionally it will give a warning when the user decides to click on the link despite the red label.

 

Image Source : twimg

5. Message sending discriminatory powers for Group Admins
   
   We have all been part of a WhatsApp group at some point of time that is constantly bombarded by spam messages which are well meaning or otherwise. Admins will now have the power to choose who in a group have the rights to post messages to the group. This option is currently available in the group settings menu

 

Image Source : dreamstime

6. Media Visibility
   
   Users will get the option to hide media received via WhatsApp from the phone's gallery. The media that is hidden will only show up within the App.

Image Source : medium.com

What do you think of these new features and what are the features that you would like to see on WhatsApp? Do comment below and don't forget to subscribe.

Zoox - The self-Driving car that could beat Uber

Image Source : Bloomberg

Zoox, a self driving car startup is close to raising 500 Million Dollars at a 3.2 Billion Dollar Valuation as reported by Bloomberg Business Week. Given the competition it faces in the space of autonomous Cars from giants like Google, Daimler, Lyft and Uber, that valuation might seem crazy. In order to understand the valuation let us get a bit deeper into the spaces of autonomous driving and how Zoox is different from the competition.

App Cabs not only have to provide a healthier means of earning to Drivers while operating with same fuel costs as traditional Cabs but they also have to be dependent on the work hours put in by the Drivers for Revenue. In India the increasing ride cancellation rate by App Cab drivers is also leading to a lot of disenchantment among users. Given this situation, it is no wonder that all the major companies are looking for the most obvious solution - removing the Driver completely. 

Image Source : Bloomberg

All the major companies have concentrated their efforts in fitting existing Cars with the Technology. Zoox, on the other hand aims to change the concept of the Automobile itself - designing a Car for the Autonomous Technology. Their Car has the following features:

1. It is completely electric.
2. It traverses equally in forward and reverse directions which means that it does not have to turn to go in the opposite direction.
3. It has special screens on its windows to display customized welcome messages.
4. It can automatically make noises to communicate with pedestrians.
5. It can rotate the orientation of its wheels to align them in a 90 degree angle to the body to allow it to traverse like a crab (say bye bye to the parallel parking woes)

Here is a glimpse of  how a Zoox Car perceives the world around itself:

Image Source : Zoox

As you might have guessed from studying the screenshot, the blue boxes are what its AI identified as Cars, purple boxes are people, red boxes are red traffic lights and green boxes are green traffic lights. The thing that differentiates the use of AI in image/pattern recognition from autonomous driving is that in autonomous driving, the AI also has to predict outcomes in the near future to avoid collisions. So basically it not only has to identify the objects it senses correctly but also predict the path they are going to take or not take.

Zoox started in a Garage with just 6 people and now has around 500 employees working at a 130,000 square feet headquarter in Foster City. They are aiming to put their first vehicles on the road by 2020.

Here is there story as covered by Bloomberg:

When do you think autonomous cars like these will become reliable enough to become commonplace around the world? Do leave your comments and reactions below and don't forget to subscribe.