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"ICE's warrantless facial recognition searches trigger Maryland bill | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/ice-warrantless-facial-recognition-searches-trigger-maryland-bill"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages ICE’s warrantless facial recognition searches trigger Maryland bill Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Facial Recognition System concept Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
A few weeks ago, Maribel Cortez was at home in Rockville, Maryland with her husband and five children when one of her kids opened the door. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers proceeded to arrest her husband in front of the family. “They didn’t give any explanation. It wasn’t until they were detaining him and putting him in the car that [officers said they were] arresting him because they obtained the information in regards to his [driver’s] license,” she said, speaking through a translator.
Cortez spoke today in the Maryland General Assembly in favor of a bill that would require ICE to obtain a warrant from a judge before using facial recognition to search the Maryland Image Repository System (MRS).
Maryland began issuing driver’s licenses to immigrants in 2013. On Wednesday, the Washington Post reported that ICE searched the state’s immigrant driver license photo database of millions of drivers multiple times without a warrant. ICE has searched these databases in states like Utah in the past, but the report says the Maryland incident may demonstrate the agency’s ability to search a state driver’s license photo database without gaining approval.
The debate happened on the same day the U.S. Justice Department created an office to denaturalize immigrants and BuzzFeed News reported that Clearview AI has been used by the Department of Justice, ICE, and major retailers and governments around the world.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Access to photos of Maryland drivers is believed to come from a 2012 memorandum of understanding (MOU) agreement between the Maryland Department of Public Safety and the Department of Justice.
Multiple immigrants shared similar stories with immigration rights groups and reporters, but it’s unclear how often ICE accessed the Maryland database since the state has no auditing system to keep track of such searches, either inside Maryland or in other states.
Georgetown Law Center on Privacy and Technology Harrison Rudolph said warrantless photo searches by ICE are a “bait and switch for immigrants” that will subvert public safety and could lead down more dangerous roads.
“It’s my judgment that Maryland has a duty to the immigrants in this state who have trusted you and trusted the MVA (Motor Vehicle Administration) to give up their most private information so that they can get a driver’s license. So they feel safe waking up in the morning and taking their kid to school or the doctor. A mother today is waking up more scared in Maryland because she found out in the Washington Post that a federal agency has direct access to the MVA; that’s what this is about,” he said. “It is a betrayal of immigrants’ trust for the MVA to allow ICE agents to conduct warrantless face scans on immigrants’ photographs to identify people for deportation.” State Senator Clarence Lam (D) said Maryland encouraged immigrants to get driver’s licenses so they could cooperate with law enforcement and to ensure they receive the same driver testing and training required for U.S. citizens.
“There are real benefits, and we’ve encouraged people to do so, and yet the state has opened up this information to searches by federal immigration officials. And as I mentioned, particularly given the privacy argument, this does impact all Marylanders, because all of us are subject to this virtual police lineup, where federal agencies can go through and submit a photo and run it against any of our pictures that we have on our driver’s licenses,” Lam said.
According to Georgetown Law analysis , dozens of states currently have memorandums of understanding with the Department of Justice to provide access to driver’s license databases. Privacy advocates call this a way to involve millions of innocent people in searches by law enforcement. Rudolph said the MOU Maryland officials signed might be the most lenient in the country.
Lam, who sponsored Senate Bill 649, testified that states like Washington and New York have laws requiring a warrant for ICE access. The Maryland bill was tailored to exclude other Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agencies, like Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). A lawsuit over New York’s Green Light Law led the Trump administration to revoke Global Entry program support for New York ports of entry earlier this month.
In response to testimony about the bill today, Senator Ronald Young (D) on Maryland’s Senate Judiciary committee questioned whether a law like SB 649 could lead to retaliation by the federal government and whether it’s risky to enact legislation that prevents cooperation with federal agencies. Young requested further input from the state attorney general and asked directly whether President Trump would instruct the FBI to carry out searches on behalf of ICE.
On Wednesday, a judge in the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in New York vs. DHS that the federal government can deny benefits to states that do not cooperate with federal agencies. A prior contradictory ruling signals the issue could be headed for the U.S. Supreme Court.
“The Supreme Court will resolve this, and if we end up being on the wrong side of this, aren’t we imperiling the benefits we’re going to receive from the federal government? And under the circumstances, do we want to take that risk at this point?” Young asked.
Lam argued that the bill does not share immigration status data, just photographs, and said with the imperfect systems available today, you don’t have to be an exact match — you just have to look like an immigrant.
Another lawmaker expressed similar concerns that today’s inaccurate facial recognition systems could cast a wide net and lead to racial profiling of innocent individuals, regardless of a person’s immigration status. A December 2019 NIST study of nearly 200 facial recognition systems found that some were 100 times more likely to misidentify Asian-Americans and African-Americans than Caucasians. Women, the young and old, and other groups also saw lower levels of accuracy compared to white men.
In an attempt to establish clear rules, standards, and limits on how federal agencies can use facial recognition, state lawmakers across the U.S. are considering a variety of laws for facial recognition regulation.
Before his death last year, Congressman Elijah Cummings led a bipartisan effort in the House Oversight and Reform Committee to examine facial recognition use by law enforcement and regulate government use of the technology.
Use of facial recognition by the FBI and ICE is part of what motivated U.S. Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) to propose a facial recognition moratorium until limits can be placed on the technology to protect personal freedoms like freedom of speech and the right to assemble.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Facebook's 3D Photos feature now simulates depth for any image | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/facebooks-3d-photos-feature-now-gives-any-image-simulated-depth"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Facebook’s 3D Photos feature now simulates depth for any image Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Facebook Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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In late 2018, Facebook launched 3D Photos , a feature that leverages depth data to create images that look flat but that can be examined from different angles using virtual reality (VR) headsets, through Facebook on the web or Facebook’s mobile apps. It initially required a depth map file on desktop or dual-camera phones like the Galaxy Note10 or iPhone 11, but starting today , 3D Photos is compatible with any modern handset with a single camera — specifically an iPhone 7 or higher or a midrange or better Android device.
Facebook says that “state-of-the-art” machine learning techniques made the expanded phone support possible. Newly deployed AI models can infer the 3D structure of images without depth data, regardless of the images’ ages or origins. It even works with selfies, paintings, and complex scenes. “This advance makes 3D photo technology easily accessible for the first time to the many millions of people who use single-lens camera phones or tablets,” wrote Facebook in a blog post. “It also allows everyone to experience decades-old family photos and other treasured images in a new way, by converting them to 3D.” Once posted, 3D Photos are viewable by any Facebook user, as well as in VR through the Oculus Browser on Oculus Go or Firefox on the Oculus Rift. They can also be shared through Facebook Stories, where they disappear after 24 hours — as with 3D photos shared to the Facebook News Feed, you’re able to see who’s viewed, reacted to, and responded to them. But restrictions apply. 3D photos can’t be edited, and if you’d like to share a 3D photo, you can’t add multiple photos to a post. 3D photos can’t be added to an album, and if you’re posting a 3D photo from a Page, you won’t be able to boost it or use it in advertisements.
The (data) science behind 3D Photos Facebook says that improving 3D Photos required overcoming a range of technical challenges, including (but not limited to) training a model that correctly guesses how objects might look from different perspectives and that can run on typical mobile processors in “a fraction of a second.” The 3D Photos team settled on a convolutional neural network and trained it on millions of pairs of 3D images and their accompanying depth maps, after which they used building blocks inspired by FBNet — a family of models for resource-constrained environments — to optimize the model for mobile devices.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! To find the optimal architecture configuration, the 3D Photos team employed an automated process using an algorithm called ChamNet, which was developed by Facebook AI Research. ChamNet iteratively samples points from a search space to train an accuracy predictor, which accelerates the search for a model that maximizes accuracy while satisfying resource constraints. The search for the model underpinning the new 3D Photos took roughly three days using 800 Nvidia Tesla V100 graphics cards, according to Facebook.
To reduce the number of bytes that had to be transferred to various devices on first use, the 3D Photos team quantized — or mapped large values to smaller values — the weights (coefficients that connect neurons in a layered AI model) and activations (functions that determine the output of a model, its accuracy, and its efficiency) to 8 bits. (This required only a quarter of the storage taken up by the original weights and activations.) Quantized-aware training helped to prevent drops in quality by simulating quantization during training, eliminating the gap between training and production, while 8-bit operators (constructs that behave like functions) provided higher throughput compared with those of the original, larger model.
Facebook says that in the future, it intends to apply these techniques to depth estimation for videos taken with mobile devices. Additionally, it plans to explore leveraging depth estimation, surface normal estimation, and spatial reasoning in real-time apps like augmented reality. “Videos pose a noteworthy challenge, since each frame depth must be consistent with the next. But it is also an opportunity to improve performance, since multiple observations of the same objects can provide additional signal for highly accurate depth estimations,” wrote Facebook. “Beyond these potential new experiences, this work will help us better understand the content of 2D images more generally. Improved understanding of 3D scenes could also help robots navigate and interact with the physical world.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
Discover our Briefings.
The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Einride shows how AI will create new kinds of jobs | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/einride-shows-how-ai-will-create-new-kinds-of-jobs"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Analysis Einride shows how AI will create new kinds of jobs Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Rendering of what an Einride remote autonomous truck operator will look like Artificial intelligence (AI) will either destroy jobs or create new jobs — depending on which report you read. In truth, it’s probably a little of both — AI will undoubtedly replace human workers in some spheres, but it will also create new roles, many of which we can’t yet imagine. A recent report from PA Consulting, titled “ People and machines: From hype to reality ,” supports this theory and predicts AI is more likely to create jobs than destroy them.
The research behind this report, based on 750 cross-industry businesses in the U.K., found that 32% of respondents had invested in AI and automation in the last five years, split evenly across tools for cognitive and physical tasks. Of those that had invested, 43% reported an increase in jobs as a result, while 40% reported a reduction.
“Our research shows AI and automation are likely to lead to a net gain in job numbers,” the report reads. “As some types of jobs disappear, new ones will emerge.” These findings are supported elsewhere — the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) also predicts that while AI and automation will certainly impact jobs, there will be no net loss.
So what kinds of shiny new jobs can we expect? Sweden’s Einride gives us some idea — the autonomous trucking startup has announced that it’s now hiring remote truck operators. The company expects to make its first hire in Sweden in March, followed by similar hires in the U.S. later this year.
“New transportation system” Einride, which has raised north of $30 million since its inception in 2016, has developed the electric T-pod, which it touts as an entirely “new transportation system.” Each pod is around 23 feet in length and can hold 15 standard pallets and travel 124 miles on a single charge. Most notably, the T-pod isn’t a standard truck retrofitted to drive itself — there’s no physical space inside the T-pod for a human to sit.
Above: Einride: T-Pod Einride’s T-pod adopts a hybrid driverless approach — on highways, the vehicle is designed to drive itself, but when it exits onto main city roads it switches to remote control and a human takes over from afar. Those same operators are also ready to control several pods on highways, should the situation require it.
Einride’s first hire will be a former truck driver who will retrain and learn to control multiple trucks from a remote room. The operator will also provide feedback on development of the company’s remote driver station, informing the work environment of tomorrow’s truckers. This evolution offers a glimpse into how other jobs could shift as AI advances — industry-specific expertise will likely still be required even if job descriptions change.
“Today, our autonomous pods are operated by developers — robot engineers trained to drive trucks,” Einride CEO and founder Robert Falck said. “A commercially scalable solution must rely on truck drivers, trained to remote-operate robots. The ins and outs of that future [are] what we’re investigating now, by involving truck drivers in the process.” Big business The global truck transportation market is pegged at $1.5 trillion , making it a sizeable target for disruption. Einride said electrification and automation will enable it to optimize the road freight industry by reducing fuel and energy costs by 70%, cutting operating costs by 60%, increasing productivity by 200%, and reducing Co2 emissions by 90%. Other companies working in the autonomous vehicle remote assistance and tele-operations space include Ottopia and Scotty Labs, which was acquired by DoorDash last year.
What all these companies show is that AI — for the foreseeable future, at least — will require humans to oversee things.
“AI will always have to be supervised,” Falck told VentureBeat. “Autonomous vehicles would be the obvious example, where I think human monitoring will be needed for many years to come, to help out in complex situations. And we’ll need rapid reaction teams to perform maintenance on broken down robo-cars. We’ll need all kinds of support functions that don’t exist today. But this is not just about practicality, it is about moral responsibility, which is a human construct and a notoriously tricky one at that.” In a world full of AI, humans will likely still be required across industries, whether for supervision, remote assistance, training, ethical decision-making, or other input.
“Philosophers distinguish between explicit and tacit knowledge, tacit knowledge being difficult to transfer verbally,” Falck continued. “So how do you translate it into code? Machine learning could be said to be a solution to that problem, but that is not a transparent process. So we’ll need people who can reconstruct decisions made by self-learning machines, who can detect bias in self-learning algorithms, etc. The very opacity of AI and the ethical problems that flow from that will generate new interesting jobs.” The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"As robotic grasping improves, rivals debate the metrics of success | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/as-robotic-grasping-improves-rivals-debate-the-metrics-of-success"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Analysis As robotic grasping improves, rivals debate the metrics of success Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn ABB robot using Covariant picking system Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Amazon’s re:Mars conference last June featured a carnival of robotics and AI.
Disney showed a demo of its stunning robot acrobats, while others showed off delivery robots, dextrous robotic hands, and robotic snakes that can weave through the cracks of buildings after a disaster. Boston Dynamics’ four-legged Spot Mini was there, as well as robots built for space. To start the event, Robert Downey Jr. announced the creation of a new foundation to clean up the planet … with help from robots.
But when an Amazon employee asked CEO Jeff Bezos onstage about his vision for the next 10 years, Bezos talked first about more seemingly mundane applications — robotic arms and grasping objects. Like getting autonomous vehicle systems on public roads, robotic grasping remains one of the grand AI challenges poised to upend the economy and change human lives in the years ahead. But like the self-driving car field , sometimes there’s disagreement about the best way to measure progress among companies spinning out of robotic research labs at schools like MIT and UC Berkeley.
“I think if you went back in time 30 or 40 years and asked roboticists and computer scientists, people working on machine learning at that time, which problem would be harder to solve — machine vision, natural language understanding, or grasping — I think most people would have predicted that we would solve grasping first,” Bezos said. “And, of course, it’s turned out to be an incredibly difficult problem, probably in part because we’re starting to solve [grasping] with machine vision.” Above: Amazon and Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos at the Amazon re:Mars conference in Las Vegas Today, in Amazon fulfillment centers, picking — the act of moving individual items for orders into a box — is done by people, but grasping robots could replace those workers, removing an entire layer of human labor in ecommerce. Amazon is a company whose former fulfillment center employees say treated them like robots , and it continues to increase roles for robots in fulfillment centers that started in 2012 with the acquisition of Kiva Systems and the creation of Amazon Robotics.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Robotic arms with more refined grasping capabilities will have applications in home robotics ( something Amazon is reportedly working on ) and a range of tasks in other fields, as well as for Bezos’ plan to build on and near the moon with Blue Origin.
In an interview with VentureBeat, Covariant CEO Peter Chen said his company considers mean picks per hour (MPPH) a “retired metric,” even though some still consider it a primary way to measure robotic grasping system performance. He said the metric should be retired because he no longer considers achieving human rates of picking with a robotic arm to be a challenge.
MPPH takes into account the average number of grasping attempts a robot makes in an hour, as well as mean grasp reliability, or the probability that each grasp attempt will be successful. But Chen argues the number of mistakes that require human intervention per hour is a better measurement, because how a robot performs on that metric can determine how much human oversight it demands.
He draws a comparison to the way we evaluate autonomous driving systems.
“[Means picks per hour] is kind of like, ‘Can you drive down a block on a sunny day?’ That’s analogous to the self-driving situation. Everyone can do that. That’s no longer a test. What is a real test is how long you can sustain that. That becomes what matters,” Chen said.
“What we measure much more is the reliability of the system. This is similar to how in self driving, people measure how often a [human] driver needs to engage.
Because that basically measures when AI fails to make decisions on its own, and that’s the same thing for us, and that’s almost, I would say, the most important measure in terms of value creation.” Chen said he’s not aware of any other company focused on mean intervention per hour as a key metric, but he said that reflects Covariant’s maturity in the robotic manipulation space.
Covariant launched in 2017 but only came out of stealth last month, with support from deep learning luminaries like Geoffrey Hinton, Jeff Dean, and Yann LeCun. Covariant cofounders include Chen, UC Berkeley Robot Learning Lab director and Berkeley AI Research (BAIR) codirector Pieter Abbeel, and others who met while working together at OpenAI.
Covariant — a startup whose system is currently being used in a factory in Germany — recently claimed it had reached a new milestone. The company said its machines can pick and pack some 10,000 different items with greater than 99% accuracy.
In a test last year, robotics company ABB invited 20 companies from the U.S. and Europe to take part in a challenge involving picking and sorting random items. In the end, Covariant was the only company able to complete all the tasks and do so at speeds comparable to a human.
An ABB spokesperson declined to comment on which companies participated in the competition (the company agreed not to share details about participants) but said the test included 26 common items like apples, toys, bottles, and clamshell packs. ABB uses a formula that combines metrics like pick rate and mistakes — such as double picks or failed picks — to measure the performance of robotic grasping systems.
This week, ABB announced a partnership with Covariant to bring AI-enabled grasping robots to warehouses for ecommerce.
How to measure success In a 2018 IEEE op-ed , 19 members of the robotics community across academia, industry, and standards bodies — including leaders at organizations like NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, Nvidia’s robotics unit, and the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) — called for open discussion of benchmarks and metrics to measure progress in robotic grasping. The paper makes no explicit call for a single recommended success metric, but the primary metric mentioned is mean picks per hour.
Lael Odhner, cofounder and CTO of RightHand Robotics , which makes piece-picking systems for robotic arms, signed the 2018 op-ed.
He says there may be some nuance in how companies and researchers calculate mean picks per hour, but it’s a number intended to factor in range, rate, and reliability. Here, range is the percentage of customer inventory robots can pick, rate is the time it takes to pick any given item, and reliability is the amount of time spent handling exception cases, like items lost due to breakage or the need for manual intervention.
“Once all of these components are taken together, the result will be measured as an average number of picks per hour, but it will clearly take into account much more than the robot’s speed,” he said.
“I think Peter [Chen]’s focus on eliminating manual intervention is a good first step, since this is a significant risk to productivity in any automation. However, at some point, the value of automation in a production environment has to be measured in terms of total throughput, since the customer has a budget of so many cents for handling an item, and the overall cost of these has to add up to a reasonable number to pay for the robot,” Odhner said.
Alberto Rodriguez, who led Team MIT-Princeton in the Amazon Robotics Challenge between 2015 and 2017 and is now director of MCube Lab at MIT , also signed the op-ed. Rodriguez said he believes that the most advanced AI for bin-picking robots is now found in startup and corporate development, not academia.
“They have brought the performance of technology much farther in terms of reliability and speed, with better engineering of both the algorithms and the hardware than what can be done in an academic environment,” he said.
Peter Yu spent three years competing in the Amazon Robotics Challenge with Rodriguez at MIT. Today, he’s the CTO of XYZ Robotics, a robotic systems startup with customers in China and the United States.
Back in 2017, Yu said grasping systems hit averages near 30 mean picks per hour, but the MIT-Princeton team reached levels near 120 picks per hour. Today, he said, XYZ Robotics can achieve 900 picks per hour in a varied random item scenario.
Yu said metrics that track the rate of picks over time, like MPPH, are still important for manufacturers since a robotic arm must maintain speeds in keeping with people and machines in the rest of a warehouse’s supply chain.
“The best way, or the most real way [to test grasping systems] is [to go] to one of the deployment sites and then time the robot performance. And, as you know, different items can result in different speed because of the weight and size,” Yu told VentureBeat.
Why robotic grasping is hard Ken Goldberg is a cocreator of the Dexterity Network (Dex-Net) , a system for robotic grasping developed at AUTOLAB in affiliation with Berkeley AI Research, the CITRIS People and Robots Initiative, and the Real-Time Intelligent Secure Execution ( RISE) Lab, with support from Amazon Robotics, Google, Intel, Samsung, and Toyota Research. He’s also CEO of Ambidextrous Robotics, a company that has raised funding but still considers itself in stealth mode. He also signed the 2018 IEEE letter.
Before Jeff Bezos took the stage at re:Mars last year, Goldberg talked about robotic grasping and how deep learning and simulation data are advancing the field. Control of actuators, friction between grippers, interpretation of perception from sensors, varying centers of mass, and noisy data can make robotic grasping a challenge. But Goldberg said Dex-Net is capable of achieving 400 picks per hour on objects it’s never seen before. A 2016 analysis clocks human performance at roughly 400 to 600 mean picks per hour.
Like XYZ Robotics, Dex-Net claims its systems offer grasping abilities nearly on par with human performance, but the two express this fact in different ways. Chen said 400 picks per hour is incredibly low for logistics customers but also said picking rates can get as high as 900-1,200 picks per hour.
In an interview with VentureBeat last month following a speech at the Re-Work Deep Learning Summit in San Francisco, Goldberg declined to respond to questions about Covariant but talked about the mean picks per hour metric.
“I think everybody’s doing certain deployments, but the question is if it’s in production … that’s where the rubber meets the road. Some of us are working 24 hours a day — that’s where it’s really exciting, and I think [there’s more work in warehouses] starting to happen,” he said.
In addition to picks per hour, Goldberg said companies should consider metrics like double picks — when a robotic grasper picks up two items at once — and the number of items left in bins.
“Under certain circumstances, if we have nice objects and you have a very fast robot, you can get there [human picking rates] ,” Goldberg told VentureBeat last month. “But they say humans are like 650 per hour; that’s an amazing level. It’s very hard to beat humans. We’re very good. We’ve evolved over millions of years.” Metrics used to measure progress in robotic grasping can vary based on the task. For example, for robots operating in a mission-critical environment like space, accuracy matters above all.
Whatever success metrics companies use to measure progress in robotic grasping, both Chen and Goldberg agree a continued focus on adversarial examples — the kind that continually stump systems — can lead to great progress.
“We actually built adversarial objects that are extremely hard to grasp,” Goldberg told VentureBeat.
In work published last year, Goldberg and co-authors from Berkeley AI Research and AUTOLAB intentionally designed adversarial cubes and other objects. In the case of one adversarial cube, Dex-Net achieved a 0% success rate.
Above: Adversarial objects created by roboticists at UC Berkeley Chen declined to share specifics about how Covariant approaches adversarial learning, but he said the best learning possibilities lie in hunting for outliers.
“Let’s say the long-tail hard cases normally only occur 1% of the time,” he said. “If you adversarially train for it, then you can make those occur much more often and essentially accelerate your training and make that more efficient.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"AI Weekly: U.S. and EU strike contrasting tones on AI regulatory policy | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/ai-weekly-u-s-and-european-governments-strike-contrasting-tones-on-ai"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages AI Weekly: U.S. and EU strike contrasting tones on AI regulatory policy Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
This week, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released a year-one report card on its American Artificial Intelligence Initiative. Earlier this month, the European Commission (EC) published a major set of proposals for its strategy on AI. Both of these follow AI principles and regulations proposed in May 2019 by the multi-nation Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which includes the U.S. and European countries.
Despite that shared international work, the U.S. and Europe have also gone their own respective ways. It’s clear that the rhetoric of both is strongly bound to geography — U.S.-first here, Europe-first there — but the aforementioned announcements also show a slight but important difference in tone between the two. Whereas Europe sounds largely optimistic, the U.S. comes off as more fearful.
Just over a week ago , EC president Ursula von der Leyen took to the podium and gave a speech announcing and explaining Europe’s new AI strategy. She discussed Eurocentric concerns first, adding, “We want the digital transformation to power our economy, and we want to find European solutions in the digital age.” And much of her speech focused on how well Europe is adopting AI, saying that “ most articles are published from the European science community,” and making the claim that “Europe is leading in AI.” VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! But early in her remarks, she pivoted to focusing on the global concern of climate change. She was also adamant that AI technologies, products, and services must comply with people’s rights, must be tested and certified before they can be in the marketplace, and must be free of biased data.
VentureBeat’s Chris O’Brien neatly encapsulated the sentiment around the “ecosystem of trust” at the heart of the announcements: EC leaders expressed optimism that AI could help tackle challenges such as climate change, mobility, and health care, along with a determination to keep private tech companies from influencing regulation and dominating the data needed to develop these algorithms.
Europe is also looking at a third way forward on AI that takes neither China’s government-first approach nor the U.S.’s tech industry-led efforts.
Instead, it’s more focused on ethos. “Another route to differentiate Europe from the U.S. and China is a more privacy-driven approach built on the back of human rights-respecting regulation like GDPR,” wrote VentureBeat’s Khari Johnson last year. He quoted Digital Hub Denmark CEO Camilla Rygaard-Hjalsted, who said, “I strongly believe that we can become frontrunners within an ethical application of AI in our societies,” she said. “In the short run, the stronger European regulation compared to China and the U.S. in this field might decrease our ability to scale revenue; however, in the long run, this focus on AI for the people can serve as our competitive advantage, and we become [a] role model for the rest of [the] world — one can only hope.” Although missives on AI from the U.S. government also frequently serve up warm and optimistic overtures, they’re often peppered with two more dour themes: a passive-aggressive adversarial attitude to the rest of the world and concerns about the dangers of overregulation.
What’s disorienting is that people like U.S. CTO Michael Kratsios often surround pessimistic notes with optimistic ones. For example, in a speech he gave at the OECD meeting in Paris where participants signed the principles, Kratsios was mostly gregarious, espousing the Trump administration’s desire to work with the U.S.’s “closest allies,” the continents’ mutual values of respect and trust, and the potential for AI to positively impact the world.
But then he backs into this: “We also encourage removing regulatory obstacles to discovery and innovation, ensuring all Americans realize the full potential of emerging technologies. We must ensure our scientists, researchers, and technologists have the freedom to do what they do best — innovate, create, and push the bounds of our technological capabilities. Government should only serve to enable our brightest minds, not weigh them down.” He added, “But we firmly believe that a rush to impose onerous and duplicative regulations will only cede our competitive edge to authoritarian governments who do not share our same values.” It’s a jarring section of speech, bookended by warmth and an expressed desire for international cooperation. The obvious implication is that he’s making a dig at China. But he’s also implicitly expressing fear about what might happen should “we” fall behind “them.” Kratsios and other U.S. officials reiterated that sentiment in a recent call with reporters ahead of an announcement about budget increases for AI. “I think with regards to some of our adversaries and others around the world [that] utilize this technology, it’s imperative that the U.S. continues to lead in technologies like AI,” he said. “We see others around the world using artificial intelligence to track their people, to imprison ethnic minorities, to monitor political dissidents, and this is something that does not align with American values and makes our leadership position even more of an imperative.” It wasn’t clear in the briefing and whether they consider Europe exempt from the list of “adversaries.” The themes return again in this week’s report. The two penultimate sentences in the report’s cover letter read, “In a time of global power competition, our leadership in AI has never been more of an imperative. We remain committed to supporting the development and application of AI in a way that promotes public trust, protects civil liberties, and respects the privacy and dignity of every individual.” This nicely encapsulates what’s disquieting about the federal rhetoric around AI. Is AI the boogeyman in a “global power competition,” or is it an opportunity for nations to work together in harmony to solve the world’s problems? A passage from the report reads: “The United States must engage internationally to promote a global environment that supports American AI research and innovation and opens markets for American AI industries while also protecting our technological advantage in AI.” In other words, the end goal of global cooperation is to promote American interests.
Another four-page section reiterates this fear of overregulation, including this statement in the introductory paragraph: “The Federal Government plays an important role to ensure that regulations guiding the development and use of AI are supportive of innovation and not overly burdensome.” That stands in contrast to the push from lawmakers at multiple levels of government to be aggressive in creating guardrails of many kinds around AI technologies before they’re deployed.
To be fair to Kratsios, the OSTP, and all the other individuals and agencies in the federal government that are working on AI, they’ve made progress. They picked up the AI mantle from the Obama era, rather than ignoring it, and they have produced guidelines, principles, and funding, however controversial or incomplete those efforts may or may not be , particularly around regulation.
But that rhetoric around a global power struggle, adversarial relationships with other countries, and fears of regulation has been consistent and concerning.
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"Nidec bets on electric cars and acquisitions to triple sales | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/transportation/nidec-bets-on-electric-cars-and-acquisitions-to-triple-sales"
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( Reuters ) — Japan’s Nidec plans to more than triple its revenue over the next five years by focusing on electric vehicle powertrains and buying specialists in motor technologies, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters. The world’s leading maker of precision motors which supplies parts for Apple’s iPhones is expected to detail its plans as soon as Tuesday when it will name former Nissan executive Jun Seki as president, the sources said. The new strategy shows how the Kyoto-based company wants to play a bigger role in the auto industry as electric vehicle (EV) production takes off , after slowdowns in demand for motors in markets such as cellphones have weighed on its sales.
“The EV motor system is key to our growth strategy,” said one of the sources, a Nidec insider, referring to integrated EV powertrain systems commonly known as e-axles — technology that incorporates motors, power electronics, and transmissions. “The e-axle market is going to be big, but it is only one half of our twin-pillar growth strategy,” the person said. “The other big key to growth is in mergers and acquisitions of other motor-related technologies.” The sources declined to be identified because the information is not yet public. Nidec declined to comment.
Nidec’s plan is to boost annual revenue to 5 trillion yen ($46 billion) by 2025, the sources said, from 1.55 trillion yen forecast for its financial year ending in March. Founder and CEO Shigenobu Nagamori has in the past alluded to a company vision of 10 trillion yen in revenue by 2030 but has not mapped out specific steps to achieve such a target.
Seki, who told Reuters in December he was leaving Nissan for Nidec, is expected to help Nagamori lead the revenue push. Nidec has long been synonymous with Nagamori, who started out in 1973 with three workers in a Kyoto shed and built a global powerhouse with more than 100,000 employees, making motors for “everything that spins and moves”.
Tech labs and startups Nidec already supplies e-axles to automakers such as China’s GAC and France’s Peugeot. Rival e-axle makers include Germany’s Bosch and ZF Friedrichshafen and Toyota affiliate BluE Nexus, among others. Nidec wants to significantly improve the quality and performance of its e-axles so they become “more efficient, smaller and thus cheaper,” one of the sources said.
To meet its growth targets, though, it will have to boost sales of motors beyond those used in EVs and is looking for mergers and acquisitions (M&A), the sources said. From home appliances to cellphones to laptops to other devices, “Nidec will continue to be active in M&A and gobble up attractive tech labs and startups and companies, even if they are small,” one of the sources said.
Nagamori told reporters this month that Nidec could spend 500 billion yen on its growth strategy, including technology acquisitions. It may use the money to acquire new e-axle technology and know-how to improve its existing products, the sources said, adding that the EV focus was fuelled by a belief more and more automakers will replace gasoline vehicles with electric cars. While pure battery-powered vehicles are just a sliver of global production now, they are expected to make up 5.6% of total production by 2026, according to AutoForecast Solutions.
The research firm estimated production of all EVs, including gasoline hybrids, will reach 13.3 million in 2026 and account for 13.6% of total global car production of 98.1 million. Industry officials and experts say a key challenge facing Nidec and rival e-axle producers will be to get costs down to roughly $1,500 or below from the roughly $2,000 they cost now. Nidec’s confidence in the business stems from a view that automakers will behave more like smartphone or laptop producers as they phase out their reliance on the combustion engine. It believes that EVs — like laptops and smartphones — will be designed with key components that are “as commoditised as Intel chips for laptops”, one of the sources said.
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"ProBeat: Why your company should care about the latest Ring scandal | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/security/probeat-why-your-company-should-care-about-the-latest-ring-scandal"
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This week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) shared the results of its investigation into smart doorbell maker Ring. “Ring isn’t just a product that allows users to surveil their neighbors,” the report reads. “The company also uses it to surveil its customers.” Ring for Android covertly sends personally identifiable information of its customers to third parties, including AppsFlyer, Branch, Facebook, and MixPanel.
Great, here we go again.
Except this time, it’s different. Amazon acquired Ring in February 2018 , and it seems like there has been a new Ring scandal every month since.
(I ran out of words for links so here are a few more.
) An Amazon engineer this week even called for Ring’s shutdown.
This latest scandal isn’t unique to Amazon’s Ring, though. There is a lesson here for every company with an app. Ring is an easy punching bag given all its questionable practices. But next time it could be your company. Whether you consider yourself “a tech company” or not, chances are your app or website is collecting data on your users. You might be using some of the data, your partners might be using some of the data, or a third party you’re not even aware of might be capturing all the data. Regardless, an audit may be overdue.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Ring’s response Nothing makes this clearer than Ring’s response to the EFF’s report. In short, the statement boils down to this is no big deal.
“Like many companies, Ring uses third-party service providers to evaluate the use of our mobile app, which helps us improve features, optimize the customer experience, and evaluate the effectiveness of our marketing,” a Ring spokesperson told VentureBeat. “Ring ensures that service providers’ use of the data provided is contractually limited to appropriate purposes such as performing these services on our behalf and not for other purposes.” It’s true that Ring’s privacy notice states that “We do not authorize our service providers to use or disclose your personal information except as necessary to perform services on our behalf or comply with legal requirements. We also may share personal information with our business partners (1) with whom we jointly offer products and services; (2) to the extent you use Ring+ to connect to third-party products or services; and (3) for payment processing and fraud prevention purposes.” In other words, Ring and its partners are collecting personal information to make the app better. And they essentially claim that it’s fine, because this is standard practice and the partners promise not to do anything with it.
Clean up your apps Come on. Have we learned nothing from the Cambridge Analytica debacle ? Agreements and contracts only go so far. They won’t stop parties with vested interests from collecting personal data and using it for their own purposes.
We’re already seeing a backlash on the web to this laissez-faire attitude. The ad blockers were just the start — now even browser makers are cracking down on trackers , fingerprinting , and everything in between.
The same is happening with apps.
The “standard practice” excuse and “business as usual” approach is not going to cut it for much longer. Users are going to uninstall apps that get caught pilfering their data en masse. And for those that don’t, Apple and Google will step in to restrict what apps can do — in fact, they’ve already started.
If your company wants to avoid a rude awakening, my advice is to start with reading up on GDPR and CCPA.
But if you really care about your users, start even simpler. The only way to avoid your customers’ data getting into the wrong hands is to not collect it in the first place. Go through and make sure you need every single little data point. Then anonymize the ones you need and remove the rest. That might seem like a lot of work, but it’s peanuts compared to dealing with being the next data privacy scandal.
ProBeat is a column in which Emil rants about whatever crosses him that week.
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"Steam is down, so you'll need to work through your backlog another time | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/pc-gaming/steam-is-down-so-youll-need-to-work-through-your-backlog-another-time"
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Dang. The PC gaming software portal Steam is down. And that’s a bummer because today was the day I was going to start playing all those games I bought but never opened. Darn it! Guess I’ll have to start on that some other time.
This outage is affecting most of Steam’s services, and PC players are complaining about the connection errors on social media.
This disruption is preventing players from logging in, buying games from the store, and more. And if you can log into Steam, you may have issues launching games.
The unofficial Steam status page is currently returning an “unknown” state for Steam and many of its functionalities. The Steam Community and Web API are also coming back with error 503 and error 403, respectively.
Valve has not made any statement about the outage.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! If these connection issues are affecting you, not all hope is lost. If you are trying to log into a single-player game that is primarily offline, you can try launching Steam in offline mode. This should enable you to at least get into some of your games. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait for the platform to come back online.
And I swear I was going to really put a dent in that pile of shame! Update, 2:37 p.m. Pacific: Steam appears to be working better for many users now.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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"Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order made EA realize it can do more than shooters | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/pc-gaming/star-wars-jedi-fallen-order-10-million"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order made EA realize it can do more than shooters Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Greezy money.
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Electronic Arts had high hopes for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and the publisher announced today that developer Respawn’s sci-fi adventure surpassed its outlook. The company is taking this as a sign that it can do more with Star Wars than just the competitive multiplayers games like the Battlefront series.
“Sales of Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order significantly beat our expectations,” EA chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen said. “We had forecast 6-to-8 million units for the fiscal year. [But we] hit the high end of that in the third quarter. We now anticipate selling around 10 million units in the fiscal year, a very strong result for a single-player action game.” The fiscal year ends March 31 for EA. So it expects to sell around 2 million more copies before then.
But what does this say about the future of Star Wars at EA? Well, the company may try to do more than shooters.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order could pave the way for more variety at EA A successful single-player campaign game feels out of place at EA in 2020. The publisher has repeatedly told investors that it wants to focus on live-service games with online components. It wants products that can continue to generate revenue with microtransactions and other digital purchases.
Investors so associate EA with live-service games like FIFA Ultimate Team and Apex Legends , that one analyst asked during the company’s conference call how it plans to generate similar revenue from Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. But, of course, that’s not the kind of game that Respawn made.
But while Fallen Order might seem like an anomaly at EA, chief executive officer Andrew Wilson claims it is not.
“While social interactions and multiplayer are really important for a large part of [the Star Wars ] audience, what we have seen through the last quarter is [the appeal of] that the inspiration-and-escape model — living the Jedi’s story,” said Wilson. “So as we move forward, you should imagine that we will continue with the breadth and depth across the IP in order to meet the needs and motivations of that broad player base.” To translate Wilson, he is saying that the company sees value in Star Wars games beyond Battlefront-style shooters. In particular, Wilson referred to the “inspiration-and-escape model” of game, which isn’t a real thing. But if we pretend it is, it’s likely referring to the kind of adventure that enables players to explore the Star Wars universe as a character.
Wilson also acknowledged that Battlefront and Fallen Order hit slightly different audiences. So it’s not the end of the world if Fallen Order doesn’t sell quite as well as Battlefront II.
The two games are reaching different parts of the Star Wars fandom.
So expect future Star Wars game from EA to have some variety.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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"Strategy Analytics: Samsung led 2019 smartphone shipments, Apple won Q4 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/mobile/strategy-analytics-samsung-led-2019-smartphone-shipments-apple-won-q4"
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Although the global smartphone market was slightly down year over year, three companies clearly dominated sales in 2019: Samsung, Apple, and Huawei. With the holiday quarter now solidly in the rearview mirror, research firm Strategy Analytics is weighing in on the phone makers’ performance, concluding from shipment estimates that while Samsung led the year, Apple dominated the holiday season, and Huawei posted second for the year and third over the holidays.
According to Strategy Analytics estimates, Samsung shipped 68.8 million smartphones in Q4 2019, ahead of Huawei’s 56.0 million but behind Apple’s 70.7 million. It’s worth underscoring that these are estimates, as Apple stopped disclosing unit sales across its product categories in 2018 , but the company announced record-breaking iPhone sales for the quarter this week , providing firms with guidance that could be used to suss out its number.
The conventional wisdom regarding Apple’s businesses is that it makes up for smaller market share by guaranteeing good profits, unlike rivals that may sell more units but break even or take losses. But during the holiday quarter, Apple sold a healthy number of new iPhones without compromising its typical 38% profit margin.
Strategy Analytics executive director Neil Mawston described the growth as Apple’s best since 2015, attributing it to more aggressive pricing of the iPhone 11 — a $699 model Apple identified as its strongest-selling device every week during the quarter. While Samsung saw a 1% dip in quarterly shipments from the year-ago quarter, the firm says it performed “relatively well” at all price levels, including everything up to the Galaxy Note 10+ 5G.
For the entirety of 2019, Samsung shipped an estimated 295.1 million smartphones, compared with Huawei’s 240.5 million and Apple’s 197.4 million. Chinese vendors Xiaomi and Oppo rounded out the top five with 124.8 million and 115.1 million units, while all other vendors put together shipped 439.7 million, collectively totaling over 1.4 billion devices for the year. That number was down 1% from 2018, the firm says.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Huawei didn’t dominate the smartphone market in 2019, though it posted better smartphone numbers than might have been expected given the network security controversies it weathered during the year. The company’s 56 million shipments in the fourth quarter were nearly twice that of each of its smaller Chinese rivals and represented 15% of the global market versus Samsung’s 18.4% and Apple’s 18.9%.
Strategy Analytics said Huawei’s 5G smartphone sales are “strong,” but cited slowing sales in China and tougher competition in Europe as reasons for its own 1% dip in global marketshare. The company also delayed one of its most aggressively promoted new products, the foldable Mate X , missing opportunities to sell units until late in the year.
Updated at 9:25 a.m. Pacific: A separate report from IDC today drew similar conclusions from the companies’ shipments, but estimated that Apple shipped even more iPhones — 73.8 million. IDC also noted that the vendors are dealing with weak growth in China, which it attributed to pent-up demand for yet-to-be-released cheaper 5G handsets.
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"Pokémon Sword and Shield are bigger hits than their predecessors despite all the drama | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/games/pokemon-sword-and-shield-are-bigger-hits-than-their-predecessors-despite-all-the-drama"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Pokémon Sword and Shield are bigger hits than their predecessors despite all the drama Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Pokémon Sword and Shield.
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If you were tuned into Pokémon discourse on places like Twitter or Reddit, you may have thought that Sword and Shield were going to be giant disasters. Instead, sales are already outpacing the last few major Pokémon games.
Nintendo revealed today as part of its latest financial results that Sword and Shield have already sold 16.06 million copies as of the end of December. They released on November 15 for Switch, a little more than 2 months ago.
During the same amount of days after release, Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee had sold 10 million copies. The last major entries in the series before that, Sun and Moon for the 3DS, had sold 14.69 million copies. In fact, Sword and Shield are close to already surpassing the total sales that Sun and Moon achieved: 16.17 million. Combined, Sword and Shield are already the fifth best-selling game for the Switch, a system seeing tremendous success as Nintendo also revealed today that the console has sold 52.5 million machines since its launch in March 2017.
Pokémon Sword and Shield sell in was 16.06m units as of December 31st 2019.
In the same time period, Let's Go sell in was 10m and Sun/Moon sell in was 14.69m.
It will shortly pass Sun/Moon lifetime sales (16.17m) It is already the 5th best selling Switch game of all time.
pic.twitter.com/XNedGkwS8c — Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) January 30, 2020 Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Now, this may not be all that surprising. Pokémon is a giant franchise and one of the most recognizable gaming brands in the world. And these games launched for Switch, Nintendo’s hot home console/portable hybrid. But ahead of launch, Sword and Shield were swarmed by controversy.
Dexit drama It all stems from something fans began to call Dexit. Developer Game Freak revealed that not every Pokémon from past games would be available in Sword and Shield. In the games, the catalog of all Pokémon is called the Pokédex, hence the Dexit name. This news incensed some fans, as it had become tradition for all previous Pokémon to be available in new games. If every Pokémon ever made was included in Sword and Shield, the Pokédex would include 807 pocket monsters. Instead the games had 400 of them at launch.
Above: Giant Pokémon! What could have been a legitimate complaint instead steamrolled into lunacy, as some began to scour every screenshot of the game looking for “proof” that developer Game Freak was being lazy, circling things in red like some kind of conspiracy theorist. This would then turn into harassment, as some would take to Twitter to badger developers. It got ugly. Some fans even called for boycotts.
At the time, it seemed like a big deal. I mean, not because the complaints had much merit. They were just loud. And it turns out a lot of it really was just noise. Sword and Shield aren’t just hits, they are huge hits.
This should be a lesson for all of us. Negativity online can be overwhelm. It can distort reality. The Dexit folks were loud, but they were a small minority among Pokémon fans.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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"Apple's AR glasses deserve an Apple Watch-style 'early access' launch | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/games/apples-ar-glasses-deserve-an-apple-watch-style-early-access-launch"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Analysis Apple’s AR glasses deserve an Apple Watch-style ‘early access’ launch Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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When Apple revealed this week that its wearables segment “is now the size of a Fortune 150 company,” making over $20 billion in 2019 and $10 billion in the holiday quarter, it reminded analysts how massively successful the Apple Watch and AirPods have become, despite their ignominious launches. While the AirPods initially suffered mostly from manufacturing delays and questions about their practicality or fashionability , the original 2015 Apple Watch was basically beta hardware — a device so bad that Apple all but ignored it after launching a “Series 1” replacement in 2016.
But that original Apple Watch served several important purposes for both Apple and its customers. First, it catalyzed the company to reimagine itself in the post-Steve Jobs era, bringing on experts from the fashion and luxury retail worlds to help market and sell the new devices. Second, it gave developers a tangible early sense of what a “smart watch” would and wouldn’t be useful for. And third, for better or worse, it let Apple gauge user reactions so it could safely choose the “horsepower over battery life” path it would follow in every future model.
Five years after releasing its first Watch, Apple is seemingly on the cusp of launching its next wearable — augmented reality glasses — and a major question is how long the company will keep working on the initial model before releasing it to the public.
Will it wait until the AR glasses are as finished as the Apple Watch Series 1 , which was arguably the bare minimum regular users deserved? Might it hold off for the equivalent of the Apple Watch Series 4 , which former Apple designers recently revealed was the embodiment of their original design plan? Or will it begin by releasing another “Series 0” version that’s 80% of the way there? Even though I have no regrets about jettisoning the original Apple Watch after months of dissatisfying performance — like many others did — I’m actually hoping that Apple’s AR glasses follow a similar release schedule. That’s primarily because I think third-party developers really need the time to publicly test AR apps using wearable rather than handheld hardware, and even early adopters will need some time to get used to AR wearables.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! In the earliest days of the Apple Watch, some developers tried to release full-fledged games and complex apps for the platform. But once people actually wore the device, it became apparent that no one would keep holding an arm up for extended use. Quick, glanceable interactions were key, a realization that killed many developers’ wildest wearable dreams only after their time and money had been wasted.
Despite some enthusiasm for AR within the development community, no one’s truly sure what real-world usage paradigms will work for consumer AR glasses.
On the hardware side, Google Glass proved that trying to tech-bro an AR wearable into fashionability and public acceptance didn’t work (at all), so there still are threshold questions about how much and where people will be willing to wear AR glasses in their daily lives. Some of these questions may get preliminary answers when Nreal Light becomes available to consumers , but if Apple is planning something substantially different or better, it might not be able to rely on rivals’ experiences.
There are plenty of questions remaining on the software side of AR. In the absence of Apple AR glasses, developers have been using ARKit software to develop AR apps and AR games for iPads and iPhones, but most of what’s been released amounts to forgettable novelties. Unless you consider Snapchat Lenses and Landmarkers to be AR, there’s only been one world-beating success in the space — Pokémon Go — and its developer Niantic is apparently creating its own AR hardware and software platform.
Getting “80% there” Apple AR glasses into developers’ and early adopters’ hands would help steer a lot of development efforts, and likely shape the nascent consumer AR industry in some positive ways. Borrowing a theme from the games industry, I’d call this “early access,” but with a critical proviso: Just like the original Apple Watch, there should be no special pricing or limits on who can buy the glasses on day one. Google and Microsoft both blew it with first-generation AR headsets by restricting initial access and pricing their devices at levels mainstream customers would never accept. Apple should offer its initial vision, warts and all, with the same pricing and broad availability as it hopes to use for subsequent models.
Launching early without features that would benefit a second-generation model (and become standard in all future versions) didn’t hurt the Apple Watch, which subsequently became better and more mainstream each year. Nor did it hurt the iPad, which similarly shipped to a somewhat skeptical initial audience before rocketing to success in later generations.
Over the past couple of weeks, Apple CEO Tim Cook has made a point to call out the impending importance of AR, saying last week in Ireland that “it’s the next big thing, and it will pervade our entire lives” — a point he reiterated during this week’s quarterly conference call with financial analysts. He’s been making similar statements for three and a half years, long enough that it’s time for real artists, as Steve Jobs and his former disciples at Apple used to say, to ship. So here’s hoping the hardware gets out of Apple’s labs and onto users’ heads soon, so those of us who are still excited about the technology can start getting accustomed to the future.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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"Amazon reports $87.4 billion in Q4 2019 revenue: AWS up 34%, subscriptions up 32%, and 'other' up 41% | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/commerce/amazon-earnings-q4-2019"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Amazon reports $87.4 billion in Q4 2019 revenue: AWS up 34%, subscriptions up 32%, and ‘other’ up 41% Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Amazon today reported earnings for its fourth fiscal quarter of 2019, including revenue of $87.4 billion, net income of $3.3 billion, and earnings per share of $6.47 (compared to revenue of $72.4 billion, net income of $3 billion, and earnings per share of $6.04 in Q4 2018 ). North American sales were up 22% to $53.6 billion, while international sales grew 14% to $23.8 billion.
Analysts had expected Amazon to earn $86.01 billion in revenue and report earnings per share of $4.04. The retail giant thus easily beat on revenue and on earnings per share. The company’s stock was flat in regular trading, and up 11% in after-hours trading. Amazon gave first quarter revenue guidance in the range of $69 billion and $73 billion, compared to a consensus of $71.61 billion from analysts.
AWS growth in the 30s three quarters in a row Amazon Web Services (AWS) growth continues to slow down. In Q2 2019 , AWS growth fell to 37% — the first sub-40% growth rate since Amazon started breaking out AWS numbers. Then we saw 35% growth in Q3 2019 and now 34% in Q4 2019.
$AMZN AWS revenue growth – Q1 2017: 43% – Q2 2017: 42% – Q3 2017: 42% – Q4 2017: 45% – Q1 2018: 49% – Q2 2018: 49% – Q3 2018: 48% – Q4 2018: 45% – Q1 2019: 41% – Q2 2019: 37% – Q3 2019: 35% – Q4 2019: 34% https://t.co/STGI34drwX — Emil Protalinski (@EPro) January 30, 2020 VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! AWS is the cloud computing market leader, ahead of Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. High-percentage growth can’t continue unabated. And for a market leader, growth of 34% in sales to $9.95 billion is nothing to scoff at. Overall, AWS still accounted for about 11% of Amazon’s total revenue for the quarter.
Subscriptions: 150 million paid Prime members Subscription services were up 32% to $5.24 billion. This segment mainly constitutes Amazon Prime , which the company has expanded to offer deals at places like Whole Foods.
Keeping in line with this strategy, Amazon announced today that Prime members now get free delivery through Amazon Fresh, which normally costs $14.99 per month.
Amazon Prime membership was the main takeaway that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos wanted to focus on this quarter. He shared that Amazon now has over 150 million paid Prime members, up from 100 million Prime members in April 2018.
“Prime membership continues to get better for customers year after year. And customers are responding — more people joined Prime this quarter than ever before, and we now have over 150 million paid Prime members around the world,” Bezos said in a statement. “We’ve made Prime delivery faster — the number of items delivered to U.S. customers with Prime’s free one-day and same-day delivery more than quadrupled this quarter compared to last year. Members now have free two-hour grocery delivery from Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market in more than 2,000 U.S. cities and towns. Prime members watched double the hours of original movies and TV shows on Prime Video this quarter compared to last year, and Amazon Originals received a record 88 nominations and 26 wins at major awards shows. A huge thank you to teams across Amazon for their dedicated work to build, innovate, and deliver for customers this holiday.” “Other” (ads) saw the most growth Finally, Amazon’s “other” category, which mostly covers the company’s advertising business, was up 41% to $4.78 billion in revenue. The company knows plenty about what its customers want to buy, or even don’t want to buy, and it’s increasingly leveraging that for its advertising business. In its release, Amazon noted that during the holiday season, the best selling Amazon devices were Echo Dot, Fire TV Stick 4K with Alexa Voice Remote, and Echo Show 5. But in typical Amazon style, it didn’t share exact sales figures for those products.
As always, Alexa was mentioned many times (13, to be exact) in the company’s press release, even though Amazon won’t break out the voice assistant in its earnings reports. The company noted that it announced Alexa integrations with new automotive brands at CES 2020 , including Fiat Chrysler, Lamborghini, and Rivian.
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"Vrenetic will distribute its livestreaming apps in China | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/vrenetic-will-distribute-its-livestreaming-apps-in-chinese-market"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Exclusive Vrenetic will distribute its livestreaming apps in China Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Vrenetic CEO Marco Weber is on the right, while chairman Roland Emmerich in the middle.
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Vrenetic said that it will distribute its livestreaming apps in China as part of an effort to expand its market reach with new Chinese partners.
Founded by well-known film creators Marco Weber ( The Thirteenth Floor ) and Roland Emmerich ( Independence Day ) in 2017, Vrenetic has partnered with the Beijing Culture Fund.
As part of the agreement, Vrenetic is shifting its leadership operations to China to maximize the capabilities of its apps and Weber will relocate to China for a minimum of two years. In an interview with GamesBeat, Weber said he is moving to China.
“We decided to focus more on the Chinese market because of the technology,” Weber said. “If you build a sophisticated streaming app that will render VR, it is obviously much easier to consume for people if they have access to 5G.” Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! The apps include Vresh, a multiplatform streaming application supporting immersive content and social components that drive community and content engagement.
Since its release, Vresh has provided a space for 360-degree and immersive content creators to livestream, publish, and share to growing alternative media consumers around the globe.
“Vresh is an immersive 360 application for live video live streaming,” Weber said. “As a social media layer, we build an entire media engine.” Meanwhile, the Tag-Ya app is a location-based localized video messaging application built to create private spaces for the ever-growing Generation Z demographic. Tag-Ya will focus on gamification of real-life experiences users can share with their circle of friends and build realities of their own over existing geography.
Above: Vresh is one of Vrenetic’s apps that will debut in China.
“We’re very enthusiastic about our partnership with Vrenetic and what their technology can do on China’s 5G infrastructure. It’s truly a global opportunity,” said the Beijing Culture Fund, in a statement.
And Emmerich, creator of the Independence Day film and chairman of Vrenetic, said in a statement, “Marco and I set out two-plus years ago to create a company and apps that changed the immersive viewing experience. This shift to China initially will allow us to maximize that vision sooner and create a template for other markets.” Vrenetic will receive permits to distribute their streaming applications in the Chinese marketplace, a rarity for non-Chinese companies. In addition to distributing its own apps in-market, Vrenetic will become a “gateway” for app and content creators outside of China, focusing on entertainment, sports, and esports.
European-based esports company WePlay has signed a deal with Vrenetic that will allow the company to stream and livestream events in China.
Yura Lazebnikov, chief business development officer at esports entertainment firm WePlay, said in an email that his company has been broadcasting esports tournaments since 2012.
“For us this was a no-brainer,” said Lazebnikov. “Using our own customized application on the Vrenetic platform will allow us to monetize our events in an efficient way that simply wasn’t available to us before. We’ll be able to work directly with advertisers and sponsors in mainland China, whereas before we just sold the Chinese rights to local distributors.” He added, “This is big not only for the Chinese streaming landscape but also for the growth of esports in that market, so we’re really excited.” Vrenetic is 2.5 years old and it has 25 people. The company first launched its app on iOS in the U.S. and then followed up with a European release. It then launched at the Shanghai Film Festival.
“They really liked it and thought it would be perfect for 5G applications,” Weber said. “They took a look and thought it would be great for the second and third-tier markets in China, where people are not as familiar with 360-degree video or VR. I negotiated a joint venture with a company.” He said he was looking forward to living in China, as he was born in Europe and moved to the U.S., and he looked forward to relocating again.
“I’m really excited to have a chance to build a business,” Weber said. “People are very excited about it, as the country is in the middle of covering the entire country in 5G.” “We have a strong B2B model where we can build applications for esports companies or livestreaming,” Weber said. “We can be a gateway for European and U.S. companies to get into China.” Weber said the company will reveal the Chinese partner later.
“I wouldn’t want to do business in China on this level without a Chinese partner,” Weber said.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
Discover our Briefings.
Join the GamesBeat community! Enjoy access to special events, private newsletters and more.
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"U.S. to discuss whether online platforms should be liable for users' posts | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/u-s-to-discuss-whether-online-platforms-should-be-liable-for-users-posts"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages U.S. to discuss whether online platforms should be liable for users’ posts Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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( Reuters ) — The U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday it will hold a public meeting on February 19 to discuss the future of a federal law that largely exempts online platforms from legal liability for the material their users post.
The meeting will examine the future of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which provides immunity to companies such as Facebook, Alphabet’s Google, and Twitter for content posted by users, although companies can still be held liable for content that violates criminal or intellectual property law.
The meeting titled “Section 230 — Nurturing Innovation or Fostering Unaccountability?” will explore the expansive interpretation of the law by courts and its impact on citizens and businesses and will look at whether improvements to the law should be made, the Justice Department said in a statement.
“Now that the industry has matured, valid questions have been raised regarding the broad scope of Section 230 and whether the immunity is still required in its current form,” the statement said.
Lawmakers from both the Republican and Democratic parties have called for Congress to change Section 230 in ways that could expose tech companies to more lawsuits or significantly increase their costs.
Some Republicans have expressed concern that Section 230 prevents them from taking action against internet services that remove conservative political content, while a few Democratic leaders have said the law allows the services to escape punishment for harboring misinformation and extremist content.
Earlier this week, Representative Jan Schakowsky, the chair of a key U.S. House Committee on consumer protection, said she is exploring legislation around Section 230, focusing on online content posted on elections.
( Reporting by Mark Hosenball and Nandita Bose in Washington, editing by Chris Reese.
) VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"The DeanBeat: Will cloud gaming make climate change worse? | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/the-deanbeat-will-cloud-gaming-make-climate-change-worse"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages The DeanBeat: Will cloud gaming make climate change worse? Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Sometimes I like to think about long-term problems. Since the Australian wildfires have put the issue of climate change my mind, I’m wondering whether our visions for great things in technology and gaming, such as cloud gaming or the Metaverse, will make the problem worse.
At the moment, cloud gaming is probably not producing enough pollution to be on anybody’s list of the top contributors to climate change. But if the dreams of cloud gaming companies come true, then we’ll need to start worrying about their contribution to the problem.
And it’s great to have games that raise awareness about the issue of climate change — The Climate Trail and Jupiter & Mars and Eco — but then there is the small irony that if those games become really popular, then they will also contribute to climate change.
Data centers melting the polar ice caps? Above: The Climate Trail deals with climate change.
In the big picture, data centers and the tech gadgetry that connects to them are a concern.
SoftBank and Arm predict that the internet of things — everyday devices that are smart and connected — could reach more than a trillion units by 2035. To date, Arm’s customers have shipped 150 billion processors.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Those things are going to connect to data centers, over 5G networks or other internet connections. A Bloomberg story said that power efficiency gains in data centers have bottomed out, according to the Uptime Institute.
“Even with efficiency gains, data center electricity demand is voracious and growing; that growth has a number of implications for the power grid and for power utilities,” the Bloomberg story said.
Add to that the problem of the slowing of Moore’s Law, the 1965 prediction by Intel chairman emeritus Gordon Moore that the number of transistors on a chip would double every couple of years. That was a proxy for continuous electronics progress, meaning that as long as Moore’s Law continued, computing would become more efficient, doing more computations for the same cost or less power.
Intel, one of the world’s biggest chip makers, has struggled with its transition to the next doubling. That has raised concern that the law that held up for the past 55 years is coming to its end as we approach the limits of the laws of physics. That slowdown comes at a bad time as the demand for data centers rises.
Where cloud gaming makes this worse Above: Are data centers going to melt the polar caps? Some things about cloud gaming concern me. Some wags have figured out that streaming high-end games consumers something like 100MBs a second. Based on that, if you play a game like Red Dead Redemption 2 (with more than 100 hours of gameplay), then that one game played across a month could exceed your monthly data cap with cable providers. That’s a lot of computing usage, and it will put pressure on data centers.
If we’re going to live in a series of connected virtual worlds, which are like being inside video games like in Ready Player One or The Matrix , I can’t imagine that’s going to make this problem of electricity consumption any better.
What are the answers? Above: The African rainforest, turning brown from climate change I have been asking chip industry executives about this question.
Arm’s CEO Simon Segars told me that “Moore’s law aside, I think that the deployment of IoT and the AI processing of data can do a lot to help with some of the issues of climate change. We’ve been a believer, and publicly outspoken, on the role that technology can play in addressing all of the U.N. global goals, whether it’s to do with climate change, quality of water, education, whatever. If you look across the global goals, technology can help with all of them. There’s a lot of inefficiency. This thermostat cranking out freezing cold air when we’re all not enjoying it — a wall switch would help here. But there’s really a lot of inefficiency in the world. There’s low-hanging fruit here that doesn’t take much to address. We have the technologies we need for that now.” Most of the responses I have received from executives such as Arm’s Drew Henry , AMD’s Mark Papermaster , and others fall into this kind of category. Sure, the internet of things will consume material and energy resources, but it will make us more efficient. But I don’t see anyone really making nuanced arguments about how to architect the data centers and the internet of things in the right way.
A study in Nature estimated that data centers consume about 0.3% of the world’s electricity but are on their way to becoming a far bigger slice of the pie. It also raised concern about the rise of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and the structure of blockchain — seeking to verify a fact through the coordination of a lot of computers — is a real energy hog.
Nvidia acknowledges that cloud gaming data centers have an impact on the environment, and it is thinking about ways to make its efforts carbon neutral. But it doesn’t have a solution yet. Meanwhile, Microsoft and Google have committed to making their data centers carbon neutral or negative. That means employing alternative energy sources such as solar and other clever ideas.
Offsetting the demand for electricity Above: One of Google’s data centers.
Norman Liang, a game industry observer, noted that cloud gaming could end up saving money if it means that players will buy less hardware in the future. If you can stream great games with high-end graphics and play them on any piece of hardware, even old machines, then you don’t have to buy as many consoles or PCs.
Old game consoles and PCs are big sources of electronic waste, as owners have no secondary or long-term use for outdated technologies. In that way, companies who spend more on capabilities in the cloud could offset spending by consumer’s at the edge.
There is also a lot of “dark fiber” throughout the world, or unused fiber optic cables that have been under-utilized when it comes to transporting data. By tapping this resource, the world’s networks could become more efficient without incurring more expenses or power consumption.
“I’m an optimist by nature. What opportunity do we have, when we have more data available to us than we’ve ever had, and more computation than we’ve ever had?” said Papermaster, the chief technology officer at Advanced Micro Devices. “You look at what was announced by the Department of Energy with the Frontier supercomputer, where we’re partnering with HPE Cray to deliver 1.5 exaflops of computing in 2021. If you marry that with, as you said, this massive amount of data we’ve never had before, what analytics can we run that we never have before that can improve society? What can we do, based on that kind of analysis, that can inform us on how to contain climate change?” Let’s hope that the optimists are right, but I’d sure love to see real studies on this issue and how to change our direction if that’s necessary.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
Discover our Briefings.
The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"TDK Ventures invests in electric air mobility company AutoFlightX | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/tdk-ventures-invests-in-electric-air-mobility-company-autoflightx"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Press Release TDK Ventures invests in electric air mobility company AutoFlightX Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn An electric vertical take-off and landing company, AutoFlightX is TDK Ventures’ fourth investment from their $50 million CVC fund.
AutoFlightX is an eVTOL air-cargo and air-taxi company headquartered in Munich, with R&D centers in Shanghai and Shenzhen, China.
AutoFlightX looks forward to leveraging TDK Corporation’s deep expertise in consumer- and aviation-grade inertial sensors, high-density battery solutions and battery management systems, as well as power electronics, in addition to TDK’s global reach.
SAN JOSE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–January 30, 2020– TDK Corporation (TSE: 6762) announces that subsidiary TDK Ventures Inc.
has added to its growing portfolio of companies with its investment in AutoFlightX , a world leader in electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) air mobility. AutoFlightX is the fourth investment by the TDK corporate venture capital (CVC) fund since its July 2019 launch with a mission to invest in innovative startups focusing on digital and energy transformation and contributing to sustainability.
“TDK’s multi-dimensional core competency in sensors, energy and power makes them our strongest partner so far,” CEO and founder of AutoFlightX Tian Yu said. “As we look into the horizon of tomorrow’s mobility, we are committed to bringing high-endurance eVTOL vehicles with the best reliability and safety. We are thrilled to have TDK as our partner because they are world leaders in commercializing advanced technologies and supporting hard-tech entrepreneurs like us.” According to TDK Ventures’ Managing Director Nicolas Sauvage, the CVC sought companies that combine avionics and drone expertise with strong unit economics, paired with solid business models in the eVTOL space. For TDK Ventures, the ideal company would unlock a spectrum of use cases in inspection, cargo delivery and emergency responses, all without requiring an installed charging infrastructure base.
AutoFlightX’s 50 kg platform can carry payloads of up to 20 kg and has a flight time of two to five hours continuous cruise. The company also has a pipeline of platforms that will carry up to 300 kg and can fly two to five hours, depending on the payload.
“We believe AutoFlightX’s innovations reflect a combination of the best consumer drone talent from China paired with the aviation engineering rigor of Germany,” Sauvage noted.
Tian Yu, who is the former founder and CEO of Yuneec, started AutoFlightX in 2018 with a vision to transform air mobility. Yu subsequently assembled a world-class team of more than 100 engineers in Munich, Shenzhen and Shanghai to leverage the best of consumer drones and aviation with the goal of building the highest energy-efficient eVTOL vehicle.
The AutoFlightX team explored customer pain points in traditional industries such as mining, oil and gas and emergency response. In such scenarios, consumer drones didn’t satisfy the needs for vertical take-off, long-duration cruise and hovering while carrying large payloads, so the company began developing an eVTOL solution. AutoFlightX has already signed on several customers in the mining and inspection industries with their V40 Whiteshark platform that can carry up to a 20 kg payload. The AutoFlightX team has also recently completed their first full maiden flight of a 300 kg platform, which can deliver medicine and other time-sensitive supplies of up to a 100 kg payload. Their 1000 kg platform is currently under development, with plans for initial flights in 2020. AutoFlightX believes their 1000 kg platform will ultimately pave the path to air taxis, which will hold up to four passengers and have a range of >300 km with a single charge.
To find out more about TDK Ventures, interested startups or investment partners may contact TDK Ventures: www.tdk-ventures.com or [email protected].
About TDK Corporation TDK Corporation is a leading electronics company based in Tokyo, Japan. It was established in 1935 to commercialize ferrite, a key material in electronic and magnetic products. TDK’s comprehensive portfolio features passive components such as ceramic, aluminum electrolytic and film capacitors, as well as magnetics, high-frequency, and piezo and protection devices. The product spectrum also includes sensors and sensor systems such as temperature and pressure, magnetic, and MEMS sensors. In addition, TDK provides power supplies and energy devices, magnetic heads and more. These products are marketed under the product brands TDK, Chirp, EPCOS, InvenSense, Micronas, Tronics and TDK-Lambda. TDK focuses on demanding markets in the areas of information and communication technology and automotive, industrial and consumer electronics. The company has a network of design and manufacturing locations and sales offices in Asia, Europe, and in North and South America. In fiscal 2019, TDK posted total sales of USD 12.5 billion and employed about 105,000 people worldwide.
About TDK Ventures TDK Ventures Inc. invests in startups to bolster innovation in materials science, energy/power and related areas typically underrepresented in venture capital portfolios. Established in 2019 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of TDK Corporation, the corporate venture company’s vision is to propel the digital and energy transformations of segments such as health and wellness, next-generation transportation, robotics and industrial, mixed reality and the wider IoT/IIoT markets. TDK Ventures will co-invest and support promising portfolio companies by providing technical expertise and access to global markets where TDK operates. Interested startups or investment partners may contact TDK Ventures: www.tdk-ventures.com or [email protected].
About AutoFlightX AutoFlightX has been dedicated to the development, production, sales and operation of eVTOL since 2017. Founded in Germany, the AutoFlightX team has over 20 years’ experience making model planes, multi-copters, and fixed wing manned electric airplanes. With this experience finding the balance of energy, weight, strength, aerodynamic efficiency, and propulsion system efficiency, AutoFlightX has created a new eVTOL concept. AutoFlightX’s eVTOLs combine the benefits of multicopters with those of conventional fixed-wing aircraft. The vehicles can be used as regularly piloted sports aircraft, unmanned highly automated cargo drones, and as unpiloted highly automated air taxis. To learn more about AutoFlightX, visit https://autoflightx.com/ or contact the company at https://AutoflightX.com/#contact.
You can download this text and associated images from https://www.tdk-ventures.com/tdk-ventures-invests-autoflightx View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200130005758/en/ Contacts for Media TDK Ms. Kim BROSOWSKY Karbo Communications San Francisco +1 415-255-6512 [email protected] TDK Ventures Mr. David A. ALMOSLINO InvenSense/Chirp Microsystems San Jose, CA +1 408-501-2278 [email protected] VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Stoplight Closes $6M Series A Funding Round, Strengthens Market Leadership in API Design Management | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/stoplight-closes-6m-series-a-funding-round-strengthens-market-leadership-in-api-design-management"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Press Release Stoplight Closes $6M Series A Funding Round, Strengthens Market Leadership in API Design Management Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Series A funding round co-led by Next Coast Ventures, Bill Wood Ventures API design management platform continues category-defining growth Austin company plans to build out engineering efforts, tooling and product roadmap AUSTIN, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–January 30, 2020– Stoplight , the enterprise API Design Management company, today announced a $6M Series A round of funding. Co-led by Next Coast Ventures and Bill Wood Ventures, the current round brings total funding to date to $10M. Stoplight will utilize the funding to augment engineering efforts, accelerating its product roadmap and covering more customer use cases.
A Gartner Cool Vendor in Application Development and Platforms , Stoplight helps organize and manage the more than 22,000 APIs.
As a lack of standards and governance continues to threaten the resilience of enterprise APIs, Stoplight’s complete lifecycle platform enables best practices, efficiencies and consistencies that were previously lacking.
“With IoT and AI poised to rise to new heights of integration in the coming decade, enterprises finally have the opportunity to unburden their microservices architecture,” said Stoplight CEO Marc Macleod. “Next Coast Ventures and Bill Wood Ventures have deep experience building lasting B2B companies, and we couldn’t ask for better partners to grow Stoplight to the next phase of success.” Launched in the fall of 2019, Stoplight Studio quickly became the category’s best-in-class API designer. The company saw over 200% YoY growth in 2019, hired 15 new employees and launched two new products.
“Stoplight created the category of API design management, and their incredible traction validates what the market needs,” said Mike Smerklo, co-founder and managing director of Next Coast Ventures. “API-first design is becoming a fundamental component of enterprise engineering, and we have full confidence that Stoplight will only deepen their category leadership in the next several years.” “The online world is evolving into a network of connected sensors and smart devices,” said Bill Wood, general partner at Bill Wood Ventures. “Without adequate API design management, the next evolution will never reach its full potential. Stoplight is an integral part of enabling developers to design our new online world.” To learn more about Stoplight, visit stoplight.io.
About Stoplight Stoplight’s mission is to enable all stakeholders working with APIs to be more productive. Stoplight’s API Design Management software platform provides a suite of products that cover the entire pre-production API life cycle. Stoplight’s customers include companies in the Fortune 1000. Stoplight’s products provide a means for design-first microservice application development. Developing good design-first practices will minimize future costs, speed up your time to market and lead to more consistent, higher quality microservice and IoT applications. You can learn more about Stoplight and Stoplight Studio at https://stoplight.io or connect with Stoplight on Twitter @Stoplightio.
About Next Coast Ventures Next Coast Ventures is an Austin-based venture capital firm that partners with bold entrepreneurs building innovative companies in big markets. It provides early-stage capital to high-growth startups in ‘Next Coast’ markets, using macro trends and themes to guide their investment strategy. NCV provides hands-on, company building resources to its growing portfolio through its strong industry network, Entrepreneurs Council program and the founders’ own experiences as entrepreneurs. Learn more at www.nextcoastventures.com.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200130005608/en/ Treble Ethan Parker [email protected] 512.960.8223 VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Secret Oops makes its AR debut on Apple Arcade | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/secret-oops-makes-its-ar-debut-on-apple-arcade"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Secret Oops makes its AR debut on Apple Arcade Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Secret Oops Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Game studio MixedBag is unveiling its Secret Oops augmented reality game today on Apple Arcade.
The AR title is the fourth AR game on Apple Arcade, joining Spek from developer RAC7, Rosie’s Reality from developer RosieReality, and Possesions from developer Noodlecake (a noted mobile publisher and developer known for excellent games like Super Stickman Golf).
Secret Oops is a co-op action game in which players use AR to make sure that the world’s dumbest spy evades his foes. When a new threat arises, and briefcases start to disappear all over the world, the S.P.Y. Agency (which has the honor of being the only spy agency in the world run by … pigeons), sends its best agent to investigate: Special Agent Charles.
Charles is the best spy in the world, but … he’s also as dumb as a rock. Security cameras? Deadly traps? Dangerous robot-guards? Charles will trigger them all, and he’ll do it with glee.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Above: Help the dumbest spy escape in Secret Oops.
As the player, you help him. Gather with family and friends, place the virtual game board and use AR to move around, interact with the virtual world, talk, and cooperate with the other players to devise the perfect plan and execute it. Players need careful planning and perfect coordination to succeed: communication is the key.
At launch, Secret Oops will offer two game worlds with 35 levels for up to four players.
Secret Oops AR functionalities are powered by Apple’s ARKit 3, while the cartoon game world is built on top of the Metal 2 graphic applications programming interface.
MixedBag will add more worlds, levels, game mechanics and extras in the following months.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
Discover our Briefings.
Join the GamesBeat community! Enjoy access to special events, private newsletters and more.
VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Scopely teams up with Hasbro to make Scrabble Go mobile game | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/scopely-teams-up-with-hasbro-to-make-scrabble-go-mobile-game"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Scopely teams up with Hasbro to make Scrabble Go mobile game Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Scopely is launching Scrabble Go on mobile soon.
Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Scopely has unveiled that it has teamed up with Hasbro and Mattel to make a new Scrabble mobile game dubbed Scrabble Go.
Aiming to pick up on the long love affair that casual players have had with Scrabble and its various knockoffs, Scopely hopes to reimagine the franchise and come up with a massive free-to-play hit under an official license for the 80-year-old Scrabble franchise.
The big rival at the moment is Zynga’s Words With Friends , a 10-year-old game that has hundreds of millions of players and generates considerable profits.
Taking over from EA The Culver City, California-based Scopely will take over the license from Electronic Arts, which has a live Scrabble mobile game still. That game hasn’t been much of a success in competition with Zynga’s title, and that explains why EA is giving up the license after having it since 2009.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! The deal comes after Scopely, the maker of Star Trek: Fleet Command, announced that it is buying FoxNext Games Los Angeles from Disney. Scopely has partnered with Hasbro since 2015 on the Yahtzee With Buddies mobile game, which has resulted in 200 billion dice roles.
“We had an existing relationship with Hasbro,” said Tim O’Brien, the chief revenue officer at Scopely, in an interview with GamesBeat. “We had Yahtzee with Buddies, and we started thinking about this a couple of years ago.” A fresh take on an 80-year-old franchise O”Brien said Scopely will have a fresh take “on the global phenomenon and greatest word game of all time.” You can register for the mobile game on Google Play. It will launch on Android and iOS later this year.
Asked about Words With Friends, O’Brien said, “We’re just very excited and focused on delivering the best game possible. We don’t launch a product until we have the most immersive game experience, plus an amazing retention curve for a game that we can build. And for us, it’s about making sure that global Scrabble players enjoy it.” Scopely wants to go after all types of players, from casual fans to fierce competitors, and it will have multiple game modes, from classic mode to various new modes. It worked with one of the best Scrabble players in the U.S.
New partners “We’re going to invite the current Scrabble users in the EA game to come over to Scrabble Go once we go global, thanks to a good partnership with EA,” O’Brien said.
Scopely is working with game studio PierPlay to make the game. EA lost the war with Zynga’s Words With Friends in mobile games, and before that, the official Scrabble games fell victim to a knockoff called Scrabulous on Facebook. That game was eventually taken down due to copyright infringement lawsuits.
O’Brien said that EA Scrabble players can continue to play for several months, even after Scrabble Go launches. That will allow for a transition period for the existing fans. After that, Scrabble Go will be the exclusive licensed mobile game.
“We will have the exclusive Scrabble game and the exclusive Scrabble dictionaries, which also is something that is very special,” O’Brien said.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
Discover our Briefings.
Join the GamesBeat community! Enjoy access to special events, private newsletters and more.
VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"OneWeb readies internet satellites for launch | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/oneweb-readies-internet-satellites-for-launch"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages OneWeb readies internet satellites for launch Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn OneWeb prepares to launch its first regular series of micro satellites into orbit Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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OneWeb , the heavily funded startup that’s setting out to create a constellation of micro satellites to deliver broadband from space, is finally gearing up for the first in a series of regular monthly launches throughout 2020 and beyond.
The London-based company, which was founded in 2012, is one of a number of organizations battling to commercialize low Earth orbit (LEO) through delivering fiber-like high-speed internet from more than 600 satellites. While the infrastructure helps telecom and internet companies extend their coverage to areas that are otherwise hard to reach, it also ensures always-on coverage during natural disasters and will enable new technologies that are coming to the fore.
OneWeb launched 6 micro-satellites last February as it sought “first mover advantage,” with that initial foray laying the foundations for its first proper launches, which were originally scheduled for December. The self-imposed deadline later slipped to mid-to-late-January , but now the company has confirmed the big day for early February.
Above: OneWeb At 21:42 (GMT) on February 6, OneWeb will launch 34 satellites into orbit from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, ushering in what it calls one of the “largest civilian satellite launch campaigns in history.” All the satellites are manufactured by OneWeb Satellites, a joint venture between OneWeb and Airbus Defence and Space , and plans are in place to push 648 satellites into space by 2021. This number could increase significantly, though, if an application to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proves fruitful.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Arctic OneWeb has already given a glimpse into the kinds of services its infrastructure will enable. Back in September, it revealed that its first commercial service will be aimed at the Arctic region. When it becomes operational, OneWeb promises 375Gbps of capacity for all areas lying above the 60th parallel north, a circle of latitude 60 degrees north of the Equator that spans North America, Europe, and Asia.
Above: Rough path of 60th parallel north Building this infrastructure is a costly endeavor, which is why OneWeb has raised north of $3 billion over the past seven years from big-name entities including SoftBank, Qualcomm, Grupo Salinas, and the Rwandan government.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is also operating in this realm, and just yesterday it launched its fourth tranche of rockets into orbit following its initial batch last May , and now claims some 240 Starlink satellites in space. Elsewhere, Amazon too is planning a network of low-orbit satellites, though it hasn’t yet announced a timescale, and Apple is reportedly in the early stages of a similar program.
OneWeb said that it’s planning its first demos by the end of 2020, with full commercial services expected to commence globally in 2021.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
Discover our Briefings.
The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"In the streaming wars, everyone is winning | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/in-the-streaming-wars-everyone-is-winning"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Analysis In the streaming wars, everyone is winning Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Glancing at the data from the first heat of the great streaming wars, it appears that each of the major platforms is winning in their own way.
This would seem to defy logic and conventional wisdom, but it tracks well with what some analysts had been projecting. While streaming has been getting tremendous hype in recent years, it’s still small compared to conventional television viewing. That means there is plenty of room for everyone to grow.
And rather than picking one streaming service over another, consumers appear comfortable having multiple subscriptions.
As the big name in streaming, Netflix has a target painted on its back, but it continues to chug along just fine.
In its most recent earnings , the company reported that it now has 167 million subscribers in 190 countries. While its U.S. growth has slowed a bit, it can boast of having Oscar nominations for several prestigious films ( The Two Popes , The Irishman , A Marriage Story ). And its investment in international local content far surpasses that of any rival and should give it a strong advantage for years to come.
Meanwhile, Amazon disclosed in its earnings this week that : “Prime members watched double the hours of original movies and TV shows on Prime Video this quarter compared to last year, and Amazon Originals received a record 88 nominations and 26 wins at major awards shows.” While Amazon, per usual, didn’t offer a lot of underlying data to give this claim context, it did disclose that the number of Prime subscribers overall has grown from 100 million in 2018 to 150 million people who now have access to its free shipping and Prime Video. Whatever the actual viewing numbers, it would seem Amazon’s video service is contributing to growth of a key feature that keeps people hooked into its ecommerce ecosystem.
Apple TV+ shares a similar goal: to make the company’s existing products even more attractive. People purchasing new Apple gadgets get a free one-year subscription to a service that at the moment has a mere 16 series and movies.
In Apple’s earnings this week , the company didn’t provide any detail on the number of subscribers.
However, a recent report from Ampere suggested Apple TV+ had 33.6 million subscribers in the 100 countries where it is available, though most are not as of yet paying for the service.
Still, Apple’s sales of iPhones during the holiday period, when Apple TV+ launched, were much stronger than expected. It’s hard to give too much credit to Apple TV+, but the service is certainly a nice gift for people choosing to buy Apple products. “Apple TV+ is off to a rousing start,” CEO Tim Cook declared on a conference call.
Finally, Disney will report earnings next week on February 4. But early signs already indicate that the launch of Disney Plus in November has been a big success, with a reported 24 million subscribers signing up for its massive content vault. And the Mouse is just getting started on its international rollout. Though there is a free trial period, and the service is free as a bundle for some Verizon customers, Disney appears to have already far surpassed the conservative target of 20 million subscribers it had previously set for 2020.
With near-infinite resources, these companies will be slugging it out for years to come. But rather than a winner-take-all brawl, it appears they could all thrive in their own way, leaving it to consumers to choose how many services they want to watch.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"GamesBeat Summit speakers: Edward Saatchi, Elan Lee, and Doron Nir | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/gamesbeat-summit-speakers-edward-saatchi-elan-lee-and-doron-nir"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages VB Event GamesBeat Summit speakers: Edward Saatchi, Elan Lee, and Doron Nir Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn The Virtual Beings Summit drew hundreds to Fort Mason in San Francisco.
Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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GamesBeat Summit 2020 will focus on the latest trends in the gaming ecosystem , and today we’re introducing a trio of speakers who are bringing exciting ideas to the industry.
In separate talks, Edward Saatchi of Fable Studios, Doron Nir of StreamElements, and Elan Lee of Exploding Kittens will speak at our event, which will take place on April 28 and April 29 in downtown Los Angeles at Two Bit Circus , a “micro-amusement park.” This place combines old-style circus and arcade games with modern virtual reality entertainment in the city’s Arts District.
You can register for tickets here under our early-bird pricing at 30% off. You can see 23 of the speakers listed on the event site, and we’ll have 100 speakers by April.
Other previously announced speakers include: Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Nicolo Laurent , CEO of Riot Games Gary Whitta , screenwriter for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and former editor of PC Gamer Tina Amini , editor-in-chief of games at IGN Richard Lemarchand , associate professor at the USC Games program Nika Nour , executive director of International Game Developers Association Foundation David Gardner , cofounder of London Venture Partners Anantha Duraiappah , director of UNESCO MGIEP, a promoter of games for peace Andrea Rene , cofounder of What’s Good Games Mari “AtomicMari” Takahashi , cofounder of Smosh Games Paola “Pancakepow” Alejandra , creator of Pancakepow.com Joshua “Jovenshire” Ovenshire We’ve got more speakers that we haven’t announced yet. They will have their own way of expressing what our theme — the Dawn of a New Generation — means to them.
It’s a time of change in the game industry. Console makers are moving ahead with their new machines. Cloud gaming efforts like Google Stadia are joining the fray. Apple is driving hard with Apple Arcade, and HBO, Netflix, and others are moving into games. The digital delivery stores are proliferating, giving competition to the old guard like Steam. And AR/VR companies are trying to get off the ground with new tech.
Gaming is moving down parallel paths, finding new ways to turn all of us into gamers. It is an ever-widening circle of opportunity, and our speakers will talk about how to best navigate these transitions to new machines, new markets, new business models, and new technologies such as artificial intelligence.
Edward Saatchi, cofounder of Fable Studios Above: Edward Saatchi, cofounder of Fable.
Edward is an Emmy Award-winning entrepreneur; producer of Oculus Story Studio’s Lost, Henry, Dear Angelica and Quill; and cofounder of Oculus Story Studio. He founded NationalField as part of the Obama campaign and was named as Forbes “30 under 30” in technology for his technical contributions to the 2008 and 2012 campaigns with NationalField. Edward cofounded Fable in 2017.
Edward has been exploring the pioneering, exciting, and scary field of artificial people. He runs the Virtual Beings Summit , which is drawing crowds that want to learn about making virtual characters and bringing them to life with AI. We’ll talk about the intersection of virtual beings, AI, and games in a fireside chat.
Elan Lee, cofounder of Exploding Kittens Above: Elan Lee Elan Lee is a professional technologist and storyteller. His pioneering work in entertainment has spanned everything from multiple startups raising millions of dollars to creating the Alternate Reality Game (ARG) genre.
I’ve interviewed Lee throughout his career, and his creativity has always struck me in his quest to entertain us in new ways. And most hilariously, he has teamed up with The Oatmeal’s Matt Inman to make tabletop card games like Exploding Kittens.
And those tabletop projects are turning out to be a great way not only to make money but also test ideas for digital games. Lee will be doing a fireside chat at our event.
Elan started his career at the Microsoft Games Studio, where he was a lead designer on the original Xbox. He next cofounded 42 Entertainment (the company behind I Love Bees, Nine Inch Nails: Year Zero, and The Dark Knight). Elan was also the founder and chief creative officer of Fourth Wall Studios, and the chief design officer at Xbox Entertainment Studios. Elan most recently co-created Exploding Kittens, the most funded game on Kickstarter and the most backed crowdfunded project in history.
Elan has spoken all over the world on the future of gaming and storytelling. He has won a Primetime Emmy for the series Dirty Work , the Game Innovator of the Year award for Exploding Kittens, and an IndieCade Trailblazer Award for a distinguished career in interactive entertainment.
He has been featured in Wired Magazine, the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, and the Wall Street Journal. He has also won awards for Best Web Game of the Year, Best Advertising Campaign of the Year, and Best Idea of the Year.
Doron Nir, CEO of StreamElements Above: Doron Nir is the CEO of StreamElements.
Doron Nir is the CEO and cofounder of StreamElements. He is a serial entrepreneur, gamer, and visionary, driven by a passion for product development, content creation, and the goal of helping creators achieve success.
Doron will be talking about brands in the age of the influencer. With the democratization of social media and online communication, we see the rise of a new media entity: The influencer.
Influencers are essentially one-person media companies that are amassing massive engaged audiences with the ability to drive game purchases and move products like never before. In this talk, Doron will share relevant learnings based on the film industry, explore the power of influencers in live streaming, and show how marketers can harness the power of live streamers to connect their brands to the best communities.
Nir has been involved in the games industry for over 25 years with a background including being a veteran game designer, a cofounder of GameIS (Israeli Digital Game Developers Association), an entrepreneur (Happy Sale), and one of the top podcasters in Hebrew (Geekonomy).
Doron is also a lecturer of game design and product development at the Interdisciplinary Center Hertzlia. Currently he is the most cited industry expert on the influencer-driven livestreaming trend, with inclusion in 45-plus stories over the past year in outlets such as VentureBeat , Bloomberg, New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Forbes, The Verge, Hollywood Reporter, and AdWeek.
What to expect We’re honored to have these speakers. They’ll be speaking in fireside chats, panels, and solo talks across our three stages: The Boss Stage (CEO/business talks), The Hero Stage (triple-A game developers and consumer-oriented talks), and The Bonus Stage (special talks).
The event will span all of games. We think that bringing the leaders of the industry together from different sectors helps refine the best thinking, and you often get wisdom from lessons that are hard learned. These kinds of talks and the chance for networking across sectors and industries is what will make our event unique in the crowded conference space.
Our event is going to be an intimate affair. And our location this year once again fits right with our theme. Two Bit Circus is a 40,0000-square-foot playground for all ages, with entertainment that includes escape rooms, virtual reality experiences, a VIP loft, live interactive games, a robot bartender show, and modern versions of carnival games. Our attendees will be able to hear business talks in the Club 101 auditorium and consumer-focused talks in a second hall.
We’re still forming our topics around next-generation gaming. The discussions will likely focus on investing in games; mergers and acquisitions and the changes they will bring about; the globalization of games; diversity; esports; the psychology of games; rising regulation; AI’s impact on games; games for peace; the rise of influencers; the convergence of sci-fi, tech, and games; monetization; blockchain and cryptocurrency; and debates on topics such as addiction and loot boxes.
This is our 11th year of GamesBeat events and this year promises to be the best one yet. If you’ve never been to our event, here’s my opening speech at last year’s event. And here are links to the videos for day one and day two.
And here’s a summary of a few talks and a story about the Bushnell family that built Two-Bit Circus. Check out those links if you want to see if GamesBeat Summit is for you.
Stay tuned as we announce more great speakers to our first-rate lineup. A partial list of sponsors includes Consumer Acquisition, Rogue Games, Genvid, Niantic, Two Hat Security, Jam City, Scopely, Amber, and Adjust.
Register for GamesBeat 2020 below.
var exampleCallback = function() { console.log('Order complete!'); }; window.EBWidgets.createWidget({ // Required widgetType: 'checkout', eventId: '60771924462', iframeContainerId: 'eventbrite-widget-container-60771924462', // Optional iframeContainerHeight: 425, // Widget height in pixels. Defaults to a minimum of 425px if not provided onOrderComplete: exampleCallback // Method called when an order has successfully completed }); GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
Discover our Briefings.
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"GamesBeat Decides 137: Google Stadia is already failing | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/gamesbeat-decides-137-google-stadia-is-already-failing"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages GamesBeat Decides 137: Google Stadia is already failing Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn It's probably not recognizable enough, but the Stadia logo is upside down here.
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On this week’s episode of the GamesBeat Decides podcast , PC gaming editor Jeffrey Grubb and review editor Mike Minotti are skeptical that Google Stadia has a future. The crew also talks about what they would want from a Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic reboot. Also, if you need to set precedent in your country, don’t try to do so by suing Nintendo. The spirit of Howard Lincoln will come for you. Join us, won’t you? Download here Subscribe to the RSS Listen on Anchor.fm Find past episodes here Also, Mike has finished Tokyo Mirage Sessions, and Jeff has finished Luigi’s Mansion 3. Both feel very positive about each game. Now, it’s time to catch up on some more games.
Here are the games we talk about: Luigi’s Mansion 3 Disco Elysium Tokyo Mirage Sessions GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
Discover our Briefings.
Join the GamesBeat community! Enjoy access to special events, private newsletters and more.
VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Facebook Gaming launches tools for streamers to deal with trolls | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/facebook-gaming-launches-tools-for-streamers-to-deal-with-trolls"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Facebook Gaming launches tools for streamers to deal with trolls Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Melonie Mac is using Facebook's creator tools to manage followers.
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Facebook is launching a dashboard and toolkit for streamers and video makers so they can more easily manage their communities, including viewers who don’t follow the rules.
Facebook worked with the Fair Play Alliance, a coalition of game companies encouraging healthy communities in online gaming, and partnered directly with their executive steering committee to establish rules creators and moderators can use to set guidelines and help avoid disruptive comments.
With the new toolkit, creators and moderators will still be able to remove comments, mute viewers for a short period of time or ban people from their Page or stream. Once someone is banned they will still be able to watch the stream but won’t be able to comment or react to the stream or other people, and their previous comments will be removed.
Melonie Mac , an influencer with a million Facebook followers, has been using the tools for about a week.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! “I think this has been really great for multiple reasons,” said Mac in an interview with GamesBeat. “Facebook is a lot newer in the gaming space. And it is such a massive platform, which is an awesome thing. And we’re able to reach so many people on Facebook, but there are a lot of people who watch streams now because of Facebook. And so they may not have been aware of proper etiquette.
“They see a girl streaming in their Facebook feed. I was getting a lot of problems. Some things that I didn’t want to see. Just very inappropriate comments about me as a woman and things like that and so having this new feature here and being a part of that is just made a huge difference for me.” The partnership was established to ensure the company was representing the needs of the broader gaming community. Facebook is launching its toolkit with eight preset rules. The idea is that these rules will help promote inclusion and respect in communities and make people feel safe to express their voices.
These are the rules: Be accepting Above: Facebook Gaming’s creator toolkit.
Everyone is welcome, regardless of race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, or ability.
Respect boundaries Don’t make advances or comments on appearance that might make someone uncomfortable.
Don’t criticize We all have different styles—don’t judge someone’s gameplay or game choice.
Don’t be rude Don’t intentionally provoke, threaten or insult anyone. We’re all here to have fun.
Don’t flood the chat Keep the conversation going, but don’t repeatedly send the same comments.
Don’t self promote We’re not here for a sales pitch. Stay focused on the stream.
Keep it clean If it’s shocking, obscene, vulgar or inflammatory, leave it out.
No profanity Features of the toolkit include: Clear Standards : Creators can select from a list of gaming-specific rules for their community before they go live. They can also add an additional custom description about their stream to help set expectations about type of conversation they want to foster. Once a creator selects rules from the Chat Rules section of the streamer dashboard, fans will be asked to accept the rules before they’re allowed to leave a comment.
Content Removals : We’ve made comment removals happen in real time, so that when a comment is removed or someone is banned, their comments will disappear from the stream immediately.
Transparency in Moderation : Moderators will also now be able to select which rules were violated so the fan can receive feedback about why their content was removed. This level of transparency will help creators educate their audience and inform well-intentioned fans who may have inadvertently broken a rule.
Moderation Dashboard : In addition to these rules, moderators will now have access to a new moderation dashboard with resources to prevent harassment, protect their privacy, and help ensure creators feel safe.
Facebook Gaming product manager Clara Siegel said in a statement that content creators come to Facebook to build positive and supportive communities around the games they love. The tools are aimed at fostering inclusive environments.
“While our Community Standards protect against the most egregious harms like hate speech and terrorism, sometimes all it takes is one person being rude, mean or simply disruptive to ruin a conversation for everyone,” Siegel said. “And what may be considered competitive banter in one streaming community, might be considered toxic in another. Gaming creators are tone setters, so that’s why we’re releasing a toolkit to help them set guidelines for positive conversations in their community.” Creators will be able to access the toolkit rules through a Chat Rules button in the streamer dashboard. While creators often list chat rules in their Page description or at the bottom of a stream, the new toolkit makes rules more visible and gives creators a baseline of eight preset rules to start with.
Facebook will expand and update the rules based on feedback from creators and the way gaming community conversations evolve. Facebook has been testing the tools with a small group of creators like Mac, and it will roll them out globally in the coming months.
Mac’s followers can see right in the chat what the rules are. Mac has been streaming full-time since 2013, so she’s an old hand at this. But moderating has always been a hassle, and she hires people to do it for her. Her biggest problem is people joining her chat to flirt with her.
With the Facebook toolkit, you can see on the dashboard the different kinds of things that you that should be flagged to you, she said.
“Facebook has always talked to creators and asked what we’d want to see,” Mac said. “I’ve told them my problems that I’ve had with some comments. On the dashboard, I have the opportunity to add my own rules is great.” Mac has moderators who govern her chat. The moderators can offer warnings for those who violate the rules or just ban the offenders outright, and the reason for the offense is made clear, automatically.
I asked Mac what kind of banhammer she carries.
“I establish with my moderators some rules, like if somebody is doing something, and they don’t realize and it’s not deliberately rude, they can get a warning first,” she said. “If they use a pet name like, ‘Hey sweetie,’ they can get a warning that says please don’t use pet names and use my real name.” She added, “I don’t like to be too quick to ban for things like that. But if somebody is deliberately saying something just very rude and they’re just there to be mean or just there to be disgusting, that’s just an automatic ban.” The war against trolls might be unwinnable, but anything that makes getting rid of them easier is a good thing to Mac.
“Having these rules has made a difference in making people realize that, hey, you know, this is a friendly community,” she said. “We’re all like a big family here. We like to play games, have fun. And just everybody in chat becomes friends with each other. And so it’s not even just about me as a streamer. It’s about the entire community. And I think having those rules up there helps people realize that this is the mainstream. This isn’t the place to pick up a girl or anything. It’s a fun community.” GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
Discover our Briefings.
Join the GamesBeat community! Enjoy access to special events, private newsletters and more.
VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Facebook fights spread of coronavirus misinformation | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/facebook-fights-spread-of-coronavirus-misinformation"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Analysis Facebook fights spread of coronavirus misinformation Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Facebook: mobile app and website Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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As the Wuhan coronavirus death toll rises to more than 200 people and the number of confirmed cases reaches nearly 10,000 across more than 15 countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday declared a “public health emergency of international concern.” But as the coronavirus continues to spread, so does misinformation around ways to prevent and treat it.
False claims of potential vaccines and preposterous prevention methods such as avoiding cold food or not eating spicy food have been shared widely across social media. “Miracle cures” such as rinsing your mouth with a saline solution or drinking bleach have also reared their heads.
Now Facebook has confirmed that it’s looking to “limit the spread” of misinformation about the coronavirus while directing people toward helpful information. The company said it’s fact-checking content and debunking false claims across its main Facebook property and Instagram, as well as surfacing accurate information. Facebook also said it’s proactively sending notifications to people who have already shared — or are actively trying to share — falsehoods relating to the coronavirus.
Additionally, Facebook said it will begin removing content that involves false claims or far-fetched conspiracy theories around how the virus has spread while blocking or “restricting” hashtags that increase exposure to misinformation.
“We’re focusing on claims that are designed to discourage treatment or taking appropriate precautions,” noted Facebook’s head of health, Kang-Xing Jin. “This includes claims related to false cures or prevention methods — like [the claim that] drinking bleach cures the coronavirus or claims that create confusion about health resources that are available.” Tellingly, Facebook said its efforts involve finding and removing “as much of this content as we can,” a tacit acknowledgement that it can’t thwart every dubious piece of content on its platform. But that is the price of creating a gargantuan network of 2 billion people who are free to create and share whatever ludicrous theories and medical solutions they like.
New reality On the flip side, social media can be used to share accurate information more quickly, including through partnerships with education and health organizations such as WHO. Moreover, Facebook’s sheer scale also means it’s well positioned to map and track diseases by combining satellite imagery, computer vision, census data, and proprietary data — all part of its Data for Good program.
“We are empowering leading researchers at Harvard University’s School of Public Health and National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan by sharing aggregated and anonymized mobility data and high-resolution population density maps to help inform their forecasting models for the spread of the virus as part of our broader Data for Good program,” Kang-Xing Jin added. “We may expand these efforts to a broader set of partners in the coming weeks.” But when fake news is thrown into the mix alongside all the good stuff, what we end up with is a cacophonous crackle that leaves millions of people unsure what to believe.
This is just a typical day on social media, of course, where fighting falsities and fake news has become the new reality.
Back in 2018, reports emerged that Facebook was featuring homemade cancer “cures” more prominently than genuine information from renowned organizations. To combat this, the company revealed that it would “downgrade” posts that promoted miracle cures — leaving them up but making them less visible. A separate report found that YouTube videos were promoting bleach as a cure for autism.
Countless other examples of user-generated nonsense (UGN) permeate these platforms, such as conspiracy theories about mass shooting events being staged and far-fetched proclamations that the moon landing never happened or that the Earth is flat. Last year, YouTube promised to cull such videos from its recommendations engine.
The coronavirus outbreak is serious, and it could get a whole lot worse before it gets better. The spread of misinformation surrounding it only compounds matters, but it also serves to highlight the uphill battle Facebook and other social media platforms face across the entire “fake” spectrum — be that fake reviews, fake goods, or fake news.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"EA beats expectations with $1.98 billion in Q3 revenue as live operations grow | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/ea-beats-expectations-with-1-98-billion-in-q3-revenue-as-live-operations-grow"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages EA beats expectations with $1.98 billion in Q3 revenue as live operations grow Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Electronic Arts reported earnings today that beat Wall Street’s expectations for the third fiscal quarter ended December 31, thanks to strong games like Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and live operations revenues from existing games.
The Redwood City, California-based EA, a bellwether for video game companies, said its earnings per share were $2.52 a share on non-GAAP revenues (bookings) of $1.978 billion, as calculated by Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter. That compares to analyst expectations of adjusted EPS of $2.45 on revenue of $1.94 billion. In afterhours trading, EA’s stock price was down 6% at $105 a share. (So yes, it’s not really clear why the stock is falling).
For the fourth fiscal quarter, EA said its non-GAAP revenue (bookings) are expected to be $1.152 billion (down from $1.165 billion) and 93 cents a share (up from 88 cents a share).
In the prior second fiscal quarter ended September 30, EA reported adjusted earnings per share of 97 cents on revenue of $1.277 million.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! “It was an excellent third quarter, with our new games and live services delighting more players around the world,” said EA CEO Andrew Wilson in a statement. “Our amazing creative teams at Electronic Arts continue to deliver some of the most high-quality, innovative and engaging experiences and content to a growing global audience.” Before the earnings came out, analyst Colin Sebastian of Baird Equity Research said in a note that the game industry faces the challenge of big game delays and a dip in sales as players postpone purchases until the new game consoles come out in the fall.
During the quarter, EA launched Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville, Need for Speed: Heat and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
Above: Welcome to Neighborville help EA’s bottom line this quarter.
FIFA Ultimate Team matches were up nearly 40% year-over-year from launch through Q3. And during the quarter, The Sims 4 surpassed 20 million unique players worldwide life-to-date.
Digital net bookings hit $4.128 billion for the past 12 months, up 15% from a year earlier, and it now represents 77% of total net bookings. In the previous quarter, it was 78% of net bookings.
“Over the last 12 months, we have delivered record live services revenue, live services net bookings, and operating cash flow,” said chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen in a statement. “Our broad-based business model reduces our dependence on individual titles and enables us to deliver financial results for our shareholders by providing a constant stream of high-quality entertainment for our players. We expect live services to continue to drive growth in fiscal 2021 and for growth to accelerate in fiscal 2022, led by a new Battlefield.” For the full year, EA said GAAP net revenue is expected to be $5.475 billion, while net income is expected to be $2.93 billion, with $1.705 billion of that related to the one-time income tax benefit.
For the fourth fiscal quarter ending March 31, GAAP net revenue is expected to be approximately $1.325 billion, EA said. Net income is expected to be about $308 million, or $1.05 a share.
EA’s mobile division was weaker, with revenues down 6% from a year ago at $134 million. EA’s live services were up 27% at $993 million in the quarter.
In a call with analysts, Wilson said that Apex Legends revenues and users continue to grow. He also said Star Wars: Battlefront II revenues were better than expected in the quarter.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
Discover our Briefings.
Join the GamesBeat community! Enjoy access to special events, private newsletters and more.
VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"As retail evolves, 5G and edge computing keep you in the express line | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/as-retail-evolves-5g-and-edge-computing-keep-you-in-the-express-lane"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages As retail evolves, 5G and edge computing keep you in the express line Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn This article is part of the Technology Insight series, made possible with funding from Intel.
Today’s customer doesn’t want to walk into a store and be approached by a clueless salesperson. They want efficiency. Their expectations are higher than ever. Plus, patience is at an all-time low. Those are daunting challenges for any retailer. Fortunately, troves of data promise to bridge the worlds of online and in-person shopping, creating engaging experiences.
As 5G, edge computing, and AI proliferate, we’re going to start seeing innovation that makes retail even more exciting. Real-time analytics, high-speed connectivity, and low latency come together to breathe life into personalized recommendations, augmented reality, video chat with subject matter experts, and more.
Key points Today’s retail experience is efficient, but impersonal Data makes it possible to know what customers want before they step foot in a store Retailers must master omnichannel — integrating mobile apps, social media, in-store shopping, and more — to create the seamless experiences 5G, edge computing, AI, and IoT all have play key roles in the data-driven evolution.
Why do we need a better shopping experience? According to research published by McKinsey ahead of the 2019 holiday season, 62% of shoppers planned to make their purchases online and in-store. Only 12% admitted to buying gifts spontaneously — in-depth research was far more prevalent. And the top motivator for participating in a shopping event was attractive offers. The winners, McKinsey concluded, would be retailers able to target their marketing to make it relevant, master the omnichannel experience, and win consideration with perfectly timed campaigns.
Adding computer vision to self-service kiosks makes them much more capable, enabling improved loss prevention, gesture recognition, and personalized offers.Easier said than done, right? Data is what makes each of those goals attainable, determining who should see what, and when. Too often, though, technology is used for the sole purpose of improving efficiency, sacrificing intimacy in the process. Retail is bigger and faster as a result. But we’ve lost the personal touch of a real human who knows your face. While most shoppers believe that today’s self-service technologies improve the retail experience, those same tools aren’t very good at helping customers find products or make suggestions.
The future of retail, then, combines efficiency and personalization. It leverages data from sensors and analytics performed at the edge to create a more engaging shopping experience.
How do 5G and edge computing enable next-gen retail? Let’s make this a little more real. You’re in the market for a new laptop. You read the reviews and have a couple models in mind, so you throw them into a cart on your favorite electronics store’s website. But before you pull the trigger on one of them, you want to go hands-on. As you walk up to the door, facial recognition software that you agreed to use (trust is going to be a major topic of conversation here) identifies your face. It sends information to someone inside who’s ready to help find those machines. You make your choice and start heading for the door. But before you get there, a notification alerts you to a sale on wireless gaming mice and headsets. Nice save. With all three items in your arms, you walk back to the car. Your credit card is on-file, and sensors already scanned your purchases on the way out.
Before, during, and after your transaction, data is gathered, stored, and analyzed to create a seamless experience. Scaled out to hundreds or thousands of customers interacting with an even greater number of IoT sensors, that’s a potential mess without the right technologies in place. But 5G and edge computing come together and alleviate the bottlenecks imposed by previous-gen standards, widening the pipes in dense environments for information to flow in real-time.
Above: Vispera ShelfSight employs IoT cameras, edge computing, and AI to monitor and manage shelf space in real-time.
Elements of this scenario are already on display. For instance, Intel hosted UST Global and Cloudpick in its booth at NFR 2020.
Their Frictionless Checkout Store solution employs AI technologies based on OpenVINO, IoT sensors, and edge computing to identify products and shopping behaviors. With a retailer’s app running on your mobile device, you can walk into a frictionless store, walk out with a shopping cart full of goods, and automatically pay as you exit. Logjams at the checkout counter become a thing of the past, and associates are freed up to help with customer service.
Even self-service kiosks are learning new tricks with the help of AI and edge computing. Infusing self-checkout systems with computer vision, for instance, gives them the ability to confirm that the item you scan matches what’s in your bag. Vision algorithms have other applications, too. Identifying faces (to authenticate payment), recognizing gestures (for touchless commands), and facilitating personalized offers are all potential additions to the machines we use today.
As 5G proliferates, so will the opportunities to make retail sing. Virtual fitting rooms will leverage the high bandwidth and low latency of 5G networks to render customers clothed in the latest fashions, while compute power on the edge recommends complementary accessories. Smart shelves will help manage inventory. And data-hungry robots will help customers find what they’re looking for. All of those technologies will lead to better shopping experiences. “A positive experience can turn one-time guests into loyal guests, but it often requires a network with high reliability and low latency,” said Phillip Hartfield, GM of AT&T business solutions for retail.
The whole is bigger than the sum of its parts In a recent blog post , Joe Jensen, general manager of Intel’s retail solutions division, answered the question: How will using data at the edge alter the retail industry? “It will enable retailers to take advantage of advancements in AI, computer vision, machine learning, augmented reality, IoT, and robotics. The benefits include becoming more responsive, agile, and customer focused.” Above: Computer vision, IoT sensors, and deep learning come together in Amazon’s checkout-free Go stores.
Surprisingly, or perhaps not, Amazon is stepping up to show more traditional retailers how it’s done. The company’s stores in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and Seattle serve as the most recent examples of retail done right. Amazon is using computer vision, an amalgamation of sensors, and deep learning to enable checkout-free shopping. It’s also demonstrating a mastery of omnichannel by populating its Go app with inventory information from each location, allowing you to browse what’s available before visiting. Because the experience is so streamlined, the staff you find working can dedicate themselves to preparing food, stocking shelves, and answering questions.
Flashy new online and AR/VR shopping schemes may grab headlines. But by 2023, ecommerce is expected to account for just 21% of total retail sales , and a mere 5% of grocery sales. Although we’re all eagerly anticipating same-day drone-based delivery services, it’s clear that the experience of purchasing our favorite goods in-person isn’t going away. But shopping will definitely change thanks to technologies designed to ingest data quickly, process it at the edge, cough up analytics in real-time, and provide personalization like we’ve never seen.
The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Aquant raises $30 million for AI that gives customer service agents mission-critical data | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/aquant-raises-30-million-for-ai-that-supplies-customer-service-agents-with-relevant-info"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Aquant raises $30 million for AI that gives customer service agents mission-critical data Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Organizational data is often scattered across systems, hidden within text, and locked within the minds of employees. Given the disparate channels, how might this data be unified and delivered to support agents engaged in service calls? Assaf Melochna and Shahar Chen, former colleagues at workforce management and service optimization company ClickSoftware, advocate an AI- and machine learning-based solution. The two cofounded Aquant , which algorithmically mines and analyzes data from various sources to learn manufacturing, utilities, and telecom companies’ unique service languages and map customer problems to solutions.
Today, in anticipation of substantial growth, Aquant announced that it has raised $30 million in a series B round co-led by Insight Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from Angular Ventures and Silvertech Ventures, bringing its total funding to $40 million in the last 14 months. CEO Chen said the investment will enable the company to meet market demand by growing its engineering, client services, and go-to-market teams. “The expectations from customers of manufacturing companies are growing, just as skilled service workers are retiring. This makes exceptional service delivery more critical, and more challenging, than ever,” he added.
At a high level, Aquant captures the knowledge of subject matter experts by extracting insights from data silos like customer relationship management platforms and enterprise resource planning software. It analyzes the text of customer comments and field technician notes and validates its findings with top performers before delivering prescriptive insights to every member of the service team.
In this respect, Aquant is riding a cross-industry wave of customer experience automation adoption. Gartner predicts that 25% of customer service and support operations will integrate virtual customer assistant or chatbot technology across engagement channels by 2020, up from less than 2% in 2017. It’s common sense — Gartner reports that organizations report a reduction of up to 70% in call, chat, or email inquiries after implementing a virtual customer assistant, and 33% savings per voice engagement.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Chen says Aquant takes only days to learn a service language from customer tickets, parts catalogs, inventory, supply chains, internet of things alerts, and more. Its AI algorithms identify patterns and make decisions as they interpret the differences in the way service issues are described. Aquant then extrapolates context and intent and maps problems to the right solutions as it prioritizes technicians’ job schedules based on business goals.
Aquant aims to optimize part pickup, eliminate the inefficiencies of assigning a depot for each customer, and mitigate the risks that threaten service business (chiefly noncompliance, machine failure, and customer churn). An intelligent triage feature platform automates answers to customer queries by enabling field service agents to arrive at jobs with an understanding of the issue, in part by surfacing answers to agents’ questions through an existing customer relationship management platform.
Using predictive analytics, Aquant can predict when customer complaints are the result of error or environmental factors versus product failure. The system automatically prompts team members to respond accordingly, in theory eliminating wasted dollars spent on dispatching technicians and diagnosing and replacing parts, and it recommends solutions based on cost-effectiveness while searching for anomalies in warranty claims.
Aquant says its clients — Johnson & Johnson, DSL, the Home Depot, Smart Care Equipment Solutions, Edwards, Stryker, KLA Tencor, BD, TFI Food Equipment, Orbotech, Glory, 3D Systems, Rational, and Haemonetics — experience on average a 34% reduction in repeat visits, a 26% reduction in parts consumption, a 15% increase in first contact resolution, and a 30% reduction in cost per warranty claim.
Perhaps it’s unsurprising, then, that the global customer service automation market is anticipated to be worth $6.23 billion by 2022, up from $1.56 billion in 2016. Top brands include Kustomer , which recently raised $60 million to further develop its customer service process automation platform, and Directly , which this week nabbed $20 million.
Zinier is another — it raked in $90 million in early January for its field service tools that embed AI and machine learning.
“Our mission is to invest in high-growth software companies that are disrupting industries to create more efficiency and maximize productivity,” said Insight Parnters managing director Peter Sobiloff Peter, who plans to join the company’s board of directors. “It was clear to us that Shahar and Assaf have a deep understanding of the field service software landscape and, with this, have a unique opportunity to build something disruptive in the space. Aquant’s centralized SaaS platform and AI technology has the ability to help manufacturers make smarter and faster decisions, which leads to real ROI with both revenue growth and cost savings.” Aquant has offices in New York and Tel Aviv.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"With Google's Meena, are AI assistants about to get a lot smarter? | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/with-googles-meena-are-ai-assistants-about-to-get-a-lot-smarter"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Guest With Google’s Meena, are AI assistants about to get a lot smarter? Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Last year, we got to see coherent, multi-paragraph text generated by OpenAI’s GPT-2 model. This week, a new paper from Google AI showed that a chatbot based on a gigantic neural network and huge amounts of data can hold coherent conversations , maintaining context over multiple turns and conversing on just about any topic. The chatbot is called Meena, and it’s even able to invent jokes (see picture).
As someone who works in this field, I am impressed. (I’m a cofounder of Rasa, a company that offers an open source conversational AI framework that Meena may potentially compete with someday.) But what does this result mean for the future of AI assistants? Known ideas, well executed More data, more computer power, better model, right? We hear this all the time, but it’s interesting to actually put this idea to the test. How far can you push it, and where do the returns flatten out? It’s a question behind multiple headline-catching results like OpenAI’s GPT-2 model and their champion Dota system.
Combine some neural architectures and algorithms that are known to work well, and see what they can achieve when trained on tens or hundreds of times more data. Meena is a sequence-to-sequence model based on a transformer architecture. These are both widely used tools, but this is the first time anyone’s trained such a model at this scale.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! The “newest” part of the paper is a proposed method for evaluating the quality of the chatbot. Meena is an open domain system, meaning that it can talk about anything the user wants to. Evaluating these kinds of models is fiendishly difficult, and coming up with good metrics is a whole field in itself. This paper’s solution is strikingly simple: Show people the chatbot’s responses and ask them first, does this response make sense? And second, is this response specific? A problem with previous sequence-to-sequence models is a tendency to play it safe and come up with generic responses like “I don’t know” or “OK.” Last year’s GPT-2 model was trained on a very simple task: Go through a bunch of text and predict the next word based on the words you’ve already seen. Conceptually, the way Meena was trained is no different; the network just has to predict the next response.
Reasons to be cautious The first thing to mention is that for now, this work is a preprint and hasn’t been peer reviewed. The authors make some strong claims that will have to stand up to scrutiny from experts. The most obvious question is that with 2.6 billion parameters, the authors will have to show convincingly that Meena hasn’t merely (approximately) memorized appropriate responses to just about anything we can say. In any case, there are some clear limitations to Meena that we can already see.
Large neural networks can often seem smart and yet have significant weaknesses. Think of the adversarial patches that trick object detection algorithms but would never throw off a human. Similarly, the GPT-2 model can generate impressively coherent text, but fails at being logically consistent.
Many things that look like natural language understanding problems are actually about understanding the real world. I appreciate that Meena’s authors included some transcripts where the bot fails badly. I love Meena’s imagined anecdote about coastal Arizona: “Yup. I live in southern Arizona, so there’s plenty of surfing to be had.” This should remind us that these models don’t actually understand. That said, they are incredibly powerful tools and can be put to good (and bad!) use.
AI as a public relations risk Looking at the sample conversations in the paper, I am dying for a chance to talk to Meena. I’m so curious and there are so many things I’d like to try. So why isn’t there a demo available? In an accompanying blog post , Google tells us this is related to safety. In the paper, the authors are coy about their source of training data. I assume it’s Reddit, since they talk about “public domain social media conversations … in a comment tree structure”. Where else would you get 341 GB of conversation-like text? It’s notable that Google has not released this publicly yet. Even during the research phase, the authors used an additional filter to remove “sensitive or toxic response[s]”. This isn’t easy to do. Even innocuous responses like “yes” and “no” can be deeply problematic depending on context.
Last year, Microsoft published related work on a model called DialoGPT.
The authors of DialoGPT released their model, but not the decoder that would allow anyone to easily play with it. Google says that they might release Meena’s model in the future, but clearly they don’t want an online demo on a Google domain or in any way affiliated with Google branding.
What needs to happen before this has any impact on real-world chatbots A number of things need to happen before this result can have any impact on real-world chat and voice assistants. First, the authors need to release the model and the training data so that others can build on this research. According to the blog post, Google “may choose to make it available in the coming months.” If the model is released, we will see dozens of papers building on this work in the next months, analyzing the model and building on the ideas in the paper. Remember the BERT model from 2018? There has been so much work on analyzing its behavior that this sub-field has its own name: BERT-ology.
How can we use this research to improve chatbots? The biggest hurdle is that a model like Meena is end-to-end: You put a message in and get a response out. There is no systematic way to control what the model will talk about. The best we can do is sample a lot of candidates and hope that one of them is close to what we want. Meena’s ability to carry context across multiple turns is impressive (just re-read the joke at the top of the page), but the mechanism is hidden from us. Developers can’t just “hook in” and bring this ability into their AI assistants.
Let’s say we were building a chatbot and wanted to integrate Meena just for the excellent jokes. Any time a user says “tell me a joke,” the chatbot hands over to Meena. That’s straightforward enough and should work fine. But given the size of Meena’s model and the number of parameters, I’d be surprised if you could get a response in under five seconds on typical hardware. I really hope that the training data and model are made available, so that researchers and engineers can work on bringing these ideas into a practical system. Compressing large models to make them lean and fast is an active research area at Rasa , where I work.
Not to mention, if Google is being this careful about a release, few people will be comfortable letting Meena loose on their users until the acknowledged risks get addressed.
According to Google : “tackling safety and bias in the models is a key focus area for us, and given the challenges related to this, we are not currently releasing an external research demo.” So, are AI assistants about to get a lot smarter? Yes, but it won’t happen overnight. It’ll require a lot of ingenuity to take these results and translate them into practical improvements for real-world AI assistants. And while I’m biased, of course, my belief is that the open source frameworks will innovate fastest.
Alan Nichol is cofounder and CTO of Rasa, a company that offers an open source conversational AI framework.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"OpenAI goes all-in on Facebook's Pytorch machine learning framework | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/openai-facebook-pytorch-google-tensorflow"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages OpenAI goes all-in on Facebook’s Pytorch machine learning framework Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
In what might only be perceived as a win for Facebook, OpenAI today announced that it will migrate to the social network’s PyTorch machine learning framework in future projects, eschewing Google’s long-in-the-tooth TensorFlow platform. OpenAI is the San Francisco-based AI research firm cofounded by CTO Greg Brockman, chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, Elon Musk, and others, with backing from luminaries like LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman and former Y Combinator president Sam Altman. In a blog post , the company cited PyTorch’s efficiency, scalability, and adoption as the reasons for its decision.
“Going forward we’ll primarily use PyTorch as our deep learning framework but sometimes use other ones when there’s a specific technical reason to do so,” said the company in a statement. “We’re … excited to be joining a rapidly-growing developer community, including organizations like Facebook and Microsoft, in pushing scale and performance on [graphics cards].” OpenAI says that many of its teams have already migrated their work to PyTorch and that they’ll contribute to the PyTorch community in the coming months. Additionally, the company says it plans to make available its Spinning Up in Deep RL educational resource on PyTorch in early 2020, after which point it intends to investigate scaling AI systems with data parallel training, visualizing those systems with model interpretability, and building general-purpose robotics frameworks. (OpenAI is in the process of writing PyTorch bindings for its highly optimized blocksparse kernels, and it says it’ll open-source those bindings in the coming months.) PyTorch, which Facebook publicly released in October 2016, is an open source machine learning library based on Torch, a scientific computing framework and script language that’s in turn based on the Lua programming language. As of March 2018, it incorporates Caffe2, a deep learning toolset pioneered by University of California, Berkeley researchers and further developed by Facebook’s AI Research lab.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! While TensorFlow has been around slightly longer (since November 2015), PyTorch continues to see rapid uptake in the data science and developer community. It claimed one of the top spots for fastest-growing open source projects in the past 12 months, according to GitHub’s 2018 Octoverse report. Facebook recently revealed that in 2019 the number of contributors to the platform grew more than 50% year-over-year to nearly 1,200. An analysis conducted by The Gradient found that every major AI conference in 2019 has had a majority of papers implemented in PyTorch, and O’Reilly noted that PyTorch citations in papers grew by more than 194% in the first half of 2019 alone.
Unsurprisingly, a number of leading machine learning software projects are built on top of PyTorch, including Uber’s Pyro and HuggingFace’s Transformers. Software developer Preferred Networks joined the ranks recently with a pledge to move from its bespoke AI development framework, Chainer, to PyTorch in the near future.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Google researchers release audit framework to close AI accountability gap | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/google-researchers-release-audit-framework-to-close-ai-accountability-gap"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Google researchers release audit framework to close AI accountability gap Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Researchers associated with Google and the Partnership on AI have created a framework to help companies and their engineering teams audit AI systems before deploying them. The framework, intended to add a layer of quality assurance to businesses launching AI, translates into practice values often espoused in AI ethics principles and tackles an accountability gap authors say exists in AI today.
The work, titled “ Closing the AI Accountability Gap: Defining an End-to-End Framework for Internal Algorithmic Auditing ” is one of a handful of outstanding AI ethics research papers accepted for publication as part of the Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAT) conference, which takes place this week in Barcelona, Spain.
“The proposed auditing framework is intended to contribute to closing the development and deployment accountability gap of large-scale artificial intelligence systems by embedding a robust process to ensure audit integrity,” the paper reads. “At a minimum, the internal audit process should enable critical reflections on the potential impact of a system, serving as internal education and training on ethical awareness in addition to leaving what we refer to as a ‘transparency trail’ of documentation at each step of the development cycle.” The framework is also intended to identify risks and reduce them to the lowest degree possible, as well as to map out how things that can be done differently in the future or how to respond to a failure after launch. The method is also intended to go beyond the risk-based assessments some companies perform today that ask “What if?” but often fail to incorporate social or ethical challenges.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Named Scoping, Mapping, Artifact Collection, Testing, and Reflection (SMACTR), the framework aims to encourage companies to perform audits before an AI model is deployed for customer use. In the case of companies like Google, a model can impact the lives of billions of users.
SMACTR audits produce a number of documents, including checklists that go beyond yes or no answers; design history files to document design inputs and outputs, and model cards to make sure AI is deployed for its intended purpose; and failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) to incorporate known issues and experiences from engineers and product designers.
Each letter in SMACTR is meant to act as a stage in the audit process: The Scoping stage is when the risk assessment process and auditors produce assessments of social impact and an ethical review of system use cases.
The Mapping stage is for creating a map of internal stakeholders and identifying key collaborators for the execution of the audit.
The Artifact Collection stage is for creation of an audit checklist as well as datasheets or models cards that document how a model was built, assumptions made during development, and its intended use.
The Testing stage assesses performance using methods like adversarial training and creates an ethical risk analysis chart that identifies the likelihood and severity of a failure or level of risk.
The Reflection stage is for the auditing and engineering teams to evaluate internal design recommendations or create a mitigation plan.
The algorithm audit framework borrows from a number of other fields where safety is critical to protect human life, such as aerospace and health care, which now carry out audits as part of the design process.
Industries moved to make audits a standard way to either respond to a series of failures and scandals, or raise standards to meet government regulations. The framework adopts tools found in other industries, like FMEAs, as well as lessons such as “complex systems tend to drift toward unsafe conditions unless constant vigilance is maintained.” However, it also acknowledges that AI can encounter unique problems.
Nine researchers collaborated on the SMACTR framework, including Google employees Andrew Smart, Margaret Mitchell, and Timnit Gebru, as well as former Partnership on AI fellow and current AI Now Institute fellow Deborah Raji.
Mitchell and Gebru collaborated on model cards, an approach Google Cloud now uses for some of its AI models.
Gebru also worked on datasheets for datasets , and collaborated separately with Algorithmic Justice League’s Joy Buolamwini on audits of major facial recognition software services sold by companies like Microsoft and Amazon that found poor performance for people with dark skin and particularly women of color.
The SMACTR paper also attempts to acknowledge shortcomings like the fact that portions of the audit rely on or are vulnerable to human judgment. It urges auditors to be mindful of their own biases and their company’s viewpoints to avoid making the auditing process simply an act of reputation management. The authors argue such an approach may be increasingly valuable as AI models grow in size and distribution across multiple devices.
“AI has the potential to benefit the whole of society,” the paper reads. “[H]owever there is currently an inequitable risk distribution such that those who already face patterns of structural vulnerability or bias disproportionately bear the costs and harms of many of these systems. Fairness, justice and ethics require that those bearing these risks are given due attention and that organizations that build and deploy artificial intelligence systems internalize and proactively address these social risks as well, being seriously held to account for system compliance to declared ethical principles.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Google open-sources LaserTagger, an AI model that speeds up text generation | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/google-open-sources-lasertagger-an-ai-model-that-speeds-up-text-generation"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Google open-sources LaserTagger, an AI model that speeds up text generation Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Sequence-to-sequence AI models, which were introduced by Google in 2014, aim to map fixed-length input (usually text) with a fixed-length output where the length of the input and output might differ. They’re used in text-generating tasks including summarization, grammatical error correction, and sentence fusion, and recent architectural breakthroughs have made them more capable than before. But they’re imperfect in that they (1) require large amounts of training data to reach acceptable levels of performance and that they (1) typically generate the output word-by-word (which makes them inherently slow).
That’s why researchers at Google developed LaserTagger , an open source text-editing model that predicts a sequence of edit operations to transform a source text into a target text. They assert that LaserTagger tackles text generation in a fashion that’s less error-prone — and that’s easier to train and faster to execute.
The release of LaserTagger follows on the heels of notable contributions from Google to the field of natural language processing and understanding. This week, the tech giant took the wraps off of Meena , a neural network with 2.6 billion parameters that can handle multiturn dialogue. And earlier this month, Google published a paper describing Reformer , a model that can process the entirety of novels.
LaserTagger takes advantage of the fact that for many text-generation tasks, there’s often an overlap between the input and the output. For instance, when detecting and fixing grammatical mistakes or when fusing several sentences, most of the input text can remain unchanged — only a small fraction of words need to be modified. LaserTagger, then, produces a sequence of edit operations instead of actual words, like keep (which copies a word to the output, delete (which removes a word), and keep-addx or delete-addx (which adds phrase X before the tagged word and optionally deletes the tagged word).
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Added phrases come from a restricted vocabulary that’s been optimized to minimize vocabulary size and maximize the number of training examples. The only words necessary to add to the target text come from the vocabulary alone, preventing the model from adding arbitrary words and mitigating the problem of hallucination (i.e., producing outputs that aren’t supported by the input text). And LaserTagger can predict edit operations in parallel with high accuracy, enabling an end-to-end speedup compared with models that perform predictions sequentially.
Evaluated on several text generation tasks, LaserTagger performed “comparably strong” with, and up to 100 times faster than, a baseline model that used a large number of training examples. Even when trained using only a few hundred or a few thousand training examples, it produced “reasonable” results that could be manually edited or curated.
“The advantages of LaserTagger become even more pronounced when applied at large scale, such as improving the formulation of voice answers in some services by reducing the length of the responses and making them less repetitive,” wrote the team. “The high inference speed allows the model to be plugged into an existing technology stack, without adding any noticeable latency on the user side, while the improved data efficiency enables the collection of training data for many languages, thus benefiting users from different language backgrounds.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Echo Show devices can now add items to your shopping list by barcode | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/echo-show-devices-can-now-add-items-to-your-shopping-list-by-barcode"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Echo Show devices can now add items to your shopping list by barcode Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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If you manage your grocery list using Amazon’s Alexa, good news: It just became easier to add items in need of restocking. Amazon today announced that Alexa on select Echo smart displays — the Echo Show 5 and Echo Show 8 — can scan the barcodes of common grocery items to add to Alexa’s built-in shopping list.
The feature follows the rollout of Show and Tell , which helps blind and low vision customers with an Echo Show identify common pantry goods (like canned or boxed foods) that can be difficult to distinguish by touch. To get started with the barcode scanner, say, “Alexa, scan this to my shopping list.” If Alexa can’t recognize the barcode or the item doesn’t have a barcode, a voice command like “Alexa, add red onions to my list” will work instead.
Interestingly, it’s not Amazon’s first foray into barcode-scanning tech. In 2014, the ecommerce giant launched a physical scanner for Prime Fresh customers called the Dash Wand, which was refreshed in June 2017 with Alexa voice capabilities. It’s even possible that the Echo Show’s barcode scanner shares a codebase with the Amazon mobile app’s barcode-scanning tool , or with the company’s since-discontinued Firefly, an AI service capable of recognizing over 100 million items including products, CD and book covers, barcodes, QR codes, and more.
The motivation is somewhat obvious. According to a recent market research report from OC&C Strategy, shopping via voice will grow to a whopping $40 billion-plus in 2022, up from $2 billion in 2018 across the U.S. and the U.K. RBC Capital Markets predicts that Amazon alone will generate $10 to $11 billion in sales from Alexa devices — including device sales themselves and voice shopping — by the year 2020.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! The Information disagreed with those projections last year, asserting that only 2% of Echo owners used one to purchase products. But an Adobe Digital Insights report that same year was much more optimistic, claiming that nearly half (47%) of smart speaker owners reported using a voice assistant to initiate product search and research and that 43% said they use them for creating shopping lists.
“I don’t think they are necessarily buying more yet because of [Alexa], but they are doing certain things in digital that leads to buying some more things,” Amazon devices chief Dave Limp told CNBC in an interview last year. “People are buying more of those because it’s easier to control with a voice interface.” In unrelated news, Alexa this month gained the ability to set timers and alarms for a specific device using voice. For example, you’re able to say to any device, “Alexa, set an alarm for 6 a.m. on my bedroom Echo” or “Alexa, set a five-minute timer on Kitchen Echo.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"DeepMind's MEMO AI solves novel reasoning tasks with less compute | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/deepminds-memo-ai-solves-novel-reasoning-tasks-with-less-compute"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages DeepMind’s MEMO AI solves novel reasoning tasks with less compute Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Can AI capture the essence of reasoning — that is, the appreciation of distant relationships among elements distributed across multiple facts or memories? Alphabet subsidiary DeepMind sought to find out in a study published on the preprint server Arxiv.org, which proposes an architecture — MEMO — with the capacity to reason over long distances. The researchers say that MEMO’s two novel components — the first of which introduces a separation between facts and memories stored in external memory, and the second of which employs a retrieval system that allows a variable number of “memory hops” before an answer is decided upon — enable it to solve novel reasoning tasks.
“[The hippocampus supports the] flexible recombination of single experiences in novel ways to infer unobserved relationships … called inferential reasoning,” wrote the coauthors of the paper. “Interestingly, it has been shown that the hippocampus is storing memories independently of each other through a process called pattern separation [to] minimize interference between experiences. A recent line of research sheds light on this … by showing that the integration of separated experiences emerges at the point of retrieval through a recurrent mechanism, [which] allows multiple pattern separated codes to interact and therefore support inference.” DeepMind’s work, then, takes inspiration from this research to investigate and enhance inferential reasoning in machine learning models. Drawing on the neuroscience literature, they devised a procedurally generated task called paired associative inference (PAI) that’s meant to capture inferential reasoning by forcing AI systems to learn abstractions to solve previously unseen problems. They then architected MEMO — which, when given an input query, outputs a sequence of potential answers — with a preference for representations that minimize the necessary computation.
The researchers say MEMO retains a set of facts in memory and learns a projection paired with a mechanism that enables greater flexibility in the use of memories, and that it’s different from typical AI models because it adapts the amount of compute time to the complexity of the task. Taking a cue from a model of human associative memory called REMERGE, where the content retrieved from memory is recirculated as a new query and the difference between the content retrieved at different time steps in the recirculation process is used to calculate if the model has settled into a fixed point, MEMO outputs an action that indicates whether it wishes to continue computing and querying its memory or whether it’s able to answer a given task.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! In tests, the DeepMind researchers compared MEMO with two baseline models, as well as the current state-of-the-art model, in Facebook AI Research’s bAbi suite (a set of 20 tasks for evaluating text understanding and reasoning). MEMO was able to achieve the highest accuracy on the PAI task, and it was the only architecture that successfully answered the most complex inference queries on longer sequences. Furthermore, MEMO required only three “hops” to solve a task compared with the best-performing baseline model’s 10 steps. And in another task that required the models to find the shortest path between two nodes given a graph of nodes, MEMO outperformed the baselines in more complex graphs by 20%.
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"Andrew Yang warns against 'slaughterbots' and urges global ban on autonomous weaponry | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/andrew-yang-warns-against-slaughterbots-and-urges-global-ban-on-autonomous-weaponry"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Andrew Yang warns against ‘slaughterbots’ and urges global ban on autonomous weaponry Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang speaks at at the Ideal Social Hall on January 30, 2020 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Ahead of the Democratic presidential primaries that begin Monday with the Iowa caucus, presidential candidate Andrew Yang called for a global ban on the use of autonomous weaponry. In a tweet Thursday, Yang called for U.S. leadership to implement a ban on automated killing machines, then shared a link to a Future of Life Institute video titled “Slaughterbots,” which offers a cautionary and dystopian vision of the future.
https://twitter.com/AndrewYang/status/1223055558581923841?s=19 Yang has been the most vocal candidate in the 2020 race about AI and how it will change people’s lives. During his campaign, he’s addressed how the technology will impact the future of work, job loss, and national security.
In debates leading up to the primaries, Yang pledged to give $1,000 a month to a select few individuals as part of his universal basic income (UBI) experiment and said his first call as president would be to China — partly to work together on issues like AI.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! The video was first released in 2017 by the Future of Life Institute’s Campaign ahead of a UN Convention on Conventional Weapons. The opens with a tech CEO-type giving a keynote address where he unveils autonomous drones equipped with facial recognition and AI piloting systems that kill people with head shots via a small amount of explosives.
In the video, the fictional CEO promises the ability to target and wipe out “the bad guys” or people with “evil ideology” or even entire cities.
The video then imagines the breaking out of partisan political warfare. The drones are used to assassinate 11 U.S. Senators of one political party at the U.S. Capitol building. In the wake of the hypothetical attack, it’s unclear after assessment from the intelligence community what state, group, or individual carried it out, but in the confusion calls for war and violent crime ratchet up.
There is some precedent in reality.
Russian company Kalishnakov is developing a kamikaze drone, and though it was most likely piloted by a human, the world saw one of the first targeted political assassination attempts with a drone in history in 2018 in Venezuela. DARPA is developing ways for swarms of drones to take part in military missions , and the U.S. Department of Defense developed hardware to guard against weaponized drone attacks.
The FAA warned U.S. citizens last year they face a $25,000 fine for weaponizing drones, but in the video, the autonomous lethal drones lead to a general increase in violent crimes, people feeling unsafe in their homes, and the destabilization of society.
The video ends with commentary from UC Berkeley professor Stewart Russell, who is not a fictional person. He now serves as vice chair of the World Economic Forum AI and Robotics. “Allowing machines to choose to kill humans would be devastating to our security and freedom,” Russell said.
Alongside Russell, the Fight for the Future petition first circulated in 2015 in support of an autonomous weapons ban and now has thousands of signatories, including nearly 250 businesses and organizations and people like Google AI chief Jeff Dean, DeepMind cofounder Demis Hassabis, and Elon Musk.
In a recent interview with VentureBeat, former cybersecurity director and White House economic advisor during the Obama administration R. David Edelman implored the Trump administration to engage in direct bilateral talks with Chinese leaders to avoid confusion sparked by malicious AI that could lead to war or acceleration of an arms race.
A draft report released last fall by the National Security Council on AI advising Congress said that AI supremacy is essential to U.S. national security and the economy , while the Chinese government is investing billions to become the world leader in AI by 2030.
A Brookings Institute fellow recently predicted that the world leader in AI by 2030 will be the dominant global power until 2100.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Amazon details AI that answers questions more reliably | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/amazon-details-ai-that-answers-questions-more-reliably"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Amazon details AI that answers questions more reliably Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Could natural language models improve their ability to answer questions on the fly? That’s what a team of Amazon researchers set out to answer in a study scheduled to be presented at the 2020 Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence in New York. They posit a method for adapting models based on Google’s Transformer architecture — which is particularly good at learning long-range dependencies among input data (such as the semantic and syntactic relationships between individual words of a sentence) — to address the problem of answer selection. The team says that in tests on a benchmark data set, their proposed model demonstrated a 10% absolute improvement in mean average precision (which measures the quality of a sorted list of answers according to the correctness of the ranking) over the previous state-of-the-art answer selection model, achieving an error rate reduction of 50%.
The approach — Transfer and Adapt, or TANDA — was first proposed late last year but has since been refined.
As the researchers explain, they used transfer learning — a technique in which an AI model pretrained on a task (here, word sequence prediction) is fine-tuned on another (here, answer selection) — with an intermediate step between the pretraining and source model and its adaptation to new domains. In this intermediate step, the researchers fine-tuned the language model on a large corpus of general question-answer pairs based on the publicly available Natural Questions data set, which was designed for the training of reading comprehension questions. The modified version of this corpus — dubbed ASNQ, for “answer selection NQ” — is instead tailored to the task of training answer selection systems, and it complements a small body of topic-specific questions and answers in the target domain that were used to further tune the model.
As with all deep neural networks, Transformers contain neurons (mathematical functions) arranged in interconnected layers that transmit signals from input data and slowly adjust the synaptic strength (weights) of each connection. That’s how all AI models extract features and learn to make predictions, but Transformer uniquely has attention such that every output element is connected to every input element. In effect, the weightings between them are calculated dynamically.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! The researchers say their method can be fine-tuned on target data without a search for hyperparameters, or the characteristics of an AI model such as the number of layers, the number of nodes per layer, and the learning rate of the training algorithm, which is often determined through trial and error. This means that it can be adapted to a target domain with very little training data, and that it’s robust to noise (or errors) in the target domain data. Plus, the most time-consuming part of the procedure — the intermediate step — only needs to be performed once.
According to the team, the model achieved a mean average precision of 92% and 94.3% on WikiQA and TREC-QA, respectively — a significant improvement over the previous records of 83.4% and 87.5%. As for the mean reciprocal rank, which measures the probability that the correct answer is near the top of the list, it was 93.3% and 97.4% for the system, up from 84.8% and 94%, respectively.
“The last few years have seen great advances in the design of language models, which are a critical component of language-based AI systems,” wrote Alexa Search team member Alessandro Moschitti in a blog post.
“Language models can be used to compute the probability of any given sequence (even discontinuous sequences) of words, which is useful in natural-language processing.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"AI Weekly: AI joins the fight against diseases like coronavirus | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/ai-weekly-disease-coronavirus-prediction-spread"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages AI Weekly: AI joins the fight against diseases like coronavirus Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
In light of the rising death toll from the coronavirus , which this week spread to the U.S. and was declared a health emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO), it’s worth looking at AI’s role in curbing the spread of other diseases. Algorithms have not only informed superior intervention and prevention strategies, they’ve helped optimize the allocation of resources to fight the spread of infection. Algorithms have even detected preliminary signs of an outbreak well before it came to human pathologists’ attention.
In a study back in 2014, investigators used statistical modeling to evaluate the testing and treatment of HIV in the U.K. and locate people living with the virus who weren’t aware of their disease status. The team found that — even without behavioral changes on the part of people living with HIV — their approach could reduce new infections by 5%.
In 2016, AI developed by a team hailing from the University of Georgia, Massey University, and the University of California was used to anticipate the spread of filoviruses, which usually infect bats but can also be transmitted to humans. (Ebola and Marburg are the two most commonly known strains.) A model using 57 different factors — from life history and ecology to biographical factors — predicted which types of bats were likely to harbor filoviruses with 87% accuracy.
Subsequent research in 2017 tapped models to scale hepatitis C virus (HCV) prevention efforts in accordance with available budgets. With a $1 billion budget, researchers found the best use of public health funding would be to focus entirely on treatment (with an emphasis on early treatment). But if the budget were $5 billion, it would be better to spend 60% of the budget on screening and the rest on treatment, dropping the screening allocation to 20% in the third year.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Also in 2017, scientists from the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health and the National Environment Agency’s Environmental Health Institute in Singapore developed an algorithm to forecast dengue outbreaks, taking into account a decade of historical climate information and seasonal dengue patterns to predict outbreaks up to four months in advance. Not long after, startup Aime began offering a tool that predicts the locations and timing of dengue outbreaks with a claimed 84% accuracy, and Ehime University researchers architected a model that projects dengue cases in Manila using rainfall and temperature data.
In 2018, University of South Carolina scientists developed an algorithm to help agencies tailor their outreach more cost-effectively. Tested using real-world data on tuberculosis prevention in India and gonorrhea prevention in the U.S., the results suggested the model could have prevented 8,000 cases of tuberculosis and 20,000 cases of gonorrhea if it were used instead of current strategies.
Despite the promise of AI as a planning tool for global health epidemics, it’s important to keep in mind that no disease-anticipating algorithm can avoid the pitfalls facing all predictive models.
Google’s infamous Flu Trends , a web service that launched in 2008 to provide estimates of influenza activity for more than 25 countries, monitored millions of users’ health tracking behaviors to reveal whether populations harbored any flulike illness. While the estimates were generally consistent with health agency surveillance data, researchers found that increases in searches due to the prominence of flu coverage in the news skewed results and that the way Flu Trends aggregated queries about health conditions might have inflated predicted rates. (IBM’s The Weather Company offers a comparable flu prediction tool in the Weather Channel mobile app, powered by its Watson AI platform, but it perhaps wisely limits forecast windows to 15 days.) In an effort to combat this distortion, some companies are developing new ways to combat bias within their systems and validate accuracy.
Metabiota — whose platform estimates the risk of a disease spreading based on information like an illness’ symptoms and mortality rate and the availability of treatment — is working with the U.S. intelligence community and the Defense Department on issues related to the coronavirus. As for competitor BlueDot’s system, it uses battle-tested natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to track over 100 infectious diseases by analyzing about 100,000 articles in 65 languages daily, accounting for traveler itinerary information and flight paths, as well as information about an area’s climate, temperature, and local livestock.
Validated or no, efforts to develop automated systems capable of tracking disease spread will likely only accelerate in the years to come. The digital pathology and epidemiology market is anticipated to reach $10.2 billion by 2023 (up from $4.8 billion in 2018), according to analysts at BCC Research, largely driven by innovations in computational scalability and model feature engineering.
For AI coverage, send news tips to Khari Johnson and Kyle Wiggers and AI editor Seth Colaner — and be sure to subscribe to the AI Weekly newsletter and bookmark our AI Channel.
Thanks for reading, Kyle Wiggers AI Staff Writer VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"The D20 Beat: My critical hits of 2020 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/pc-gaming/the-d20-beat-my-critical-hits-of-2020"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Feature The D20 Beat: My critical hits of 2020 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn A year of RPGs.
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The Witcher 3 is one of my favorite role-playing games of the past decade. The Witcher 2 is also a fantastic RPG. So far, Cyberpunk 2077 isn’t reaching those heights for me, though I never expected it to.
So I don’t feel that sense of disappointment others do, though its spectacular dumpster fire last week makes my heart ache for those who spent money on it and worked for years to make it.
When I think of the RPGs of 2020, I think about the past and the future. How games like Demon’s Souls, Final Fantasy VII Remake, and Baldur’s Gate III tap into our nostalgia for these beloved superstars while also putting them into new packages. I think of how roguelike and deck-building elements continue to filter through so many indies, like Solasta: Crown of the Magister and Gordian Quest. And how I discovered a series that’s risen from niche status to Western acclaim.
Oh, and I played as a shark, too.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Let’s look at my favorite RPGs of 2020. I hope you enjoy these games — and more — as much as I do, and I wish you well as we look to a world that could start healing from the pain of 2020.
Gordian Quest Above: That’s “shifty.” Yes, I misread the first time, too.
Developer: Mixed Realms Publisher: Mixed Realms Platform: PC Darkest Dungeon is more than a game — with its success in 2016, it helped establish the turn-based roguelike RPG. Since then, we’ve seen a number of indies offer their own visions of this subgenre, some offering deckbuilding (like Slay the Spire) and others playing with Darkest Dungeon’s formula (I see you, Iratus: Lord of the Dead).
In March, Mixed Realms sent Gordian Quest into Steam Early Access, and it’s a game I’ve been playing on-and-off ever since. It’s a combo of the party-building of Darkest Dungeon and the combat cards of Slay the Spire. Story-wise, it’s standard fare — you and your friends are fighting against various evils trying to cast down the realm. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
What I dig about Gordian Quest is how Mixed Realms has interwoven its systems together. When you level up, you get a skill, which is a card. These skills can be attacks or blocks, but they’re also abilities that key in on a character’s class and flavor. Naran the Bard has inspirations and tones, which buff party members and give her points to spend on other abilities. Catherin the Cleric has holy spells and attacks that add to her Channel pool, which she can then spend on healing or other abilities. The way these layer with party members and skill cards you get from items is fantastic.
Maneater Above: ‘Cause everybody is shark-fu fighting.
Developer: Tripwire Interactive Publisher: Tripwire Interactive Platform: PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch This is the most absurd RPG I played in 2020, and it came when we thought this whole “sheltering in place” idea was still fairly new. We were scared, and the pandemic (or the stupid reactions from some citizens) hadn’t ground me down yet.
And I reveled in Maneater. You play a mutating bull shark from birth to its death as you eat your way through the ecosystems and populations of a fictional Gulf Coast region. The goal is to grow, and to grow, you gotta eat. Fish. Turtles. Crocodiles. And people. Oh, the people. You flop around on land chasing people on the beach, in parks, and even in the driveways of their McMansions.
Eat too many people, and you must deal with bounty hunters and the Coast Guard. You can eat them, too. And you can make their ships blow up (being an electric shark helps).
No game made me laugh as much as Maneater in 2020, and in a year in which laughs were few and far between, it’s special for that alone.
Yakuza: Like A Dragon Above: Give me a scene about eating beef bowls? Game of the year! Developer: Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio Publisher: Sega Platform: PC, PlayStation, Xbox The other game to make me laugh is Yakuza: Like A Dragon. I’d never played a Yakuza game before, and while I did realize that these games weren’t grimdark mob sims, I had no idea they were this funny. Ichiban Kasuga is a likeable dope, and my fondness for him made it even easier to enjoy watching him seek vengeance against those who wronged him. The turn-based combat isn’t groundbreaking, but like Ichiban’s journey, it has some laughs, too, in how you dispatch foes, everyone’s abilities, and their barks and reactions as you brawl in the streets.
In one random encounter on the streets, I faced a pair of Capitalist Punishers. The name is funny, and so is the fight. They “summoned” help by pulling out their smartphones and making calls, while I smacked them with traffic cones. It’s cool that you pick up random items around you and use them to bash baddies. I recommend this to anyone who enjoys a fun RPG with lots of character and appeal.
Kingdoms of Amalur Re-Reckoning Above: You’re not our mom … Developer: KAIKO, Big Huge Games Publisher: THQ Nordic Platform: PC, PlayStation, Xbox This is a fairly basic remaster — the colors look richer and deeper, and other visuals are improved as well. It comes with the DLC, and THQ Nordic says another piece is coming as well. It does some other mechanic changes as well. All in all, it doesn’t change much — and that’s a good thing, because Amalur was already a good game.
And in September, as anxiety over increasing COVID-19 infections and election nonsense continued to build, I found a great deal of satisfaction running around Amalur’s gorgeous areas, fighting baddies, turning in quests, and lusting over loot. It’s not a complicated game — you won’t find the layers of buffs and interactions that Diablo brings — but it doesn’t need to be. It’s a fun loot-heavy action-RPG, and I’m looking forward to seeing what new story content comes along in 2021, nine years after the original’s release.
Hades Above: Motivational speaker Athena.
Developer: Supergiant Games Publisher: Supergiant Games Platforms: PC, Switch I first played Hades in 2018 when it hit Early Access on Steam, and … it didn’t capture me. And then I forgot all about it. This year, Hades had its full release, and it felt like a different game.
I wondered, what was I missing the first time? When I first played it, it felt very much like “My First Roguelike.” It still does, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
But now, its world feels full. The characters feel realized. But what makes it special now is that, well, it’s finished. You have more abilities, more weapons, more … everything. And between 2018 and 2020, it added something that’s made it so spectacular: that “just one more fun feeling” that feels so akin to diving into a game of Civilization.
Early Access is a great model, and it helps fund indies and provides feedback on development they may not be able to afford or find during smaller testing phases. But it doesn’t work for all games — sometimes, you just need to explore the finished product for it to shine.
And Hades does shine.
Fae Tactics Above: This stable of monsters will help you in your quest.
Developer: Endlessfluff Games Publisher: Humble Bundle Platform: PC For a long time, if anyone would ask me what my favorite game was, I’d answer with Final Fantasy Tactics. (Today I recognize that I just can’t have one “favorite.” I’m not a Sith — I don’t deal in absolutes.) Fae Tactics is a good indie take on Square Enix’s strategy-RPG. It’s different, though, in that you’re not building a party of humanoid characters. You’re a mage assembling a menagerie of beasts who have a variety of abilities (this includes one very good doggo). You have spells, too, and you use all of these to take on the challenges you find on each map. And you swap spell cards in and out to tailor your arsenal. Combat isn’t buried in menus, as happens in strategy-RPGs.
And the quests are a bit silly, too. Yes, it does have some that are all about the gravity of menacing threats. But you spend time doing stuff like regaining parts for your bike, too.
Demon’s Souls Above: Gothic and pretty.
Developer: Bluepoint Games Publisher: Sony Platform: PlayStation 5 One of my favorite games of the PS3 era is Demon’s Souls. From Software’s groundbreaking roguelike action-RPG. It established a new genre — the soulslike — and it showed that despite its difficulty, those who studied the patterns and exercised patience (like with old 8-bit games such as Mega Man) could overcome its obstacles.
The PS5 version is fantastic. It feels like Demon’s Souls, but it looks better (I can actually see in some of the darker areas in Stonefang Tunnel and the Valley of Defilement). And the seconds-long loading times make moving from one location to another a snap. This helps when you’re grinding for souls in places like the Shrine of Storms.
Right now, Demon’s Souls is one of the best launch exclusives for the PS5. It retains the magic of the first one, and it’s well worth checking out for newbies and veterans.
Final Fantasy VII Remake Above: Square Enix’s dynamic duo.
Developer: Square Enix Publisher: Square Enix Platform: PlayStation Square Enix did something with Final Fantasy VII Remake that I didn’t anticipate — it subverted my expectations. It takes the seminal 1997 PlayStation RPG and made it better in almost every way. The story is deeper, with many characters big and small having much more to do and say (my kids and I fell for Jessie). It looks better, and its take on party-based action-RPG combat is smooth.
And the music remains fantastic.
My major concern, though, is I’ll forget this all in the inevitable years it’ll take for Square Enix to put out the next part. Heck, I’d be surprised if we weren’t all playing the finale on the PlayStation 6 a decade from now. But I’m hoping Square Enix will prove me wrong.
Solasta: Crown of the Magister Above: The Soraks have been absent for so long that people think they’re a children’s myth. I bet their breath stinks, too.
Developer: Tactical Adventures Publisher: Tactical Adventures Platform: PC Solasta is what I like to call a “next-gen RPG” in how it treats tactical encounters. Of course, this is no surprise, given the studio’s name. Like Larian Studios did with Baldur’s Gate III, you now get three axes of movement, something that’s new for turn-based RPGs. But this means more than attacking and exploring on the Z axis — it even uses factors such as light in determining who gets advantage in combat. Don’t worry, it provides plenty of ways to light things up, too. This makes each dungeon feel different as well — one is in an ancient library, where moving up and down to explore and solve puzzles is important. Another is shrouded in darkness, befitting its undead denizens.
What’s great is that Tactical Adventures uses all of this in solving puzzles as well as combat, giving Solasta a different spin on 5E Dungeons & Dragons gameplay than you’re getting in Baldur’s Gate III. It also has factions that look like they will throw their weights around when it comes to the story, giving you more interactions to factor in than just the reactions of your party members.
It’s in Early Access now, and I’m hoping we’ll get the full campaign by fall 2021.
Baldur’s Gate III Above: Portals mean trouble in Baldur’s Gate III.
Developer: Larian Studios Publisher: Larian Studios Platform: PC The biggest question I had with Larian Studios and its stewardship of Dungeons & Dragons was if this studio could work with another’s IP. After all, Divinity is its world, one Larian has been working on for nigh-on 20 years. Yes, many of its employees are fans of D&D and the Forgotten Realms, and yes, Larian is working closely with the lorekeepers at Wizards of the Coast. Yet I still had worries — could Larian’s creativity work with an established IP, one with rules its world lacks? And then we saw the trailer in February, the amazing clip with mind flayers flying through the skies in their Nautiloid (and exciting all the Spelljammer fans out there who pore over every D&D release looking to see if Wizards is breathing any embers into this dead setting). The illithids were putting tadpoles into people’s eyes to begin the ceremorphosis process that creates more mind flayers. We saw Githyanki flying on red dragons, breathing flames into the Nautiloid and finally making the Astral Plane denizens look every bit as bad-ass as their first introduction in 1981 — the cover of the iconic Fiend Folio monster book.
But a trailer doesn’t make a game. So when Baldur’s Gate III hit Early Access in late October, it showed us that Larian can indeed create an engaging world in someone else’s sandbox. The story so far — we just got one act — develops from the fear of turning into a mind flayer within a few days into the terror, the doubt … and even the temptation of living with a parasite in your mind, giving you power but also hinting at a stronger force afoot. One that may be godlike or not. And it’s intriguing, making me happier than an otyugh in a garbage dump.
It also introduces a Z axis to turn-based isometric combat — like Solasta, Baldur’s Gate III is a next-gen RPG in that it changes how you approach combat, giving you bonuses for holding the high ground, while also using Divinity: Original Sin’s environmental effects and exploits.
My main concern at this point is what happens with these threads — will the mind flayers be the main threat, or will the Githyanki prove to be the villains? What about this godlike power? Is Bhaal (the Lord of Murder) trying to gain influence? And where are the characters from Baldur’s Gate II that may still be alive a century later — including Minsc and his lovable giant space hamster Boo, who are most certainly alive (they have their own comic run!). Right now, nothing in Baldur’s Gate III ties into Baldur’s Gate II (beside the name, turn-based combat, and IP). I’m going to be disappointed if we don’t see some connections when the second acts drops.
The D20 Beat is GamesBeat managing editor Jason Wilson’s column on role-playing games. It usually runs every other week, but like wandering monsters, it can appear at any time. It covers video games, the digital components of traditional tabletop RPGs, and the rise of RPG streaming.
Drop me a line if you have any RPG news, insights, or memories to share … or just want to roll a digital D20 with me.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
Discover our Briefings.
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"The RetroBeat: 2020’s biggest retro gaming moments | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/games/the-retrobeat-2020s-biggest-retro-gaming-moments"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages The RetroBeat: 2020’s biggest retro gaming moments Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn 2020 in retro gaming.
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I have to be honest: 2020 wasn’t as a big year for retro gaming as some of the other ones we’ve had in recent memory.
The mini-console craze is dying down, the the release of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S had more people looking forward than backward.
But if you love old games and classic franchises like I do, you could still find some retro fun in 2020. Some it came from remakes and remasters, while we also got some long-awaited sequels to series that seemed dead only a few short years ago.
These are the most important retro gaming releases of the year.
Above: There is The Birdman himself! Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 This collection offers remakes of two of the best sports games of all time. Thanks to Vicarious Visions, these classics now look as good as any modern game, and the grind-and-ollie gameplay is still as addictive as ever. I just hope that we get a remake of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 in 2021.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time The original Crash Bandicoot trilogy got its own great remake treatment in 2017 (coincidentally, also by Vicarious Visions). This year, Toys for Bob finally gave us a new entry in the series, and it’s my new favorite installment in the franchise.
It’s About Time offers a charming and challenging platforming experience that feels like a worth successor to the originals.
Above: Streets of Rage 4 with the classic character sprites.
Streets of Rage 4 Hey, look! Another game that’s on my top 10 favorites of the year list.
Streets of Rage 4 has a lot in common with Crash Bandicoot 4. It’s a long overdue sequel that manages to capture the magic of the originals while making them feel new. In this case, that newness comes via Lizardcube’s amazing 2D artwork.
Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light I’m not exactly itching to play an 8-bit turn-based strategy game from 1990, but I still think that it’s awesome to see Nintendo finally localize the original Fire Emblem. It’s always good to see retro games get official translations. Who knows, maybe Mother 3 is next! I mean, 2021 owes us some goodwill.
Above: Game & Watch: Super Mario Bros..
Game & Watch: Super Mario Bros.
We didn’t get a Game Boy Mini in 2020, but the Super Mario Bros. version of the Game & Watch is a decent consolation prize. Sure, it’s more of a collectible than anything else, but it’s an attractive one. And this device does offer a neat way to play the original Super Mario Bros. and The Lost Levels on the go.
Super Mario 3D All-Stars Sure, I wish that Nintendo did a bit more with this collection , but I’m still happy to have Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Galaxy on my Switch. I hope that we’ll see more compilations like this come to the system in 2021. And I’ll be straight up mad if we don’t get Super Mario Galaxy 2.
The RetroBeat is a weekly column that looks at gaming’s past, diving into classics, new retro titles, or looking at how old favorites — and their design techniques — inspire today’s market and experiences. If you have any retro-themed projects or scoops you’d like to send my way, please contact me.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
Discover our Briefings.
Join the GamesBeat community! Enjoy access to special events, private newsletters and more.
VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Launching your own Amazon private label product could be your ticket to retail riches. | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/commerce/launching-your-own-amazon-private-label-product-could-be-your-ticket-to-retail-riches"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Sponsored Deals Launching your own Amazon private label product could be your ticket to retail riches.
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The numbers tell the story. In 2020, ecommerce will account for over $700 billion in sales across the U.S.
, a boost of nearly 20 percent over last year. At the heart of that $700 is Amazon , accounting for a full 38 percent, approximately $270 billion. And since half of Amazon’s sales this year will actually come from its third-party selling partners, that’s $135 billion coming in this year from Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) businesses.
So if you’re asking whether it pays to open a business in the Amazon FBA space… well, the figures tell the tale.
Of course, it takes some know-how to get your piece of those billions upon billions of dollars.
With the training in The Complete Amazon Dropshipping and Private Label Master Class Bundle , even first-time retailers can learn all the steps to open a digital storefront under the Amazon umbrella — and start making it rain.
The collection is comprehensive, featuring 11 courses covering nearly 100 hours of training in everything it takes to begin life as an Amazon FBA business, how to find products that will connect with customers, and ultimately grow that business into a serious moneymaker.
The training begins with the Amazon FBA 2021 Course , a solid blueprint for getting any business off the ground. Led by veteran entrepreneur Thomas O’Donoghue, this course not only covers basics like supplier searches, inventory ordering, marketing and promotion, packaging, and more, it uncovers the missteps that handcuff 99 percent of Amazon FBA sellers and stymie their growth.
From that base, the other courses guide sellers through the rest of the Amazon FBA ecosystem, examining how to run PPC ad campaigns that actually work, the keys to finding a successful product to sell, and how to avoid committing the cardinal sins that could warrant a crippling account suspension.
If you want to get started, but don’t have a business in mind, there’s even the Amazon FBA Book Reseller Pro training. You can jump in immediately as an Amazon Marketplace dealer in second-hand books, finding cheap books to resell for high prices as this course explains each step in the business-building process.
Finally, a trio of courses also dig into one of the prestige corners of Amazon retailing — starting your own private label brand. In Amazon FBA Tycoon: The Ultimate Private Label Masterclass and The Last Amazon FBA Course: 2021 Private Label Guide , learners find it isn’t so hard to discover, source, and sell a product with your label, then guide it to 6, or even 7-figure sales.
Right now, all the training in The 2021 Complete Amazon Dropshipping and Private Label Master Class Bundle is on sale at hundreds off its regular price, just $34.99.
Prices subject to change.
VentureBeat Deals is a partnership between VentureBeat and StackCommerce. This post does not constitute editorial endorsement. If you have any questions about the products you see here or previous purchases, please contact StackCommerce support here.
Prices subject to change.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"SAP files IPO for Qualtrics as demand for ‘experience management’ software rises 36% | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/sap-files-ipo-for-qualtrics-as-demand-for-experience-management-software-rises-36"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages SAP files IPO for Qualtrics as demand for ‘experience management’ software rises 36% Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Ryan Smith, CEO of Qualtrics, on stage Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
SAP has filed the paperwork to take its Qualtrics subsidiary public less than two years after the German software giant acquired the company, which makes “experience management” software.
The IPO filing only contains a preliminary price range of $20 to $24 per share and does not place an overall valuation on the company.
Qualtrics was on the verge of going public in late 2018, when SAP announced it would acquire the company for $8 billion in cash. Qualtrics’ SaaS-based platform allows companies to survey users on topics like professional services for targeted marketing and brand development. It dubs this service “experience management” (XM).
The acquisition was part of SAP’s move to expand its cloud-based services as the company tried to diversify its legacy software business. Even after the IPO, SAP will remain the majority shareholder in Qualtrics.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! The companies did not offer a clear explanation for why they had decided to move forward with an IPO that would make Qualtrics a semi-independent subsidiary.
Qualtrics’ first full year as part of SAP seemed a strong one. According to the filing, Qualtrics has more than 12,000 customers and 3,300 employees. The company reported revenue of $723 million in the fiscal year 2020 ending in September, up 36% compared to the same period for 2019.
In the first nine months of 2020, Qualtrics had $550 million in revenue but still lost $258 million.
“In partnership with SAP, over the past two years we have increased our deal sizes, broadened and deepened our geographic footprint, and continued to build an exceptional team,” Qualtrics says in its S-1. “Leveraging the success we have had with SAP, we intend to continue growing Qualtrics into one of the biggest and most valuable enterprise software companies in the world. Going public will give us the speed, agility, and autonomy necessary to continue accelerating our leadership of the XM category.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Microsoft says Russians accessed account 'used to view source code' in Solorigate hack | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/microsoft-says-russians-accessed-account-used-to-view-source-code-in-solorigate-hack"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Microsoft says Russians accessed account ‘used to view source code’ in Solorigate hack Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Microsoft security researchers said today that Russian hackers managed to access more of its network than the company originally believed. However, the company emphasized that even in this case it still did not detect any damage to its systems.
“We detected unusual activity with a small number of internal accounts and upon review, we discovered one account had been used to view source code in a number of source code repositories,” the company wrote in a blog post.
“The account did not have permissions to modify any code or engineering systems and our investigation further confirmed no changes were made. These accounts were investigated and remediated.” The Russian attack on U.S. government agencies and some U.S. businesses was first disclosed earlier this month , but officials believe it may have been going as early as October 2019. At the center of the cyber storm is SolarWinds, which has become a dominant player in the market for network monitoring services.
SolarWinds provides tools to many large government agencies as well as most of the Fortune 500 companies. The company disclosed that more than 18,000 customers had downloaded a software update that let hackers spy for months undetected in an event now known as “Solorigate.” VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Microsoft had previously disclosed that it had found malicious SolarWinds software in its systems.
The company has continued to investigate the incident and said it remains confident that Microsoft systems were not used to launch further attacks. In the latest disclosure, Microsoft also said that internal emails, services, and products were also not accessed by hackers and that no source code was changed.
Regarding the viewing of source code, Microsoft also downplayed the risks for reasons that also point to a fundamental evolution at the company over the past decade. Microsoft said much of its source code is open source, and therefore already easily viewable externally. Getting a glimpse under the hood wouldn’t have given the hackers any information that essentially wasn’t already publicly available.
“We do not rely on the secrecy of source code for the security of products, and our threat models assume that attackers have knowledge of source code,” the company said. “So viewing source code isn’t tied to elevation of risk.” Still, the latest disclosure is just the latest sign that industry players and government officials are racing to understand the extent of a hack that has become both a security and political scandal.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Jeff Grubb's top 10 games of 2020 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/jeff-grubbs-top-10-games-of-2020"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Jeff Grubb’s top 10 games of 2020 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Now that looks like a game of the year right there.
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Unlike many of you, I didn’t suddenly have a lot more free time for games in 2020. I already worked from home, and my kids are still young and need a lot of my attention. So I maintained a rule I set up last year that I wouldn’t put much time into any game I cannot pause. In reality, that rule is more like I won’t have time for games I can’t play on Switch or using the Steam Link app on my phone.
Despite those restrictions, I still have plenty of games to put on my list. Here’s what I ended up with.
10. Streets of Rage 4 Above: Streets of Rage 4 with the classic character sprites.
I love going back to play Streets of Rage 2. My wife and I end up doing that about once a year. The nicest thing I can say about Streets of Rage 4, which I reviewed , is that I intend to go back and play it just as frequently in the future.
9. Microsoft Flight Simulator I knocked Animal Crossing: New Horizons off my top 10 for this, but that’s right. I love Animal Crossing, but it occupies a space alongside Fall Guys and other intrinsically social games that are more about my relationships with other people. And I don’t want to think about putting those games on a list — they’re not even competing in my brain.
Flight Simulator is a technical marvel that feels like it is opening up the genre to more people than ever with its great difficulty scaling. This is also one of the rare games that I turned into an event by getting out the flight stick.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! 8. Paper Mario: The Origami King Nintendo and Intelligent Systems nailed so many of the crucial aspects of Paper Mario: The Origami King.
It’s funny, with tons of great characters, and it has variety in both its mechanics and environments. Its only shortcoming is its battle system, which is boring at best. Thankfully, you can avoid many battles, and that leaves you with just the good stuff.
7. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 As I wrote in my review , Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 is gaming’s platonic ideal. Skateboarding and video games are soulmates. All these years later, games still don’t get much better than this.
6. Pikmin 3: Deluxe Pikmin 3: Deluxe is still mostly Pikmin 3 from 2013, but this is also the best Pikmin game so far.
It edits the Wii U game into something that plays effortlessly on Switch. And that means you get to enjoy the satisfying loop of working with your little crewmates to round up fruit and expand your Pikmin army.
5. Astro’s Playroom Here’s all I have to say about Astro’s Playroom: Back on my bullshit pic.twitter.com/l80WuVHmcN — Jeff Grubb (@JeffGrubb) December 19, 2020 4. Ori and the Will of the Wisps Ori and the Will of the Wisps has some of the best locomotion in a 2D game ever. Combine that with fun exploration, thrilling boss fights, moving characters, and the best music, and it’s easy to see why it’s GamesBeat’s game of the year. It’s also one of my favorites and a game I’m already stirring to go back to.
3. Hades Sometimes a studio pulls it all together to create what feels like a miracle. That’s what happened with Supergiant Games and Hades. This masterpiece plays and looks better than almost any other game. It does Greek mythology better than any other game, and that’s saying something, considering how many games go to that source material. And if it only did those things, that would be enough. But then Supergiant went ahead and solved the roguelite barrier by building a linear narrative that progresses even when you have to start over.
In five years, prepare to play a lot of games from indies and big-budget studios that all cite Hades as a key influence.
2. Hardspace: Shipbreaker Games where you build things get a lot of attention and credit. Minecraft is endlessly popular, and Roblox is probably going to have one of the biggest IPOs of 2021. But we shouldn’t forget that games are really great at empowering us to tear things apart as well. And Hardspace: Shipbreaker does that better than almost anything else. It is so satisfying to use a laser gun to slowly peel apart junked space shuttles. But it’s also exciting when you forget to depressurize the cabin and end up blasted into space before the ship goes nuclear. That was one of my favorite moments of the year.
i said "whoops" pic.twitter.com/LRvEHXdjDW — Jeff Grubb (@JeffGrubb) June 20, 2020 1. SnowRunner I could spend dozens of hours in SnowRunner trying to move a truck 50 feet. That is what I consider a good time.
And the game encourages my bizarre behavior. Fighting for every inch feels like real progress. I get that to many people, a game about getting stuck in mud or snow seems baffling or boring. But the reality is that it’s a game about taking ownership of your choices. If I get a truck stuck in the mud, SnowRunner makes me want to do everything it takes to get it moving again so I don’t lose the progress I already made.
Developer Saber Interactive also improved SnowRunner as a game relative to MudRunner. This comes in the form of building shortcuts and bridges that provide a tangible reward for completing missions.
There will be nothing more satisfying in a video game this year than pulling this truck out of the mud.
pic.twitter.com/p7yyP6cVdS — Jeff Grubb (@JeffGrubb) April 28, 2020 But really I’m here for the physics and the terrain deformation. The realistic behavior of the terrain makes every problem feel analog and tactile. You aren’t going to suddenly find your wheels on the good dirt — you really do have to pull your rigs through every inch of the muck. So when you finally do get to your destination, you earned that accomplishment by overcoming your own failures. What a hell of a game.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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"IMVU: Making the coin of the realm for the metaverse | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/imvu-making-the-coin-of-the-realm-for-the-metaverse"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages IMVU: Making the coin of the realm for the metaverse Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn IMVU is a virtual world where users create their own rooms and digital items.
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IMVU has been a relatively quiet and unnoticed company in the online gaming and social media worlds. But the company did something recently that could benefit the whole industry: It received approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to enable payments in its virtual world through a blockchain-based cryptocurrency dubbed VCoin.
With its ruling in November 2020, the SEC enabled IMVU to allow users to buy and sell goods with VCoin and also to cash out and convert it to Ethereum, a well-known cryptocurrency, or into U.S. dollars. The so-called “no-action letter” from the SEC lays the groundwork for other companies to do the same thing, and that’s one of foundations of the metaverse , the universe of virtual worlds that are all interconnected, like in novels such as Snow Crash and Ready Player One.
IMVU will be talking about this development at our GamesBeat Summit: Into the Metaverse event on January 27-28. IMVU will launch its VCoin cryptocurrency soon for its own users.
Other operators of virtual worlds — such as the game worlds of Roblox and Fortnite — could benefit from the ruling, so long as they follow the same guidelines that IMVU is, IMVU CEO Daren Tsui said in an interview with GamesBeat.
Having something like VCoin is important because the metaverse isn’t expected to be a single world operated by a single company. It will likely be a collection of virtual worlds, all interconnected in a way that makes travel between the worlds easy and seamless. If you buy something in a virtual world from a company or from another user, you want to be able to trust that transaction and take the object to another world. If you sell an item, you want to be able to get paid and then cash out. And from the viewpoint of companies, creating a marketplace where users can supply the digital items could be far easier than one company’s own developers trying to populate a metaverse full of digital items.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! The key to the metaverse That’s what IMVU is doing with VCoin , a blockchain-based digital currency backed by a massive user base (Ethereum) and thriving economy, soon to be launched in the IMVU platform. Blockchain is the transparent and secure digital ledger that allows objects to be uniquely identified and ownership of those objects to be clear. Blockchain technology is the foundation of cryptocurrencies, which are digital forms of money that are being created by all sorts of companies. Ethereum has become popular in part because of its unique features (such as the ability to create smart contracts or set specific rules for the use of the currency) as well as its broad-based support.
“This news to us is way more about just VCoin and IMVU,” Tsui said. “It really is talking about a framework for the entire space. And this is how we believe digital currency will then move from this kind of a Wild Wild West type of environment where people are getting sued, or companies are getting sued, or people are losing their money. It will transform that into something that is much more of an infrastructure, where the transparency is well understood. And most importantly, people can trust the currency that they’re using. That we think is a game-changer, which will really boost the growth of metaverses.” Like other virtual worlds like Second Life, over the past 16 years IMVU has built a flourishing economy, with a marketplace driven by creators. Users can exchange IMVU’s proprietary Credits for digital goods, like a skin for their avatar, or for visiting virtual rooms, such as a dance club. The economy has 7 million monthly active users who exchange 14 billion Credits a month and engage in 27.5 million monthly unique transactions. The market has more than 50 million products available today, with the catalog growing by 400,000 items a month.
Before VCoin, to get paid, users had to use third-party tools like PayPal or Venmo. But that’s not easy with users in different countries. With VCoin, paying will get easier, Tsui said. Users can send VCoin to anyone else on the platform, and earners will be able to convert it to real cash via Ethereum cryptocurrency wallets.
“One of the reasons why we picked Ethereum is that it’s pretty much ubiquitous,” Tsui said. “It’s a product that everybody uses. But there’s another feature that we really like, which is the ability to write smart contracts into these into the Ethereum tokens.” One example is that it requires users to trust each other, particularly if someone is making textures for someone else’s project. One user can create a smart contract that limits how the texture can be used and how one user will have to pay another for it. And while this will work for IMVU, Tsui said any virtual world should be able to use it.
“We believe that creators and service providers are going to be pivotal in the growth of universes to be more than one metaverse,” Tsui said. “They’re the people who are going to be basically building the different experiences, the products, and so forth. I mean, you could have an Oasis, where one company does everything. But I feel it’s going to be multiple companies, or multiple millions of people, all getting together to create the various experiences.
“Most people are going to create and play for the fun of it. But the real serious creators and the people who are trying to create a business, they need to be able to get paid easily.” Currently, numerous companies have their own proprietary payment systems, but those are limiting. Their currencies only work on their own platforms, and turning that currency into cash is quite difficult. Policies limit how often you can cash out currency or maximum amounts. To transmit money across states, service companies need to have licenses for each state, similar to a business like Western Union. The same goes for international money transfers.
“It’s very complicated. Our product today does not allow you to pay users peer-to-peer and then convert those payments over to cash,” Tsui said. “Healthy economies require currencies that are trusted, easy to use, stable, and liquid. That’s what we’re trying to do. For the first time, the SEC has publicly provided guidance regarding what a digital currency should look like, and behave like, in virtual economies. This is huge. In a virtual economy, we come together, we work on a product that we can sell, like clothing, and people need to be able to have a currency to be able to exchange value in that regard.” A year in the making Above: You can buy and sell fashion items in IMVU.
It took about a year for IMVU to get approval from the SEC.
“The SEC is very picky on who they work with,” Tsui said. “They liked us because we’re a real company. It’s not a crypto play where it will be three years before you see the first application. They liked that we were open. The big thing here is you’re actually able to have this token leave the ecosystem and go out into the wild. That was the really big ask here.” IMVU has promotional credits that it creates those for new users so that they can get started, and those credits cannot get converted to cash.
“We also have another Credit system, which you use when you’re buying a digital good, like when you’re buying a shirt,” Tsui said. “You use Credits, and you can actually cash out for that particular transaction.” IMVU checks out the clients to meet anti-money laundering regulations, where the service provider is required to follow rules dubbed Know Your Customer, or KYC, and collect full tax information on the user. If a user gives those ordinary credits to another user, then that second user cannot cash it out. To enable that second user to cash out with credits, IMVU would have to collect licenses from states and other countries.
“With VCoin, IMVU has created a new cryptocurrency that is fully transferable,” IMVU chief strategy officer John Burris said in an interview with GamesBeat. “Users will purchase the VCoin. But with VCoin, they can do a peer-to-peer transfer with other users, like pay other users, send a gift to users, pay for access to a room, pay for their avatar to be styled and dressed up, pay for a friend to show them around to cool rooms all night. And then people who have the coins can exit the platform with the coin, and then have an option either to change that into fiat, or U.S. dollars, like any other crypto token, and take it off our platform completely.” IMVU is partnering with a third party that it will announce shortly to run that part of its infrastructure, Tsui said.
“It will be seamless to our users, as they move around inside our applications and our desktop applications,” he said. “We think this will be one of the most user-friendly crypto implementations anywhere, where users aren’t going to have to know how to save private keys, or hold passphrases, or know about Ethereum. They can move their VCoin off our platform and it ends up in a fully compliant Ethereum wallet. And just like every other token and asset, they own it and we can’t pull it back. If they want to convert it into cash, we’ll do that on their behalf.” Regulatory issues Above: IMVU virtual room The SEC had to decide whether VCoin was a security, like a stock sale. If it had classified it as such, it would have required a lot of disclosures as required of public companies, such as selling only to accredited investors who are knowledgeable about what they are doing and have a certain net worth. But for the third time in its history, the SEC issued a “no-action letter,” which meant that it won’t take regulatory action against IMVU for the VCoin currency.
“This sets a new standard for what’s allowed in the industry,” Tsui said. “We needed the SEC to bless our token and our approach so we can feel confident launching it in the U.S. that we’re not going to get in trouble. The SEC knew we already had an economy. We think adoption will be real and meaningful. And we said we are going to be open.” Second Life, which was created in 2003, went to the trouble of getting money services licenses, and they did it in the era before cryptocurrencies. It’s proprietary to Second Life’s owner, Linden Lab. With IMVU, any Ethereum wallet will be able to hold VCoin.
“That’s what we’re leveraging,” Tsui said. “Most gaming companies wouldn’t go out and secure all those licenses because it’s not their core business. Secondly, if IMVU were ever to go out of business, you could still have the Ethereum. If Second Life were to go out of business, with their proprietary platform, the tokens are gone.” Tsui added, “We do use Worldpay. They allow you to collect and sell stuff. They support credit cards, they support SMS, they support payment cards — all sorts of different types of money solutions. But that is just more for transacting, like buying and selling credits. When we pay our creators, they don’t help us with that. For outgoing transactions, we pay with products like PayPal. We figure out how much tax to withhold. We have to tie the transaction to a product.” “All the other parties that want to leverage our letter, they don’t need to go get approved by the SEC,” Burris said. “They need to follow the guidelines and the framework that is in the no-action letter. We didn’t do this for the broader industry, but that’s an awesome outcome.
“From a broader perspective, as an analogy, if you are a real-world clothing designer, you go to a mall and sell your clothing to Bloomingdale’s. They pay you in dollars. But then when you sell it to Nordstrom, they pay you in yen. And JC Penney pays you in pesos. How do you do business that way? Now it’s possible to have a unification of the currency. This is going to have big and good ramifications for the entire industry.” GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
Discover our Briefings.
The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Graphcore raises $222 million to scale up AI chip production | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/graphcore-raises-222-million-to-scale-up-ai-chip-production"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Graphcore raises $222 million to scale up AI chip production Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Graphcore cofounders Nigel Toons (L, CEO) and Simon Knowles (R, CTO).
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Graphcore , a Bristol, U.K.-based startup developing chips and systems to accelerate AI workloads, today announced it has raised $222 million in a series E funding round led by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board. The investment, which values the company at $2.77 billion post-money and brings its total raised to date to $710 million, will be used to support continued global expansion and further accelerate future silicon, systems, and software development, a spokesperson told VentureBeat.
The AI accelerators Graphcore is developing — which the company calls Intelligence Processing Units (IPUs) — are a type of specialized hardware designed to speed up AI applications, particularly neural networks, deep learning, and machine learning. They’re multicore in design and focus on low-precision arithmetic or in-memory computing, both of which can boost the performance of large AI algorithms and lead to state-of-the-art results in natural language processing, computer vision, and other domains.
Graphcore, which was founded in 2016 by Simon Knowles and Nigel Toon, released its first commercial product in a 16-nanometer PCI Express card — C2 — that became available in 2018. It’s this package that launched on Microsoft Azure in November 2019 for customers “focused on pushing the boundaries of [natural language processing]” and “developing new breakthroughs in machine intelligence.” Microsoft is also using Graphcore’s products internally for various AI initiatives.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Earlier this year, Graphcore announced the availability of the DSS8440 IPU Server, in partnership with Dell, and launched Cirrascale IPU-Bare Metal Cloud, an IPU-based managed service offering from cloud provider Cirrascale. More recently, the company revealed some of its other early customers — among them Citadel Securities, Carmot Capital, the University of Oxford, J.P. Morgan, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and European search engine company Qwant — and open-sourced its libraries on GitHub for building and executing apps on IPUs.
In July, Graphcore unveiled the second generation of its IPUs, which will soon be made available in the company’s M2000 IPU Machine.
(Graphcore says its M2000 IPU products are now shipping in “production volume” to customers.) The company claims this new GC200 chip will enable the M2000 to achieve a petaflop of processing power in a 1U datacenter blade enclosure that measures the width and length of a pizza box.
The M2000 is powered by four of the new 7-nanometer GC200 chips, each of which packs 1,472 processor cores (running 8,832 threads) and 59.4 billion transistors on a single die, and it delivers more than 8 times the processing performance of Graphcore’s existing IPU products. In benchmark tests, the company claims the four-GC200 M2000 ran an image classification model — Google’s EfficientNet B4 with 88 million parameters — more than 32 times faster than an Nvidia V100-based system and over 16 times faster than the latest 7-nanometer graphics card. A single GC200 can deliver up to 250 TFLOPS, or 1 trillion floating-point-operations per second.
Beyond the M2000, Graphcore says customers will be able to connect as many as 64,000 GC200 chips for up to 16 exaflops of computing power and petabytes of memory, supporting AI models with theoretically trillions of parameters. That’s made possible by Graphcore’s IPU-POD and IP-Fabric interconnection technology, which supports low-latency data transfers up to rates of 2.8Tbps and directly connects with IPU-based systems (or via Ethernet switches).
The GC200 and M2000 are designed to work with Graphcore’s bespoke Poplar, a graph toolchain optimized for AI and machine learning. It integrates with Google’s TensorFlow framework and the Open Neural Network Exchange (an ecosystem for interchangeable AI models), in the latter case providing a full training runtime. Preliminary compatibility with Facebook’s PyTorch arrived in Q4 2019, with full feature support following in early 2020. The newest version of Poplar introduced exchange memory management features intended to take advantage of the GC200’s unique hardware and architectural design with respect to memory and data access.
Graphcore might have momentum on its side, but it has competition in a market that’s anticipated to reach $91.18 billion by 2025. In March, Hailo, a startup developing hardware designed to speed up AI inferencing at the edge, nabbed $60 million in venture capital. California-based Mythic has raised $85.2 million to develop custom in-memory architecture. Mountain View-based Flex Logix in April launched an inference coprocessor it claims delivers up to 10 times the throughput of existing silicon. And last November, Esperanto Technologies secured $58 million for its 7-nanometer AI chip technology.
Beyond the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, Graphcore’s series E saw participation from funds managed by Fidelity International and Schroders. They joined existing backers Baillie Gifford, Draper Esprit, and others.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Gary Shapiro: CES 2021 will have 1,000 virtual exhibits, 150,000 visitors, and 100 programming hours | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/gary-shapiro-interview-ces-2021-will-have-over-1000-virtual-exhibits-perhaps-150000-online-visitors-and-100-hours-of-programming"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Gary Shapiro: CES 2021 will have 1,000 virtual exhibits, 150,000 visitors, and 100 programming hours Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn The ice sculpture at CES Unveiled, 2019.
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CES 2021 is going to be a very different affair. The biggest tech trade show, which typically takes place every January in Las Vegas, has been forced to go digital this year, thanks to the coronavirus.
Normally, CES is a huge physical event with exhibits sprawling across 2.9 million net square feet of space. Last year’s event attracted 171,268 attendees, including 6,517 members of the media. This year, the online-only event will be smaller, with perhaps 1,000 exhibitors and maybe 150,000 attendees, according to Gary Shapiro, who is CEO of the Consumer Technology Association , which hosts CES. Those numbers are not so bad in many ways, as they would still qualify as a huge digital experience. And more people who never had access to CES will be coming for the first time, boosting the show’s international numbers, Shapiro said in an interview. More than 100,000 people are already registered.
But it’s going to be a weird event. No doubt about that. I spoke with Shapiro about it during our usual preshow interview. He said the CTA had to make some agonizing decisions in the transition to digital, as the big conference — or lack of it — won’t create nearly as many jobs in Las Vegas as in past years. He said his confidence in an in-person event in January 2022 is growing, especially with the progress on vaccines. But the CTA had to shut down the physical side of CES 2021 and announced in July that it would move ahead with the digital-only format for the show, which starts on January 11 and runs for four days. The event will have a media day, as well as 100 hours of programming, albeit with sessions that are shorter than usual. (I’m hosting a session on cloud computing’s progress during the pandemic).
As for hot technologies, Shapiro sees 5G broadband wireless networks taking off, 8K TVs, enterprise technologies, health tech, robotics, augmented reality and virtual reality, and drones. Sorting through it all to find the good stuff will probably be more challenging this year, but that’s where the media can help.
On the political and regulatory front, Shapiro sees some black clouds. He thinks regulators are making a mistake in going after the “crown jewels” of technology companies. He said, “It’s catnip to the European regulators and others who want to hurt U.S. companies. A lot of U.S. employees, stockholders, pension funds rely on these companies. They’re keeping the stock market aloft.” Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.
Above: Gary Shapiro, CEO of the Consumer Technology Association, at CES 2020.
VentureBeat: How is CES different this year? It’s such a big change. How quickly did you have to make the decision to go virtual? Gary Shapiro: It’s so different that I expect we will never have to do it again. Or at least I hope so. It’s given us this one-year window opportunity to try amazing things we’ve always wanted to do. Especially with the vaccine out, my confidence level for 2022 is growing. We’ve already started selling that event early. We started in November. We’re selling out halls already. There will be a physical event, and we also want to take the best and most effective things we’ve done digitally. We’re calling 2022 a hybrid event.
But for 2021, without worrying about the physical event, we’ve been focusing exclusively on the digital event since July. We went to a two-track approach beginning in March. We made the announcement, as you’re aware, in July, seven months ahead. We did it intentionally early to give everyone an opportunity to plan, so they could think about how they would express themselves in a digital venue, and also frankly so they could save some money. We decided there was no way there would be a widely available vaccine in time for CES, and so we felt the right thing to do was make the announcement and be part of the solution rather than the problem.
VentureBeat: I see you’re over 1,000 exhibitors. That’s not as many as usual, but what was key to hanging on to everyone and making sure that some of those folks wouldn’t just decide to skip a year? Shapiro: Every company made its own decision. We offered everyone a refund if they wanted it, or credit toward next year. We were about as generous as we could possibly be. We’ve incurred a lot of our own costs. But we did a lot of research early in the year. We were very lucky. We represent the technology industry, which has done very well for the most part. Anyone selling anything to the home, any service, has done well. And our show was in January, before COVID-19 hit the United States. We weren’t one of these events that had to pivot in three weeks before a cancellation. We had more time to think about it, focus on it, look at other people’s experiences.
There’s a lot of goodwill, because of COVID-19, throughout the business community. People are somewhat forgiving and understanding. But the COVID-19 experiences people have had, where avatars go from physical exhibit to physical exhibit on a screen, that was less than satisfactory for both the people investing in the exhibit and the people investing in attending. We had to do something different. We couldn’t find anything off the shelf. We decided the only ones who were doing this right were the tech companies doing their own user events and application events.
Microsoft did an amazing job, and others as well. But they were the ones who had the highest satisfaction rate, the best attendance, and everything else. We have a long relationship with Microsoft, and they’re a member of ours. We decided we could create something and take advantage of the fact that they had Microsoft Teams, take advantage of their cloud. They have phenomenal production studios in Teams. That’s what this is. It’s not building an exhibit and they will come. You produce something compelling, essentially a telethon for a few days, video productions, and things like that. Our exhibitors are doing the same. Talking to our keynotes, they get it. A lot of the big companies get it. But we also wanted to offer something to smaller companies, startups. Eureka Park has been phenomenal. Our entry-level offering offers a lot.
We’re able to do things we’ve always wanted to do but we’ve never been able to do. We wanted to do the LinkedIn of events. When you register, you get the option to share your name with others. That’s already taken off. People are getting in contact, getting emails, linking up already. Before the show even starts, we’re feeling some satisfaction and success.
Another thing we’re doing, just about everyone who goes to CES says there isn’t enough time to see everything they want to. We’re giving show life for another 30 days afterward, where people will be able to see the exhibits, see the conferences, see the keynotes, even communicate with exhibitors if they’re interested and willing. We’ll also have a live aspect. A lot of the press conferences, 20-some press conferences, will allow Q&A periods for participation.
We want to make sure it’s still a very qualified audience, though. That’s why we’re urging press to register early because we’re afraid that if we get thousands of press trying to register in the last few days, we can’t get them into the press conferences. It’s the same with regular attendees.
Above: CES 2021 will be all virtual.
VentureBeat: I’m happy not to have to wait in line for the Samsung event anymore.
Shapiro: We’re accessing some serious bandwidth to make sure people’s needs will be met along those lines. We’re getting very significant registration. A lot of it, more than average, is from outside the United States. That serves another need. A lot of people historically want to go to the show from other countries, and they just can’t. Now people are just registering. It’s very exciting.
We also have the keyword search opportunity. You create your own customized experience, whatever you’re interested in. At the same time, we tried to preserve serendipity, discovering things you didn’t know about. In addition to relying on journalists, we have four of our own anchors that will be putting out highlights on things coming up. It’s 24 hours a day. People access it from all over the world and see what they want to see, whether it’s in real time or after the show.
VentureBeat: How does the 150,000-attendee estimate come about? Shapiro: It’s our average number we’ve had the last few years. But we don’t know. It’s a guesstimate at best. We just don’t know. There’s no other way to say it. Everyone expects us to give a number, so we did, but … VentureBeat: I just wondered if it was an indication based on registration so far.
Shapiro: No, the registration only opened less than three weeks ago. Usually, we open registration on September 1. We’ve already had 100,000 preregistered in that time, though. It’s not an apples to apples comparison, of course. If you’re going to CES in a normal year, you have to invest in a hotel and airfare. We’re reluctant to make any comparisons. And a lot of people who register early often don’t go. That’s the case with any trade show. But what we’re trying to avoid, like I said, is last-minute registration. That’s a concern of ours.
VentureBeat: It sounds like you’re getting a benefit in terms of an international audience, then. People who couldn’t have come can attend now.
Shapiro: Every exhibitor gets a certain number of free registrations, but we’ve also offered our membership registrations. We’re also offering the keynotes on social media for anyone. You don’t have to be connected with the industry to watch the keynotes.
Above: CES 2020 VentureBeat: Are you not as concerned about programming overlapping because there’s the ability to watch later? Shapiro: That’s still carefully choreographed because people want to watch breaking news live. We’ll have more than 100 hours of programming, but we don’t want to have two drone sessions on at the same time, two of anything like that. I still think people want — there’s excitement in hearing about it for the first time. Now a lot of the programming may not be live because we’re dealing with panels and things like that. But certainly, some of it will be.
VentureBeat: I feel badly for Las Vegas itself. It has to be a huge blow.
Shapiro: We did two press conferences this week, one for Asia and the West Coast and one for Europe and the rest of the U.S. The late-night Asia one, they asked me what was most difficult, and I gave a lengthy answer. It was probably too long. But I came back to it later and said that honestly, the toughest thing for us was all the people in Las Vegas who look forward to CES to kick off the year. The calls we made in July before we went public were very difficult. I feel for them so much.
We’re still supporting local charities there. We’re making contributions to the big Las Vegas food bank and have done other things we’ve tried in the past to support them. As different and exciting as 2021 may be, we’re looking forward to a physical CES in 2022. We look forward to seeing people and looking them in the eye. We may still be wearing masks, but I’m confident we’ll figure it out one way or another.
VentureBeat: In what other ways has this become more difficult? What are the toughest decisions you’ve had to make in this transition? Shapiro: Well, there’s the financial impact. I’m not going to lie. We had to cut back our spending. We’re a smaller staff now. We had to learn new skills. We had to reimagine CES. It was a great exercise, and we’ve come up with some cool, exciting things that no one else has done before. We’re excited about it.
But we’ve gotten good at producing a large physical event, and there are certain rhythms that we’re used to. Some things — it’s just an ah-ha moment. For example, we changed the dates of the show. Normally I wouldn’t be able to change the dates of the show for eight years from now. I can tell you what they’ll be. But five months out, we pushed it forward a week, more into January. A lot of that time is for post-production. People have to be uploading stuff. We felt they needed that extra week after the holidays.
It’s different in many, many ways. On the other hand, a lot of the things I’m usually worried about at this time of year, I’m not worried about them. We’d be talking about how to survey our attendees, journalists, and exhibitors after the show. We don’t have to ask about how their trip went, what the hotel was like. The opportunities are huge. There’s a lot of goodwill. But I don’t want to oversell it. You’re still sitting at home in front of a screen. We’ve had to cut down the time for panels considerably. Usually, it’s an hour standard, and now it’s 30 minutes.
Above: AMD CEO Lisa Su shows off a Ryzen 4000 laptop processor at CES 2020.
VentureBeat: It’s interesting that you can show how innovation hasn’t stopped. Companies are still creating and launching new things.
Shapiro: It’s huge. We’re talking to companies that are really jazzed up. The keynoters are excited. They have stuff they want to announce. Just today, we announced another keynoter we’ve never had before, Doug McMillon, the CEO of Walmart. This week, we announced Ann Sarnoff from Warner Media. We have more announcements coming. Getting people to speak and participate is exciting. The live anchor guests will also be interviewing a lot of people who are relevant to the industry. We’ve never had that before.
VentureBeat: What categories do you foresee being hot or interesting? Shapiro: We’ve been talking about resilience for a few years. We’ve had areas of the show on smart cities. Next-generation television, there’s a lot of excitement in broadcasting and more excitement than I expected from TV manufacturers. The TV world has something new, and they want to get it out to the world. People are cord-cutting, and so the over-the-air broadcast crowd, this helps out. It’s free, and it can do a lot.
Obviously, 5G is huge. We have the CEO of Verizon, Hans Vestberg. There’s a lot about the 5G infrastructure that’s becoming so much more important than anyone realized. We need broadband, and we need it across everything. Mobility, we have Mary Barra from GM. There’s the focus on electric cars and the focus on self-driving. We have the major car companies participating again. If you’re an infrastructure supplier in the auto industry, this gives you a real opportunity to shine. Then there’s robotics, AR and VR, drones. I have to mention health tech.
Industry sales are up significantly in 2020 because people needed tech for education, for working from home. They’re buying all sorts of things. Video games are off the charts. All sorts of things have jumped. 5G phones have jumped. 8K televisions hit almost a million units this year, and even more next year. 4K is incredible. There’s so much out there that’s had to change because of COVID-19. Companies now have the opportunity to talk about what’s different. Every company has something different because of COVID-19. The other side is looking at supply chain issues. That’s become a challenge for companies. But it’s created new opportunities in sourcing.
Above: Sign at CES 2019.
There’s always more news out there. A lot of people are on pins and needles as to whether the president will put tariffs on products from Vietnam. That one came out of the blue. They were labeled a currency manipulator two years ago, and now there are supposed to be hearings before the end of the year. Who knows? There’s the overhang of the change in administrations, a lot of policies that could happen at the last second.
VentureBeat: We have more of an enterprise focus these days. Do you see much of that at CES? Shapiro: We definitely do. I talk to a lot of CEOs, and they keep educating me on all the stuff that goes on from an enterprise standpoint. It’s a show focused on innovation, and as I say in my opening keynote, people are doing deals at CES across categories, across verticals. That’s why, when we tried to create the digital venues, we talked about how to get those lines out real quickly from one industry and one company to another. That’s what CES is so valuable for. I’ve talked to representatives from many different companies in many different industries, and that’s what they stress.
If you look at some of the companies we have, huge market leaders from other categories have chosen to use the digital venue. Whether it’s agriculture or manufacturing, you name it. It’s shocking to me, some of the names in there. Leaders in industry.
VentureBeat: Is there anything big on your radar as far as the regulatory front? Shapiro: If you count litigation, every day there’s news about a new company being sued by the government. A lot of our crown jewel companies. It’s catnip to the European regulators and others who want to hurt U.S. companies. A lot of U.S. employees, stockholders, pension funds rely on these companies. They’re keeping the stock market aloft. It seems like a peculiar strategy, to attack our best companies through these vague laws. And to go back with a subpoena request like the FTC has, going back years with these broad requests that cripple companies — look what happened to Microsoft when that happened years ago. They stood still for several years. It’s not a good idea.
Section 230 is obviously top of mind. Facebook and Google, the neighborhood companies, the ratings companies, all these things we rely on as consumers to figure out where we should eat, what places we should stay in — so many things are connected with that. Policymakers are divorced from reality on this one, frankly. Republicans and Democrats are angry at a few companies because they think they’re being mistreated, but they’re oblivious to the fact that most Americans are very happy writing comments and things like that. Companies have done an amazing job — like Facebook. To have the State Department evaluating every [political ad placed on a company’s social platform] and their politics, whether their political ads are accurate or not — it’s just impossible, what they’re demanding. And it obviously has constitutional ramifications that are absolutely huge.
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"GamesBeat Decides the game of the year | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/gamesbeat-decides-the-game-of-the-year"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages GamesBeat Decides the game of the year Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Nothing exemplifies the power of the human spirit through a tumultuous time like arguing about video games. And thankfully, GamesBeat is comprised of four heroes who are willing and ready to do just that. During a more than two hour online video conference, which you can watch in the video above, GamesBeat editors Mike Minotti, Jason Wilson, Jeff Grubb, and Dean Takahashi chose and ranked the top 10 best games of the year. You can follow along with the full discussion yourself, or you can scroll down to the final results. Here are the best games of 2020: 10. Yakuza: Like A Dragon From Jeff Grubb: After a half-dozen action-style Yakuza games, the series veered hard into turn-based combat with Yakuza: Like A Dragon. Developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio also took a chance by introducing a new group of core characters to replace the familiar cast from the previous games. And Like A Dragon succeeds not in spite of these changes but because of them. The combat gives the game a chance to more frequently express Yakuza’s wacky sensibilities, and Ichiban Kasuga and his crew are a lovable group of misfits. It doesn’t hurt that Yakuza: Like A Dragon gets all the fast loading and quick resume benefits of running on Xbox Series X.
9. Ghost of Tsushima From Mike Minotti’s review : Ghost of Tsushima isn’t going to do anything that you haven’t seen before, but it uses that modern Assassin’s Creed formula to host a big and emotional samurai saga. I’ll even say that I like it better than, say, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, largely due to the stronger story and combat.
8. Spider-Man: Miles Morales From Mike Minotti’s review : Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! I’m not sure if a Sony home console has ever had a better PlayStation launch game than Spider-Man: Miles Morales. This certainly beats Knack and Killzone: Whatever the Subtitle Was on PlayStation 4.
7. SnowRunner From Jeff Grubb’s review : It’s so rewarding to carefully drive a truck around a fallen branch on a wet road or to find a path up a hill. And to me, this is what gaming does best. You won’t find any cutscenes or motion captured performances. It’s about our relationship to machines and the physical world in the same way that jazz is about our relationship to sound.
6. Astro’s Playroom From Mike Minotti’s review : I love 3D platformers. You don’t usually see this kind of charm and polish in the genre unless it has Mario’s name attached to it. Granted, Astro isn’t as acrobatic as our favorite Italian plumber. He has a simple move set consisting of a jump, a hover, and some punches. But Astro’s Playroom never feels dull for a second thanks to its unbounded creativity.
5. The Last of Us Part II From Dean Takahashi’s review : I said that the original game is the very best of what video games can be on the PlayStation 3. And this game, available on the PlayStation 4 on June 19, also represents the very best of what video games can be. It is right up there with awesome titles like God of War and Red Dead Redemption 2 that make narrative storytelling the highest form of video game art, in my humble opinion.
4. Crusader Kings III From Jason Wilson’s review : Crusader Kings III isn’t a grand strategy game. It’s really a role-playing game in which you play the sovereign of a realm. But where its genius lies isn’t in just playing one ruler — when one dies, you take the mantle of your heir. This doesn’t just keep the game going; it allows you to continue role-playing your realm, but from a different perspective.
3. Final Fantasy VII Remake From Mike Minotti : Final Fantasy VII Remake is able to make this world feel for real by exposing more details, sometimes via things you hear from chatty civilians as you walk by them. You also get to learn more about some characters that had smaller roles in the original. Avalanche members Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie didn’t do much back in 1997, but here extra dialogue and missions flesh out these characters, making them more (and the whole game) more interesting and likable.
2. Hades From Jeff Grubb: Hades is a miracle. Its gameplay and narrative loops work regardless of how you interact with them. Do you just want to upgrade your character and weapons to do even better on your next run in this roguelite? Well, the game ensures that you’ll almost always have something new to play with. Do you want to progress the story? Every return trip to the start comes with new updates from an incredible cast of characters. This is what it looks like to witness a developer solve a genre in a way that unlocks it for so many more people.
1. Ori and the Will of the Wisps From Mike Minotti’s review: As a huge fan of Ori and the Blind Forest, Will of the Wisps is everything that I could have wanted from a sequel. It’s a longer adventure with fantastic additions, especially the incredible boss fights. The ending sequence will go down as one of the best in gaming history. The occasional technical problems can be annoying, but I’d put up with five times as many bugs to play through this masterpiece.
Will of the Wisps is easily one of the best Metroidvanias ever, and I know that includes company like Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night. It’s that good.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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"FAA approves small drones in the U.S. to fly over people and at night | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/faa-approves-small-drones-in-the-u-s-to-fly-over-people-and-at-night"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages FAA approves small drones in the U.S. to fly over people and at night Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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( Reuters ) — Small drones will be allowed to fly over people and at night in the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said on Monday, a significant step toward drones’ use for widespread commercial deliveries.
The FAA said its long-awaited rules for the drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, will address security concerns by requiring remote identification technology in most cases to enable their identification from the ground.
Previously, small drone use was limited to flights over people who were directly participating in the operation, under a covered structure, or inside a stationary vehicle — unless operators had obtained a waiver from the FAA.
The rules will take effect 60 days after publication in the federal register in January. Drone manufacturers will have 18 months to begin producing drones with Remote ID, and operators will have an additional year to provide Remote ID.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! There are other, more complicated rules that allow for operations at night and over people for larger drones in some cases.
“The new rules make way for the further integration of drones into our airspace by addressing safety and security concerns,” FAA administrator Steve Dickson said. “They get us closer to the day when we will more routinely see drone operations, such as the delivery of packages.” Companies have been racing to create drone fleets to speed deliveries.
The United States has over 1.7 million drone registrations and 203,000 FAA-certificated remote pilots.
For at-night operations, the FAA said drones must be equipped with anti-collision lights. The final rules allow operations over moving vehicles in some circumstances.
Remote ID is required for all drones weighing 0.55 lb (0.25 kg) or more and is required for smaller drones under certain circumstances, like flights over open-air assemblies.
The new rules eliminate requirements that drones be connected to the internet to transmit location data but do require that they broadcast remote ID messages via radio frequency broadcast. Without the change, drones could have been barred from use in areas without internet access.
The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International said Remote ID will function as “a digital license plate for drones … that will enable more complex operations,” while operations at night and over people “are important steps toward enabling integration of drones into our national airspace.” One change since the rules were first proposed in 2019 requires that small drones not have any exposed rotating parts that could lacerate human skin.
United Parcel Service (UPS) said in October 2019 that it won the government’s first full approval to operate a drone airline.
Last year, Alphabet’s Wing, a sibling of search engine Google, was the first company to get U.S. air carrier certification for a single-pilot drone operation.
In August, Amazon’s drone service received federal approval allowing the retailer to begin testing commercial deliveries through its drone fleet.
Walmart said in September it would run a pilot project for delivery of grocery and household products through automated drones but acknowledged “it will be some time before we see millions of packages delivered via drone.” ( Reporting by David Shepardson, editing by Nick Zieminski and Howard Goller.
) VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Enevate Named in the 2021 Global Cleantech 100 List of Innovators for Second Year in a Row | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/enevate-named-in-the-2021-global-cleantech-100-list-of-innovators-for-second-year-in-a-row"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Press Release Enevate Named in the 2021 Global Cleantech 100 List of Innovators for Second Year in a Row Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn IRVINE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–December 29, 2020– Enevate , a pioneer in advanced silicon-dominant lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery technology featuring extreme fast charging and high energy density for electric vehicles (EVs), was selected from among thousands of companies around the world for Cleantech Group’s 2021 Global Cleantech 100 list. This is the second year in a row that Enevate has been named to the prestigious list.
Enevate develops innovative battery technologies to accelerate adoption of electrified mobility and has a vision to enable a cleaner and more sustainable environment. Enevate enables battery-powered applications and products that are accessible and affordable to everyone. Its 4 th generation XFC-Energy™ Technology for EVs, announced earlier this year, will help lower CO 2 emissions.
The 2021 Global Cleantech 100 is the 12 th edition of the respected annual guide to the leading companies and themes in sustainable innovation. It features the private independent and for-profit companies best positioned to contribute to a more digitized, de-carbonized and resource efficient industrial future.
“We are honored to be named for a second year in this important bellwether listing as our mission is also to make a better world through development of clean technology,” said Enevate CEO Robert A. Rango.
“Enevate’s innovative and industry-ready battery solutions to charge an EV as fast as refueling a gas car will accelerate EV adoption and be a critical piece of the puzzle in creating a truly sustainable world.” The list combines Cleantech Group’s research data with qualitative judgments from nominations and insight from a global, 91-member expert panel of leading investors and executives from corporations and industrials active in technology and innovation scouting. From pioneers and veterans to new entrants, the panel broadly represents the global cleantech community and results in a list with a powerful base of respect and support from many important players within the cleantech innovation ecosystem.
This year’s list includes innovators from 15 countries, with just over half located in the U.S. and the rest hailing from Asia, Australia, Europe and the Middle East. The sectors covered include: Agriculture & Food, Enabling Technologies, Energy & Power, Materials & Chemicals, Transportation & Logistics and Resources & Environment.
“We are delighted to welcome 50 companies for their first time on this year’s new Global Cleantech 100. This replacement rate speaks to the healthy maturing of this innovation ecosystem and to some specific impacts of Covid-19,” said Richard Youngman, CEO, Cleantech Group. “On the one hand, the 2021 list reflects the long-running mega-trends like decarbonization, digitization, electrification, and the ever-increasing volumes of deployed renewable energy. On the other, Covid-19’s impact is evident – for example, in the uptick in automation and robotics-enabled solutions, in logistics and supply chain solutions, and solutions in the food chain to prevent, reduce and repurpose food waste. Resilience is a new critical factor at play.” For detailed information on Enevate’s outlook as an innovator, visit Cleantech Group’s market intelligence platform i3 and search for Enevate.
Download the report and meet the companies solving our biggest challenges.
To meet many of the innovators and investors on the 2021 Global Cleantech 100 list, join Cleantech at its virtual events: Cleantech Forum Europe, January 12-14, and Cleantech Forum San Francisco, January 19-21.
The Global Cleantech 100 program continues to be sponsored by Chubb , the world’s largest publicly traded property and casualty insurance company.
About Enevate ( www.enevate.com ) Enevate develops and licenses advanced silicon-dominant Li-ion battery technology for electric vehicles (EVs), with a vision of EVs charging as fast as refueling gas cars, accessible and affordable to everyone, and accelerating EVs’ mass adoption. With a portfolio of more than 350 patents issued and in process, Enevate’s pioneering advancements in silicon-dominant anodes and cells have resulted in battery technology that features five-minute extreme fast charging with high energy density, low temperature operation for cold climates, low cost and safety advantages over conventional batteries.
Enevate’s vision is to develop and propagate EV battery technology that contributes to a clean and sustainable environment. The Irvine, California-based company has raised over $110 million from investors including Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi (Alliance Ventures), LG Chem, Samsung, Mission Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Tsing Capital, Infinite Potential Technologies, Presidio Ventures – a Sumitomo Corporation company, Lenovo, CEC Capital and Bangchak. Enevate®, the Enevate logo, XFC-Energy™, HD-Energy®, and eBoost® are registered trademarks of Enevate Corporation.
About Cleantech Group At Cleantech Group, we provide research, consulting and events to catalyze opportunities for sustainable growth powered by innovation. We bring clients access to the trends, companies and people shaping the future and the customized advice and support businesses need to engage external innovation.
Industries are undergoing definitive transitions toward a more digitized, de-carbonized and resource-efficient industrial future. At every stage from initial strategy to final deals, our services bring corporate change makers, investors, governments and stakeholders from across the ecosystem, the support they need to thrive in this fast-arriving and uncertain future.
The company was established in 2002 and is headquartered in San Francisco with people based in London, Paris and Boston.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201229005057/en/ Bill Blanning Enevate Corporation [email protected] Kristin Macdonald Cleantech Group [email protected] VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Apple purges 39,000 game apps from China store to meet year-end licence deadline | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/apple-purges-39000-game-apps-from-china-store-to-meet-year-end-licence-deadline"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Apple purges 39,000 game apps from China store to meet year-end licence deadline Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Apple logo Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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( Reuters ) — Apple removed 39,000 game apps from its China store Thursday, the biggest removal ever in a single day, in keeping with a year-end deadline for all game publishers to obtain a licence.
The takedowns come amid a crackdown on unlicensed games by Chinese authorities.
Including the 39,000 games, Apple removed more than 46,000 apps in total from its store on Thursday. Games affected by the sweep include Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Identity and NBA 2K20, according to research firm Qimai.
Qimai also said only 74 of the top 1,500 paid games on the Apple store survived the purge.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The company initially gave game publishers an end-of-June deadline to submit a government-issued licence number that would enable users to make in-app purchases in the world’s biggest games market.
Apple later extended the deadline to December 31.
China’s Android app stores have long complied with regulations on licences. It is not clear why Apple is enforcing them more strictly this year.
Analysts said the move was no surprise, as Apple continues closing loopholes to fall in line with China’s content regulators, and that it would not directly affect Apple’s bottom line as much as previous removals.
“However, this major pivot to only accepting paid games that have a game licence, coupled with China’s extremely low number of foreign game licences approved this year, will probably lead more game developers to switch to an ad-supported model for their Chinese versions,” said Todd Kuhns, marketing manager for AppInChina, a firm that helps overseas companies distribute their apps.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
Discover our Briefings.
The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Apple loses copyright infringement claims against security startup Corellium | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/apple-loses-copyright-infringement-claims-against-security-startup-corellium"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Apple loses copyright infringement claims against security startup Corellium Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Used 5/5/2023 VB. The Apple logo is seen at an Apple Store in Brooklyn, New York, U.S. October 23, 2020.
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( Reuters ) — A federal judge in Florida on Tuesday dismissed Apple’s copyright infringement claims against a Florida startup whose software helps security researchers find vulnerabilities in Apple products , including the iPhone.
U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith ruled in favor of Corellium, saying its software emulating the iOS operating system that runs on the iPhone and iPad amounted to “fair use” because it was “transformative” and helped developers find security flaws.
Apple accused Corellium of essentially replicating iOS to create “virtual” iOS-operated devices whose “sole function” was to run unauthorized copies of the system on non-Apple hardware.
But the Fort Lauderdale-based judge said Corellium “adds something new to iOS” by letting users see and halt running processes, take live snapshots, and conduct other operations.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! “Corellium’s profit motivation does not undermine its fair use defense, particularly considering the public benefit of the product,” Smith wrote.
The judge also rejected Apple’s argument that the Delray Beach startup acted in bad faith by selling its product indiscriminately, including potentially to hackers, and by not requiring users to report bugs to Apple.
He said that argument appeared “puzzling, if not disingenuous,” saying Cupertino, California-based Apple did not impose a reporting requirement under its own Bug Bounty Program.
Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Corellium has denied wrongdoing. Justin Levine, one of its lawyers, said in an email the decision made “proper findings in connection with fair use.” Smith said Apple may still pursue a separate federal law claim that Corellium circumvented its security measures when creating its software.
Corellium was founded in August 2017. According to court records, Apple tried to buy Corellium starting in January 2018, but talks had broken down by that summer. Apple sued Corellium in August 2019.
The case is Apple Inc v. Corellium LLC, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida, No. 19-81160.
( Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York. Editing by David Gregorio.
) VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"AI Weekly: The trends that shaped 2020 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/ai-weekly-the-trends-that-shaped-2020"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages AI Weekly: The trends that shaped 2020 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn A Samsung Unpacked event in February 2020 held at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, Calif.
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A few days ago, I published a story about books that I read throughout the year to improve and inform my job covering artificial intelligence and adjacent industries. In all, the multi-part review contains nine books published in 2020 that explore subjects like business strategy, policy, and geopolitics, as well as the human rights consequences associated with AI deployments.
Too Smart , for example, looks at the smart city and smart home and their role in technopolitics and power.
Monopolies Suck examines how big businesses fleece the average person. And in a year filled with calls to dismantle the social hierarchy of white supremacy , the exploration of Afrofuturism and Black joy detailed in Black Futures and Distributed Blackness were very welcome to me.
That process, reviewing books I read throughout the year, put me in a reflective mood, and so in this final AI Weekly of 2020, we take a look back at the kinds of stories VentureBeat saw recur throughout 2020. Given so much news in a year full of unprecedented history, it seems like a good idea.
2020 kicked off with AI startups bringing in more funding than any previous year, according to CB Insights.
Companies built on data, like Palantir and Snowflake, went public , while a collection of AI startup acquisitions helped Big Tech businesses concentrate their power.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! The year began with COVID-19 spreading around the world and ended with algorithms deciding who gets the vaccine after a year of watching Black and brown people die at disproportionate rates. Questions continue to be asked about who gets the vaccine and when.
At the beginning of 2020, the world learned the story of Clearview AI, a company that scraped billions of photos from the internet to make its facial recognition software and has extensive ties to far-right and white supremacist groups. Despite public outrage, being forced out of Canada , and an alleged biometric law violation, at the end of the year, news emerged that Clearview AI landed a Department of Defense contract.
In another harrowing case , on December 28, reports emerged of a Black man in New Jersey who was incorrectly identified using Clearview AI facial recognition and arrested. According to NJ.com, he spent a year fighting charges that could have carried a penalty of up to 20 years of prison time. This incident comes to light less than six months after the first reported case of false arrest due to use of facial recognition was reported in Detroit ; Robert Williams, the innocent man in that incident, was also Black.
The year ends with additional policy reverberations for facial recognition.
Boston and Portland passed citywide bans, and New York signed a bill into law placing a moratorium on facial recognition use in schools ; meanwhile, a statewide ban stalled in Massachusetts.
One of my favorite anecdotes from books I read this year was from Too Smart, which said that when you consider what smart cities look like, don’t think of futuristic metropolises sold in PR campaigns — think of New Orleans and the predictive policing that perpetuates historic bias.
Palantir and many other companies sold policing tools to New Orleans over the years, but 2020 ends with the New Orleans City Council passing a ban on predictive policing and facial recognition. The Gulf Coast news outlet The Lens reports that legislation is watered down from its original version, but considering the fact that two years ago the city council didn’t know police were using Palantir , it’s a story worth remembering.
“It’s here,” New Orleans councilmember Jason Williams told The Lens.
“The technology is here before there’s laws guiding the technology. And I think it’s a very dangerous position for communities to be in.” In early 2020, Ruha Benjamin warned the AI community it needs to take steps to include historical and social context or risk becoming party to gross human rights violations like IBM, which provided technology used to document the Holocaust.
Earlier this month, news reports emerged that Alibaba and Huawei are developing facial recognition for tracking and detaining members of Muslim minority groups in China. With more than one million people detained today, it’s a phenomenon that often draws comparisons with Nazi concentration camps and the Jewish genocide of World War II. IBM agreed to stop selling facial recognition software in June.
There were also two reports in 2020 named The State of AI.
One, from Air Street Capital, found evidence of brain drain from academia to industry. Another, from McKinsey, found businesses were increasing their use of AI, but that few business managers who took part in a survey are meeting 10 major measurements of risk mitigation, a trend that carries consequences beyond those typically placed on marginalized communities. It can also leave businesses vulnerable, a situation that appeared to undergo little change this year compared to the same survey administered a year earlier.
This is of course an incomplete collection of trends. I’ve got no grand statement or takeaway to offer here that ties all these together, but given these trends and that we are currently living in the deadliest month in the deadliest year in American history , it only seems right that people end the year by sticking up for humanity. In the ML community, that means confronting issues of inequality and the potential to automate oppression within its own ranks, and not allowing events of bias or human rights violations to become normalized.
The need to continue to emphasize this is underscored by a few important recent events. Amid the fallout from Google firing Timnit Gebru and other events that seriously call into question the objectivity of AI research produced with corporate funding, an AI research survey completed in part by Google AI researchers called for a major culture change.
Following high-profile instances of AI bias revealed in computer vision and natural language models, coauthors of the recent survey say the machine learning community needs to shift away from using massive, poorly curated datasets and toward treating data like it’s not just numbers but respectful of human privacy and property rights.
This wasn’t a year anyone saw coming, full of challenges new and old. Happy New Year to everyone reading this. Let’s ensure that as we confront the challenges of 2021, we keep our humanity intact and fight to defend the humanity of others so that we can together ensure AI is a technology that serves everyone, not just a handful of engineers and Big Tech companies.
For AI coverage, send news tips to Khari Johnson and Kyle Wiggers and AI editor Seth Colaner — and be sure to subscribe to the AI Weekly newsletter and bookmark our AI channel, The Machine.
Thanks for reading, Khari Johnson Senior AI Staff Writer Story updated April 9, 2021: Correction: Citing NJ.com , the original version of this story stated that Clearview AI was used to identify Nijeer Parks, however this story was updated after NJ.com removed mention of Clearview AI from its story. We regret any inconvenience this error may have caused anyone.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"AI jobs in 2021: here are some key trends | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/ai-jobs-in-2021-here-are-some-key-trends"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Sponsored Jobs AI jobs in 2021: here are some key trends Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
There’s no doubt about it – Artificial Intelligence has been a bit of a buzzword this year. Artificial intelligence has been established as the main driver of emerging technologies such as big data, robotics, and the IoT. So, what do the next 12 months look like for AI? As a result of the global pandemic, consumer trends have changed significantly, which has resulted in some notable trends in the world of AI for 2021… Hyperautomation Hyperautomation is the application of advanced technologies like Artificial Intelligence and machine learning to augment workers and automate processes in ways that are significantly more impactful than traditional automation capabilities. Automated business processes must be able to adapt to changing circumstances and respond to unexpected situations, hence the need for AI. This is something we’ll be seeing more of in the new year, no doubt.
Ethical AI One of the biggest things we’re expecting in 2021 is a rising demand for the ethical use of Artificial Intelligence. Previously, companies adopted AI and machine learning without a huge amount of thought to the ethics behind them. But now, consumers and employees expect companies to adopt AI in a responsible manner. Over the next number years, companies will deliberately choose to do business with partners that commit to data ethics and adopt data handling practices that reflect their own values as well as their customers’ values.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Workplace AI It is predicted that in 2021, a sizeable number of companies in adaptive and growth mode will look to Artificial Intelligence to help with workplace disruption for both location-based, physical, or human-touch workers and knowledge workers working from home. AI will be used for things like customer service agent augmentation, return-to-work health tracking, and intelligent document extraction.
Cybersecurity AI seems to be constantly finding itself wrapped up in the world of cybersecurity, for both corporate; an ongoing trend that’s going nowhere. AI and machine learning technology can be used in cybersecurity to help identify threats, including variants of earlier threats. AI use will expand to create smart homes where the system learns the ways, habits, and preferences of its occupants – improving its ability to identify intruders and protect the home.
Does all of this sound super interesting to you? Then maybe you should consider looking for a job in AI. We have so many exciting opportunities available over on our careers page – head over and have a look now! VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
Discover our Briefings.
The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"9 trends in enterprise database technology | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/9-trends-that-show-databases-are-dominating-the-enterprise-stack"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages 9 trends in enterprise database technology Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
The database has always revolved around rock-solid reliability. Data goes in and then comes out in exactly the same way. Occasionally, the bits will be cleaned up and normalized so all of the dates are in the same format and the text is in the same character set, but other than that, nothing should be different.
That consistency is what makes the database essential for any enterprise — allowing it to conduct things like ecommerce transactions. It’s also why the database remains distinct from the data warehouse , another technology that is expanding its mission for slower-twitch things like analysis. The database acts as the undeniable record of the enterprise, the single source of truth.
Now databases are changing. Their focus is shifting and they’re accepting more responsibilities and offering smarter answers. In short, they’re expanding and taking over more and more of the stack.
Many of us might not notice because we’ve been running the same database for years without a change. Why mess with something that works? But as new options and features come along, it makes sense to rethink the architectures of data flows and take advantage of all the new options. Yes, the data will still be returned exactly as expected, but it will be kept safer and presented in a way that’s easier to use.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Many drivers of the change are startups built around a revolutionary new product, like multi-cloud scaling or blockchain assurance. For each new approach to storing information, there are usually several well-funded startups competing to dominate the space and often several others still in stealth mode.
The major companies are often not far behind. While it can take more time to add features to existing products, the big companies are finding ways to expand, sometimes by revising old offerings or by creating new ones in their own skunkworks. Amazon, for instance, is the master at rolling out new ways to store data. Its cloud has at least 11 different products called databases , and that doesn’t include the flat file options.
The other major cloud providers aren’t far behind. Microsoft has migrated its steadfast SQL Server to Azure and found ways to offer a half-dozen open source competitors, like MySQL. Google delivers both managed versions of relational databases and large distributed and replicated versions of NoSQL key/value pairs.
The old standards are also adding new features that often deliver much of the same promise as the startups while continuing support of older versions. Oracle, for instance, has been offering cloud versions of its database while adding new query formats (JSON) and better performance to handle the endless flood of incoming data.
IBM is also moving dB2 to the cloud while adding new features like integration with artificial intelligence algorithms that analyze the data. It’s also supporting the major open source relational databases while building out a hybrid version that merges Oracle compatibility with the PostgreSQL engine.
Among the myriad changes to old database standards and new emerging players, here (in no particular order) are nine key ways databases are being reborn.
1. Better query language SQL may continue to do the heavy lifting around the world. But newer options for querying — like GraphQL — are making it easier for front-end developers to find the data they need to present to the user and receive it in a format that can be dropped right into the user interface.
GraphQL follows the standard JavaScript format for serializing objects, making it easier for middle- and front-end code to parse it. It also hides some of the complexity of JOINs, making it simpler for end users to grab just the data they need. Developers are already adding tools like Apollo Studio , an IDE for exploring queries, or Hasura , an open source front-end that wraps GraphQL around legacy databases like PostgreSQL.
2. Streaming databases follow vast flows The model for a standard database is a big ledger, much like the ones clerks would maintain in fat bound books. Streaming databases like ksqlDB are built to watch an endless stream of data events and answer questions about them. Instead of imagining that the data is a permanent table, the streaming database embraces the endlessly changing possibilities as data flows through them.
3. Time-series database Most database columns have special formats for tracking date stamps. Time-series databases like InfluxDB or Prometheus do more than just store the time. They track and index the data for fast queries, like how many times a user logged in between January 15 and March 12. These are often special cases of streaming databases where the data in the streams is being tracked and indexed for changes over time.
4. Homomorphic encryption Cryptographers were once happy to lock up data in a safe. Now some are developing a technique called homomorphic encryption to make decisions and answer queries on encrypted data without actually decrypting it, a feature that vastly simplifies cloud security and data sharing. This allows computers and data analysts to work with data without knowing what’s in it. The methods are far from comprehensive, but companies like IBM are already delivering toolkits that can answer some useful database queries.
5. In-memory database The original goal of a database was to organize data so it could be available in the future, even when electricity is removed. The trouble is that sometimes even storing the data to persistent disks takes too much time, and it may not be worth the effort. Some applications can survive the occasional loss of data (would the world end if some social media snark disappeared?), and fast performance is more important than disaster recovery. So in-memory databases like Amazon’s ElasticCache are designed for applications that are willing to trade permanence for lightning-fast response times.
6. Microservice engines Developers have traditionally built their code as a separate layer that lives outside the database itself, and this code treats the database as a black box. But some are noticing that the databases are so feature-rich they can act as microservice engines on their own. PostgreSQL, for instance, now allows embedded procedures to commit full transactions and initiate new ones before spitting out answers in JSON. Developers are recognizing that the embedded code that has been part of databases like Oracle for years may be just enough to build many of the microservices imagined by today’s architects.
Jupyter notebooks started out as a way for data scientists to bundle their answers with the Python code that produced it. Then data scientists started integrating the data access with the notebooks, which meant going where the information was stored: the database. Today, SQL is easy to integrate, and users are becoming comfortable using the notebooks to access the database and generate smart reports that integrate with data science (Julia or R) and machine learning tools. The newer Jupyter Lab interface is turning the classic notebook into a full-service IDE, complete with extensions that pull data directly from SQL databases.
7. Graph databases The network of connections between people or things is one of the dominant data types on the internet, so it’s no surprise that databases are evolving to make it easier to store and analyze these relationships.
Neo4j now offers a visualization tool ( Bloom ) and a collection of data science functions for developing complex reports about the network.
GraphDB is focusing on developing “semantic graphs” that use natural language to capture linguistic structures for big analytic projects.
TerminusDB is aimed at creating knowledge graphs with a versioning system much like Git. All of them bring efficiency to storing a complex set of relationships that don’t fit neatly into standard tables.
8. Merging data storage with transport Databases were once hidden repositories to keep data safe in the back office. Delivering this information to the user was the job of other code. Now, databases like Firebase treat the user’s phone or laptop as just another location for replicating data.
Databases like FaunaDB are baking replication into the stack, thus saving the DBA from moving the bits. Now, developers don’t need to think about getting information to the user. They can just read and write from the local data store and assume the database will handle the grubby details of marshaling the bytes across the network while keeping them consistent.
9. Data everywhere A few years ago, all the major browsers began supporting the Local Storage and Indexed Storage APIs , making it easier for web applications to store significant amounts of data on the client’s machine. The early implementations limited the data to 5MB, but some have bumped the limits to 10MB. The response time is much faster, and it will also work even when the internet connection is down. The database is not just running on one box in your datacenter, but in every client machine running your code.
This article is part of a series on enterprise database technology trends.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"5 IPOs that show the importance of data in 2020 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/5-ipos-that-show-the-importance-of-data-in-2020"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages 5 IPOs that show the importance of data in 2020 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
The amount of data being generated continued to soar in 2020. And with the rollout of 5G networks, the deployment of edge computing, and the expanding adoption of cloud computing, most projections show the creation and collection of data continuing to accelerate.
Earlier this year, IDC had projected that 59 zettabytes of data would be “created, captured, copied, and consumed” in 2020, up from 41ZB in 2019. By 2024, that number is expected to reach 149ZB.
“The amount of data created over the next three years will be more than the data created over the past 30 years, and the world will create more than 3 times the data over the next five years than it did in the previous five,” the report said.
For enterprises, this makes data an essential raw material for maintaining a competitive edge. But truly harnessing that data remains an elusive task for many.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! That has created a massive opportunity for startups that can help enterprises solve their data problems. And in 2020, the momentum behind data startups propelled five to IPOs that demonstrate just how vital — and lucrative — data has become: Kingsoft Cloud IPO: May 8, 2020 IPO price: $17 December 28 Price: $45.25 The Chinese company provides cloud distribution and storage that includes public cloud, enterprise cloud, and IoT cloud services. It is also developing a blockchain platform for the gaming industry.
Offering data services and analytic s has become one of its key products.
ZoomInfo IPO date: June 3, 2020 IPO price: $21 December 28 Price: $44.84 ZoomInfo provides a SaaS platform that delivers marketing intelligence to companies to generate sales and recruiting leads. The company mixes data contributed by humans, as well as machine learning that is constantly crawling websites and public documents to amass databases of potential contacts for its enterprise users.
Snowflake IPO date: September 16, 2020 IPO price: $120 December 28 Price: $323.04 Snowflake sells a cloud data platform that consolidates a business’ data. This data warehouse startup has been on a tear since raising a $450 million round of venture capital in 2018 and was one of the biggest IPO listings of 2020.
Palantir IPO date: September 30, 2020 Reference price: $7.25 EOY price: $27.75 Palantir went public through a direct listing. The Peter Thiel-founded company analyzes vast quantities of data for a wide range of enterprise customers, but also some more controversial clients, such as the CIA.
C3.ai IPO date: December 9, 2020 IPO price: $42 EOY price: $161.00 C3.ai has developed an AI platform that targets enterprises. Its solution works across industries ranging from manufacturing and utilities to retail and health care.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"2020 was the year of connected social games | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/2020-was-the-year-of-connection-social-games"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Feature 2020 was the year of connected social games Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Among Us.
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The pandemic happened to all of us. And while the early sentiment that we were all in this together fell apart in the United States due to the deeper diseases of individualism and capitalism, people still craved ways to connect with other humans. In the first weeks of the stay-at-home orders, these attempts to socialize took the form of “happy hour” Zoom calls.
And they were awful. People need distractions and structure to mitigate the pressures of spending time together. You get that with TVs or games at the bar or with (I’m assuming) the racist jokes while golfing. And video games are the best way to re-create that experience online.
The reason we turned to video conferencing first, however, is that games can have a high barrier to entry. Zoom was appealing because you could simply send someone a link and they could join you from almost any computing device. You cannot send an invite for Destiny , Dota , and World of Warcraft to your grandpa and expect him to know what to do next.
This is where we saw the rise of connected social games like Among Us , Roblox , and Animal Crossing.
Among Us is the game people needed in 2020 While all of gaming saw gains across nearly ever metric in 2020, Among Us stands out as the key example of what people sought out of games this year.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Among Us works because it provides the exact right amount of structure that people want from a social setting. It’s a game about working together to complete tasks while one or two people are secretly trying to sabotage your team. Like a jukebox at the bar or golfing, the activity is fuel to keep people interacting. Our interactions with the structure give us more to talk about with one another. And as a game, Among Us isn’t much more than that. Its most important characteristic as a game is that, like golf or darts, it’s still fun even if you’re bad at it or if you’ve been drinking.
The success of Among Us is that it empowers people to connect in fun ways. This distinguishes the modern genre of “social games” from the Facebook and mobile apps that we used to give that designation. Those games were about leveraging your social bonds to unlock rewards in games. In Clash of Clans, you need to encourage everyone in your clan to keep coming back to ensure you remain competitive.
For those older games, the social hooks exist to benefit the developer by pressuring players to boost engagement. In Among Us, socialization is the reward.
Of course, all of this only works because Among Us is also easy to access. It’s available on Steam and Switch for $5, but it’s also free on mobile. So it’s just a matter of convincing friends and family with smartphones to download an app. And even if they’re on a phone playing for free, they can still join games with people on PC or Switch.
By removing the barriers and facilitating human interactions, Among Us is one of the games that defined 2020.
Roblox provided kids with a sense of ownership Among Us seems like the most democratic form of the social game, and it’s the one I am most likely to suggest when extended family try to get me on a holiday video call. But it’s not the only game that reflected the trend toward social experiences in 2020.
Roblox is a free-to-play platform for user-generated games that has millions of young players, and its success is baked into its DNA. While many people of all ages turned to Among Us, Roblox was also winning over a lot of school-aged children. And it did so for many of the same reasons as Among Us.
But Roblox is a game about expression. The kids in its audience designed most of the hundreds of games that you can play through the Roblox platform. This turns it into something like a metaverse with its own trends, unspoken rules, and fashion. And more importantly, it’s a metaverse that kids often understand much more deeply than their parents.
Children thrive on developing expertise in spaces that seem foreign to their caregivers. It gives kids the sense that they have a place in the world that they can own and control. Roblox takes that concept to an extreme.
Animal Crossing is an external social game Animal Crossing is similar to Roblox. It provides an environment for self-expression but one that also has strict rules and restrictions. And while that can make the act of moving your house in the game feel like a time-consuming chore, it also encourages communication between players.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is not a great online multiplayer game. Nintendo is still bad at that. But what makes it a social game isn’t about playing together. Animal Crossing thrives when players struggle against the game’s systems and then takes those frustrations, stories, and desires to discuss them with other people playing Animal Crossing.
The socialization of Animal Crossing comes from asking friends if they have a certain recipe or piece of furniture. It’s also about having an encounter with animal villager and relaying that story on social media to other fans.
Structure is crucial to providing the framework for humans to socialize, and Animal Crossing is nothing but rigid structures. We cannot help but want to compare and contrast our experiences with people also struggling to take control over these immovable systems.
The pandemic deprived us of so much, and through that these games found ways to fill the void.
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"You don't code? Do machine learning straight from Microsoft Excel | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/you-dont-code-do-machine-learning-straight-from-microsoft-excel"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Practitioner You don’t code? Do machine learning straight from Microsoft Excel Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Machine learning and deep learning have become an important part of many applications we use every day. There are few domains that the fast expansion of machine learning hasn’t touched. Many businesses have thrived by developing the right strategy to integrate machine learning algorithms into their operations and processes. Others have lost ground to competitors after ignoring the undeniable advances in artificial intelligence.
But mastering machine learning is a difficult process. You need to start with a solid knowledge of linear algebra and calculus, master a programming language such as Python, and become proficient with data science and machine learning libraries such as Numpy, Scikit-learn, TensorFlow, and PyTorch.
And if you want to create machine learning systems that integrate and scale, you’ll have to learn cloud platforms such as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.
Naturally, not everyone needs to become a machine learning engineer. But almost everyone who is running a business or organization that systematically collects and processes can benefit from some knowledge of data science and machine learning. Fortunately, there are several courses that provide a high-level overview of machine learning and deep learning without going too deep into math and coding.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! But in my experience, a good understanding of data science and machine learning requires some hands-on experience with algorithms. In this regard, a very valuable and often-overlooked tool is Microsoft Excel.
To most people, MS Excel is a spreadsheet application that stores data in tabular format and performs very basic mathematical operations. But in reality, Excel is a powerful computation tool that can solve complicated problems. Excel also has many features that allow you to create machine learning models directly into your workbooks.
While I’ve been using Excel’s mathematical tools for years, I didn’t come to appreciate its use for learning and applying data science and machine learning until I picked up Learn Data Mining Through Excel: A Step-by-Step Approach for Understanding Machine Learning Methods by Hong Zhou.
Learn Data Mining Through Excel takes you through the basics of machine learning step by step and shows how you can implement many algorithms using basic Excel functions and a few of the application’s advanced tools.
While Excel will in no way replace Python machine learning , it is a great window to learn the basics of AI and solve many basic problems without writing a line of code.
Linear regression machine learning with Excel Linear regression is a simple machine learning algorithm that has many uses for analyzing data and predicting outcomes. Linear regression is especially useful when your data is neatly arranged in tabular format. Excel has several features that enable you to create regression models from tabular data in your spreadsheets.
One of the most intuitive is the data chart tool, which is a powerful data visualization feature. For instance, the scatter plot chart displays the values of your data on a cartesian plane. But in addition to showing the distribution of your data, Excel’s chart tool can create a machine learning model that can predict the changes in the values of your data. The feature, called Trendline, creates a regression model from your data. You can set the trendline to one of several regression algorithms, including linear, polynomial, logarithmic, and exponential. You can also configure the chart to display the parameters of your machine learning model, which you can use to predict the outcome of new observations.
You can add several trendlines to the same chart. This makes it easy to quickly test and compare the performance of different machine learning models on your data.
Above: Excel’s Trendline feature can create regression models from your data.
In addition to exploring the chart tool, Learn Data Mining Through Excel takes you through several other procedures that can help develop more advanced regression models. These include formulas such as LINEST and LINREG, which calculate the parameters of your machine learning models based on your training data.
The author also takes you through the step-by-step creation of linear regression models using Excel’s basic formulas such as SUM and SUMPRODUCT. This is a recurring theme in the book: You’ll see the mathematical formula of a machine learning model, learn the basic reasoning behind it, and create it step by step by combining values and formulas in several cells and cell arrays.
While this might not be the most efficient way to do production-level data science work, it is certainly a very good way to learn the workings of machine learning algorithms.
Other machine learning algorithms with Excel Beyond regression models, you can use Excel for other machine learning algorithms.
Learn Data Mining Through Excel provides a rich roster of supervised and unsupervised machine learning algorithms , including k-means clustering, k-nearest neighbor, naive Bayes classification, and decision trees.
The process can get a bit convoluted at times, but if you stay on track, the logic will easily fall in place. For instance, in the k-means clustering chapter, you’ll get to use a vast array of Excel formulas and features (INDEX, IF, AVERAGEIF, ADDRESS, and many others) across several worksheets to calculate cluster centers and refine them. This is not a very efficient way to do clustering, but you’ll be able to track and study your clusters as they become refined in every consecutive sheet. From an educational standpoint, the experience is very different from programming books where you provide a machine learning library function your data points and it outputs the clusters and their properties.
Above: When doing k-means clustering on Excel, you can follow the refinement of your clusters on consecutive sheets.
In the decision tree chapter, you will go through the process calculating entropy and selecting features for each branch of your machine learning model. Again, the process is slow and manual, but seeing under the hood of the machine learning algorithm is a rewarding experience.
In many of the book’s chapters, you’ll use the Solver tool to minimize your loss function. This is where you’ll see the limits of Excel, because even a simple model with a dozen parameters can slow your computer down to a crawl, especially if your data sample is several hundred rows in size. But the Solver is an especially powerful tool when you want to fine-tune the parameters of your machine learning model.
Above: Excel’s Solver tool fine-tunes the parameters of your model and minimizes loss functions.
Deep learning and natural language processing with Excel Learn Data Mining Through Excel shows that Excel can even express advanced machine learning algorithms. There’s a chapter that delves into the meticulous creation of deep learning models.
First, you’ll create a single layer artificial neural network with less than a dozen parameters. Then you’ll expand on the concept to create a deep learning model with hidden layers. The computation is very slow and inefficient, but it works, and the components are the same: cell values, formulas, and the powerful Solver tool.
Above: Deep learning with Microsoft Excel gives you a view under the hood of how deep neural networks operate.
In the last chapter, you’ll create a rudimentary natural language processing (NLP) application, using Excel to create a sentiment analysis machine learning model. You’ll use formulas to create a “bag of words” model, preprocess and tokenize hotel reviews, and classify them based on the density of positive and negative keywords. In the process you’ll learn quite a bit about how contemporary AI deals with language and how much different it is from how we humans process written and spoken language.
Excel as a machine learning tool Whether you’re making C-level decisions at your company, working in human resources, or managing supply chains and manufacturing facilities, a basic knowledge of machine learning will be important if you will be working with data scientists and AI people. Likewise, if you’re a reporter covering AI news or a PR agency working on behalf of a company that uses machine learning, writing about the technology without knowing how it works is a bad idea (I will write a separate post about the many awful AI pitches I receive every day). In my opinion, Learn Data Mining Through Excel is a smooth and quick read that will help you gain that important knowledge.
Beyond learning the basics, Excel can be a powerful addition to your repertoire of machine learning tools. While it’s not good for dealing with big data sets and complicated algorithms, it can help with the visualization and analysis of smaller batches of data. The results you obtain from a quick Excel mining can provide pertinent insights in choosing the right direction and machine learning algorithm to tackle the problem at hand.
Ben Dickson is a software engineer and the founder of TechTalks. He writes about technology, business, and politics.
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"Researchers find race, gender, and style biases in art-generating AI systems | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/researchers-find-evidence-of-bias-in-art-generating-ai-systems"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Researchers find race, gender, and style biases in art-generating AI systems Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
As research pushes the boundaries of what’s possible with AI, the popularity of art created by algorithms — generative art — continues to grow. From creating paintings to inventing new art styles, AI-based generative art has been showcased in a range of applications. But a new study from researchers at Fujitsu investigates whether biases might creep into the AI tools used to create art. Leveraging models, they claim that current AI methods fail to take into account socioeconomic impacts and exhibit clear prejudices.
In their work, the researchers surveyed academic papers, online platforms, and apps that generate art using AI, selecting examples that focused on simulating established art schools and styles. To investigate biases, they considered state-of-the-art AI systems trained on movements (e.g., Renaissance art, cubism, futurism, impressionism, expressionism, post-impressionism, and romanticism), genres (landscapes, portraits, battle paintings, sketches, and illustrations), materials (woodblock prints, engravings, paint), and artists (Clementine Hunter, Mary Cassatt, Vincent van Gogh, Gustave Doré, Gino Severini).
By using causal models called directed acrylic graphs, or DAGs, the coauthors say they were able to identify aspects relevant to AI-generated pieces of art and how these different aspects influenced each other. In one example, they found that DeepArt, a platform that lets users repaint pictures in the style of other artists, failed to account for movement in translating the Cubism artwork Propellers by Fernand Léger into a Futurist style. In another, they report that a piece of realism translated into expressionism by DeepArt — Mary Cassatt’s Miss Mary Ellison — didn’t have the hallmark distorted subjects of expressionism.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Some of these biases are more harmful than others. GoArt, a platform similar to DeepArt, changes the face color of Clementine Hunter’s Black Matriarch from Black to red in translating it to an expressionist style while preserving the color of artwork with white faces like Desiderio da Settignano’s Giovinetto, a sculpture. And another generative art tool, Abacus, mistook young men with long hair in artwork by Raphael and Piero di Cosimo as women.
The researchers peg the blame on imbalances in the datasets used to train generative AI models, which they note might be influenced by dataset curators’ preferences. One app referenced in the study, AI Portraits, was trained using 45,000 Renaissance portraits of mostly white people, for example. Another potential source of bias could be inconsistencies in the labeling process, or the process of annotating the datasets with labels from which the models learn, according to the researchers. Different annotators have different preferences, cultures, and beliefs that might be reflected in the labels that they create.
“There may be imbalances with respect to art genres (e.g. large number of photographs vs few sculptures), artists (e.g. mostly European artists vs few native artists), art movements (large number of works concerning Renaissance and modern art movements as opposed to others), and so on,” the coauthors wrote. “Faces depicting different races, appearances, etc. have not been pooled into the dataset, thus contributing to representational bias.” The researchers warn that by wrongly modeling or overlooking certain subtle components, generative art can contribute to false perceptions about social, cultural, and political aspects of past times and hinder awareness about important historical events. For this reason, they urge AI researchers and practitioners to inspect the design choices and systems and the sociopolitical contexts that shape their use.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
Discover our Briefings.
The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"The immense potential and challenges of multimodal AI | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/multimodal-systems-hold-immense-promise-once-they-overcome-technical-challenges"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages The immense potential and challenges of multimodal AI Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Unlike most AI systems, humans understand the meaning of text, videos, audio, and images together in context. For example, given text and an image that seem innocuous when considered apart (e.g., “Look how many people love you” and a picture of a barren desert), people recognize that these elements take on potentially hurtful connotations when they’re paired or juxtaposed.
While systems capable of making these multimodal inferences remain beyond reach, there’s been progress. New research over the past year has advanced the state-of-the-art in multimodal learning, particularly in the subfield of visual question answering (VQA), a computer vision task where a system is given a text-based question about an image and must infer the answer. As it turns out, multimodal learning can carry complementary information or trends, which often only become evident when they’re all included in the learning process. And this holds promise for applications from captioning to translating comic books into different languages.
Multimodal challenges In multimodal systems, computer vision and natural language processing models are trained together on datasets to learn a combined embedding space, or a space occupied by variables representing specific features of the images, text, and other media. If different words are paired with similar images, these words are likely used to describe the same things or objects, while if some words appear next to different images, this implies these images represent the same object. It should be possible, then, for a multimodal system to predict things like image objects from text descriptions, and a body of academic literature has proven this to be the case.
There’s just one problem: Multimodal systems notoriously pick up on biases in datasets. The diversity of questions and concepts involved in tasks like VQA, as well as the lack of high-quality data, often prevent models from learning to “reason,” leading them to make educated guesses by relying on dataset statistics.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Key insights might lie in a benchmark test developed by scientists at Orange Labs and Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon.
Claiming that the standard metric for measuring VQA model accuracy is misleading, they offer as an alternative GQA-OOD , which evaluates performance on questions whose answers can’t be inferred without reasoning. In a study involving 7 VQA models and 3 bias-reduction techniques, the researchers found that the models failed to address questions involving infrequent concepts, suggesting that there’s work to be done in this area.
The solution will likely involve larger, more comprehensive training datasets. A paper published by engineers at École Normale Supérieure in Paris, Inria Paris, and the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics, and Cybernetics proposes a VQA dataset created from millions of narrated videos. Consisting of automatically generated pairs of questions and answers from transcribed videos, the dataset eliminates the need for manual annotation while enabling strong performance on popular benchmarks, according to the researchers. (Most machine learning models learn to make predictions from data labeled automatically or by hand.) In tandem with better datasets, new training techniques might also help to boost multimodal system performance. Earlier this year, researchers at Microsoft and the University of Rochester coauthored a paper describing a pipeline aimed at improving the reading and understanding of text in images for question answering and image caption generation. In contrast with conventional vision-language pretraining, which often fails to capture text and its relationship with visuals, their approach incorporates text generated from optical character recognition engines during the pretraining process.
Three pretraining tasks and a dataset of 1.4 million image-text pairs helps VQA models learn a better-aligned representation between words and objects, according to the researchers. “We find it particularly important to include the detected scene text words as extra language inputs,” they wrote. “The extra scene text modality, together with the specially designed pre-training steps, effectively helps the model learn a better aligned representation among the three modalities: text word, visual object, and scene text.” Beyond pure VQA systems, promising approaches are emerging in the dialogue-driven multimodal domain. Researchers at Facebook, the Allen Institute for AI, SRI International, Oregon State University, and the Georgia Institute of Technology propose “dialog without dialog,” a challenge that requires visually grounded dialogue models to adapt to new tasks while not forgetting how to talk with people. For its part, Facebook recently introduced Situated Interactive MultiModal Conversations, a research direction aimed at training AI chatbots that take actions like showing an object and explaining what it’s made of in response to images, memories of previous interactions, and individual requests.
Real-world applications Assuming the barriers in the way of performant multimodal systems are eventually overcome, what are the real-world applications? With its visual dialogue system, Facebook would appear to be pursing a digital assistant that emulates human partners by responding to images, messages, and messages about images as naturally as a person might. For example, given the prompt “I want to buy some chairs — show me brown ones and tell me about the materials,” the assistant might reply with an image of brown chairs and the text “How do you like these? They have a solid brown color with a foam fitting.” Separately, Facebook is working toward a system that can automatically detect hateful memes on its platform. In May, it launched the Hateful Memes Challenge , a competition aimed at spurring researchers to develop systems that can identify memes intended to hurt people. The first phase of the one-year contest recently crossed the halfway mark with over 3,000 entries from hundreds of teams around the world.
At Microsoft, a handful of researchers are focused on the task of applying multimodal systems to video captioning. A team hailing from Microsoft Research Asia and Harbin Institute of Technology created a system that learns to capture representations among comments, video, and audio, enabling it to supply captions or comments relevant to scenes in videos. In a separate work , Microsoft coauthors detailed a model — Multitask Multilingual Multimodal Pretrained model — that learns universal representations of objects expressed in different languages, allowing it to achieve state-of-the-art results in tasks including multilingual image captioning.
Meanwhile, researchers at Google recently tackled the problem of predicting next lines of dialogue in a video. They claim that with a dataset of instructional videos scraped from the web, they were able to train a multimodal system to anticipate what a narrator would say next. For example, given frames from a scene and the transcript “I’m going to go ahead and slip that into place and I’m going to make note … of which way the arrow is going in relation to the arrow on our guard. They both need to be going the same direction next,” the model could correctly predict “Now slip that nut back on and screw it down” as the next phrase.
“Imagine that you are cooking an elaborate meal, but forget the next step in the recipe — or fixing your car and uncertain about which tool to pick up next,” the coauthors of the Google study wrote. “Developing an intelligent dialogue system that not only emulates human conversation, but also predicts and suggests future actions — not to mention is able to answer questions on complex tasks and topics — has long been a moonshot goal for the AI community. Conversational AI allows humans to interact with systems in free-form natural language.” Another fascinating study proposes using multimodal systems to translate manga, a form of Japanese comic, into other languages. Scientists at Yahoo! Japan, the University of Tokyo, and machine translation startup Mantra prototyped a system that translates texts in speech bubbles that can’t be translated without context information (e.g., texts in other speech bubbles, the gender of speakers). Given a manga page, the system automatically translates the texts on the page into English and replaces the original texts with the translated ones.
Future work At VentureBeat’s Transform 2020 conference , as part of a conversation about trends for AI assistants, Prem Natarajan, Amazon head of product and VP of Alexa AI and NLP, and Barak Turovsky, Google AI director of product for the NLU team, agreed that research into multimodality will be of critical importance going forward. Turovsky talked about advances in surfacing the limited number of answers voice alone can offer. Without a screen, he pointed out, there’s no infinite scroll or first page of Google search results, and so responses should be limited to three potential results, tops. For both Amazon and Google, this means building smart displays and emphasizing AI assistants that can both share visual content and respond with voice.
Turovsky and Natarajan aren’t the only ones who see a future in multimodality, despite its challenges. OpenAI is reportedly developing a multimodal system trained on images, text, and other data using massive computational resources the company’s leadership believes is the most promising path toward AGI, or AI that can learn any task a human can. And in a conversation with VentureBeat in January, Google AI chief Jeff Dean predicted progress in multimodal systems in the years ahead. The advancement of multimodal systems could lead to a number of benefits for image recognition and language models, he said, including more robust inference from models receiving input from more than a single medium.
“That whole research thread, I think, has been quite fruitful in terms of actually yielding machine learning models that [let us now] do more sophisticated NLP tasks than we used to be able to do,” Dean told VentureBeat. “[But] we’d still like to be able to do much more contextual kinds of models.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Amazon, we don’t need another AI tool or APl, we need an open AI platform for cloud and edge | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/mohammed-farooq-qa-how-hypergiant-is-pushing-for-an-open-ai-platform-for-modelops"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Amazon, we don’t need another AI tool or APl, we need an open AI platform for cloud and edge Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
After Amazon’s three-week re:Invent conference , companies building AI applications may have the impression that AWS is the only game in town. Amazon announced improvements to SageMaker, its machine learning (ML) workflow service, and to Edge Manager — improving AWS’ ML capabilities on the edge at a time when serving the edge is considered increasingly critical for enterprises. Moreover, the company touted big customers like Lyft and Intuit.
But Mohammed Farooq believes there is a better alternative to the Amazon hegemon: an open AI platform that doesn’t have any hooks back to the Amazon cloud. Until earlier this year, Farooq led IBM’s Hybrid multi-cloud strategy, but he recently left to join the enterprise AI company Hypergiant.
Here is our Q&A with Farooq, who is Hypergiant’s chair, global chief technology officer, and general manager of products. He has skin in the game and makes an interesting argument for open AI.
VentureBeat: With Amazon’s momentum, isn’t it game over for any other company hoping to be a significant service provider of AI services, or at the least for any competitor not named Google or Microsoft? VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Mohammed Farooq: On the one hand, for the last three to five-plus years, AWS has delivered outstanding capabilities with SageMaker (Autopilot, Data Wrangler) to enable accessible analytics and ML pipelines for technical and nontechnical users. Enterprises have built strong-performing AI models with these AWS capabilities.
On the other hand, the enterprise production throughput of performing AI models is very low. The low throughput is a result of the complexity of deployment and operations management of AI models within consuming production applications that are running on AWS and other cloud/datacenter and software platforms.
Enterprises have not established an operations management system — something referred to within the industry as ModelOps. ModelOps are required and should have things like lifecycle processes, best practices, and business management controls. These are necessary to evolve the AI models and data changes in the context of the underlying heterogeneous software and infrastructure stacks currently in operation.
AWS does a solid job of automating an AI ModelOps process within the AWS ecosystem. However, running enterprise ModelOps, as well as DevOps and DataOps, will need not only AWS, but multiple other cloud, network, and edge architectures. AWS is great as far as it goes, but what is required is seamless integration with enterprise ModelOps, hybrid/multi-cloud infrastructure architecture, and IT operations management system.
Failures in experimentation are the result of average time needed to create a model. Today, successful AI models that deliver value and that business leaders trust take 6-12 months to build. According to the Deloitte MLOps Industrialized AI Report (released in December 2020), an average AI team can build and deploy, at best, two AI models in a year. At this rate, industrializing and scaling AI in the enterprise will be a challenge. An enterprise ModelOps process integrated with the rest of enterprise IT is required to speed up and scale AI solutions in the enterprise.
I would argue that we are on the precipice of a new era in artificial intelligence — one where AI will not only predict but recommend and take autonomous actions. But machines are still taking actions based on AI models that are poorly experimented with and fail to meet defined business goals (key performance indicators).
VentureBeat: So what is it that holds the industry back? Or asked a different way, what is that holds Amazon back from doing this? Farooq: To improve development and performance of AI models, I believe we must address three challenges that are slowing down the AI model development, deployment, and production management in the enterprise. Amazon and other big players haven’t been able to address these challenges yet. They are: AI data: This is where everything starts and ends in performant AI models. Microsoft [Azure] Purview is a direct attempt to solve the data problems of the enterprise data governance umbrella. This will provide AI solution teams (consumers) valuable and trustworthy data.
A I operations processes: These are enabled for development and deployment in the cloud (AWS) and do not extend or connect to the enterprise DevOps, DataOps, and ITOps processes. AIOps processes to deploy, operate, manage, and govern need to be automated and integrated into enterprise IT processes. This will industrialize AI in the enterprise. It took DevOps 10 years to establish CI/CD processes and automation platforms. AI needs to leverage the assets in CI/CD and overlay the AI model lifecycle management on top of it.
A I architecture: Enterprises with native cloud and containers are accelerating on the path to hybrid and multi-cloud architectures. With edge adoption, we are moving to pure distributed architecture, which will connect the cloud and edge ecosystem. AI architecture will have to operate on distributed architectures across hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructure and data environments. AWS, Azure, Google, and VMWare are effectively moving towards that paradigm.
To develop the next phase of AI, which I am calling “industrialized AI in the enterprise,” we need to address all of these. They can only be met with an open AI platform that has an integrated operations management system.
VentureBeat: Explain what you mean by an “open “ AI platform.
Farooq: An open AI platform for ModelOps lets enterprise AI teams mix and match required AI stacks, data services, AI tools, and domain AI models for different providers. Doing so will result in powerful business solutions at speed and scale.
AWS, with all of its powerful cloud, AI, and edge offerings, has still not stitched together a ModelOps that can industrialize AI and cloud. Enterprises today are using a combination of ServiceNow, legacy systems management, DevOps tooling, and containers to bring this together. AI operations adds another layer of complexity to an already increasingly complex model.
An enterprise AI operations management system should be the master control point and system of record, intelligence, and security for all AI solutions in a federated model (AI models and data catalogs). AWS, Azure, or Google can provide data, process, and tech platforms and services to be consumed by enterprises.
But lock-in models, like those currently being offered, harm enterprise’s ability to develop core AI capabilities. Companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google are hampering our ability to build high-caliber solutions by constructing moats around their products and services. The path to the best technology solutions, in the service of both AI providers and consumers, is one where choice and openness is prized as a pathway to innovation.
You have seen companies articulate a prominent vision for the future of AI. But I believe they are limited because they are not going far enough to democratize AI access and usage with the current enterprise IT Ops and governance process. To move forward, we need an enterprise ModelOps process and an open AI services integration platform that industrializes AI development, deployment, operations, and governance.
Without these, enterprises will be forced to choose vertical solutions that fail to integrate with enterprise data technology architectures and IT operations management systems.
VentureBeat: Has anyone tried to build this open AI platform? Farooq: Not really. To manage AI ModelOps, we need a more open and connected AI services ecosystem, and to get there, we need an AI services integration platform. This essentially means that we need cloud provider operations management integrated with enterprise AI operations processes and a reference architecture framework (led by CTO and IT operations).
There are two options for enterprise CIOs, CTOs, CEOs, and architects. One is vertical, and the other one is horizontal.
Dataiku, Databricks, Snowflake, C3.AI, Palantir, and many others are building these horizontal AI stack options for the enterprise. Their solutions operate on top of AWS, Google, and Azure AI. It’s a great start. However, C3.AI and Palantir are also moving towards lock-in options by using model-driven architectures.
VentureBeat: So how is the vision of what you’re building at Hypergiant different to these efforts? Farooq: The choice is clear: We have to enable an enterprise AI stack, ModelOps tooling, and governance capabilities enabled by an open AI services integration platform. This will integrate and operate customer ModelOps and governance processes internally that can work for each business unit and AI project.
What we need is not another AI company, but rather an AI services integrator and operator layer that improves how these companies work together for enterprise business goals.
A customer should be able to use Azure solutions, MongoDB, and Amazon Aurora, depending on what best suits their needs, price points, and future agenda. What this requires is a mesh layer for AI solution providers.
VentureBeat: Can you further define this “mesh layer”? Your figure shows it is a horizontal layer, but how does it work in practice? Is it as simple as plugging in your AI solution on top, and then having access to any cloud data source underneath? And does it have to be owned by a single company? Can it be open-sourced, or somehow shared, or at least competitive? Farooq: The data mesh layer is the core component, not only for executing the ModelOps processes across cloud, edge, and 5G, but it is also a core architectural component for building, operating, and managing autonomous distributed applications.
Currently we have cloud data lakes and data pipelines (batch or steaming) as an input to build and train AI models. However, in production, data needs to be dynamically orchestrated across datacenters, cloud, 5G, and edge end points. This will ensure that the AI models and the consuming apps at all times have the required data feeds in production to execute.
AI/cloud developers and ModelOps teams should have access to data orchestration rules and policy APIs as a single interface to design, build, and operate AI solutions across distributed environments. This API should hide the complexity of the underlying distributed environments (i.e., cloud, 5G, or edge).
In addition, we need packaging and container specs that will help DevOps and ModelOps professionals use the portability of Kubernetes to quickly deploy and operate AI solutions at scale.
These data mesh APIs and packaging technologies need to be open sourced to ensure that we establish an open AI and cloud stack architecture for enterprises and not walled gardens from big providers.
By analogy, look at what Twilio has done for communications: Twilio strengthened customer relationships across businesses by integrating many technologies in one easy-to-manage interface. Examples in other industries include HubSpot in marketing and Squarespace for website development. These companies work by providing infrastructure that simplifies the experience of the user across the tools of many different companies.
VentureBeat: When are you launching this? Farooq: We are planning to launch a beta version of a first step of that roadmap early next year [Q1/2020].
VentureBeat: AWS has a reseller policy. Could it could crack down on any mesh layer if they wanted to? Farooq: AWS could build and offer their own mesh layer that is tied to its cloud and that interfaces with 5G and edge platforms of its partners. But this will not help its enterprise customers accelerate the development, deployment, and management of AI and hybrid/multi-cloud solutions at speed and scale. However, collaborating with the other cloud and ISV providers, as it has done with Kubernetes ( CNCF -led open source project), will benefit AWS significantly.
As further innovation on centralized cloud computing models have stalled (based on current functionality and incremental releases across AWS, Azure, and Google), the data mesh and edge native architectures is where innovation will need to happen, and a distributed (declarative and runtime) data mesh architecture is a great place for AWS to contribute and lead the industry.
The digital enterprise will be the biggest beneficiary of a distributed data mesh architecture, and this will help industrialize AI and digital platforms faster — thereby creating new economic opportunities and in return more spend on AWS and other cloud provider technologies.
VentureBeat: What impact would such a mesh-layer solution have on the leading cloud companies? I imagine it could influence user decisions on what underlying services to use. Could that middle mesh player reduce pricing for certain bundles, undercutting marketing efforts by the cloud players themselves? Farooq: The data mesh layer will trigger massive innovation on the edge and 5G native (not cloud native) applications, middleware, and infra-architectures. This will drive the large providers to rethink their product roadmaps, architecture patterns, go-to-market offerings, partnerships, and investments.
VentureBeat: If the cloud companies see this coming, do you think they’ll be more inclined to move toward an open ecosystem more rapidly and squelch you? Farooq: The big providers in a first or second cycle of evolution of a technology or business model will always want to build a moat and lock in enterprise clients. For example, AWS never accepted that hybrid or multi-cloud was needed. But in the second cycle of cloud adoption by VMWare clients, VMWare started to preach an enterprise-outward hybrid cloud strategy connecting to AWS, Azure, and Google.
This led AWS to launch a private cloud offering (called Outposts), which is a replica for the AWS footprint on a dedicated hardware stack that has the same offerings. AWS executes its API across AWS public and Outposts. In short, they came around.
The same will happen to edge, 5G, and distributed computing. Right now, AWS, Google, and Azure are building their distributed computing platforms. However, the power of the open source community and the innovation speed is so great, the distributed computing architecture in the next cycle and beyond will have to move to an open ecosystem.
VentureBeat: What about lock-in at the mesh-layer level? If I choose to go with Hypergiant so I can access services across clouds, and then a competing mesh player emerges that offers better prices, how easy is it to move? Farooq: We at Hypergiant believe in an open ecosystem, and our go-to-market business model depends on being at the intersection of enterprise consumption and provider offerings. We drive consumption economics, not provider economics. This will require us to support multiple data mesh technologies and create a fabric for interoperation with a single interface to our clients. The final goal is to ensure an open ecosystem, developer, and operator ease, and value to enterprise clients so that they are able to accelerate their business and revenue strategies by leveraging the best value and the best breed of technologies. We are looking at this from the point of view of the benefits to the enterprise, not the provider.
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"How to build AI applications users can trust | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/how-to-build-ai-applications-users-can-trust"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Guest How to build AI applications users can trust Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
To work effectively, algorithms need user data — typically on an ongoing basis to help refine and improve the experience. To get user data, you need users. And to get users, especially lasting users who trust you with their data, you need to provide options that suit their comfort levels now while still allowing them to change them in future. In essence, to get user buy-in, you need a two-step approach: Let users know what data you want to collect and why, and give them control over the collection.
Step 1: Providing continuous transparency The first step in finding the balance is to equip your users with knowledge. Users need to know what data is being collected and how that data is being used before they decide to engage with an application. Already, mounting pressure on the industry is steering the ship in this direction: Apple recently announced a privacy label for all of its applications that will promote greater awareness for users around what data is being collected when they use their apps. Microsoft’s CaptionBot, below, is a good example of how to give users an easy-to-understand overview of what’s happening with their data behind the scenes.
Microsoft’s CaptionBot offers clear information about data storage, publication and usage as well as an easy-to-understand overview of the kinds of systems working behind the scenes to make the AI captioning tool work.
Above: Microsoft’s CaptionBot offers clear information about data storage, publication and usage as well as an easy-to-understand overview of the kinds of systems working behind the scenes to make the AI captioning tool work.
Health app Ada , below, is an example of how to avert user confusion over data collection choices.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Above: Health app ada explains the logic behind its input selections at the outset, so users can understand how their inputs affect the application and its ability to perform the desired actions.
Not only does sharing this information upfront give users a sense of empowerment and help build trust with your experience over time, it also gives you an opportunity to help them understand how sharing their data can improve their experience — and how their experience will be diminished without that data. By arming users with information that helps them understand what happens when they share their data, we also arm them with the tools to understand how this exchange can benefit them, bolstering their excitement for using the app.
In addition to these details upfront, presenting users with information as they use the application is important. Sharing information about algorithm effectiveness (how likely the algorithm is to succeed at the task) and algorithm confidence (how certain the algorithm is in the results it produced) can make a big difference when it comes to user comfort in engaging with these technologies. And as we know, comfort plays a major part in adoption and engagement.
Consider the confidence ratings Microsoft offers in some of its products, below.
Above: When an algorithm is making a “best guess”, displaying a confidence rating (in the first image using Microsoft’s Bing Image Search, a rating between 0 and 1, and in the second from Microsoft’s Celebs Like Me, a percentage rating) helps users understand how much trust they should place in the outcomes of the algorithm.
Users should be given insight into some of the operations and mechanics, too. So it’s important to acknowledge when the mechanisms are at work or “thinking”, or when there’s been a hand-off from the algorithm to a human, or when data is being shared to third-party systems or stored for potential later applications. Continually offering up opportunities for building awareness and understanding about your application will lead to higher levels of trust with using it. And the more users trust it, the more likely they will be to continue to engage with it over time.
Step 2: Handing over control Even when the benefits of an application are compelling enough for users to opt in, users don’t necessarily want to use AI all the time. There may be circumstances when they want to withdraw from or limit the amount they engage with the technology. How can we empower them to choose the amount of AI they interact with at the moments that matter most? Again, a combination of upfront and semi-regular check-ins works well here.
When informing users about what data you’re collecting and how it’s being used, give them the chance to opt out of sharing certain types of data if the use case doesn’t meet their needs. Where possible, present them with a graduated series of options — what you get when you enable all data sharing versus some versus none — to allow them to choose the option that makes the most sense for them.
Consider the example below from food-ordering app Ritual.
Above: Popular food ordering app Ritual allows users to opt of sharing certain data and also informs users of how opting out will impact the application’s functionality.
Whenever you add a new product feature or a user engages with a feature for the first time, prompt them to look at or change their level of data sharing. What may not have seemed relevant to them before could be very compelling with a new use case presented. And if a new type of data is being collected, prompt them again.
One final way to offer up control: Give users the chance to direct the application. This can mean simply checking in with your users from time to time about what features they like, which ones they don’t, and what they want from your application. Or, more importantly, it can be as a part of the application itself. Can users adjust the level of certain inputs to produce different results (e.g. weighting one input over another for a recommendation algorithm)? Can they go back a step or override certain aspects manually? Handing over the controls in as literal a sense as possible helps users feel empowered by the application instead of intimidated by it.
Youper ’s AI therapy app provides a good example of how to offer users control.
Above: Youper’s AI therapy app doesn’t require users to set all parameters at the outset but instead offers up regular opportunities for them to refine their experience as they continue to engage with the application (and explains why it may help them to do so).
Every application is different, and every approach to empowering users will be a little different as a result. But when you offer transparency into how and why your system is taking in the information that it is, and you give consumers the chance to opt out of sharing certain pieces of information, you create space for trust. And when your users trust you, they’ll be more inclined to share the data you need to make your products and services come alive.
Jason Cottrell is Founder and CEO at Myplanet.
Erik von Stackelberg is CDO at Myplanet.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"How RPA could help distribute and track COVID-19 vaccines | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/how-rpa-could-help-distribute-and-track-covid-19-vaccines"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages How RPA could help distribute and track COVID-19 vaccines Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn A computer image of the type of virus linked to COVID-19.
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The first shipments of Pfizer’s and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines arrived at health systems across the U.S. this month, a significant milestone in the fight against a pandemic that has infected and killed millions of people. But vaccine distribution and administration is a major logistical challenge, not least because both vaccines require cold storage. Nevertheless, Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. public-private COVID-19 treatment partnership, optimistically aims to vaccinate tens of millions of people by year’s end.
Some stakeholders are turning to AI for help, particularly robotic process automation, or RPA — software that emulates the actions of humans interacting with systems. RPA could bolster efficiency in hospitals and supply chains overwhelmed by the challenges of COVID-19 vaccine management.
For example, San Jose-based Automation Anywhere , which last year raised $290 million in venture capital at a $6.8 billion valuation, says it is working with a pharmaceutical company in Europe to implement 25 bots and automate 65 processes. According to Dr. Yan Chow, global health care industry leader at Automation Anywhere, the project lead realized RPA could help researchers and labs run more efficiently to accelerate research and approval of vaccines by augmenting reporting processes.
“Intelligent automation will play a key role in streamlining the complicated logistics required for the first doses of vaccines to reach our most vulnerable populations,” Chow told VentureBeat via email. “As vaccine enrollment opens to the public, bots can automate the enrollment process — auto-populating registration forms to help reduce attrition.” VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! On the transportation and allotment side of the vaccine distribution challenge, firms including Itelligence Benelux, a SAP partner based in the Netherlands, say RPA could have a significant role to play. At a recent SAP hackathon, Itelligence proposed combining RPA with internet-connected sensor tags that would continuously measure the temperature of vaccine batches and send the data via Bluetooth to a smartphone. A sensor app would receive the data and forward it to a cloud platform, which would add batch and product information, as well as temperature thresholds and relevant delivery details. Another app would then check the incoming sensor values against predefined thresholds, like the temperature limit, and kickstart one or more RPA bots.
In Itelligence’s blueprint , which won the hackathon, a warning limit might trigger text messages and emails to inform truck drivers and transport companies about batch risks. A spoil limit, which would come into play when the vaccine could no longer be saved, might trigger multiple bots for a broader set of actions, like taking the batch out of the cold chain, creating a replacement order, and initiating a secondary order to return the spoiled vaccines to the supplier. RPA would also help create the necessary insurance documents and send them to the relevant carriers.
“Conventional data loggers — small devices that normally travel with the shipped batches of goods — should ensure safety. However, they have a significant disadvantage: They report problems very late. Namely, when the recipient reads the data after the batch has arrived, i.e. when it is already spoiled,” Danny Groothuis, one of the creators of the blueprint, wrote in a blog post. “As this scenario shows, the smart combination of IoT devices and SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation bots can reduce a lot of repetitive and tedious work and provide considerably more security and efficiency to cold chain management.” Once the vaccines arrive at the point of care, stakeholders must contend with another set of challenges: tracking which patients have — and have not — received them. Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines must be taken in two doses three to four weeks apart, and health systems are responsible for maintaining their own tracking databases or opting for prebuilt state and federal solutions.
Olive, a Columbus-based health care automation startup, has a framework that’s being adapted for this purpose. Using a combination of computer vision and RPA, Olive told TechRepublic its tools have supported COVID-19 testing operations in health systems by automating manual data entry. In the next phase of its work, the company says it will track which frontline workers receive the vaccine and when, something it expects will reduce administration time and help monitor vaccine recipients for side effects while providing data to government regulators.
Automation Anywhere has already deployed an RPA-based vaccine-tracking solution, albeit for a different vaccine. Earlier this month, the company announced a collaboration with Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, a teaching hospital in the U.K., to launch a flu-reporting bot that tracks vaccinations among its more than 14,000 employees. Automation Anywhere says the bot has captured updates for more than 10,000 staff vaccinations and saved nearly three months of cumulative admin time. If the rollout continues to go smoothly, Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals says it might consider extending the technology to support local “test and trace” processes and report on COVID-19 vaccinations.
“Bots will play an important role in ensuring pharmacovigilance. If a person who received the COVID-19 vaccine has an adverse effect, bots can automatically handle complaints associated with the new vaccine and automate the adverse event process,” Automation Anywhere life sciences global lead Catherine Calarco told VentureBeat. “For example, within a month of the vaccine being distributed — someone has issues related to the vaccine and contacts their physician and the pharma company. It’s important to rapidly manage these field events and quickly see any emerging trends. Automation increases accuracy and reduces cycle time for case management, resulting in better patient care.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"How machines are changing the way companies talk | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/how-machines-are-changing-the-way-companies-talk"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages How machines are changing the way companies talk Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Anyone who’s ever been on an earnings call knows company executives already tend to look at the world through rose-colored glasses, but a new study by economics and machine learning researchers says that’s getting worse, thanks to machine learning. The analysis found that companies are adapting their language in forecasts, SEC regulatory filings, and earnings calls due to the proliferation of AI used to analyze and derive signals from the words they use. In other words: Businesses are beginning to change the way they talk because they know machines are listening.
Forms of natural language processing are used to parse and process text in the financial documents companies are required to submit to the SEC. Machine learning tools are then able to do things like summarize text or determine whether language used is positive, neutral, or negative. Signals these tools provide are used to inform the decisions advisors, analysts, and investors make. Machine downloads are associated with faster trading after an SEC filing is posted.
This trend has implications for the financial industry and economy, as more companies shift their language in an attempt to influence machine learning reports. A paper detailing the analysis , originally published in October by researchers from Columbia University and Georgia State University’s J. Mack Robinson College of Business, was highlighted in this month’s National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) digest. Lead author Sean Cao studies how deep learning can be applied to corporate accounting and disclosure data.
“More and more companies realize that the target audience of their mandatory and voluntary disclosures no longer consists of just human analysts and investors. A substantial amount of buying and selling of shares [is] triggered by recommendations made by robots and algorithms which process information with machine learning tools and natural language processing kits,” the paper reads. “Anecdotal evidence suggests that executives have become aware that their speech patterns and emotions, evaluated by human or software, impact their assessment by investors and analysts.” VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! The researchers examined nearly 360,000 SEC filings between 2003 and 2016. Over that time period, regulatory filing downloads from the SEC’s Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval (EDGAR) tool increased from roughly 360,000 filing downloads to 165 million, climbing from 39% of all downloads in 2003 to 78% in 2016.
A 2011 study concluded that the majority of words identified as negative by a Harvard dictionary aren’t actually considered negative in a financial context. That study also included lists of negative words used in 10-K filings. After the release of that list, researchers found high machine download companies began to change their behavior and use fewer negative words.
Generally, the stock market responds more positively to disclosures with fewer negative words or strong modal words.
“As more and more investors use AI tools such as natural language processing and sentiment analyses, we hypothesize that companies adjust the way they talk in order to communicate effectively and predictably,” the paper reads. “If managers are aware that their disclosure documents could be parsed by machines, then they should also expect that their machine readers may also be using voice analyzers to extract signals from vocal patterns and emotions contained in managers’ speeches.” A study released earlier this year by Yale University researchers used machine learning to analyze startup pitch videos and found that “positive (i.e., passionate, warm) pitches increase funding probability.” And another study from earlier this year (by Crane, Crotty, and Umar) showed hedge funds that use machines to automate downloads of corporate filings perform better than those that do not.
In other applications at the locus of AI and investor decisions, last year InReach Ventures launched a $60 million fund that uses AI as part of its process for evaluating startups.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"How Apple’s self-driving car plans might transform the company itself | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/how-apples-self-driving-car-plans-might-transform-the-company-itself"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Guest How Apple’s self-driving car plans might transform the company itself Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Apple logo Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
What would an Apple self-driving car look like? We don’t know yet, but what we do know is that the company has serious plans to roll out its own electric self-driving car by 2024.
Apple hasn’t officially confirmed any of the information disclosed in the Reuters reports that broke the news last week. And we are still missing many details on the company’s self-driving plans.
Nonetheless, the news is significant, both for Apple and the self-driving car industry.
Depending on how the situation unfolds in the next months and years, the fact that there’s a concrete date for Apple’s self-driving car plans could indicate the company is making a fundamental change to its product-development strategy.
The current state of self-driving car technology The history of self-driving cars is very much reflective of the decades-long search for artificial general intelligence (AGI): The finish line always seems to be around the corner, but the closer we get to it, the harder it becomes.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Like many of today’s AI technologies, self-driving cars have their roots in the 1970s and ’80s. But until recent years, they were only limited to academic and military research labs and science contests. In the 2010s, advances in deep learning have led to great improvements in computer vision , one of the key technologies powering self-driving cars. We’re finally seeing cars that can drive themselves in real streets.
Deep learning algorithms have helped self-driving cars come a long way toward navigating challenging environments. But the technology is far from perfect.
Deep learning models are only as good as their training data. If the data is representative of all the situations the self-driving car will face, then it will have a robust performance. But the AI’s actions will become unpredictable when faced with edge cases–novel situations that happen rarely–such or a fire truck parked at an odd angle or an overturned car.
Human drivers meet novel situations all the time but can handle them thanks to their understanding of how the world works in general. For instance, you don’t need previous training to know what to do if you see a deer calf crossing the road. We understand causes and effects, intuitive physics, goals, and intents, and this knowledge helps us make rational decisions (most of the time) when we face situations we’ve never seen before.
Some companies are using complementary technologies such as lidars , laser-emitting devices that create 3D maps of the car’s surroundings. Lidars can help detect obstacles and people where the computer vision system fails, but they’re not resistant to environmental factors and motion, and they do not solve the problem of causality.
Apple’s self-driving car efforts Apple has been doing autonomous driving research under the title “Project Titan” since 2014. But unlike efforts at other companies like Uber and the Google-owned Waymo, very little is known about Apple’s self-driving car project and the company’s progress.
The initial goal was reportedly for Apple to create a car from scratch. In 2016, the company shifted focus and aimed at developing software for self-driving cars. In January 2019, Apple laid off 200 employees from the project, then went on to acquire the self-driving startup Drive.ai in June.
In December 2020, the company moved project Titan under the care of John Giannandrea, its head of artificial intelligence.
The history of Project Titan indicates that Apple has always maintained interest in self-driving cars, but there were never signs of a plan to launch a product. This changed with the Reuters report, which claimed Apple has “progressed enough that it now aims to build a vehicle.” Apple’s product development strategy Apple is usually not a first mover, but it certainly knows when to enter a new market. Apple II was not the first personal computer, but it was the first very successful one, building on top of a decade of rapid advances in storage and processing technologies and the gradual decrease of the costs of manufacturing the pieces required to assemble a home computer.
The iPod was not the first device to play audio files, but it launched at a very opportune time, when digital media adoption had reached critical mass and the market was ripe for high-end consumer products. The same with the iPhone, which entered the scene as mobile communications, internet, and computing had become common thanks to the likes of Nokia and BlackBerry. There was nothing new to the iPhone, but it was a novel combination of “an iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator.” If you look at some of Apple’s other products–the HomePod, Apple Music, and Apple Watch–they were never the first of their kind but a revolutionized version of what already existed. Maybe with the exception of the graphical user interface , Apple has seldom ventured into areas where the market has not been already established.
But the self-driving car industry is still marked with missed deadlines by all major players. Despite tremendous progress, there is still no real self-driving car solution. Uber and Waymo’s self-driving cars have logged millions of miles, but they are still attended by safety drivers. Tesla offers a fully autonomous autopilot feature but still requires drivers to keep their hands on the steering wheel when it is enabled.
While most experts agree that we’ll eventually have driverless cars on our roads, many questions remain, such as what they will look like, how and if they will share roads with human-driven cars, what will be the regulatory requirements, and will the meaning of car ownership change.
Training data for the AI algorithms There’s one very convincing reason Apple would enter a market as immature and risky as self-driving cars. Unlike other sectors that Apple has conquered, self-driving cars are heavy on artificial intelligence and warrant a different development strategy. The deep learning algorithms used in self-driving cars require huge volumes of training data obtained from driving cars on roads. Therefore, aside from sound engineering and design, you need an AI factory built on top of a solid data infrastructure.
Waymo and Uber have been collecting their data by test-driving their cars in different cities. Tesla, on the other hand, has directly collected its data from the hundreds of thousands of cars it has sold to consumers.
According to reports, Apple had done some small-scale road testing in the past, but downgraded the effort in 2019.
The plan to launch a consumer-level self-driving car might indicate that Apple will be adopting a strategy that is similar to Tesla, which would be a bit controversial for a company that takes pride in collecting very little data from customers.
It could also indicate that, like Tesla, Apple will roll out its self-driving technology in a phased manner, gradually developing and fine-tuning its AI algorithms as it collects more data from its cars. This, too, would go against Apple’s nature of delivering near-perfect products right off the bat. That, of course, can change if the company figures out another way to collect hundreds of millions of miles worth of driving data before 2024.
Who will buy Apple’s self-driving car? According to Reuters’ report, Apple aims to build “a vehicle for consumers.” In this respect, too, Apple’s approach is like that of Tesla and unlike Waymo and Uber, which plan to launch robo-taxi services.
But selling directly to consumers raises the question: How much will the car cost? The benchmark we have is Tesla’s electric vehicles with autopilot support, which cost between $35,000 and $120,000. But while Tesla is using a pure computer vision approach, relying only on deep learning and minor help from a front radar and sensors to navigate roads, Apple plans to include lidars on its self-driving cars.
According to a 2017 estimate , lidars used in self-driving cars can cost between $8,000 and $85,000, and each self-driving car requires several lidars, which can sometimes triple the price of the car. This might force Apple to reconsider its product delivery strategy and shift to a providing an autonomous ride-hailing service in the future.
But the industry is changing rapidly. There are now $100 and $500 lidars , and Apple has developed its own lidar scanners at a cost that makes it affordable to embed them in the iPhone 12 and iPad Pro devices. For its self-driving car, Apple will be using its own lidars and partner with other manufacturers. So, the consumer-level Apple car will probably be more expensive than the Tesla, but by 2024, the costs of the hardware might have dropped to the point that the difference will be negligible.
Giving up full control? According to the Reuters report, Apple is looking to outsource the manufacturing of the car, which would be in contrast to the company’s preference to maintain full control over its product stack. Apple controls the hardware, operating system, and the storefront for its phones, watches, TVs, and computers.
But even though Apple has decades of experience in running manufacturing plants and managing complex supply chains, building cars is a different challenge altogether, which would warrant partnering with a car manufacturer.
An alternative would be for Apple to acquire an automotive company. With more than $200 billion in liquid assets, the company could easily buy many top-tier carmakers, including General Motors, and Volkswagen, and build vehicles at scale.
The future of Apple’s self-driving car Throughout its history, Apple has set an example of design, performance, and durability (and high prices). But this history of perfection has also set high expectations for Apple. Where consumers allow other companies to fail and recover, they expect Apple to be flawless. And at the moment, self-driving car technology is anything but flawless.
This might partly be the reason Apple has been reserved until recently and only leaked information about its self-driving car project through unnamed sources. It gives the company the maneuverability to backtrack on parts of its plans as the industry and its own project develop. The self-driving car industry is changing rapidly, and I wouldn’t be surprised if what we see in 2024 is very different from the initial report.
But what’s for sure is that Apple is serious about creating a self-driving car, and its engagement can have a serious impact on the future of transportation and the company itself.
A version of this story originally appeared on the author’s blog.
Ben Dickson is a software engineer and the founder of TechTalks , a blog that explores the ways technology is solving and creating problems.
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"DeepMind's big losses, and the questions around running an AI lab | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/deepminds-big-losses-and-the-questions-around-running-an-ai-lab"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Guest DeepMind’s big losses, and the questions around running an AI lab Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Last week, on the heels of DeepMind’s breakthrough in using AI to predict protein-folding , came news that the U.K.-based AI company is still costing its parent company Alphabet hundreds of millions of dollars in losses each year.
A tech company losing money is nothing new. The tech industry is replete with examples of companies that burned through investor money long before becoming profitable. But DeepMind is not a normal company seeking to grab a share of a specific market. It is an AI research lab that has had to repurpose itself into a semi-commercial outfit to ensure its survival.
And while its owner, which is also Google’s parent company, is currently happy footing the bill for DeepMind’s expensive AI research, there is no guarantee that it will continue to do so forever.
According to its annual report filed with the U.K.’s Companies House register, DeepMind has more than doubled its revenue, raking in £266 million in 2019, up from £103 million in 2018. But the company’s expenses continue to grow as well, increasing from £568 million in 2018 to £717 million in 2019. The company’s overall losses grew from £470 million in 2018 to £477 million in 2019.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Above: DeepMind’s AlphaFold project used AI to help advance the complicated challenge of protein-folding At first glance, this isn’t bad news.
Compared to previous years , DeepMind’s revenue growth is accelerating while its losses are plateauing.
But the report contains a few more significant facts. The document mentions “Turnover research and development remuneration from other group undertakings.” This means DeepMind’s main customer is its owner. Alphabet is paying DeepMind to apply its AI research and talent to Google’s services and infrastructure. In the past, Google has used DeepMind’s services for tasks such as managing its datacenters’ power grids and improving its voice assistant’s AI.
Above: DeepMind’s revenue and losses from 2016 to 2019 What this also means is that there isn’t yet a market for DeepMind’s AI, and if there is, it will only be available through Google.
The document also mentions that the growth of costs “mainly relates to a rise in technical infrastructure, staff costs, and other related charges.” This is an important point. DeepMind’s “technical infrastructure” runs mainly on Google’s huge cloud services and its special AI processors, the Tensor Processing Unit (TPU). DeepMind’s main area of research is deep reinforcement learning , which requires access to very expensive compute resources. The company’s projects in 2019 included work on an AI system that played StarCraft 2 and another that played Quake 3 , both of which cost millions of dollars in training.
A spokesperson for DeepMind told the media that the costs mentioned in the document also included work on AlphaFold , the company’s celebrated protein-folding AI, another very expensive project.
There are no public details to indicate how much Google charges DeepMind for access to its cloud AI services, but Google is most likely renting its TPUs at a discount. This means that without Google’s support and backing, the company’s expenses would have been much higher.
Staff cost is another important issue. While participation in machine learning courses has increased in the past few years, scientists who can engage in the kind of cutting-edge AI research DeepMind is involved in are very scarce. And by some accounts, top AI talent commands seven-digit salaries.
The growing interest in deep learning and its applicability to commercial settings has created an arms race between tech companies to acquire top AI talent. Most of the industry’s top AI scientists and pioneers are working either full- or half-time at large companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft. The fierce competition for top AI talent has had two consequences. First, as in every other field where supply doesn’t meet demand, it has resulted in a steep incline in the salaries of AI scientists. Second, it has driven many AI scientists from academic institutions that can’t afford stellar salaries to wealthy tech companies that can. Some scientists continue to stay in academia for the sake of continuing scientific research, but they are too few and far between.
And without the backing of a large tech company like Google, research labs like DeepMind can’t afford to hire new researchers for their projects.
So while DeepMind shows signs of slowly turning around its losses, its growth has made it even more dependent on Google’s financial resources and large cloud infrastructure.
Google is still satisfied with DeepMind Above: DeepMind developed an AI system called AlphaStar that can beat the best players at the real-time strategy game StarCraft2 According to DeepMind’s annual report, Google Ireland Holdings Unlimited, one of the investment branches of Alphabet, “waived the repayment of intercompany loans and all accrued interest amounting to £1.1 billion.” DeepMind has also received written assurances from Google that it will “continue to provide adequate financial support” to the AI firm for “a period of at least 12 months.” For the time being, Google seems to be satisfied with the progress DeepMind has made, which is also reflected in remarks made by Google and Alphabet executives.
In July’s quarterly earnings call with investors and analysts, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said, “I’m very happy with the pace at which our R&D on AI is progressing. And for me, it’s important that we are state-of-the-art as a company and we are leading. And to me, I’m excited at the pace at which our engineering and R&D teams are working both across Google and DeepMind.” But the corporate world and scientific research move at different paces.
Scientific research is measured in decades. Much of the AI technology used today in commercial applications has been in the making since the 1970s and 1980s. Likewise, a lot of the cutting-edge research and techniques presented at AI conferences today will probably not find their way into the mass market in the coming years. DeepMind’s ultimate goal, developing artificial general intelligence (AGI), is by the most optimistic estimates at least decades away.
On the other hand, the patience of shareholders and investors is measured in months and years. Companies that can’t turn over a profit in years or at least show hopeful signs of growth fall afoul of investors. DeepMind currently has none of those. It doesn’t have measurable growth because its only client is Google itself. And it’s not clear when — if ever — any of its technology will be ready for commercialization.
Above: Google CEO Sundar Pichai is satisfied with the pace of AI research and development at DeepMind And here’s that DeepMind’s dilemma lies. At heart, it is a research lab that wants to push the limits of science and make sure advances in AI are beneficial to all humans. Its owner’s goal, however, is to build products that solve specific problems and turn profits. The two goals are diametrically opposed, pulling DeepMind in different directions: maintaining its scientific nature or transforming into a product-making AI company. The company has already had trouble finding a balance between scientific research and product development in the past.
And DeepMind is not alone. OpenAI, DeepMind’s implicit rival, has been facing a similar identity crisis , transforming from an AI research lab to a Microsoft-backed for-profit company that rents its deep learning models.
Therefore, while DeepMind doesn’t need to worry about its unprofitable research yet, as it becomes more enmeshed in the corporate dynamics of its owner, it should think deeply about its future and the future of scientific AI research.
Ben Dickson is a software engineer and the founder of TechTalks. He writes about technology, business, and politics. This post was originally published here.
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"Auto-generated fixes to algorithms don't completely eliminate bias | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/auto-generated-fixes-to-algorithms-dont-completely-eliminate-bias"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Auto-generated fixes to algorithms don’t completely eliminate bias Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
As predictive models are deployed to make decisions ranging from employee hiring to loan approvals, there’s a growing emphasis on designing algorithms that explain their decision-making and provide recourse to affected individuals. (For example, when a person is denied a loan by a model, they should be informed of the reasons and what can be done to address them.) Several recourse generation algorithms have been proposed in academic research papers, but it remains an open question whether these algorithms are reliable in the sense that they consistently improve outcomes.
A study from Harvard- and Microsoft-affiliated researchers finds strong evidence that they aren’t. That’s because algorithmically generated recourses tend to become invalid as stakeholders like banks and financial institutions retrain and update their models and use frameworks to adapt to new patterns in the data. It’s also because the data used to train these decision-making models is subject to temporal, geospatial, and other kinds of shifts due to data corrections, recourse intervention, and more.
Inspired by current events , the coauthors considered the problem of predicting grades using an AI classifier model. They trained a classifier on a dataset consisting of schools spread out across Jordan and Kuwait, using training examples collected from Jordan schools and deploying it to schools in Kuwait. In one hypothetical scenario, they assumed that students in Kuwait were provided recourses to improve their predicted grades but that when the students reapplied for grade prediction, the training dataset was updated to include Kuwait school data. In a second scenario, the researchers swapped the initial training data to come from Kuwait instead of Jordan.
Applying a state-of-the-art recourse generation technique in the first scenario would provide explanations to 116 students in Kuwait who received failing grades from the classifier trained on the Jordan dataset, the coauthors found. However, were the students to follow the recommendations and reapply for grade prediction, the classifier would yield favorable predictions for only 28.3% of them after being updated with the Kuwait dataset. In the second scenario, the same recourse generation technique would provide recommendations to 66 students, but these recommendations would result in better grades for only 60.6% of students.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! In another experiment, the researchers trained a classifier on an error-prone German credit dataset to determine the creditworthiness of loan applicants. After applying the same recourse generation technique in the grade prediction problem, they found that 900 of 1,000 applicants would have been provided recourses. However, if the classifier were to be retrained on a corrected dataset with minor changes, only 22% would be accepted, even after implementing the recommended recourses.
In one final sample, the coauthors benchmarked a classifier that predicted whether a candidate would repay a loan using income, age, and method of application data. Trained on a synthetic dataset, the classifier would give 261 (if age were considered) or 522 (without the age variable) out of 1,024 applicants unfavorable model predictions, the researchers report. But recourse generation wouldn’t vastly improve the candidates’ chances. They would have been told by the recourse generation technique to increase their income, but even with increased incomes, the classifier would predict only 0% to 8% of them would repay loans.
The researchers claim that their work, taken as a whole, shows that distributions shifts can cause “significant invalidation” of generated recourses, endangering trust in decision makers. “The problem of distribution shifts invalidating recourses and counterfactual explanations seems to be a direct result of current recourse finding technologies, rather than of the properties of the initial model,” they wrote. “It would be interesting to develop novel recourse finding strategies that do not suffer from the drawbacks of existing techniques and are robust to distribution shifts.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Feuding South Korean firms risk disrupting electric car battery supplies | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/transportation/feuding-south-korean-firms-risk-disrupting-electric-car-battery-supplies"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Feuding South Korean firms risk disrupting electric car battery supplies Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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( Reuters ) — In 2018, South Korea’s SK Innovation beat its larger, local rival LG Chem to a multibillion dollar deal to supply German carmaker Volkswagen with electric vehicle batteries in the United States.
With great fanfare, SK Innovation broke ground in March on a $1.7 billion factory in Commerce, Georgia, about 200km from VW’s Chattanooga plant, which will be the automaker’s electric vehicle hub in the United States. LG Chem had other ideas.
Stung by missing out on the VW deal to the new kid on the block and the departure of 77 employees for its rival across the Han River in Seoul, LGC took SKI to court in the United States in April, accusing it of misappropriating trade secrets. Fast-forward seven months and the two firms have hit each other with U.S. lawsuits for battery patent infringements in a bitter row that threatens to disrupt the launches of electric vehicles (EVs) by some of the world’s biggest carmakers.
U.S court filings reviewed by Reuters show the feuding firms are trying to stop each other from importing and selling EV batteries destined for the SUVs VW will build in Tennessee, as well as GM ‘s Bolt, Ford pickups, Jaguar’s I-Pace, Audi’s e-tron, and Kia Motor’s Niro. At stake is the South Korean firms’ ability to supply automakers in the United States with batteries just as the car producers are scrambling to lock in supplies with lucrative contracts ahead of an expected surge in demand, according to court filings by the two companies and several industry experts.
“Whoever loses the fight would suffer a fatal blow, unless the two reach a settlement. This will also be a setback for automakers,” said Cho Jae-phil, a professor at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology who worked previously at another Korean rival, Samsung SDI.
Ford spokesperson Jennifer Flake said the company was encouraging LGC and SKI to resolve their conflict without litigation and that it believed there was sufficient demand for multiple suppliers. “We are aware of the issue. As a normal course of action, we have business continuity plans in place to protect our interests,” Flake said in an emailed statement to Reuters.
GM spokesperson Patrick Morrissey said the company was aware of the dispute and that at this point it did not expect any impact on the production of its Chevy Bolt electric vehicle.
Kia, Jaguar Land Rover, and Volkswagen, which also owns Audi, declined to comment.
Trade secrets Volkswagen has said it is worried there won’t be enough batteries for all the EVs it plans to launch in the next five years, partly because producers such as LGC and China’s CATL don’t have enough skilled workers for new plants in Europe to ramp up output quickly.
According to Korea’s battery industry tracker SNE Research, the market for EV batteries — the most expensive and important component in the vehicles — is set to grow 23% a year to reach $167 billion by 2025, making it bigger than the global memory chip market, which is expected to be worth $150 billion by then.
In one court filing, LGC said its rival poached employees working on its own project to supply batteries for VW’s MEB electric vehicle architecture — and that SKI only won the VW contract because it had misappropriated trade secrets.
SKI has denied stealing trade secrets, saying its staff signed agreements not to use information from former workplaces. “We value intellectual property,” a spokesperson for SKI said.
If the ITC rules in favor of LGC on June 5, when it is due to make a preliminary ruling, that could jeopardize SKI’s plans to supply VW in the United States with batteries from Georgia or a new factory in Hungary, according to court filings.
In April, LGC asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to block SKI from bringing batteries and components into the United States, as well as manufacturing systems needed for U.S. production that is scheduled to start in 2022.
The SKI spokesperson said there had been no change to its schedule for the factory, which will have the capacity to make batteries for more than 200,000 EVs a year. He said SKI had received inquiries about the lawsuits from customers, including whether they would have an impact on supplies, without elaborating.
LGC said a final ruling on the case would be made on October 5 next year, but it asked the ITC earlier this month to make a default judgment against SKI quickly.
The U.S. trade commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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"The Steam Controller is dead, but its legacy lives on | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/pc-gaming/the-steam-controller-is-dead-but-its-legacy-lives-on"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages The Steam Controller is dead, but its legacy lives on Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn It's in a better place.
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Valve Software is putting an end to one of its hardware endeavors. The company has produced its last Steam Controller , according to The Verge.
And it’s planning on selling its existing stock by the end of its ongoing Autumn Sale.
As part of that event, you can get the Steam Controller for $5 , which is 90% off its normal $50 price. And then, when it’s gone, it is gone for good. As of the time of this posting, the Steam Store says that it has a “limited quantity remaining.” The Steam Controller first debuted in 2013.
It then launched as a product in 2015.
It was part of Valve’s efforts to expand how people access PC games. It came along at the same time as the Linux-based SteamOS and the long-defunct quasi-console Steam Machines push (affordable gaming machines for your living room). Valve also put a lot of effort into Big Picture mode to make Steam more compatible with a TV experience. And the Steam Controller fit into that overall initiative.
The idea was that the Steam Controller could give people a way to play all of the different kinds of games available on Steam. Even if a game didn’t support gamepads, Steam would map keyboard and mouse inputs to the controller for you. Now, Valve has improved button mapping so that you can plug in almost any traditional gamepad for use with any game. And that is a key improvement that’s going to long outlive the Steam Controller itself.
Something different The Steam Controller is not a traditional gamepad. Instead of the standard dual analog sticks and D-pad, Valve gave its input device one analog stick and two giant touchpads. The design is bold, but it is also difficult to parse for anyone used to the old way of doing things.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! I was among the many people who came away confused after using the device in the early days.
Its potential for playing mouse-driven games on the couch was clear. It gave you a way to play Civilization on your television without having to balance a keyboard and mouse on your lap. But was the touchpad really better than a second stick for camera control in an action game or a shooter? Back in 2015, few people were willing to give up their right analog stick. And even fewer were willing to swap their mouse for the controller. But over the years, more and more people have started coming around on Valve’s weird contraption.
In 2017, I wrote about an analysis that sings the Steam Controller’s praises.
One thing that many people began to swear by were the gyroscopic aiming controls. The Steam Controller has a gyro that enables you to input directional controls by tilting. Following the waggle controls of the Wii, many people consider motion a gimmick. But it turns out that it is an excellent way for a lot of people to aim in shooters or to control the camera in adventure games.
The Steam Controller is more loved than ever And now that the controller is dying, its fans are coming out to show support. The Steam Controller has an overall user rating on Steam of “Mostly Positive.” But its over 160 recent reviews are “Very Positive,” according to Valve’s metrics.
“A very good controller that is often just misunderstood and thus seen as bad,” reads a review by Steam user Kriztopher.
“There are some games in my library that I have only played with the Steam Controller, such as Dark Souls, Slap City, Ori and the Blind Forest, and more,” writes another Steam user.
“After counting all the hours on these games, it comes to just about 800 hours. I have actively used my Steam Controller for almost 800 hours, and it hasn’t let me down once. I love the feel of the controller and the natural feeling of the touch pads. The button placement is ideal. Everything about the controller is just awesome.” And you can read dozens of other reviews just like that. Some fans are hoping that Valve is working on a Steam Controller 2. But that seems unlikely. Instead, Valve is probably going to focus on supporting third-party controllers through software. So when you connect a Nintendo Switch Pro controller, the buttons and gyro aiming automatically work. That’s because of the Steam Controller.
And that’s how the legacy of the Steam Controller will live on.
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"HSBC to shift $20 billion worth of assets to blockchain-based Digital Vault | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/mobile/hsbc-to-shift-20-billion-worth-of-assets-to-blockchain-based-digital-vault"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages HSBC to shift $20 billion worth of assets to blockchain-based Digital Vault Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn FILE PHOTO: HSBC logo is seen on a branch bank in the financial district in New York, U.S., August 7, 2019.
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( Reuters ) — HSBC aims to shift $20 billion worth of assets to a new blockchain-based custody platform by March in one of the biggest deployments yet of the widely hyped but still unproven technology by a global bank.
The platform, known as Digital Vault, will give investors real-time access to records of securities bought on private markets, HSBC told Reuters, and seeks to capitalize on booming interest in such investments by yield-hungry investors.
Banks and other financial firms have invested billions of dollars into finding uses for blockchain, a digital ledger that can be instantly and transparently updated. Few, however, have come up with practical or widely used applications.
Proponents say the blockchain will upend the financial sector by cutting out costly processes or the need for intermediaries — though there have been few solid examples yet of such revolutionary use.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! The HSBC platform will digitize paper-based records of private placements, using blockchain to reduce the time it takes investors to make checks or queries on holdings.
Records of private placements are typically held on paper and lack standardization, making access tricky and time-consuming. HSBC currently looks after up to $50 billion worth of the assets, it said.
It is not yet clear, though, how transformational the project could become. HSBC could not quantify the amount that could be saved for the bank or its clients by the platform.
Demand for private placements of both debt and equity have grown significantly in recent years, as investors search for higher returns amid low interest rates worldwide and technology firms in particular shun the scrutiny of public markets.
HSBC expects the global value of private placements to hit $7.7 trillion by 2022, a jump of 60% from five years earlier. Over the same period, it thinks allocations by asset manager clients will grow to 20% from 9%.
Ciaran Roddy, who heads custody innovation at HSBC’s securities services arm, said interest in private placements from U.S. and British insurers, as well as Asian and Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds, is on the rise.
“With some of the yields that are on offer, we are definitely seeing an increase in demand,” he said.
The news comes ahead of an expected shake-up of HSBC’s global banking and markets division, with interim CEO Noel Quinn seeking to cut costs and improve returns in the business.
Windsor Holden, an independent consultant who tracks blockchain and cryptocurrencies, said major savings were unlikely in the initial stages of projects, such as the custody platform.
“I wouldn’t expect to see huge savings or huge efficiencies announced in the first year to 18 months,” he said.
( Reporting by Tom Wilson and Lawrence White, editing by Alexandra Hudson.
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"Starting in 2020, China will require videos created using AI or VR to be clearly marked | VentureBeat"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Starting in 2020, China will require videos created using AI or VR to be clearly marked Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
( Reuters ) — Chinese regulators have announced new rules governing video and audio content online, including a ban on the publishing and distribution of “fake news” created with technologies such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality.
Any use of AI or virtual reality also needs to be clearly marked in a prominent manner, and failure to follow the rules could be considered a criminal offense, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said on its website.
The rules, effective January 1, were published publicly on its website on Friday after being issued to online video and audio service providers last week.
In particular, the CAC highlighted potential problems caused by deepfake technology , which uses AI to create hyper-realistic videos in which a person appears to say or do something they did not.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Deepfake technology could “endanger national security, disrupt social stability, disrupt social order, and infringe upon the legitimate rights and interests of others,” according to a transcript of a press briefing published on the CAC’s website.
China’s top legislative body said earlier this year it was considering making deepfake technology illegal.
In September, a new Chinese app called Zao — that allowed users to swap their faces with celebrities, sports stars, or anyone else in a video clip using deepfake technology — racked up millions of downloads once it was released.
However, it also swiftly drew fire over privacy issues. Zao apologized for the concerns created but said the app would not collect users’ biometric information.
Top video platforms in China include video streaming service providers such as Tencent Video, Alibaba-owned Youku, and iQIYI, as well as short-video platforms such as Kuaishou and ByteDance-owned Douyin.
Podcast platforms such as Himalaya and Dragonfly FM are the most popular audio-sharing apps in the country.
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"Disney's stock surge is all about its streaming bundle | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/media/disneys-stock-surge-is-all-about-its-streaming-bundle"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Guest Disney’s stock surge is all about its streaming bundle Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn President of Walt Disney Distribution Franchise Management, Business & Audience Insights Cathleen Taff speaks during CinemaCon.
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This week Disney’s stock popped above $152 per share, reaching an all-time high and driving total valuation for the House of the Mouse beyond a quarter trillion dollars. The market has warmed to Disney in recent months, buoyed by strong box office numbers from hit franchises like Marvel and Pixar and a strong back half book-ended by Frozen 2, which opened this week to record numbers. And there are high expectations for the final installment of the Star Wars saga, which opens next month.
While this week’s Frozen numbers no doubt sent a chill down the spine of every other studio, Disney has put up strong receipts all year that have not managed to move the stock to the highs seen this week. While the big screen has played well for Disney, it is recent news from the smaller screens – millions of them — that has captured the market’s attention.
Earlier this month Disney’s much anticipated streaming service debuted in the United States to what were by all accounts stunning initial results. Disney+ racked up more than 10 million subscriptions in its initial week, showcasing the power of the Disney content universe.
New numbers from Apptopia this week confirm the initial launch numbers were just the beginning of the platform’s growth; the Disney+ app saw 15 million downloads in the past two weeks, averaging about a million new users per day. Keep in mind: These downloads are in addition to the millions of subscribers that are watching via their Apple TV and Roku devices.
These impressive numbers have led some analysts to predict Disney will reach its goal of 60 to 90 million subscribers two years ahead of schedule. To be sure, there are fair questions to be answered about churn as many of the new subscriptions likely flow from the free one-year trial deal Disney struck with Verizon, and many more took advantage of the free 7-day trial period Disney extended as part of its mega-marketing blitz.
What is undeniable, however, is the unrivaled fan base Disney+ has built into its service that will make its beloved content library and its new original programs aligned with Star Wars, Marvel, and Pixar a must-have service for the 30+ million US households with children. And, while impressive on its own, with more 500 movies and 7,000 episodes of television, the real Disney+ magic lies in the network effects it can draw upon to deepen penetration into the broader streaming market.
With so much initial attention focused on the Disney+ launch, it’s understandable that the Disney+ / Hulu / ESPN bundle that was also launched this month received less attention. The Apptopia report also provides a closer look at the longer-term streaming horse race shaping up and shows the positive add-on effects Disney+ is having for ESPN and Hulu. According to the data, both have experienced 50% increases in app downloads since the launch of the bundle service.
The bundled implications are significant as they will accelerate market adoption of streaming as a whole and hasten the already fast moving audience migration from traditional television to streaming platforms that will benefit many players. Roku, for example, has also benefited from the Disney magic, seeing downloads of its app increase by more than 25% in the past two weeks as millions of new subscribers (and likely first-time streamers) clamor for the Disney content.
While Disney+ will have no ads (as of now), it’s clear Disney also sees an opportunity with its bundling strategy with Hulu to tap into the $70 billion US television advertising market that is just beginning to move to streaming platforms. The Disney / ESPN / Hulu bundle is only available with the ad-supported Hulu subscription. The brilliance of Disney’s plan is it gets to have its cake and eat it too, as it plays to both the segment of the population that wants no ads (via Disney+) and those that want to tip their toe into the streaming waters but are not ready to shell out large sums for all ad-free content.
The bundle strategy also serves to accelerate adoption of Hulu’s live television platform for millions of new subscribers. Last week Hulu’s live TV offering surpassed Dish’s Sling TV to become the biggest streaming pay-TV service in the US. The eventual goal is likely a world where all of Disney’s content, from Disney+ to ESPN to ABC, lives within the Hulu ecosystem, thus addressing the number one pain point consumers have today with the multitude of streaming services: fragmentation.
The net takeaway for those handicapping the streaming wars is that consumers want more than one streaming content channel and are willing to pay for it. A recent survey found consumers are willing to shell out $100 per month for all of their streaming subscriptions. What they don’t want is a complicated, fragmented and duplicative ecosystem that is as impossible to navigate as their current 400 channel cable package.
Disney’s strategy to leverage its content advantage to bolster both its platform and advertising play with Hulu and ESPN offers a hulk-sized market advantage that will be hard for many competitors to replicate.
Dallas Lawrence is an advisor to Channel Factory and the former chief communications and brand officer for OpenX.
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"Why Amazon won’t dominate in groceries | VentureBeat"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Guest Why Amazon won’t dominate in groceries Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Grocery is the largest retail segment in the U.S., but its online penetration remains low: Only 3% of grocery sales happen online , compared to 30.2% for electronics and 27.4% for apparel. The reason? Groceries are particularly hard to handle with the kind of warehouse distribution model that an online retail powerhouse like Amazon relies on.
The company I work for provides machine learning-enabled robotics for picking products in warehouses, so the grocery challenge is a topic I keep a close eye on. And recently, there’s been some interesting experimentation on this front, with British online grocer Ocado trying out a whole new approach to the one Amazon has trialed so far.
Amazon’s stumble When Amazon acquired Whole Foods in 2017, stock prices for Costco, Target, and Kroger tanked. The market expected Amazon to transform the grocery industry just as it transformed book sales, retail, delivery, and many other industries. But today, more than two years after the Whole Foods buy, grocery has yet to be “Amazoned.” In fact, Walmart , the largest grocer in the United States, just reported a 41% surge in online sales driven by its strong grocery segment. Perhaps grocery will indeed be Amazon’s Waterloo as Whole Foods founder John Mackey once suggested ? Amazon is good at providing a large selection of products with fast shipping and low prices. But foods are perishable. Their values degrade over time as they get transported. You cannot stock lots of food for faster delivery or a better economy of scale because it will go bad.
That’s why grocery is fragmented. It’s not the “winner takes all” market — like ecommerce — that Amazon is used to.
The Ocado model Ocado seems to understand the nature of grocery better than anyone else: It knows there won’t be a globally dominant player in the grocery industry. So it has made a bold move to license its technology to other grocers, from the mobile interface to the automated warehouse.
Ocado has recently licensed its end-to-end ecommerce solution to some of the world’s largest grocery retailers, including Groupe Casino and Sobeys. Last year, Ocado signed a major deal with Kroger , the United States’ second-largest general retailer (behind Walmart) to build up to 20 fulfillment centers with Ocado’s automated technologies. The transition from a grocery company to a tech company boosted its valuation.
In contrast, after Amazon acquired warehouse robotics company Kiva , it stopped supporting other retailers and will not share Kiva robots with its competitors. Both Amazon and Ocado heavily invested in technology and vertical integration, but they have very different strategies.
Amazon wants to drive more customers to the platform to further improve its cost structure so that it can decrease prices and attract even more customers. That’s why the company recently made Amazon Fresh free and plans to open a new grocery store brand next year.
On the other hand, Ocado is positioned to “help retailers in other parts of the world [to build a successful e-commerce business],” according to CEO Tim Steiner.To become the best technology partner of retailers, Ocado actively invests in robotics and artificial intelligence. It recently published a paper on Few Shot Learning , a technology that can potentially allow machines to recognize the ever-expanding and changing SKUs in grocery stores.
While it’s difficult to create an economy of scale in grocery, it’s entirely possible to leverage network effects and build a tech empire. By providing its technology to other retailers, Ocado will have more data and know-how for food handling than any other company in the world. It can then expand this defensible competitive advantage to adjacent markets, including restaurants and farming. In fact, Ocado has already started to invest in vertical farms and robotics startup Karakuri , which automates the assembly of ready-to-eat meals.
We’ve seen Silicon Valley tech giants disrupting industry after industry from finance to automotive while traditional industry players struggling to react. Ocado’s approach may actually be the silver lining: Traditional retailers could finally have a way to transform themselves and stay relevant in the age of disruption.
Bastiane Huang is a Product Manager at Osaro , an AI/robotics startup based in San Francisco backed by Peter Thiel and Jerry Yang’s AME Cloud. She previously worked for Amazon Alexa.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Xbox Scarlett and PlayStation 5 launches will be all about service games | VentureBeat"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Analysis Xbox Scarlett and PlayStation 5 launches will be all about service games Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Final Fantasy XIV is one of the games that may launch on the next-gen consoles.
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Google Stadia’s launch didn’t make sense. The cloud-gaming service debuted with nearly two dozen games , but they are nearly all premium-priced products that were previously available on other platforms. And few people seem excited to jump into Stadia to buy those games. But the problem with Stadia isn’t the existence of Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey or Mortal Kombat 11.
The issue is the almost complete absence of live-service games. The same games that are going to prop up the next-generation PlayStation 5 and Xbox Project Scarlett consoles through their first year.
One Stadia game, however, does make sense.
Destiny 2 enables players to bring in their existing saves, and it is complementary as part of the Stadia Pro service. Fans can get it on Stadia and grind missions on their phone and then pick it up on another platform with their friends. But where are all the other live-service games — especially ones that are free-to-play or support cross-platform multiplayer? While acknowledging that porting and business deals for Fortnite or Apex Legends aren’t easy, it still seems inexcusable for a major platform launching in 2019 not to have those games.
And Stadia is going to look especially odd by next holiday. PlayStation 5 and Xbox Scarlett are going to launch with massive support from live-service games. And it makes sense.
While Sony and Microsoft are both focusing a ton of resources on huge first-party games, they are likely not going to release too many of those in the early months of their new systems. Big games require big budgets. And making that money back is a lot easier once a system has a large install base.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! PlayStation 5, Xbox Scarlett, and live-service games are going to feed off one another So God of War 2 and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Electro Boogaloo are definitely coming, but I’m not expecting them to come until holiday 2021 at the earliest. Microsoft is launching Halo Infinite with the Xbox Scarlett. But that actually proves the point.
Halo Infinite is part of the Xbox Game Pass service. And the game debuting on that platform alongside the Xbox Scarlett is going to get people excited to show up and pay $10 per month. Live-service games are likely going to employ a similar strategy.
Fortnite, Apex Legends, Final Fantasy XIV, Rocket League, Warframe, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege, and more are likely going to launch on (or close to) day one on PS5 and Xbox Scarlett. But they will also likely have major in-game updates. They could feature visual upgrades to take advantage of new hardware. Or maybe they’ll have surprising in-game events.
For multiplatform services, new consoles with a few million early adopters are not a limitation. A Fortnite event that coincides with a new PlayStation and Xbox will also work on mobile and PC. And an influx of new or returning players is only a good thing for the existing audience. And service games don’t rely on day-one sales and preorders like product games. Instead, they build momentum over time.
And being available on a console at launch is part of that. It’s important to capitalize on that excitement for something new.
Stadia missed out on that. Microsoft and Sony are not going to make that same mistake. And it means that we will have plenty to play on those new boxes while we wait for the marquee blockbuster exclusives.
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"Workers at Israeli surveillance firm NSO sue Facebook for blocking their personal accounts | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/workers-at-israeli-surveillance-firm-nso-sue-facebook-for-blocking-their-personal-accounts"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Workers at Israeli surveillance firm NSO sue Facebook for blocking their personal accounts Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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( Reuters ) — A group of employees from Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group filed a lawsuit against Facebook on Tuesday, saying the social media giant had unfairly blocked their private accounts when it sued NSO last month.
Messaging service WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, had accused NSO in its own legal action filed in California last month of helping government spies break into the phones of roughly 1,400 users across four continents in a hacking spree whose targets included diplomats, political dissidents, journalists, and senior government officials.
The NSO employees said their Facebook and Instagram accounts, and also those of former workers and family members, had been blocked. They petitioned the Tel Aviv District Court to order Facebook to unblock the accounts, which they claim was done abruptly and without notice.
Facebook said in a statement that it had disabled “relevant accounts” after attributing a “sophisticated cyber attack” to NSO Group and its employees. Those actions “continue to be necessary for security reasons, including preventing additional attacks,” the company said.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! It added that it had reenabled some accounts through an appeals process.
In their statement, the NSO employees said Facebook had imposed a “collective punishment” by choosing to block their private accounts due to the legal process Facebook is conducting against NSO. They also said their lawsuit came only after they made repeated requests to Facebook that went unanswered.
“Blocking our private accounts is a hurtful and unjust move by Facebook,” the statement said. “The idea that personal data was searched for and used is very disturbing to us.” The employees said they would continue to “help governments around the world prevent crime and terrorism through the technology we are developing.” WhatsApp accused NSO of facilitating government hacking sprees in 20 countries. Mexico, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain were the only countries identified.
NSO, founded in 2009, denies the allegations.
Speaking at a technology conference in Tel Aviv on Monday, its president, Shiri Dolev, defended her company, saying NSO technologies made the world safer. Dolev also said she wished NSO could talk openly about the role it plays in helping law enforcement agencies catch terrorists.
“Terrorists and criminals use the social platforms and apps we all use every day,” she said.
Dolev added that NSO does not operate the technology nor hack phones. “We develop the technology, which we sell exclusively to government intelligence agencies,” she said.
( Reporting by Steven Scheer, additional reporting by Katie Paul, editing by Gareth Jones and Tom Brown.
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"When game companies squander player trust, bad things happen (VB Live) | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/when-game-companies-squander-player-trust-bad-things-happen-vb-live"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages VB Live When game companies squander player trust, bad things happen (VB Live) Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Presented by Akamai Technologies Games have become a primary target for attackers because there’s real money to be stolen in the virtual world of gaming. How do you protect your game and users from the wide variety of threats today? Learn how to fight back in this VB Live event.
Access on demand for free right here.
“You’re not just a game company anymore, says Jonathan Singer, Senior Manager, Global Games Industry, Akamai Technologies. “The game industry is one of the world’s largest completely unregulated financial markets.” Companies are sitting on invaluable data like personally identifiable information (PII) and credit card information, and players tie up a ton of value in their accounts, and the world is increasingly aware of that. It’s a juicier and juicier target for anyone who’s interested in making money.
“I’ve heard so many times from game developers: ‘I won’t be defrauded, I’m a game company,'” says Scott Adams, Founder & CEO, FraudPVP. “But if you don’t have an expert at the table when you’re making the big decisions and planning out the game, you’re going to end up getting hurt. If you’re not used to thinking that way, you’re probably going to leave a lot of holes.” Gamers are a niche demographic — they’re known for spending a lot of money, and their financial status has made them tempting targets. On top of that, the industry is increasingly moving from physical to digital, in the form of subscription-based services. You combine that with collecting a lot of PII and it’s just a really tempting target.
And gaming is seeking to become one of the primary forms of entertainment media consumption, and game companies are positioning themselves as a revenue force to be reckoned with, putting out press releases that crow about how much more their opening weekend earned than a recent movie, for example.
“As the industry seeks to go increasingly digital, to collect more information, to collect recurring payments and assured revenue, that makes it a really nice target for folks who want a slice of that, but don’t want to participate,” Singer says. “More and more credential stuffing attacks, more credential abuse, more things aimed at getting your data and getting your money out of the system.” It’s your players who are your first line of defense, from their experience in the game to how they interact with you as a company.
“Players who are looking for an inspiring game to play are trusting the studios and developers that put games out,” says Lonnye Bower, COO, ProbablyMonsters. “You need to earn that trust by ensuring that all of the teams are thinking and talking about security, really from the initial stages. It needs to be a conversation you’re having on day one.” It also means recruiting players into your security strategy.
“Hide as much as you can,” says Singer. “But you can’t offer the most secure experience without affecting the user experience. What you want to do is positively affect the user experience. You want a bit of security theater to it. It’s about giving them useful tools that secure the players that also make them feel secure and build trust.” If you want users to enroll in multifactor authentication, they have to trust that when they give you their phone number, you’re not selling it. If you don’t earn the trust of your players, you’re not going to be able to give them a more secure experience. If they don’t already trust you as a publisher for other reasons, it makes partnering with your players on security more difficult, and they’re less likely to work with you.
“The entire experience of how they interact with you as a company affects your security posture,” he adds. “When you give them security solutions to use, when you’re collecting the information you need to further secure them, they need to believe that you have their best interests at heart.” Part of fostering a culture of transparency and trust between the players and the studios is communication, Bowers says.
“If we are going to be adding anything that would impact the performance of the game, it’s critical that the studios or the developers have that communication open with the players, so that they’re aware of what’s happening and why it’s happening,” he explains. “That will build on the trust that we earn from them.” We ensure users remain secure by keeping them informed, he adds. Making sure they’re aware that those are bad actors who will just go in and compromise their accounts is critical.
“If we continue the conversations and communicate with the players, they’re loyal to studios,” he explains. “They trust us. We owe them that much in terms of communicating everything to them.” For example, you’ll see free virtual currency or unlocked and loaded accounts, and it’s so easy to get somebody to come in and take that bait, says Adams.
“A really good way to protect the players from that, beyond technology, is a lot of education, making sure players know that there’s only one place to buy currency for your game,” he says. “If gamers know that, that makes it easier, but it’s still going to be tempting. We have to make sure that we take responsibility and protect them, so you have to have technology to back it up as well.” Game security has a lot of moving parts, but there are more ways than ever for the gaming community to huddle up and start fighting back. Access this webinar free, on demand, to learn more about herd immunity as a security strategy, plus how to adjust your models to address generational differences, leverage partnerships with other studios, and address specific threats from straight account takeovers to DDoS attacks and more.
Access free on demand here.
You’ll learn: How to protect your game and players from a growing amount of online security threats The latest trends in credential abuse and account hacks in gaming How web attacks are evolving and where they are headed in the future How to integrate security best practices with the rest of the game for best performance Speakers: Jonathan Singer , Sr. Manager, Global Games Industry, Akamai Technologies Scott Adams , Founder & CEO, FraudPVP Lonnye Bower , COO, ProbablyMonsters Steve Ragan , Sr. Technical Writer, Akamai Technologies Dean Takahashi , Lead Gaming Writer, VentureBeat The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Uber drives up carpool pricing, Chicago data reveals | VentureBeat"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Uber drives up carpool pricing, Chicago data reveals Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn A man arrives at the Uber offices in Queens, New York, on February 2, 2017. (File photo) Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
( Reuters ) — How much ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft charge customers throughout a day is one of the most closely held secrets in Silicon Valley.
But a law in Chicago requiring the companies to disclose fare data shines a light on how at least one of the former “unicorns” is trying to turn a profit for the first time.
A Reuters analysis of the data shows fares for shared rides in the city have risen significantly over the past year, while fares for single riders have remained stable.
The price increases for shared rides predominantly affect Chicago’s low-income neighborhoods, which is where most of the carpool rides are booked, the analysis showed. Over this period of increased fares, carpool ridership fell.
Above: Uber’s Chicago pricing The Chicago data does not differentiate between rides operated by Uber Technologies Inc, Lyft Inc, or smaller ride-share rival Via. Data by Second Measure, which tracks credit card expenditures, estimates that Uber commands a roughly 72% market share in Chicago. The data also does not indicate whether similar strategies are being rolled out in other cities.
The fare changes in Chicago show an attempt to reduce discounts for customers in order to help convince investors that ride-hailing can be a profitable business model.
But the shift comes with political risks, as cities from Chicago to London take ride-hailing companies to task over congestion, driver treatment and passenger rights. On Monday, regulators in London stripped Uber’s license for the second time in just over two years, pending an appeal, over a “pattern of failures” on safety and security.
After reviewing the findings from the Chicago data, Uber said it has traditionally seen losses in its shared Pool rides segment. Earlier this month, Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi said Uber was “losing significant sums” due to heavy discounts on those rides.
“We want Pool to be available to as many people and in as many cities as possible, and to do that it has to be financially sustainable for years to come” through measures including pricing and better algorithms to find more pool riders, an Uber spokesman said.
Lyft declined to comment on its pricing strategy, but said shared rides have increased access to affordable and reliable transportation, particularly in neighborhoods under served by public transit and passed over by taxis.
Lyft said that given Uber controls nearly two-thirds of the Chicago market, the data most closely reflected Uber’s strategy, and noted its own data did not show a decrease in shared rides.
Via, the smallest Chicago player almost exclusively focused on shared rides with an estimated 1% market share, also declined to comment on pricing but said its own interpretation of the Chicago data was consistent with the analysis.
“In city after city, we have seen that there is far more price sensitivity with pooled rides than with private, single passenger ones,” Via said, adding that it was crucial for fees and taxes on shared rides to stay low in order to decrease congestion.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has proposed taxes on ride-hailing services to combat congestion, by increasing the tax for solo trips and lowering taxes on shared rides. She also is pushing a new surcharge of $1.75 on weekday rides in the downtown area.
Chicago’s city council on Tuesday approved the congestion tax changes as part of the city’s 2020 budget.
Uber and Lyft, which have supported congestion taxes in New York and other cities, are fighting Lightfoot’s congestion proposal, calling it unfair for not including regular taxi services and disproportionately hurting lower-income residents.
They also said Lightfoot’s measure helps some of the city’s richest parts in the north, dominated by white residents, while hurting predominantly black and Hispanic residents on the South and West Side.
Lightfoot, Chicago’s first female African-American mayor, has rejected those claims, accusing Uber of stirring up racial tensions in opposition to the proposal.
Uber and Lyft put forward an alternative taxation plan that was rejected by the city as doing too little to ease downtown congestion. Uber in a statement said it wished Chicago would remove fees on shared rides altogether.
The Reuters analysis of more than one million Chicago rides between January and September 2019 – the only full quarters for which the city currently makes data available – found that fares per mile increased 13% for shared rides. But they remained unchanged for private rides.
Shared rides fell to about a third of all rides in a group of the least affluent neighborhoods of Chicago in the third quarter from about half of rides in the first.
Presented with Reuters’ pricing analysis, city representatives said they interpreted the data as an attempt by the companies to change customer behavior.
“We have real concerns about the claims these companies make because actually they’re the ones causing the pain to the communities in terms of cost, not the mayor’s plan,” said Rosa Escareno, Chicago’s Commissioner of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection who led the congestion policy.
Uber declined to directly comment on the city’s allegations, but said it made no sense that passengers in a solo taxi ride downtown will pay no tax while those taking a shared trip far from downtown will.
Lyft said the Mayor “is attempting to distract from what her plan will do: backtrack on her campaign promises and raise the cost of transportation in Chicago for communities who can least afford it.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"The future of computing and games | VentureBeat"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages The future of computing and games Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn TIFCA is trying to figure out the future of computing.
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Sometimes it’s good to think about the future.
And that’s what a group of thinkers did at The International Future Computing Association , which held a conference recently at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.
The event was about the coming era of any place, any time, and any device user experiences delivered both on devices and via the cloud. To make this happen, we need a full ecosystem of partners across computing, immersive technology, content and applications, and infrastructure, according to TIFCA, which is chaired by partners such as Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, and M2 Insights. TIFCA’s executive director is Neil Schneider, who is also the founder of Meant to be Seen.
I moderated a panel at the event with a group of industry veterans. We asked them to toss out their day job concerns and be futurists for an afternoon. Our panelists included Jen MacLean, head of worldwide business development for small-and-mid-sized game studios at Game Tech at Amazon Web Services; Bebo White, department associate emeritus at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University; Bill Rehbock, head of content partnerships for Blade Group/Shadow; Jeffrey Shih, lead product manager for AI at Unity Technologies; and Gary Radburn, director of virtually everything Dell.
We opened it up by asking them what computing will deliver to them in their dreams, and how we will get to that future in terms of the client, cloud, application, and infrastructure technology that will be needed. We wandered all over the place in our conversation, but I enjoyed the journey, and I hope you do too.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Here’s an edited transcript of our panel. And if you prefer, I have embedded a video of the conversation as well below.
Above: Left to right: Futurist panelists Bebo White, Bill Rehbock, Dean Takahashi, Gary Radburn, Jeffrey Shih, and Jen MacLean.
Jen MacLean: I’m the head of worldwide business development for AWS game tech for small and mid-sized studios. I’ve been in game development and technology in some way, shape, or form for more than 25 years. I don’t know that anyone has ever accused me of providing “dreamy” wisdom before, but I’ll do my best.
Gary Radburn: I’m from Dell. I’m director of virtualization, virtual reality. I’ve been in the industry for a very long time. I’m looking forward to speaking on that today.
Jeff Shih: I’m lead product manager for AI at Unity. Most of my background is AI and machine learning research. At Unity, obviously, we focus a lot on AI in gaming.
Bebo White: I’m emeritus at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford, which is the national lab behind physics and basic energy scientist. I’m a computational physicist.
Bill Rehbock: I head developer relationships for a company called Blade Group that produces the Shadow PC streaming service. I go all the way back to–the first trade show I ever worked at was the summer CES in 1978 demoing Star Raiders on the Atari 800. I worked for Atari. I was at Nvidia for 15 years.
GamesBeat: What we’ll start with is, what dreamy thing do you want computing to accomplish for you? A little later we’ll get to what you need to get there, or how you might actually shoot that dream down. But let’s start with Bill. What’s the thing that you really want computing to do for you? Rehbock: I would say that the biggest win that we could see in the industry in the next, hopefully, five to 10 years, maybe 15, is that the internet of entertainment finally gets to the point where it’s truly ubiquitous. We had the conversation earlier with a lot of people in the room and up on stage over the course of the day saying that they’re not gamers. Which is still weird in this day and age, that there’s a stigma associated with being a gamer. It would be like going to the VSDA show, the big linear content show, and hearing people say, “Well, I don’t watch movies.” Interactive entertainment could be democratized to the point that it becomes very accessible to everybody, so that it isn’t just people who can afford $2,000 PCs who are talking about raytracing and stuff like that. What we talk about today as being the cutting edge can become more commonplace. That would serve us all better, both from an education standpoint, as well as for our entertainment.
White: I’m going to respond a bit to what you said about gaming. When I first heard about coming to this, that was my response. What do I know about games? But one thing I certainly learned today is the way in which the gaming ecosystem, as it were, really does encompass a lot more issues, a lot more fundamental issues, than simply entertainment. But in terms of my dreams? I’m going to agree with your consensus that I look forward to that true ubiquitousness.
One of my bigger dreams is basically thinking about computing as a utility, just like the lights or the water or anything of that nature. A utility that basically becomes a human right and is available to everyone.
GamesBeat: I think Amazon has created that, except they charge for it.
MacLean: That’s not true! We have a free tier.
Shih: For me, it’s the intersection of AI systems and human interaction in the space of education and entertainment. I think there’s a lot of untapped potential in our human abilities that can be unlocked by having a lot of AI systems unlocking our abilities for us. I’m excited about a future our own potential is revealed by better compute, better design, better algorithmic systems. When I’m much older, hopefully I’ll be a much improved, much better version of myself.
GamesBeat: You want to hack yourself.
Shih: Yes, exactly! Above: FundamentalVR trains surgeons with virtual reality.
Radburn: For me it’s really about, first of all, the media and entertainment industry, where they actually take the technology into new directions and really push the envelope. Where I’m standing, it’s really impacting health care. We deal a lot in the industry with people who are now using VR and AR in training surgeons, the treatment of PTSD, autism, giving people awareness of dementia or physical diseases inside of them. All of this is brought about by work that’s being done in service of getting people out of the house and entertaining them, whether it be in film, digital techniques there, or the creation of VR pieces. Taking all of that and putting it into a package that makes something good for humankind.
Gamification is a big thing. One of the examples is doing your exercises. People go for physiotherapy and they have to do this repetitive movement 15 or 20 times in the evening before you go to bed. Oh, I’ll skip that. But if you can put a headset on and play a game, do something where you actually do that, but you don’t know you’re doing it, then that can only be a good thing. I’m looking forward to that more and more.
MacLean: I’d love to see us use computing to build emotional connections with other people. I’d love to see us use computing to address some of the fundamental inequalities that we’re struggling with globally. Fundamentally, I think we should be using computing to make a better place. We shouldn’t hold ourselves to any lesser yardstick.
GamesBeat: It’s interesting that nobody really said, “I want to have all the technology come as fast as it can.” Make it happen without regard to the impact it has. Is that fair to say? White: I think a couple of people have made the comment that just because we can do it, it doesn’t mean that we should do it, in terms of the capabilities we have. Which one of those should be the driving factor for future computing? Is it simply the growth of the technology, or our ability to use it in a productive way? MacLean: It’s also interesting to think about how computing actually has a cost, a physical, tangible cost in terms of energy consumption. Everyone in this room, I’m sure, is very aware of climate change. Again, when we think about resources, is using computing in a certain way the best way to use a resource? We’ve had the luxury of not having to think about that, and there are companies, including Amazon, that are making a commitment to renewable energy for computing. But we also have to move past the idea that computing is free, because it’s not.
Above: Real-time ray tracing scene on Nvidia RTX.
GamesBeat: We can switch it up a bit and ask you about some of the how, how you would get to the things you want. Maybe in the context of the client or the cloud. Bill, you’re at a cloud gaming company. I assume you’d say cloud is going to be very important to where you want entertainment to go.
Rehbock: When I was at Nvidia, I was there when they originally made GeForce Grid, multi-core GeForce and Nvidia’s streaming service. I had a lot of internal arguments there, because I was running developer relations at Nvidia and trying to figure out how cloud computing and cloud gaming for Nvidia could come together more quickly.
The challenge I presented to both Jensen Huang and the GeForce Grid team was, well, this whole notion of containerized gaming and cloud gaming and all that was very interesting, but the problem was that it was really all about–we’re going to offer this selection of games, very console-esque, but no matter how good the developer relations group at Nvidia is, even if we select what we think is the most brilliant collection of 100 games, if you turn around and there’s a user out there that says, “But I want to play Space Engineers, and that’s not one of those 100 games,” that guy still has to turn around and buy a PC to be able to play Space Engineers. That means you’ve failed, because of game number 101.
The thing that attracted me to Shadow is the notion of truly democratized access to high-performance gaming hardware. At the time we were deploying GTX 1080s, and we just started deploying RTX 2080s, so you can do raytracing. But here in the cloud is a great performance PC that will be upgraded on a regular basis for $15 to $30 a month. Giving users access to that hardware, because it’s in the cloud, is much easier. It’s easier to control energy costs and cooling and things like that.
But for Shadow, the important thing is it’s not democratized if you take away choice from the user. Because it’s a full Windows 10 PC and they can install any game they want from Steam or the Epic store or GOG–they can develop their own Unity games on Shadow and it all just works, just like a local PC. That’s the vision for what needs to happen in the future.
The bottom line is, there’s no one in the world who buys a GTX 1060 or 1070 GPU because they want to. They’re settling for it because of the price. The idea of getting access to mass users and education and schools and things like that, because the PCs themselves are in the cloud, is a great futurist way of approaching the technology.
GamesBeat: I’m going to guess that the panel likes this idea of using computing for various kinds of technology. Mr. Unity there, democratization of game development is your motto, right? Shih: It actually was the motto. It still floats around at Unity, though.
GamesBeat: Democratization isn’t really a function of the most computing power you can have. What does democratization mean? How is it important as far as what you want to see happen? Radburn: Democratization is great. It’s giving access to all. The more people who can use it, the more people who can experience it, that’s great. There was a big thing when we started to virtualize servers way back when. The response from some people was that you can’t virtualize servers because server sales are blowing up. People will only buy one. But the world’s selling more servers now than ever, because more people realize the benefits of it. They realize it’s actually game-changing.
In much the same way now, I think the days of democratization are going to lead to more kinds of IP that people wouldn’t have otherwise invested in. They’re going to see that. They’re going to play that. They’re going to go more and more professional, go into esports, things like that, where latency becomes more important. No matter what you do with a remote situation, you still have the speed of light coming into it. You can compress or whatever else, but if you’re not co-located in the same place as your data and your compute, you’ll have increased latency time or ping time or whatever you want to call that. Consequently people are going to want to own their own hardware.
Somebody was saying earlier that not everybody is a gamer. I think that’s going to be the case less and less, because you’re going to embrace the casual gamer. You’re going to get people on a subscription model who wouldn’t buy hardware otherwise, and that will be great for the industry as a whole.
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"The DeanBeat: Black Friday lets us enjoy the low cost of computing and entertainment | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/the-deanbeat-black-friday-lets-you-enjoy-the-low-cost-of-computing-and-entertainment"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages The DeanBeat: Black Friday lets us enjoy the low cost of computing and entertainment Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Our new 43-inch Samsung 4K 120Hz TV.
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I’ve done some conspicuous consumption already during the holiday season, even though Black Friday is barely upon us. A series of unfortunate incidents have befallen my electronic life, and I had to rectify the situation immediately. And all I have to say about that is thank heaven for Moore’s Law , the continuously falling price of electronics, and the cutthroat entertainment wars.
During one of my overseas adventures, I managed to lose a lot of dearly beloved electronic items in a very short space of time, and I had to replace them quickly. And now I find that I’ve got a cornucopia of choices on what to do with my new gear and how to entertain myself.
I remembered that a dozen years ago I had a $4,000 Panasonic 42-inch plasma TV. And a couple of days ago at Best Buy, I was able to buy a 43-inch Samsung TV with 120 frames per second and 4K imagery for $258.26, tax included. That’s the power of Moore’s Law, or the notion introduced back in the 1960s by Intel chairman emeritus Gordon Moore, who predicted that the number of transistors on a chip would double every couple of years. Thanks to that prediction and the electronics industry’s steady advances in living up to it, my new TV was super cheap.
I owe this to the miracle of electronics, which are pretty darn close to being disposable. When chip makers shrink the circuitry on a chip — say from 10 nanometers, or 10 billionths of a meter, to 7 nanometers — the width between the circuits gets smaller. The electrons don’t have as far to go now, and so the circuit gets faster. It takes less material to make the same chip and the yield for manufacturing goes up, and so the cost goes down. You can argue about some of these details, but it means that every couple of years, the cost of electronics goes down for the same performance, or the performance goes up for the same cost.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Above: I’m going to keep this TV away from large metal bars that might fall on it.
Since TVs haven’t been soaring in quality or performance lately, the cost has been falling. Of course, I haven’t yet told you why I needed this new TV. You see, someone who looks like my wife put some very heavy metal rods on a box in our garage. Perhaps the dog. Perhaps something else caused these rods to fall. They fell on our 40-inch TV in the garage, which wasn’t secured very well. It tipped over and fell into my computer, which fell into a 34-inch display. Now that desktop computer was fine, but the TV and the display had broken glass. That makes them quite worthless, and beyond repair. So you could say that Samsung and Best Buy must have conspired to make this happen. Because these things last for a long time, and they have to get sales in some way.
Another sad event befell two laptop computers that I owned. I traveled to Copenhagen and Helsinki last week for the Slush conference. Since I hadn’t been to Copenhagen before, I planned to stay overnight there and do some sightseeing. After a 11-hour flight, I landed in Denmark and made my way to the train. I hopped aboard and this nice old man told me that I had to put my baggage up on the rack above me, so people could get by. I did notice that there weren’t that many people on the train, but I complied. Then a ticket taker came by and told me I had inadvertently sat in first class, and she sent me packing to the appropriate train car.
And there was that nice man again, grabbing my backpack for me and huffing it over to the next car. He placed it above his seat and motioned to me to sit in the seat in front of him. I kept my suitcase with me. Time went by as I was figuring out how which station to get off at. Then I looked up, and my backpack was gone, and so was the nice old man. He tricked me.
I went to my hotel, and I got a call from the train service. They found my backpack on a train. I hopped onto the subway and met the worker, a fine Turkish man named Oken. He wouldn’t take a reward. I opened my backpack and saw that my two laptops were gone. However, the thief overlooked my money and an Apple iPad that I had in backpack. I was lucky there. Or perhaps the thief was being a nice old man again. He did take my cough drops, my two books, and my roller for the backpack.
Above: A 15.6-inch HP laptop.
In Helsinki, I got myself a $300 Asus Chromebook at an electronics store. That held me over until the end of the trip. I returned it, and they gave me most of my money back. It wasn’t going to work out in the long run, as the Chromebook had a Scandinavian keyboard.
As I returned, I ordered a replacement laptop on Amazon. I got myself a refurbished 15.6-inch laptop with an Intel N4000 Celeron chip running at 2.6 GHz. It cost me $217.52. Maybe that old man worked for a computer store? The computer has already arrived at my house. I also found another package waiting for me, a Google Stadia game controller and founders edition cloud gaming service subscription. I had forgotten that I had paid $215.82 for the Stadia package, which includes three months of free cloud gaming service, a game controller, a Chromecast Ultra, and a $60 game, Destiny 2.
Above: Google Stadia Controller I realized that these hardware purchases are going to be the cheapest part of my work and entertainment expenses. After all, the entertainment that goes with them is fairly hefty when you think about it. If I buy games for Stadia Pro, I can play them on just about any screen. But for that privilege, Google collects $10 a month, and then I have to buy those games for around $60 each. If I buy three games, then I outpace the cost of the hardware. But luckily, I don’t have to buy a computer or game console to go with that controller. In theory, I could use my Stadia controller to play some very high-end games on my low-end laptop.
Meanwhile, if I pay $5 a month for Apple Arcade games and get a $5 subscription to Apple TV+, I’ll be paying Apple for a long time. In a couple of years, the cost of that entertainment will match the cost of the computing hardware that I bought.
But I can’t complain. These feel like absurdly low prices to pay for a TV, PC, and the gaming and video entertainment to go with them. For the usage I am going to get out of them, I have to be thankful that the replacement cost for my electronics was so low. I have the disposable income to make up for my not-so-smart catastrophes, and I realize there are many people in the world who don’t.
And so yes, I am going to have a happy Thanksgiving. I am thankful that I can still be part of the internet-connected and game-playing elites of the world. And I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving too, and that you do not have the same kind of electronics catastrophes that I have had in the past couple of weeks.
Above: Microsoft is telling me something.
Sadly, my desktop computer is giving me a bad message. It’s telling me it’s about to give up the ghost, with the blue message of death. It looks like I may have to hit the stores again. Anyway, thank you for reading this very self-indulgent column. And thank you for reading GamesBeat and VentureBeat over the years.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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"Teatime Games' One Word fights loneliness through social gaming | VentureBeat"
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Teatime Games has launched One Word, a word puzzle game aimed at elevating social interaction and combating loneliness.
The mobile game integrates face-to-face, two-way communication among opponents into gameplay, allowing you to gloat, argue, and laugh in real-time as the action unfolds. Designed with the mission to “make gaming social again,” the Teatime Games platform tries to go a step further than other so-called social games.
The game is available on iOS and Android.
Reykjavik, Iceland-based Teatime raised $9 million last year in a round led by Index Ventures and Atomico. The game is part of the company’s continued efforts to make mobile gameplay a shared, social experience. It plans to invite other games studios to build new games on the platform, with the goal of ushering in a new era of human interaction in mobile gaming. One Word allows users to challenge friends, family or even strangers across the globe head-on in real-time gameplay.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Above: One Word One Word implements word puzzles, live video chat, and augmented reality (AR) filters. You can link the letters on the board to spell out words, score points and outsmart your opponent through five lightning rounds. One Word has an infinite number of levels for users to master vocabulary skills, unlock bonus points and level up to discover a host of unique AR filters that shake up the user experience.
Offering a face-to-face connection with opponents, One Word begins by prompting new users to select a “Gameface”– an AR filter that is used during the two-way live video as the user plays. Reactions and leaderboard changes are all captured in real-time, giving players what other mobile games lack: the fun of communicating and seeing opponents’ facial expressions throughout the duration of the match. Users can also disable the microphone or turn off the camera in one swift tap, enabling an avatar to represent your reactions and allowing users to play anytime, anywhere, while still maintaining the social, personal gaming experience and a level of privacy.
Above: One Word “We’re extremely excited to launch a new addition to our platform that has changed the way society plays mobile games,” said Thor Fridriksson, CEO of Teatime Games, in a statement. “One Word was developed to allow the players to communicate through shared experience, the way we used to. Most of the fun of playing games with one another is trash-talking, seeing your opponents’ reactions when you’re ahead, and trying not to be a sore loser when the game gets down to its final moments. Technology has the capability to both entertain us and connect us, and we see no reason why it shouldn’t do both.” Teatime plans to launch several additional social mobile games on the platform in 2020. Teatime’s founders are Fridriksson, Gunnar Holmsteinn (chief operating officer), Johann Thorvaldur Bergthorsson (chief technology officer), and Ymir Finnbogason (chief financial officer).
Teatime’s experienced group of founders are all former executives of QuizUp, the fastest-growing mobile game in 2013 that turned into a worldwide phenomenon with over 100 million players. QuizUp revolutionized the world of mobile trivia games, and Teatime strives to do the same by making One Word competitive, fun and social.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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"Sony's fall ad blitz means PlayStation gets most TV impressions | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/sonys-fall-ad-blitz-means-playstation-gets-most-tv-impressions"
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PlayStation left all other gaming brands far behind when it came to recent TV ad impressions, with Nintendo in second place. Once again sports, especially the NFL and NBA, were huge drivers of impressions for the industry overall. Sony company accounts for over 61% of the sector’s TV ad impressions across 30 days GamesBeat has partnered with iSpot.tv, the always-on TV ad measurement and attribution company, to bring you a monthly report on TV advertising by the gaming industry. These are the ads, and by extension the games, that game makers are putting major muscle behind.
Below are the top five most-seen gaming industry TV advertisers from Oct. 16 through Nov. 15.
Overall, 13 brands spent an estimated $65.9 million on 55 spots that aired over 9,800 times, resulting in 2.9 billion TV ad impressions.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! PlayStation was the breakout brand this time, with nearly 1.8 billion TV ad impressions resulting from nine ads that aired over 4,000 times. “The Drop,” promoting Death Stranding, was the company’s most-seen commercial (466 million impressions). ESPN, Fox, and Adult Swim were the three networks that generated the highest impression-counts for PlayStation, while top programming included the NFL, college football, and the NBA.
Second place goes to Nintendo with 312.2 million TV ad impressions generated by 19 spots that ran over 2,000 times. Its most-seen commercial was “Trick or Defeat: Luigi’s Mansion 3,” with 52.8 million impressions. Nick, Disney Channel, and Cartoon Network were the top three networks by impressions for Nintendo, while top programming included SpongeBob SquarePants , The Loud House , and The Amazing World of Gumbal l.
Xbox takes third place, running five spots 525 times, resulting in 257.3 million TV ad impressions. “They Know Who You Are,” promoting Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, was the most-seen ad (132.2 million impressions). The networks generating top impression-counts included Fox, ESPN, and NBA TV, and top programming included the NBA, the NFL, and the 2019 World Series.
At No. 4 is Activision, with 164.1 million TV ad impressions resulting from two spots that aired 102 times. Its most-seen commercial, with 109.7 million impressions, was “Rules of Engagement” for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, featuring music by Metallica. As with the other brands, sports was a primary focus for Activision, with high impression-counts coming from programming such as the NFL, the 2019 World Series, and SportsCenter , while top networks included ESPN, Fox, and CBS.
EA Sports rounds out the ranking with 127.9 million TV ad impressions from six spots that ran 174 times. The Madden NFL 20 commercial “Doesn’t Feel Any Different” featuring Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes had the most impressions (46.4 million). The company focused entirely on sports-related channels and content: ESPN, NFL Network, and ESPN2 were the networks that generated the highest impression-counts, while top programming included the NFL, NFL Live , and Around the Horn.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Sam Lake interview -- How storytelling creates value in games | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/sam-lake-interview-how-storytelling-can-create-so-much-value-in-games"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Exclusive Sam Lake interview — How storytelling creates value in games Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Sam Lake is the creative director at Remedy Entertainment.
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For the past 24 years, Sam Lake has been the creative director at Remedy Entertainment, writing the stories that have become the heart of games such as Death Rally, Max Payne, Alan Wake, Quantum Break, and most recently Control.
He got his start in scriptwriting after his friend Petri Järvilehto, a founder of Remedy, needed a story to go with the racing game Death Rally. With the 2001 shooter game Max Payne, he wrote the script, which turned out to be about four times as long as a lot of movie scripts. But since Remedy had no budget to hire actors, he also served as the face model for the main character ( Updated 12/9/19 : James McCaffrey did the voice acting).
Lake became the creative director in 2010, and Lake has given Remedy a consistent creative vision, something that has distinguished it from many other game studios. At the same time, he is heartened to see storytelling become the backbone of so many games, from the Uncharted series to The Last of Us. His stories often explore transmedia, like mixing television-like episodes, characters with broken families, time travel, and the surrealism of blending fiction with nonfiction. Remedy’s Control is up for a number of awards at this year’s The Game Awards, including Game of the Year.
Over the years, Remedy has moved from Microsoft exclusive to cross-platform game publisher, but Lake is one of its bedrocks. Now he is working on a story-based version of Crossfire and another new project. I caught up with Lake at the Press Start event in Helsinki, ahead of the Slush conference.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.
Above: Sam Lake of Remedy speaks at Press Start event in Helsinki ahead of Slush.
GamesBeat: I always wonder whether writers have gotten their fair due with games. It’s almost always one writer. You have all these artists and all these programmers, and then there’s one writer. The weight on that person, what that person has to achieve….
Sam Lake: It’s a strange, I feel — especially going back to Max Payne. I don’t think that anybody really saw how it would be perceived, how much of it would be tied to the character and the narrative and the story in it. It was kind of like I was given relatively free rein because the focus was on development in other areas. It’s interesting from that angle, that in some ways, back then, it felt like there was even more liberty.
When it becomes more purposeful and there’s more focus on it, when people are commenting on it a lot — Quantum Break being the prime example of that kind of a larger focus on the story and storytelling — those, in my experience, are the two extremes, as far as I’ve experienced them. You can also, by seemingly having more focus and more resources and more budget, in some ways end up losing something. Some sort of freshness and edge, those liberties that flying under the radar gives you.
GamesBeat: There’s an interesting value created by these writers’ rooms. Jon Goldman from Skybound, the big investor, he pointed to Robert Kirkman’s Walking Dead team. He originates it, but then all these others take over and take it in other directions, like all the writers on Star Wars. It’s interesting how a lot of value gets created in that writers’ room. Quantum Break was an example. Where’s the value of this thing? It’s in this small room. The question, I guess, is whether you think that’s come into its own. Has it hit its potential, or is it just barely hitting? Lake: I think that there is always a tug of war, a struggle. That’s a natural part of any teamwork. People have different points of view, and in many ways, nobody is wrong. They just have a different focus. I’ve seen, through the years, that the importance of writing, or the resources involved in that — inside the team they’re put into question. Which obviously irritates you when it’s happening, but at the same time, often it leads to forcing you to push back and innovate and find other means of working that in, which is then a blessing in disguise.
More and more I’ve come to think of it from the perspective of — you dream of this writer’s paradise where everyone sees that you’re the man and this is the important stuff you’re creating here. You have all the resources that you need. But as I said on stage, more and more I feel like that’s an awful trap. It will be better if you have limitations, if people are questioning you. “We shouldn’t focus on this so much.” You have that — if nobody is telling you that this doesn’t work, or there’s something wrong with it — you look for trends. If everyone says something is wrong, then there’s probably something wrong.
The worst possible curse, I feel, is that you end up being put on a pedestal. You’re the genius. You create brilliant stuff. Go and create it! Then the only thing that will come out of that is something horrible.
Above: Control GamesBeat: I think about Red Dead 2. I don’t know if you could blame the writers for some of it, but did we really need a story that goes on for 30 missions after the main character dies? Do we need five missions about building a house, these very mundane things? There’s that bloat in the entire production.
Lake: I don’t know the specifics. Obviously from the business side there’s a desire for more value for money, a longer-lasting experience. That can also be set upon the writing room, that it needs to last longer, so make it last longer. How do you approach that? Do you just stretch everything and keep it going? It’s an interesting challenge. It goes hand in hand with the creative process, but then certain parameters being dictated — in Control, part of what we wanted early on was we needed to figure out a way to make a longer experience than just a 10-hour linear thing, and once you play through there’s no reason to go back at all. We needed to start taking steps into figuring it out.
GamesBeat: There’s a very efficient use of the same space, like the DLC in Alan Wake. One of them had you doubling back over the same territory.
Lake: Yeah, American Nightmare, with the time loop. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. It’s an interesting challenge to figure out — okay, these are the map parameters. How do we find an interesting narrative that works with that? At Remedy we make action games. I’ve had this conversation both inside and outside, several times. Shouldn’t you just tell the story you want to tell? But it feels insane to me to start thinking — why would I want to use the parameters of an action game to tell a story that’s not suited or fitting into the action game framework? For me the starting point is, what is the conflict? Who is the enemy? Let’s do a story around this.
If it needs to be longer, how do we come up with a structure that supports a longer experience? I’m surprised that I’ve seen it noted — very few times, which makes me happy, because that was our struggle — but for the main campaign in Control, if you think about where it ends, even though it’s supposed to feel that Jesse goes through this monumental journey, pretty much everything is as it was in the beginning. She’s the director. All the characters and all the forces that we set up in the world are still in the world.
The mandate, essentially, was that — what if the player doesn’t play all the side missions as they’re introduced, but wants to play them after the campaign? And so from a pure drama perspective, it feels like, well, it would be nice to do really big twists and significant changes in the characters and the world, but then the side missions, as they’re scripted, either we’d need to do the same version of the side missions in the middle of the game as in the end of the game — there are interesting parameters, where we need to do a satisfying character arc and monumental revelations, but still, at the end of it, it’s kind of sneakily the same situation. From a writing perspective, it presents interesting challenges. Figuring out a way of doing an interesting story with that conclusion.
Above: Alan Wake, a psychological survival horror game from Remedy Entertainment.
GamesBeat: I took it from your Q&A there that maybe it was surprising to you that someone could have a writing career in games. This job didn’t exist a few decades ago.
Lake: No, I didn’t know. I’m not sure how much it did exist back in 1995. But it goes to the whole industry. How many people in 1995 were full-time working on games? Certainly there were game studios in existence, but for many of the kids who ended up at Remedy, it was this ultimate dream. And I guess it still is in some ways, but it’s a lot more professional. The bar for getting in the industry is much higher. Back then it was just, “Wow, that’s cool, let’s do this,” and you learned along the way.
For Max Payne — Death Rally did really well. It was a hit within that space. But for Max Payne, when we started making it I don’t think anybody knew what kind of an effort it would be, how many years we would be working on it. I’m sure there would have been people saying, “No thanks,” if we had known. As somebody who had ambitions to be a writer, I didn’t — there were years along the way where I saw it as a temporary stop on my way to something else. Yet here we are.
GamesBeat: It’s interesting that writing and narrative differentiated Remedy at the time. This thing that didn’t exist became a reason the company is still around many years later.
Lake: Certainly there had been story-driven games, starting with the text adventures. Those were only the story. But what we happened to create in some way was an action game with a story. That was pretty unique at that point, when Max Payne came out. It resonated with people. Here we are, still going back and having elements of that, at least, although we try to evolve with the times.
GamesBeat: I watched the talk by Amy Hennig. She referenced some of the interesting literary Easter eggs she throws into her stories from time to time. It’s funny that you both use chalkboards. There was a chalkboard in Uncharted with a message about Nathan written in Greek, a hero’s journey sort of thing, and you had the one in Quantum Break.
Lake: And a few in Control as well, scattered around the world.
GamesBeat: What it made me think of was T. S. Eliot and “The Waste Land,” where he throws all these things into the poem that add layers of meaning to it. You have the literal level, but also these meta-levels of what it’s about. If you look up what he’s referencing you realize that he’s talking about something different that relates to different concepts about the death of civilization. It feels a bit like the modern version of that are these Easter eggs in a game.
Lake: I agree. I think that is what it is. A big part, for me, was that I just liked — studying literature at university, I really fell in love with postmodern writing. It feels almost, to me, like a genre that’s created to be analyzed and mined for these meanings and hidden things. It almost feels like it’s a game between the writer and the reader, or whoever is creating an essay with a theory about it.
That was really fresh in my mind when I came to work in games, working on Max Payne. We’re creating a world with many layers to it, and many opportunities, echoes of the story. Putting in the Norse mythology, because I felt like Max Payne, the hero, is on this mythical journey. There are reflections of these myths of gods and monsters, even though it’s in contemporary New York. And then in Max Payne 2 we had these in-game TV shows in wildly different genres, but all of it is a commentary on the central story in some twisted way. And of course, on the meta-level — the meta-level was very present in Max Payne, with the drug trip where he realizes that he’s in a graphic novel, that he’s in a game. Playing a game inside a game with the game narrative.
Above: Max Payne That hasn’t gone away. I felt that in Control we came back to that, and I was really energized and excited that we could do all of these things in different mediums. Using music and songs to provide commentary in a very Easter egg way. Even having that Finnish tango, with the lyrics in Finnish, but the lyrics are all about the connected Remedy universe. There are lines about Alan Wake, and even echoes of Quantum Break and Max Payne thrown in. A lot of that is present there.
And then the fake credits, obviously. We’re not the first to do that, but — that came from a very interesting place. I was doing, early on, presentations about the story for the team. Always, when I came to the turning point between acts two and three, I said, “And then the Hiss invades Jesse’s mind. Game over.” Everybody would say, “What?” But no, just kidding, and then we’re in her dream. That kind of note ended up turning into these fake credits, because that’s what we came up with in the presentation.
Similar things are happening in TV shows these days. There are lots of Easter eggs in many of the more ambitious narratives.
GamesBeat: There’s a kind of self-awareness that goes on.
Lake: Exactly. Look at Westworld. It’s full of these clues for the community to talk about. “Did you see that can that fell on the ground in this scene? The style looks older than the one in this other scene. That must mean that this scene we saw here happened earlier than the other one.” Everyone is doing detective work, pausing and searching.
This kind of thing has been there for a long time, but — I think of it like, the novel has been with us a long time, and it’s a very sophisticated art form that’s evolved a long way. I feel like with TV shows, and with video games, we’re kind of catching up. We’re getting to the point of having that kind of depth in there.
GamesBeat: Do you have a favorite scene that reflects good writing in any of your games, or somewhere else? Lake: That’s a tough question. Really tough question.
Above: These people are frozen in time in a scene of Quantum Break.
GamesBeat: I can give an example. What I liked about The Last of Us was that they go through this beginning, where the 15-year-old girl dies, and then because you see that happen, you understand Joel’s relationship with Ellie throughout the game, and why he makes the decision he makes at the end of the game. The beginning and the end are bookends that go together.
Lake: That is good writing, I agree. What’s more, it’s a really fine example of taking an idea that is good writing on the level of a story, but finding an interactive way to deliver it that’s fitting to a game, a strong way that resonates for whoever is playing.
I don’t know. I think that it can exist on many levels. This might be dodging the question in some way, but what excites me in some way is personally finding ways of bringing in different methods and using them in a balanced way to create something whole. That’s what I’m looking into a lot. What was really interesting to me as an idea for Control — we were taking the genre of the “new weird,” this literary genre, which takes this approach that we’re dealing with things we don’t understand fully. It can’t be explained satisfactorily and handed to you like, “Here’s the answer and this is what it’s all about.” Balancing that, you still have a very strong idea yourself that it’s about these things. But then having that constraint of never spelling things out. Walking that tightrope so everybody has enough to piece together and form a theory, but not so much that we take away the opportunity to do that and just hand the explanation to you. That, in some ways, excites me in the genre of new weird, reading these stories. I find my interest sparked when something is well-made and it feels to me like I’m not quite smart enough to understand everything.
I know that for some people that’s a total turn-off. But for me it’s interesting. Sometimes it’s even like — that draws me toward David Lynch, his work. It’s very dreamlike. When I watch the latest season of Twin Peaks, say, I feel happy watching it. I feel like I’m in safe hands. It’s hard to understand, and yet it feels right. It feels like there is a meaning. Nothing breaks that in any way. It’s very well-made.
I almost come to a point where I don’t even need to figure out the exact meaning. I have this safe feeling. Life confuses us, confuses me, many times. There aren’t always ready right answers in life. I feel that in art, you don’t need everything spelled out to you, as long as it’s well-made. The badly-made version is that it pulls you out of it and you start to doubt that it means anything. There are enough mistakes that it doesn’t add up. Then it collapses and it’s ruined. It’s a careful balancing act. That’s very much what we were trying to do in Control, to create a feeling like that.
Above: Shawn Ashmore plays Jack Joyce in Quantum Break, on both the game and live-action video episodes.
GamesBeat: I remember someone, I think it was Thomas, talking about Quantum Break and the chronology that the writers had to keep track of. It took multiple writers to figure out whether everything was in the right place or whether it contradicted itself.
Lake: Time travel is tricky that way. Time travel is definitely something that — there’s something in it that, by its very nature, goes against our thinking. And yes, in the writing room, even when we were quite far along, there were days where somebody suddenly realized that we had a huge plot hold. Everybody would look at it and say, “How did we miss that?” And then suddenly we all see it. We’d have to piece it back together and change multiple things to fix it. In the end, I think we got to a point where it does work.
GamesBeat: Did you have a favorite Easter egg in any of your games? Lake: I like Easter eggs in general. In my head, all of these different things that we have worked on are, on some mystical level, connected. I like these echoes of different ideas in there. I like placing them in there. But of the recent ones, I did enjoy — we had the Viking mythology in Max Payne already. Looking at it globally, it’s kind of close to home, but it’s not. It’s not Finnish culture. It’s Nordic.
Now, in Control, I finally decided — maybe it’s my age as well, feeling more nostalgic about your roots. I decided that we could intentionally put some Finnish things in there. It fits, because it’s exotic and it’s strange for most of the people looking at it. The whole character of Ahti, yearning for summer vacation in his cabin, and the idea of — Finland has a surprisingly vibrant tango scene, which you’d never imagine, people up north having these passionate tango competitions every year. The heavy metal music, that’s obviously a Nordic thing once again, with Old Gods of Asgard, but the tango as well.
I had the idea to create a very traditional Finnish tango song and wrote Finnish lyrics for it. Petri Alanko has been our composer for many projects now, and he composed an awesome, very traditional Finnish tango track. The actor for Ahti, Martti Suosalo, who is a really brilliant Finnish actor — he’s been in the lead role in many Finnish movies, he’s done theater, he’s done musicals — we had him sing it. That’s him singing the tango.
Above: Sam Lake says Remedy is working on a story for Crossfire 2 and a project callled P7.
GamesBeat: I don’t know if any of your experience coincided with Amy’s, where she said that sometimes the artists or the programmers didn’t understand what an Easter egg was, and they’d just change it. She’d have to tell them, “No, no, the name of the boat has to be these exact words.” Lake: It does happen. It’s natural that it happens, because — this was an interesting challenge, especially for Control. Having an idea of meaning, but not spelling it out — there was a lot of desire at work, people wanting to spell these things out. There was a feeling that it needed to be spelled out. There’s that balancing act, where people want to explain things. What if somebody doesn’t understand that? We need to explain it some more.
I think it’s part of the teamwork. Being in control and directing, but also being fine with the fact that all kinds of things will be at work. Maybe it makes it more real, like the real world, because you’re not in control of reality. There are all kinds of inputs coming in. People want to put a lot of stuff in. There are things in our games that even I’ve discovered by accident. Hey, who did this thing here? Somebody wanted to put their own little Easter egg in there. It’s part of the fun. But yes, if somebody changes something that breaks something, that does happen. It’s just a matter of communication.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
Discover our Briefings.
Join the GamesBeat community! Enjoy access to special events, private newsletters and more.
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"Regaining ROI by reducing cloud complexity | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/regaining-roi-by-reducing-cloud-complexity"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Sponsored Regaining ROI by reducing cloud complexity Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Presented by Deloitte Consulting LLP Cloud computing took off in 2007, and the migration was a gold rush, with companies racing to launch silver bullet solutions that could transform their companies. Fast forward to now. Cloud computing projects are in their second or third generation, and instead of offering ROI, some are racking up sky-high operational costs, impeding efficiency, and stifling productivity. That’s in addition to system outages, security breaches, and customer issues with stoppages and delays that keep developers and architects up at night.
The problem? Cloud complexity — and for some companies, it’s become a disaster.
In its Cloud Complexity Management Survey , Deloitte Consulting LLP found that most large enterprises are running into more complexity than expected — and 47% of companies surveyed saw it as the biggest risk to their ROI. Some are even experiencing negative value from their cloud investments.
“People call up and say, ‘We’re not getting the value from cloud that we thought we would,’” says David Linthicum, Chief Cloud Strategy Officer at Deloitte Consulting LLP. “99 times out of 100 you can map it down to the complexity issue.” The complexity issue comes down to three main factors: Several different cloud providers to choose from, each with its own databases and development environments, security systems, governing systems, etc.
Companies not giving up on-premise systems as quickly as they planned, so IT departments have to support the increasingly complex new while still trying to maintain the old The rise of multicloud over the past five years “There’s a sweet spot between innovation and complexity,” says Dave Knight, VP of Alliance Relationships and Deloitte’s IBM Alliance Global Cloud Lead. “That’s the challenge, identifying when you’re at that tipping point, and reining it in or increasing your operations cost to offset the complexity. But most organizations, even the global 2000, are just starting to recognize this as a problem.” Can you regain your cloud ROI? “Of course, it’s never too soon to do good architectural planning to deal with complexity issues proactively,” Linthicum says, “but it’s not too late for companies that find themselves in a tight spot.” “The first thing is admitting that there’s an issue, which is a tough thing to do,” Linthicum acknowledges. “It essentially requires creating an ad hoc organization to get things back on track and simplified, whether that’s hiring outside specialists, or doing it internally.
“The good thing about that is typically you can get 10 times ROI over a two-year period if you spend the time on reducing complexity,” he says.
Even with that incentive, reducing complexity involves a cultural change: shifting to a proactive, innovative, and more thoughtful culture, which many organizations are having trouble moving towards, he warned. The most effective way to do that is really retraining, replacing, or revamping.
“That’s going to be a difficult thing for most organizations,” Linthicum says. “I’ve worked with existing companies that had issues like this, and I find it was the hardest problem to solve. But it’s something that has to be solved before we can get to the proactivity, before we can get to using technology as a force multiplier, before we can get to the points of innovation.” Solving for complexity Linthicum estimates that the fix typically costs about 20% of the current cloud computing budget, above and beyond most existing spends on IT. In other words, if you spent $4 million on cloud services, in addition to your normal IT budget, it could cost 20% of $4 million to fix a critical complexity issue.
“It can be a fairly significant chunk of money,” Linthicum says, “but keep this front and center: you’re likely to get that money back 10 times over a two-year period.” To course correct, organizations should break apart the complex architecture into individual domains, grouping them by type — for instance, all cognitive pieces together, all services, all processes, on-premise, infrastructure-related, and so on. Within each of those buckets, you can create an abstraction layer with containerization software, such as Red Hat’s OpenShift.
It works to simplify both data and services by combining it into one central resource, whether the data exists in the cloud or not.
“Instead of requiring that people manage three different services, each with its own identity access management and a proprietary directory service, we can leverage a tool that’s able to work across the different heterogeneous cloud environments,” Linthicum explains.
Using a key container-based option like the OpenShift platform, you can abstract the sharing of information between the directories to support common applications like security systems and automate how security information is shared proactively within that console.
From there you can automate the use of data so that it’s accessible across various functions and applications without increasing the complexity as more data sources are added. Another benefit is that when something goes down, you can quickly spin it back up. And it’s all under a single management layer with the same interface, no matter where the workload is running.
All considered, the abstraction layer works to hide the complexity from people who are leveraging that domain. You can worry less about where things are running and how they get there, and instead can focus on creating value.
“Leveraging something like OpenShift is the epitome of that abstraction layer for containerized workloads,” Knight says. “From an architect’s perspective, that’s having backup across clouds. From a business perspective, it’s having that application always available and serving my customers.” The ROI of best practices “In the end, it comes down to valuing efficiency and innovation,” Linthicum says. “Managing complexity means returning to a streamlined, productive state. You can spend less on your cloud bill, less on development, less on everything having to do with IT; reduce your security vulnerability; and regain the tremendous benefits cloud computing offers. Plus, you’ll have applications that hold their value over a longer period of time.” “The most successful companies,” Knight adds, “are the forward-looking ones.” Game changers and innovators in this space see innovation as core and they guard it jealously. They don’t allow complexity or other architectural issues to creep in.
“If a customer wants to talk about yesterday’s challenges and how to address them today, they’re more than likely behind the complexity curve,” he says. “If I find myself talking to a customer that wants to talk about tomorrow’s challenges, they’re the ones who will ultimately be more successful.” Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of Deloitte’s legal structure.
Sponsored articles are content produced by a company that is either paying for the post or has a business relationship with VentureBeat, and they’re always clearly marked. Content produced by our editorial team is never influenced by advertisers or sponsors in any way. For more information, contact [email protected].
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"NordVPN launches NordPass as password protection market heats up | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/nordvpn-launches-nordpass-as-password-protection-market-heats-up"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Analysis NordVPN launches NordPass as password protection market heats up Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Popular virtual private network (VPN) company NordVPN officially launched its NordPass password management app in general availability this week, five months after introducing the service under an early access program.
The launch represents one of the biggest consumer brands in the online privacy space diversifying to capitalize on increasing data privacy concerns. It also comes as password protection and management services are gaining steam, due in large part to the flood of high-profile data breaches in recent years, with poor password hygiene cited as a leading cause.
NordVPN was founded back in 2012 and has grown to become one of the most popular VPN brands around the world, claiming some 12 million users globally. After the Hong Kong protests kicked off earlier this year, NordVPN reportedly became the most downloaded app across the region, spurred by reports that the government might start blocking key digital services, such as social networks, much the way Mainland China controls the flow of online information.
But NordVPN also faced controversy after reports last month detailed how hackers had breached one of its servers, potentially gaining access to encryption keys, though it’s not clear whether any damage occurred (beyond injury to the company’s reputation). Two weeks later, a separate report found that thousands of NordVPN users had fallen victim to credential-stuffing attacks that led to unauthorized access of their NordVPN accounts. There was nothing to indicate that this was related to the earlier server breach, however — it was most likely due to end users choosing basic passwords and reusing them across multiple online services. A breach of just one of those services potentially compromises each of the other accounts that use the same email and password combination. This type of breach is just one reason password management apps are in such demand.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Hygiene Above: NordVPN’s NordPass password management app works with all the usual online services.
Poor password hygiene is a major driving force behind security breaches — particularly in businesses, where 81% of all breaches are said to be due to compromised passwords. Password management services aim to cut this problem off at the root by encouraging automatically-generated “unguessable,” passwords that are unique to each online service, negating the need for users to memorize or write them down.
Global demand for password management solutions in mobile devices amounted to $113.3 million in 2016, according to a report last year from Grand View Research, which estimates the figure will rise to more than $2 billion by 2025. Much of this growth will come from the enterprise, of course, but habits from the workforce often spill over into everyday life. And as data breaches continue to impact more consumers, demand for password protection and management services across the spectrum will likely rise.
Judging from activity across the password management landscape this past year, we’re already seeing evidence of this trend. Back in February, Google launched its Password Checkup Chrome extension that warns users if their login credentials for any website have been involved in a data dump from other services. And Mozilla launched its Firefox Lockbox service for Android users , enabling them to log into native mobile apps using passwords that are already stored in their Firefox browser.
Elsewhere, password management stalwart 1Password recently raised a gargantuan $200 million series A round — the first outside funding in its 14-year history — to scale its service in the enterprise. This came just a few months after rival Dashlane raised $110 million to grow its service in both the consumer and enterprise realms.
It’s against this backdrop that NordVPN officially unveiled NordPass this week.
“Some find passwords unimportant; some tend to save their imagination for different tasks,” said NordVPN communications head Ruby Gonzalez. “Others have problems with remembering difficult combinations of letters and numbers. We all have been there, and that’s why we came up with NordPass.” NordPass Above: NordPass from NordVPN In terms of NordVPN’s specific proposition, a basic free version works with a single device, but unlocking multi-device support and other features requires a subscription ranging from $2.49 to $4.99 per month, depending on the length of your commitment.
NordPass sports most of the same features as other password management services, including cross-platform support enabled by iOS and Android apps, in addition to browser extensions for Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Opera, Brave, and Vivaldi. It also promises “ zero-knowledge ” architecture, two-factor authentication, the ability to store other data forms — such as notes and credit cards — and more. And NordVPN touts its “top-of-the-field” XChaCha20 encryption — used by the likes of Google and Cloudflare — for its password vault, and Argon 2 for key derivation.
“Password information belongs to users only — that’s why our product has zero-knowledge encryption,” Gonzalez added. “By the time your data reaches our servers, it’s already been encrypted on your device. That means we have zero knowledge about the items saved in your vault.” It has been a busy few months for NordVPN, as the company has also brought two other notable products to market. A few weeks back, it launched a file encryption tool called NordLocker, and in September it rolled out a new VPN service aimed specifically at businesses, called NordVPN Teams.
NordPass fits neatly into NordVPN’s broader push — with more than 10 years of reputation-building in the VPN realm, the company is clearly striving to capitalize on brand recognition in all manner of privacy-focused verticals. An estimated 300 billion passwords will be in operation globally by 2020, according to some estimates, which means all the big privacy players have a chance to get their piece of the pie.
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"Mobile Legends: Bang Bang's 2.0 update gives it big social media boost | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/mobile-legends-bang-bangs-2-0-update-gives-it-big-social-media-boost"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Guest Mobile Legends: Bang Bang’s 2.0 update gives it big social media boost Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Mobile Legends: Bang Bang may not be a household name just yet in the U.S. But the Moonton-owned multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) has exploded in Southeast Asia, and with the recent release of its 2.0 app update, social video views have boosted along with it.
According to video measurement company Tubular Labs , the game’s U.S. channel earned over 76 million cross-platform (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube) views in October 2019. That’s a major month over month jump for MLBB (from about 56 million in September), and its best cross-platform performance in the last 12 months. It also placed them fourth among all gaming brands’ U.S. channels in October — passing up the likes of bigger names likes of Clash of Clans, Nintendo, Call of Duty and Apex Legends (among numerous others).
Each month, GamesBeat partners with Tubular Labs and CreatorIQ to provide a recap of the month’s most interesting social media trends in gaming.
Rolling out 61 different videos on the month, MLBB put a spotlight on character development, new game modes, additional features and highlighting gameplay. The approach isn’t necessarily unique ( Overwatch , particularly, has profiled new characters in this way), but it’s an effective one that keeps users engaged and excited about the updated gameplay to come.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! MLBB also encourages a growing community of influencers regularly publishing gameplay videos. In the U.S., Gosu General lays claim to being the top MLBB team in North America, and also generates the most views per month (12 million in October). Meanwhile, AdoboFlash is generating millions of views on a variety of games, including MLBB, Overwatch, Clash of Clans, etc.
According to CreatorIQ , an influencer platform that helps companies run brand ambassador campaigns with content creators, Gosu General has an engagement rate of 3.28% on YouTube, which CreatorIQ considers “good.” Its subscriber base has marched upwards in the last six months, and monthly views have also been increasing in general.
AdoboFlash, on the other hand, may sport more subscribers on its YouTube channel, though its engagement rate is bit below Gosu General’s. The channel’s seen fluctuations in monthly views recently, although subscribers have slowly but surely been increasing.
Those creators potentially have a long way to go to catch up to gaming’s biggest influencers, however.
Jelly , FGTeeV and Markiplier are three U.S. gaming influencers that top the 100 million-view mark each month, with Jelly at over 238 million on its own. Jelly’s cashed in with sponsors like Gear.com this year, while FGTeeV has worked with Activision, Nintendo and Epic Games, and Markiplier’s been sponsored by Alien: Blackout.
In October, over 2,200 gaming videos have been sponsored on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook, with Apex Legends, Destiny and Activision (Deutschland) sponsored videos generating more views than any other brands’ sponsored gaming videos.
Digging further into October 2019 gaming videos, Fortnite’s Chapter 2 launch led the way with 40.8 million views. League of Legends’ “ Phoenix ” video received 29.2 million, and Fortnite’s blank screen earned 25.6 million. Showing the broad and enduring appeal of Fortnite, the game’s Spanish-language trailer around the launch picked up 17.5 million views — making it one of the 10 most popular global gaming videos on the month.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"In Chinese First, Autonomous Vehicle Services Residential Compound | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/in-chinese-first-autonomous-vehicle-services-residential-compound"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Press Release In Chinese First, Autonomous Vehicle Services Residential Compound Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn GUANGZHOU, China–(BUSINESS WIRE)–November 28, 2019– On November 27, 2019, SEEDLAND, one of China’s top-100 real estate firms, achieved another innovative milestone this month when Hachi Auto autonomous vehicles began servicing the company’s gated community “Boston Ivy” in Guangzhou.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191128005456/en/ (Photo: Business Wire) As vehicle with self-driving features are becoming more and more common, SEEDLAND, which developed Hachi Auto, has made the future a reality. It is the first time for a self-driving vehicle to operate in a residential community in China.
Hachi Auto is a compact but spacious vehicle that comfortably seats four. It uses an environmentally friendly electric power train, and comes equipped with an array of safety features. Its styling is minimalist, with large windows and leather seating, and earlier this year earned Hachi Auto the iF DESIGN AWARD, a world-renowned design prize.
In “Boston Ivy”, two Hachi Auto vehicles shuttle between the community’s bus stop and its food court, passing its underground parking, main garden, as well as its activity, marketing, and children’s centers along their route.
Hachi Auto fits seamlessly into China’s hi-tech and on-demand culture. Any resident can call a Hachi Auto using their phone, their apartment’s control panel, or even their smart mirror. To make sure people of all ages and ability can use Hachi Auto, passengers can give commands using either touchscreens or their voice.
Hachi Auto’s panoramic windows and air conditioning offer shelter from the elements, and its comfortable leather seating bring relief after a tiring day at work. In cases of emergency, it can even safely transport people who are sick, injured, or pregnant to their community’s entrance, saving time while an ambulance is en route.
Hachi Auto was extensively tested to guarantee passengers’ safety. During more than 2,000 test drives, observers did not need to intervene once. And with over 100,000 kilometers’ worth of data, the vehicle’s algorithms are ready for all types of weather, be it wind, rain, fog, or nighttime.
An array of LiDAR and cameras makes sure Hachi Auto avoids collisions, with its positioning system accurate to up to two centimeters. The vehicle can sense both stationary and moving objects and decide when it should stop and when it is safe to continue. In case of sudden obstacles, such as children running across the road, Hachi Auto can make emergency stops within 30 centimeters. A short wheelbase and innovative reversing technologies allow for Hachi Auto to maneuver itself out of any situation.
SEEDLAND has a strong reputation for providing its residents with all kinds of technological conveniences. Apartments in the company’s residential communities come equipped with smart furniture that, for example, allows for wireless charging or warns people not to stay seated for too long. SEEDLAND uses robots for tasks ranging from delivering e-commerce packages to providing residents with health check-ups.
In accordance with market conditions, more Hachi Autos will be rolled out to other SEEDLAND residential communities throughout China.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191128005456/en/ Seedland Group Karen Ye [email protected] 020-89192000 VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Black Friday 2019: Everything we recommend this holiday | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/black-friday-2019-everything-we-recommend-this-holiday"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Black Friday 2019: Everything we recommend this holiday Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Need something for Black Friday? Take a look at our guides! Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Happy Thanksgiving, readers. May your turkey be moist, and your post-meal naps refreshing … because you’re going to need the rest if you plan on doing any Black Friday shopping.
And GamesBeat is here to help. Last week, we published our guides to Black Friday — for those streamers in your life, the PC gamers, the folks who have everything, the fans of old games, the geezer geeks in your life, and even those looking for AI smartphones.
Happy holidays, and may you enjoy this season, play some great games, and encounter as little stress as possible when it comes to giving gifts to your family and friends.
For Twitch and YouTube creators You know somebody who’s looking to stream games or make videos for a living? Or just wants to have some fun while playing games with others watching? Here’s the gear you’ll need — including that all-important green screen so people don’t have to look at your dirty house while you stream.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! For the person who has everything Some people are hard to shop for … especially folks into gaming who go out and grab every big title or piece of tech that comes around. But we have some ideas! For PC gaming The holidays are an ideal time to shop for gear for your PC … or one for a member of your family or a friend.
Retro gifts for the nostalgic gamers in your life Not all game-themed gifts need to be about the new hotness. Sometimes, it’s fun to give something old … or at least a present with a good retro-styling and theme.
The Gloriously Geeky Gift Guide for the Geezer Geeks in your life Look, I’m old, and I embrace it. And these gifts are fantastic for those of us you’ve got a little gray in our hair, a little pain in our joints. I’ve got plenty of ideas here for those who like to read, those who like to build, or those who just need a boombox robot in their lives.
The best AI smartphones Looking for a new phone with all the AI bells-and-whistles? We’ve got a roundup of the best out there. And yes, they play games, too.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Beat Saber is now an Oculus studio after Facebook acquisition (update) | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/beat-saber-now-an-oculus-studio-after-facebook-acquisition"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Beat Saber is now an Oculus studio after Facebook acquisition (update) Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Beat Saber is a VR rhythm game played by swinging dual lightsabers at blocks.
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Facebook is acquiring Beat Games, the studio responsible for virtual reality megahit Beat Saber.
That is a VR music game where players must hit flying boxes with glowing laser swords. Beat Saber had a blockbuster debut on Oculus, SteamVR, and PlayStation VR headsets. Now, Beat Games will bring its expertise to making VR experiences as an Oculus Studios first-party team.
“Today we’re announcing that Beat Games is joining us in our quest to bring VR to more people around the world,” Oculus content boss Mike Verdu writes in a blog post.
“They will join Oculus Studios as an independently operated studio in Prague, continuing to create new ways for people to experience music and VR gaming.” And if you are a Beat Saber fan — especially if you’re playing on PSVR or with a Vive — this isn’t anything to worry about. Beat Games is going to continue supporting Beat Saber on every platform moving forward.
“Most importantly, what the community has come to love about Beat Saber will remain intact,” writes Verdu. “Beat Games will continue to ship content and updates for Beat Saber across all currently supported platforms, now with even more support from Facebook.” Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! We're excited to announce we're joining @oculus Studios as an independently operated studio in Prague! This is a big step for us and we can't wait to push VR even further together! https://t.co/WzWLjtnN7g — Beat Games (@BeatGamesStudio) November 26, 2019 What does this mean for Beat Saber and the studio? By purchasing Beat Games, Oculus Studios is getting a team of VR veterans. And the publisher is promising to let the studio continue to operate independently. This is about Facebook providing resources to Beat Games to produce content for virtual reality. Verdu says that he understands how big companies can ruin smaller teams. And he wants to avoid that.
“I’ve been in the industry for a while and have seen that firsthand,” writes Verdu. “However, I’ve also seen and been a part of some incredible success stories. The story we aim to prove over time is this: An indie studio joins forces with some like-minded allies, and together they find a way to push VR to new heights.” And what about the strong Beat Saber community and modding? A lot of that content skirts around or outright violates copyright law. Facebook is the kind of company that may want to stamp that out. And Verdu makes that clear.
“We understand and appreciate the value that modding brings to Beat Saber when done so legally and within our policies,” writes Verdu. “We’re going to do our best to preserve the value that mods bring to the Beat Saber player base. As a reminder, our most recent policy updates give more clarity to how developer mode is intended to be used, such as helping developers build their apps or for enthusiasts to explore new concepts. It is not intended for engaging in piracy or illicit modding, including mods that infringe on third-party IP rights or contain malicious code.” Earlier this year, Beat Games’ Jaroslav Beck said he was interested in the studio investing in smaller VR devs.
GamesBeat asked Facebook if this would change post-acquisition.
“I’m excited by the idea that the Beat Games founders could collaborate with other teams and provide creative leverage for other VR projects. We’ve yet to explore this specific notion with the leadership team at Beat Games. With that said, we share a passionate interest in accelerating VR and taking the medium to new heights,” Verdu said.
Update, 10:42 p.m. Tuesday with comment from Facebook about Beat Games’ saying it was interested in investing in smaller devs.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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Join the GamesBeat community! Enjoy access to special events, private newsletters and more.
VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Amazon's cloud unit has designed a more powerful datacenter chip | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/amazons-cloud-unit-has-designed-a-more-powerful-datacenter-chip"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Amazon’s cloud unit has designed a more powerful datacenter chip Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn AWS CTO Werner Vogels onstage November 29, 2018 at re:Invent.
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( Reuters ) — Amazon’s cloud computing unit has designed a second, more powerful generation of datacenter processor chip, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, the latest sign that the company is pouring money into custom silicon for its fastest-growing business.
The new Amazon Web Services chip uses technology from SoftBank Group-owned Arm Holdings, the sources said. One of the sources familiar with the matter said it will be at least 20% faster than Amazon’s first Arm-based chip, named Graviton, which was released last year as a low-cost option for easier computing tasks.
If Amazon Web Services’ chip efforts are successful, it could lessen the unit’s reliance on Intel and Advanced Micro Devices for server chips.
An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment on future products or services. Arm likewise declined to comment.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! In cloud computing, businesses rent out servers from Amazon instead of running their own datacenters. Analysts expect Amazon’s cloud unit to generate $34.9 billion in sales in 2019, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Cloud computing has become big business for datacenter chipmakers.
Intel controls more than 90% of the server processor market, with AMD controlling most of the remainder. Intel’s datacenter group generated almost half of the company’s overall operating profit last year.
And most server chips go to the cloud. In 2018, almost 65% of Intel’s datacenter chip sales were from cloud and communications service providers, its executives have said.
Cost of ownership Chip designers using Arm technology want to challenge Intel’s dominance.
Arm chips power mobile phones today. But several companies aim to make them suitable for datacenters, including startups run by former executives from Intel and Apple.
Amazon’s first Arm chip did not appear to have an impact on Intel’s datacenter business, which continued to grow over the past year, said Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon. But Rasgon said major technology companies, which spend billions each year with Intel and AMD with few alternatives, have the resources to make more powerful Arm chips.
“Arm by itself I’m not worried about, but Arm in the hands of an Amazon or a Google who could potentially invest in it, that becomes potentially more problematic [for Intel],” Rasgon said.
Amazon’s Arm effort appears to be making progress, one of the sources said. The new chip’s speed gain “sends a message to the market” that Amazon is serious about investing in Arm-based chips, the person said.
Both sources familiar with the matter said the new chip is not expected to be as powerful as Intel’s Cascade Lake or AMD’s Rome chips.
Though less powerful, Arm chips are cheaper and consume less electricity than Intel’s top-end chips. Intel’s most powerful chips can cost several thousand dollars, while barebones Arm-based server chips can cost less than $1,000.
In a datacenter that houses tens of thousands of servers, chip buyers often focus on a mix of factors — speed, chip size, power consumption, and cooling costs — called the “total cost of ownership.” That is where Arm-based offerings hope to one day compete with Intel.
New arm technology Amazon’s first Graviton chip used Arm’s older Cortex A72 technology. The forthcoming Amazon chip is expected to use newer Arm technology, most likely Arm’s Neoverse N1 technology, one of the sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. Another source familiar with the matter said the chip is expected to have at least 32 cores versus the Graviton’s 16.
The new chip will also use a technology called a “fabric” that will allow it to connect with other chips to speed up tasks like image recognition, one of the people familiar with the matter said.
To take advantage of the new chip, cloud customers will likely need to use software written for Arm-based chips, which is less common than software for Intel and AMD chips.
“The hardware is only part of the equation,” the second source familiar with the matter told Reuters.
( Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco, additional reporting by Jeffrey Dastin in San Francisco, editing by Greg Mitchell and Lisa Shumaker.
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"After Zynga deal, Empires & Puzzles maker is an inspiration for Finnish game industry | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/after-zynga-deal-empires-puzzles-maker-is-an-inspiration-for-finnish-game-industry"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages After Zynga deal, Empires & Puzzles maker is an inspiration for Finnish game industry Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Empires & Puzzles comes from Small Giant Games, which Gregory Milken invested in.
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Finland has more to contribute to the world of mobile gaming than Clash Royale and Angry Birds. We saw that last year when Zynga acquired Small Giant Games for at least $560 million (price tag for 80%).
I met Timo Soininen, CEO of Helsinki-based Small Giant Games, last week at the Slush tech event, which drew at least 25,000 people to Helsinki. He started the company in 2013 and had barely a dozen people to work on the first version of Empires & Puzzles, which debuted in the spring of 2017. The game grew so quickly that Zynga was lucky to snag Small Giant Games on its way up.
In our interview, Soininen said the company has grown to 60 people and is working on new games beyond its huge hit. Empires & Puzzles came about four years into Small Giant’s history, and it was its third title. Soininen said the team stepped back and analyzed the top 50 mobile games. They looked at all of the elements that made them successful, and carved these out almost like Lego pieces. They wanted to focus on a “midcore” game, or one with deeper depth and interaction that was easy to get into.
They wanted to make an “advanced casual game that was more like a hobby than a game,” Soininen said. “What if you used match-3 mechanics to target army shields and use it to bridge casual and hardcore games?” Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! And the rest was history. When Zynga acquired the company, it paid about $11.9 million per employee. In its last earnings call, Zynga said it was paying out bonuses to Small Giant Games because the game has become like a hobby for its fans. Finland has more than 220 game companies, but Small Giant Games is a rarity that many of its peers admire.
Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.
Above: Timo Soininen, CEO of Small Giant Games.
GamesBeat: How long were you out there before you were bought? Timo Soininen: Let me count. It was just over four years. Four and a half years. In mid-2013 we started up. It was pretty quick, after all that. After our first two games — Oddwings Escape was a beautiful, beautiful flying game, but we knew at the time that it wasn’t the one. It had some flaws, some issues from a design perspective. We killed that very quickly. In hindsight that was the right thing to do, rather than get stuck on something that might not fly. We really started searching for the big one.
Kudos to the team — we took a deep dive with a small team, only 12 people, and really analyzed the top 50 games inside out. We formed a view of what mechanics work, what games perform well, what games don’t, and why. We had these virtual Lego bricks on the table at the end – these are the components of a good game.
We had this insight, that a lot of what we label as “advanced casual” players, they’d like to go a bit deeper into hobby-like experiences. The mid-core games at the time were almost all very difficult for normal people. The onboarding was crap, from our perspective. We said, “Hang on a minute, could we make something that was easy and welcoming, but still have depth and complexity like these deeper games?” One of our insights — we had a lot of game jam sessions inside the team, and one developer came up with an interesting idea. What if you used a match-three mechanic where instead of bubbles or candy, you used these shields to target something as an attack mechanic? Then build a game around that. That’s how it got started. This could be the game that bridges these two worlds. We started work, and it’s quite amazing where we went. It was obviously the result of great timing, but also hard work and good insights.
GamesBeat: It must be interesting to get here from the days when everyone wanted to learn from Supercell. Now everyone wants to learn from you.
Soininen: The other thing that was crucial — obviously at the heart of everything is a game that works well, that has good retention, and then eventually monetization that players like. A lot of game companies still fail in a couple of other areas. They think that the business of games is just making a good game. That’s the foundation. Obviously you need that. But we were brutally aware of how difficult it is to get users. We knew we needed to find a way to master user acquisition as well.
When we got our first investment, just before we launched the game, from EQT Ventures, we were probably an unusual bunch of folks. Typically when you go to VCs you paint this pretty picture. Everything is perfect. Just put in the money and everything’s going to be fine. We said, “Look. We know we have a good game with great potential, but there are a couple of things we’re not very good at yet. We need to learn performance marketing. We need your help for that, and we need money. Also, we have an idea of how to build live operations, but that’s not our strong suit yet. We’ll fix it.” They were crazy or lucky enough to believe in us.
Two months after the investment, we were in a really good capacity. We built our own analytics systems at the same time we were building the game. At the time we were 16 people. A lot of us were clearly crazy. You have such a tiny team and you’re building your analytics stack. But it turned out that was a smart move, because it allowed us to go incredibly fast. We were not a victim of someone else’s road map on analytics. On a daily basis we had a new version. Two months after the initial investment we had our first million-dollar month. We had a financial model.
Of course, to be able to then have a business model — we were able to run the game as a business with a very small team. We were covering all the major aspects of a game business. We were thinking about it quite holistically.
Above: Timo Soininen (left) of Small Giant Games and Dean Takahashi of GamesBeat at Casual Connect Europe. He wasn’t as famous then.
GamesBeat: Does some of this come from having people who’ve done it so many times? Soininen: Certainly. A lot of us are veterans, industry dinosaurs if you like. That was the learning. You have to replace luck with something you can control. We were lucky enough to have a versatile team – client development, game design, audiovisual design, all that stuff, but also mathematicians who were able to handle the models required for user acquisition. Half coders and half data scientists. And then this incredible capability to do build some of the tools for the business, not just the features of the game.
It’s a testament to the fact that — the team doesn’t have to be super old or experienced. For example, the guy who came up with this original mechanic, he joined as a trainee, a very young guy. He very quickly became one of the key members of the team. It’s a combination of old and new.
GamesBeat: The Zynga combination, what was that experience like? How did you decide you wanted to be acquired? Soininen: Right after we launched the game, we had our first whispers from some of the big companies. That was back in 2017. We considered that for a while. We sold a small portion of the company to our VCs, and then we continued to work on the game super quickly. By the middle of 2018, almost all of the heavyweights of the industry started approaching us. At some point it was clear that the scope of the deals became so meaningful that we started to consider it. We hired a banker to help us figure things out.
We still weren’t sure we wanted to sell. We’d only just gotten started. But it became very clear that there’s a lot of value to be created, and more important — could we find a partner that shared the same vision we had, and who would allow us to maintain this unique culture and efficiency and way of working we have? Really see how deep the rabbit hole goes with this game and future games.
During that process it became clear that Zynga was one of the most, if not the most, data-oriented companies. They understood the mathematics and the structure of the game very well. But more important, Zynga was in a situation — they were in this fix-it mode, and they needed good companies to join them and start helping them grow again. They wanted us to join that journey and be part of it, a big contributor. That resonated with us.
Subsequently we took a lot of the consideration in Zynga stock, which turned out to be a good decision.
Above: Small Giant Games GamesBeat: I remember from their earnings call, they said they structured the deal with a lot of bonuses for you. That’s starting to pay off.
Soininen: Exactly. We continue to be entrepreneurs. Zynga’s bought 80 percent of the company, and they’ll buy the remaining 20 percent over the next three years based on EBITDA multiples. It aligns our interests perfectly.
We like Frank’s vision, that Zynga could be one of the top three, top four companies in the world eventually. If we get good new companies involved and the internal studios continue to do good work, if we continuously improve — that was interesting. For me personally that resonated well. It’s cool to be part of a company with a mission. They’re also super nice people. We get along quite well, as opposed to some of the other Asian, European, and U.S.-based companies, really professional companies that are already very large. Even if we perform super well, we’ll still be a small part of the business at a company like that. We’re not going to make a big difference. The chance to be a big contributor to the success of the new mothership was motivating for us.
GamesBeat: Letting you run your own operation, I’m sure that’s important. What are some of those details like? I would think that you’d welcome recommendations going in both directions. But you don’t necessarily want interference.
Soininen: Obviously there are a lot of resources and lot of brainpower available in the group. We’ve tapped into the data analytics resources at the mothership, whenever we need them. There are really smart people available for us. We’ve done some work on optimizing other areas, pooling the resources of the company and negotiating certain types of deals. That happens quite frequently.
And of course getting feedback on — let’s say a game designer wants to have a second opinion. There’s always someone to call now, their counterparts. “What do you think about this?” Especially with Gram Games, a similar studio to us. We have a lot in common. We exchange notes and meet pretty regularly. That makes a lot of sense.
Using Frank’s words, nobody coerces or forces cooperation. It comes naturally. We have this smorgasbord of services available to tap into. If we had some really troublesome times, of course people would step in and try to solve our problems, but so far things have gone very well. We’ve been able to control our own destiny within Zynga.
Above: A hunter’s lodge in Empires & Puzzles.
GamesBeat: It’s pretty rare for that to happen.
Soininen: It is. A lot of people ask me about that, people who haven’t seen me in a while. Frank, Bernard, Matt, they obviously all have had long careers with Electronic Arts and other companies. They’ve seen what happens when you try to force something. The new model is that you have these semi-independent studios that are consolidated and they exchange.
Creativity flourishes in smaller units. That’s a fact of life. If you’re able to create this ecosystem that allows that to happen, and you focus on results rather than how things are done — of course we’re part of a publicly listed company, so there are certain things we need to comply with. But it’s been a very positive surprise to us, how lightweight it’s been. Maybe it’s that we were already automatically compliant in many ways. But it’s been no burden for us.
GamesBeat: I talked to the folks at Riot Games recently, where they had this interesting situation of running one of the hottest games in the world for 10 years, and then all of a sudden they announced eight more. They were always working very hard on other projects, but there were these difficult tradeoffs as far as how much to feed into the existing game to keep it going versus pulling people off to do other things. For you, do you have any similar feelings about what you need to do going forward? Soininen: That’s a debate for any company that has a big, successful game. What next? If you look at the lifespan of these kinds of live-ops games — Clash of Clans has been going seven or eight years now, and my guess is that this will be the best year ever for that game. We’re only two and a half years old, still a baby in the market. We think we have a very long life ahead of us.
The vast majority of our efforts go into building Empires and Puzzles. We have season three coming up next year. We’re launching our version of Battle Pass, the Path of Valor. We’re making sure this game has content and continuity, so players can play it for months and years. That’s the number one priority. It’s a very large, active community.
We have another game currently in soft launch called Puzzle Combat. It’s a variation, a similar-ish game. It’s not the same. We’re testing that and trying to get it to feel right for the players and from a numbers perspective. We definitely want to create a series of games over the years. As far as the sequence and how rapidly we’ll go, that’s difficult to say. It’s painful, because if you have a successful game, you should always take some of that and put that into something new, in an ideal case. But taking some of the best people, who’ve poured their souls into the game, away from the project, sometimes that’s difficult.
Above: Empires & Puzzles GamesBeat: Does that sometimes become a reason to seek help from your parent company? The thing I think of is Activision, with multiple studios working on Call of Duty, because it’s the brand that drives them forward.
Soininen: That’s the idea going forward. In the short term, if you have studio X and studio Y and they have very different operating cultures and development models, sometimes it’s very difficult to teach the old dog the ways of the new dog, if you like. That’s something to consider. Sometimes it’s actually easier to grow organically. For example, in our case, we’re still very small. We have about 60 people at the moment. Hiring people to work with the original team, you transfer that culture to the new people, rather than giving something away for a third party. I think that will eventually happen at some point as well, but it’s probably more efficient and more fruitful to try to keep the DNA and pass on that information.
GamesBeat: You have to figure out how many people the old game needs and how many the new game needs.
Soininen: Exactly. What’s been quite unusual in our approach, we don’t have a live ops team per se. Our development team is developing new features and live events, but also running a lot of those events. There’s a lot of automation. It’s very compact. The fact that we’ve always had a very small number of people, that’s been by choice. We’re trying to duplicate that approach.
The primary motivation for us has always been — it’s really motivating for the team itself to be running the whole show. Given the tools that we have available now from a technology perspective, you can automate so much. You don’t have to necessarily do that much manual work. Talking to our developers, they have a very strong sense of ownership. They’re running the game, not just developing it. We talk to some other companies who are very successful doing this with teams that are 10 times bigger. Both can be happy, but for us, for our purposes — we’ve been able to recruit really good people because of that. They feel that this is something interesting to take on.
It’s easier to do something new at a smaller company, though. You have this close proximity. You’re not being transferred somewhere. Maybe you’re changing to the desk next door and working with some new people. Scaling with that model has its challenges as well. It’s not always that easy. But we have an honest approach to these things. We discuss with the teams. How should we go about this? It’s not a model where we have one mastermind thinking about all of this. It’s always a joint effort. It works when you have the right kind of people who are ready for that. The young talent we’ve acquired, it’s incredible how quickly they’ve been able to contribute. They’re jumping in the deep end of the pool and learning to swim. We have our mentors as the lifeguards, making sure they stay afloat.
GamesBeat: Do you have some advice for people who would want to learn from you? Soininen: The one thing when you’re developing a new game — with this game we were very clear about the niche, the positioning of the game. We had a relatively clear picture, a hypothesis. What if we create this? We’re targeting as a team to get there. That’s one thing. You should try to be very clear about what you want to achieve. Sometimes that’s not there. That was not the case with our first two games. We learned about that the hard way. The second thing is to focus on essentials. Learn to say no to a thousand things. It’s tempting to go all different ways. You have to keep that purpose in mind. What is it that we absolutely need to have to get there? Make sure you understand what works and doesn’t work in the market. Reinventing the wheel is not a noble cause, in my opinion. It’s just reapplying what works and making a new mashup of existing, working tools. Sometimes your creative input is that you just make a new mashup. You make the flow a little bit different. That’s important. If you have a very good idea, I have a lot of respect for that, but chances are that you’re not going to make it. It’s too much for consumers to go for. A path of less resistance, I feel like, is a good choice.
Think about the game as a business. Think about every area, not just the development and server-side technology. Think about analytics. You have to be good at analytics. You have to understand performance marketing, most likely. You need to be good at live ops. You need to be able to do community operations and customer support. You need someone to model the business. Once you tick all of those boxes, then you have a good chance of getting your game off the ground and staying there.
Above: Empires & Puzzles has match-3 gameplay.
GamesBeat: It some ways it sounds like there should be a lot of conflict in all of that. I look at Blizzard and what happened to them when they announced Diablo Immortal. Normally you announce a game that looks like that and people are happy, but Blizzard’s fans were all upset, because they wanted a PC game. Certain developers might agree to just do that, to make the game the fans want to play. Some companies might have a lot of conflict over this. But I sense that you don’t.
Soininen: If you understand what you do and who your players are, there can’t be a conflict between these two objectives. They need to be one and the same. In our case, we were designing for adult players who’d like to have a small RPG game that would be easy to access and have some depth to go for. With that insight, we didn’t have the kind of problems you describe. “For these people, it’s important that the game flows nicely, that it’s welcoming, but it eventually gets complicated it enough keep their curiosity going. For this particular goal, these are the mechanics we should use.” If we’d applied other types of things, it wouldn’t have worked.
That’s the answer, to be respectful and mindful of your audience. Who are they, and what are their expectations? If you completely against them, you’ll have a hard time breaking through.
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"10 years in, WhatsApp still needs true multi-device support | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/10-years-in-whatsapp-still-needs-true-multi-device-support"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Opinion 10 years in, WhatsApp still needs true multi-device support Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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WhatsApp launched out of beta 10 years ago this month , and the messaging behemoth is now a completely different beast from the one that quietly arrived for iPhone users way back in November 2009. After Facebook shelled out around $20 billion to acquire the app in 2014 , WhatsApp introduced voice calls , video calls , group calls , web and desktop apps , end-to-end encryption , and fingerprint unlocking.
All the while, Facebook has been figuring out how to monetize its gargantuan acquisition by targeting businesses.
However, there remains one glaring chink in WhatsApp’s otherwise expansive armor — namely, the lack of simultaneous multi-device support. Things could be about to change, however.
State of play Given that WhatsApp is tethered to a user’s mobile number and all messages are stored locally on devices, rather than on remote servers, syncing and accessing WhatsApp across devices poses something of a challenge.
WhatsApp Web allows users to message from their desktop computer, but by essentially mirroring their mobile device — one can’t work without the other. Moreover, WhatsApp Web lacks many of the features of the mobile app, such as voice and video calling.
Achieving true multi-device support — without compromising security — would be a big game changer for WhatsApp.
With at least 1.5 billion users (likely many more, given that Facebook stopped providing updates two years ago), WhatsApp is now thought to be Facebook’s biggest property.
In fact, Sensor Tower data suggests that WhatsApp is often the most downloaded app globally in terms of first-time installs. But for those who regularly change devices, operate multiple devices, or are trying to wean themselves off the constant distractions smartphones are known for, the inability to seamlessly switch WhatsApp between devices is an issue.
Throughout 2019, perennial WhatsApp pontificator WABetaInfo has scoured beta releases and their underlying code and concluded that WhatsApp will soon allow users to access their WhatsApp account on multiple devices at the same time.
https://twitter.com/WABetaInfo/status/1155940848871231488 There isn’t a great deal of evidence to suggest that this will happen, and it’s not entirely clear to what extent second or third devices would be able to use WhatsApp independently from the main device. One indicator that WhatsApp is working on true multi-device support, according to WABetaInfo, stems from a new security feature the app is implementing. Whenever someone tries to register a new device to a WhatsApp telephone number the app sends a push notification to the original device, informing the user that a registration code has been requested, and a warning flashes inside WhatsApp itself.
Above: WhatsApp: Registration Code Requested Normally, when you enter the registration code for WhatsApp on a new device, you are automatically kicked out of the app on the original device. WABetaInfo is adamant that this new notification system is more than a simple security measure and will in fact allow users to link more than one mobile device to a single WhatsApp profile. If this is correct, it would mean that in future when you enter your authorization code on a secondary device, you won’t be kicked out of the original device.
It’s difficult to understand how exactly this would work without fundamentally changing the building blocks of WhatsApp. Rival messaging app Telegram, for example, allows users to access their chats on multiple devices, but Telegram stores users’ messages in the cloud, which makes synchronizing between phones and tablets a little easier. It’s also worth noting that Telegram chats aren’t end-to-end encrypted by default (it offers a separate Secret Chats feature with this functionality).
According to WABetaInfo, WhatsApp is developing a new method that would permit it to retain its end-to-end encryption while also allowing people to use their WhatsApp account on different devices at the same time.
As previously announced, WhatsApp is developing a feature what will allow to use your WhatsApp account on more devices at the same time. Chats will be still end-to-end encrypted because WhatsApp was developing a new method to assign keys to specific devices.
— WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) October 29, 2019 The bottom line is that WhatsApp may or may not be working on supporting multiple devices, but if it is, we simply don’t know what form the functionality will take. It’s clear that users won’t be able to pull historical chats onto new devices without manually transferring them over, but the company could feasibly be working on something that would sync all chats after a new device has been added. Or it might simply be a case of being able to “link” the main WhatsApp phone with multiple other devices, similar to privacy-focused messaging app Signal, which launched an iPad app earlier this week.
Detox Smartphones, and the “always on” connectivity they enable via the likes of Slack, Gmail, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, are increasingly being blamed for a decline in mental health.
Such reports have not been lost on the big technology companies, with Apple and Google integrating digital well-being features into their respective mobile operating systems.
But such features don’t really get at the root of the problem, which is why we’ve seen a steady rise in stripped-down, minimalist phones targeted at those looking to switch off.
The problem is people have come to rely on smartphone features like maps, ride-hailing services, music-streaming, cameras, and messaging services, which makes switching off something of a challenge. It’s possible to set up a secondary phone that is limited to Google Maps, Uber, and Spotify, but this plan falls apart because it’s difficult to switch WhatsApp between devices — you can’t just flip a switch.
WhatsApp has come a long way over the past 10 years, and for billions of people it is the default way to communicate with friends, family, and work colleagues. But given that many of us communicate using multiple devices — from PCs to phones, watches, and tablets — WhatsApp would be infinitely better if it could find a way to support our multi-device world.
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"The Masakhane project wants machine translation and AI to transform Africa | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/the-masakhane-project-wants-machine-translation-and-ai-to-transform-africa"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages The Masakhane project wants machine translation and AI to transform Africa Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
English, Arabic, and French dialects can be found on parts of the African continent and are used across tribes, ethnic groups, and national borders, but none is native to Africa. Some estimates put the number of living languages on the continent at 2,000 or more.
This can stand in the way of communication as well as commerce, and earlier this year such concerns led to the creation of the Masakhane open source project , an effort being undertaken by African technologists to translate African languages using neural machine translation.
Kathleen Siminyu is a member of the Luhya tribe in Kenya. Although English is spoken in schools and various parts of the country, tribes speak different languages, which creates a language gap between Siminyu and her neighbors. To bring her community together, she joined Masakhane earlier this year, bringing along her experience as co-organizer of the Women in Machine Learning and Data Science chapter in Nairobi and as a coordinator for AI for Development.
Siminyu believes translating languages using machine learning can be a key to the growth of AI use cases in Africa and enable Africans to apply AI to benefit African lives. Projects like Masakhane are critical to connecting Africa’s community of developers and researchers and constructing a framework for creating sustained, long-term collaboration, Siminyu said.
“Right now, I’m thinking a lot about how research networks can work on this continent,” she said. “I see language as a barrier which, if eliminated, allows a lot of Africans to just be able to engage in the digital economy and eventually in the AI economy. As people who are sitting here building for local languages, I feel like it’s our responsibility to … bring the people who are not in a digital age into the age of AI.” VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! The Masakhane project works with AI researchers and data scientists across Africa, and the organization aims to create neural machine translation that connects Africa’s many populations. The project was created by Jade Abbott and Laura Martinus from South Africa and came together following lectures and conversations at Deep Learning Indaba and the Sauti Yetu NLP Unconference.
The name “Masakhane” means “We build together” in isiZulu.
Above: Countries where Masakhane is active since launch Masakhane works with groups like Translators Without Borders and academics to find language data sets. In addition to translating native African languages to English, the project will seek to translate dialects like Pidgin English in Nigeria or strands of Arabic in northern and central Africa.
After it’s created machine translation for African languages, the group envisions potential for a range of open source projects to benefit Africans.
The group now counts about 60 contributors from across the continent but is most active in South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria. Each participant is asked to help collect data or train models in their respective mother tongue.
Masakhane isn’t alone in its ambition to spin up more machine translation for Africa by Africans.
This week, Mozilla and a German government ministry launched an open source project to collect voice data from local African languages.
Earlier this month, as part of her work with Artificial Intelligence for Development, Siminyu launched the African Language Dataset Challenge, together with data science challenge website Zindi.
In addition to Siminyu and Abbott, advisors assessing data sets come from Google AI and Facebook AI Research. Data sets made by challenge participants may be used to train Masakhane’s neural models in the future.
The rash of projects comes at a time when countries like Kenya and Nigeria rank as the fastest-growing group of contributors to open source projects worldwide, according to GitHub’s 2019 Octoverse report.
In recent weeks, the growth of the African tech and developer ecosystem has attracted Silicon Valley executives like Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and GitHub CEO Nat Friedman to visit parts of Africa like Lagos, Nigeria.
In a group interview, Masakhane volunteers told VentureBeat that the benefits of machine translation for Africa could be substantial.
Translation’s potential for transformation The interview participants hail from all corners of the continent — Tunisia, Nigeria, South Africa, and the Democratic Republic of Congo — and said they want to put Africa on the global AI map and see African solutions to African problems.
“We can solve our problems. We have the expertise, we have the intelligence, we have the knowledge — we just need to take some responsibility about it,” said Olabiyi Samuel, a researcher focused on Yoruba in Nigeria.
Widely available and accurate African language machine translation could allow more African voices to enter the global conversation online or quickly translate educational material from English into an African language.
Multiple studies have found that people learn better when they receive instruction in their native tongue.
Siminyu and other project participants want Masakhane to be a starting point for a range of research projects that can apply AI to African challenges and improve lives in other sectors important to the continent.
“We should be thinking about agriculture and how we’re fixing the food problems. We should be thinking about climate change, we should be thinking about health care … I see language as the entry point,” she said. But Siminyu also acknowledged the challenges ahead, saying: “Yeah, I think the road is long.” Espoir Murhabazi lives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and focuses on Lingala, a Bantu language. He wants to better understand Bantu languages and how machine learning can infer meaning from words that contain a common root. Bantu is an agglutinative language, meaning that words can contain a stem meaning and multiple elements to form each word. It’s an example of the sort of technical challenges of resolving structural differences between languages that Masakhane faces.
On a more playful level, Murhabazi wants to see projects like Masakhane offer support for translating songs into English so everyone enjoying the music can comprehend the lyrics.
“Last time I was in Kenya, I found people dancing to music in nightclubs and bars without understanding all they are dancing to,” he said.
The Masakhane project plan Masakhane’s work will roll out in phases, starting with English translation to African languages using publicly available data, like government documents or newspapers. Once that’s complete, the group plans to create individual baseline models for translation. They’ll then submit the work for publication at top NLP conferences around the world.
The project is now in the data-gathering and translation phase, Abbott said, because unlike European languages that make up the backbone of the modern internet, African languages lack benchmarks and large data sets.
A benchmark for five South African languages made by Masakhane project members debuted earlier this year at the Association for Computational Linguistics ( ACL ) conference in Florence, Italy.
Africa, AI, and the world Beyond creating digital economies and allowing people to learn in their own language, Masakhane participants also hope that the successful creation of an AI project by Africans will loosen restrictions often placed on African AI researchers.
Many AI research conferences are held in Europe, Asia, or North America, and despite global demand from industry and nations for AI talent, governments sometimes deny entry to Africans in the field, even if they’re studying in a Western nation.
For example, as Vancouver, Canada prepares to welcome NeurIPS, the largest AI research conference in the world, next month, African and Asian researchers — including Masakhane volunteers — have reported being denied visas by the Canadian government.
Building bridges For Abbott and Martinus, the ability to travel to events outside Africa (like NeurIPS) has paid dividends that can be applied directly to the burgeoning Masakhane project. At such events, Abbott said, other NLP developers share 100 or so tips, perspectives, and lessons learned when attempting to optimize model performance.
“Meeting the community working worldwide on low-resource languages really spurred us in our research,” Abbott said.
For example, shortly after launch, Masakhane looked to the JW300 data set of 380 languages from Jehovah’s Witness texts, an insight the group gained following attendance at ACL.
“We were looking at data sets that range from … 20,000 parallel sentences, which in [the] machine translation world is very small. The same language in this JW300 data set ended up with 1 million parallel sentences, which is a massive jump in magnitude,” she said.
Abbott and Martinus detailed some early findings in applying Transformers, a kind of neural network, to low-resource languages in “Towards Neural Machine Translation for African Languages,” a preprint published on arXiv and shared at the Machine Learning for Developing World workshop at NeurIPS in 2018. Application of a range of techniques for low-resource languages achieved state-of-the-art performance for English-to-Setswana (Tswana) translations.
Still in its early stages, the ambitious Masakhane project is looking for volunteers and is currently amassing data for thousands of languages.
Open source projects like MySQL, Python, and TensorFlow built the foundation of the modern internet and growing disciplines like machine learning. Today, developers from places like Europe, Asia, and North America still lead the world in open source project contributions, but if Masakhane and projects like it succeed, that could spark major change for the continent with the youngest population on Earth — and for the rest of the world.
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"The actionable insights AI can unlock from consumer conversation (VB Live) | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/the-actionable-insights-ai-can-unlock-from-consumer-conversation-vb-live"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages VB Live The actionable insights AI can unlock from consumer conversation (VB Live) Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Presented by TrustPilot AI offers a fast, efficient, and cost-effective way to unlock valuable insights and highlight pain points from customer conversations. Join this VB Live event to learn how AI can help you become more customer-focused, turn good feedback into great product, and more.
Register here for free.
“We’re interested in using AI to understand what’s happening in customer conversations at a high level,” says Chris Hausler, Senior Data Science Manager, Zendesk.
“The AI understands the patterns that emerge, and does it in a way that’s a lot more scalable than what an individual human could gain by reading through all of them.” Reviews, support ticketing, and chat are great ways of listening to your customers as a company, Hausler says. It’s how to stay on top of customer sentiment around your product. Reviews are the external-facing piece of that, where customers can share what they feel about a product with other customers who are going to potentially buy that product.
Internal and external signals “Customer reviews are hugely influential,” he says. “In principle, it’s the non-biased signal that people are looking for when they’re going to potentially purchase a product. Understanding how other people who’ve already purchased a product feel about it, what they think was good, what they think was negative, is a really important signal for those potential customers in making a purchasing decision.” Zendesk’s Gather product, which is a forum that allows customers of a company to discuss products, ask for help, give feedback on products in a publicly moderated sort of fashion, is a major way companies collect customer sentiment signals and determine patterns of pain, patterns of need, and collect requests.
“The forum is not as explicit a signal as you would expect from a four or five-star rating out of five,” he says “but there’s still a huge amount of information to be gleaned there that you can miss if you’re just focusing specifically on the rating-type feedback.” But whether it’s reviews, comments in a forum, or support requests, the challenge from a technical perspective is that it’s quite hard at scale to be able to take all of that text that people are writing and understand the core themes. AI is key.
The role of AI “We use AI to dive into those pieces of text and scale and understand the patterns that drive those comments,” says Hauser. “As a company, it’s important to be able to do that and step back from the individual feedback and understand the broad themes that people are talking about. AI is a way of being able to find those patterns and provide them to a company so they can then understand what people like and dislike, and take that into account as they plan future iterations of their product.” Companies can also look at their support requests and use AI to find groups or topics within them to summarize their customers’ pain points and bubble them up to administrators to help refine and iterate on their knowledge base content, making sure that they have the key pieces of information available that their customers are looking for without having to have an agent involved.
Hausler has found that the feedback and the topics that have been bubbled up for companies are often surprising – they had not realized that customers were talking about some of the issues or areas that have come to light, or hadn’t known they weren’t providing sufficient information.
How it works Under the hood, the AI is quite complex, he says. Synthesizing information is something that humans are intuitively very good at doing. He uses the example of how people easily categorize books; give anyone a group of books on different topics and ask them to organize those books into groups, and then explain what each of the groups are about. Almost anyone could complete that task – but it’s actually quite challenging for a machine. There are quite a number of steps required to make that happen and make it happen at scale.
At a really high level, the first thing is to be able to work out a way of understanding how similar two pieces of text are, which requires deep learning to map each piece of text, effectively, as a set of numbers that can be compared. Working out how the text forms groups requires clustering, or determining which pieces of text are similar to each other and dissimilar to other pieces of text. In the book analogy, it would be grouping science fiction over here, and the books on 19th century history over in the corner. In the AI world, that’s quite math intensive.
For support tickets, they’ve refined the process of grouping tickets and then summarizing them in a way that’s accessible by the administrator — a list of topics, the volume of tickets in each group, and so on, so that they can make sense of where the issues are emerging and then act on them.
Starting with the customer It’s all about being obsessed with the customer, or being customer-centric, Hausler says. That has to be the starting point for any of this.
“Being able to glean all of this information is only important if you’re coming at it with the focus of wanting to take that information and do something about it,” he explains. “Being able to take a step back from the individual reviews or support requests you’re getting and understand, as a whole, what are the core things that people are talking about in your product? What are the core drivers that make them happy or not happy, and be able to take that to adapt to how you’re running a business and provide a better service for your customers.” To learn more about how staying on top of customer communication can drive company success, how to tap into those dialogues, identify patterns of concern or areas of improvement, and leverage AI to make it happen at scale, don’t miss this VB Live event.
Don’t miss out! Register here for free.
You’ll learn: How to find themes in your customer reviews so that you can fix the real pain points instead of putting “band-aids” on each unhappy customer Steps to guide your business decisions around what your customers say they want, not what you think they want The importance of addressing your most common negative issues first to see an immediate change in your customer satisfaction level The concept of always improving your customer experience – searching for trends in your good reviews to turn them into great reviews Speakers: Chris Hausler , Senior Data Science Manager, Zendesk Ramin Vatanparast , Chief Product Officer, TrustPilot The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Researchers train AI to map a person's facial movements to any target headshot | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/researchers-train-ai-to-map-a-persons-facial-movements-to-any-target-headshot"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Researchers train AI to map a person’s facial movements to any target headshot Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Results from MarioNETte compared with baselines.
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What if you could manipulate the facial features of a historical figure, a politician, or a CEO realistically and convincingly using nothing but a webcam and an illustrated or photographic still image? A tool called MarioNETte that was recently developed by researchers at Seoul-based Hyperconnect accomplishes this, thanks in part to cutting-edge machine learning techniques. The researchers claim it outperforms all baselines even where there’s “significant” mismatch between the face to be manipulated and the person doing the manipulating.
MarioNETte is technically a face reenactment tool, in that it aims to synthesize a reenacted face animated by the movement of a person (a “driver”) while preserving the face’s (target’s) appearance. It’s not a new idea , but previous approaches either (1) required a few minutes of training data and could only reenact predefined targets, or (2) would distort the target’s features when dealing with large poses.
MarioNETte advances the state of the art by incorporating three novel components: an image attention block, a target feature alignment, and a landmark transformer. The attention block allows the model to attend to relevant positions of mapped physical features, while the target feature alignment mitigates artifacts, warping, and distortion. As for the landmark transformer bit, it adapts the geometry of the driver’s poses to that of the target without the need for labeled data, in contrast to approaches that require human-annotated examples.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! The researchers trained and tested MarioNETte using VoxCeleb1 and CelebV, two open source corpora of celebrity photos and videos. The models and baselines were trained using 1,251 different celebrities from VoxCeleb1 and tested on a set compiled by sampling 2,083 image sets from a randomly selected 100 videos of VoxCeleb1 (plus 2,000 sets from every celebrity in CelebV).
The result? Empirically, across up to eight target images, MarioNETte surpassed all other models save one (PSNR). In a separate user study in which 100 volunteers were tasked with selecting one of two images generated by different models based on their quality and realism, MarioNETte’s output ranked higher than all baselines.
The researchers leave to future work improving the landmark transformer to make reenactments even more convincing. “[Our] proposed method [does] not need [an] additional fine-tuning phase for identity adaptation, which significantly increases the usefulness of the model when deployed in the wild,” wrote the coauthors of a preprint paper detailing MarioNETte’s architecture and validation. “Our experiments including human evaluation suggest the excellence of the proposed method.” The work might enable videographers to cheaply animate figures without motion tracking equipment. But it might also be abused to create highly realistic deepfakes, which take a person in an existing image or video and replace them with someone else’s likeness.
In less than a year, the number of deepfake videos online has jumped 84%, prompting respondents in a Pew Center survey to say they expect 57% of news shared on social media to be “largely inaccurate.” Amid concerns about deepfakes, about three-quarters of people in the U.S. favor steps to restrict altered videos and images, and companies such as Google and Facebook have released data sets and AI models designed to detect deepfakes.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"ProBeat: Alexa, what is the worst shopping website? 'I'm a big fan of Amazon.' | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/probeat-alexa-what-is-the-worst-shopping-website-im-a-big-fan-of-amazon"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Opinion ProBeat: Alexa, what is the worst shopping website? ‘I’m a big fan of Amazon.’ Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Hey Alexa, what is the worst shopping website? Amazon.
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Five years ago, Amazon debuted the Echo with Alexa in the hopes of getting its customers to shop more on its site. Echo and all the Alexa devices that followed turned out to be pretty useless for shopping, but okay at plenty of other tasks. In fact, Alexa was so okay that we now have a plethora of virtual assistants, including Bixby, Cortana, Google Assistant, Siri, and so on.
But Alexa itself still sucks at shopping, despite its creator’s roots. That should be a warning to anyone trying to base their shopping business on virtual assistants. If you look closely, it becomes clear that Amazon knows this.
No earnings breakout Amazon makes over 90% of its revenue from commerce. The rest is AWS, subscriptions, and other bets like ads. It’s easy to forget that Amazon is a retailer masquerading as a tech company.
Amazon doesn’t break out how much Alexa contributes in its earnings reports.
Even though Alexa has the ability to let you buy goods on Amazon, few people do this. To be fair, that also goes for the other tech giants. In fact, Cortana is not even mentioned in Microsoft earnings , Google Assistant in Alphabet earnings , nor Siri in Apple earnings.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Amazon is unique in this regard — the company does mention its virtual assistant. A lot. Last quarter, Alexa showed up 22 times in Amazon’s earnings release.
But Amazon won’t attribute any shopping numbers to Alexa because they’re insignificant.
The existence of Amazon Assistant Furthermore, Amazon already has a shopping assistant: Amazon Assistant. It helps you shop online by comparing products from Amazon as you shop on other retail sites. It’s basically Amazon’s way of getting you to come back and shop on Amazon.
Amazon Assistant is available as a browser extension for Chrome , Firefox , Edge , Internet Explorer , and Opera.
There’s even an Android app.
The very existence of Amazon Assistant tells you something about Alexa. If Alexa was any good at shopping, Amazon wouldn’t have to build out a separate assistant for its main business. Amazon would simply direct its shoppers to Alexa.
Continuously fixing gaffes The third way we know Alexa sucks at shopping is by talking to it. Ask Alexa what the best shopping website is. Alexa thinks it’s Amazon. Ask Alexa what the worst shopping website is. Alexa also thinks it’s Amazon. Oops.
Amazon’s voice recognition can distinguish between the words “best” and “worst”, but apparently Alexa doesn’t understand the difference. Not exactly something you want when you’re trying to buy the best product in a given category. (If you say “site” instead of “website”, Alexa will respond that it doesn’t know.) This isn’t the first mistake Alexa (or any other virtual assistant) has made, and it certainly won’t be the last. This is exactly why Amazon doesn’t let Alexa play a significant role in its core business: It’s still too early and too risky. Until Alexa becomes smarter (and Amazon is making improvements monthly ), the Amazon Assistant will have to do.
ProBeat is a column in which Emil rants about whatever crosses him that week.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Kone monetizes connected elevators with Alexa, music-streaming, and digital displays | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/kone-monetizes-connected-elevators-with-alexa-spotify-and-digital-displays"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Feature Kone monetizes connected elevators with Alexa, music-streaming, and digital displays Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Kone's DX Class elevators will be super connected.
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Elevators of the future will have “virtual windows,” voice-activated controls, music-streaming, and more — that’s if Kone has its way, at least. The Finnish engineering giant, best known for autowalks, automatic doors, escalators, and — yes — elevators, unveiled its grand vision at an event in London yesterday.
For its endeavor, Kone has taken a cue from the automobile industry, which has increasingly platformized with connected services spanning diagnostics, entertainment, navigation, food delivery , and more. Translated into the skyscraper realm, Kone is striving to make elevators a platform, allowing its clients to tailor services such as music, customize digital displays with local information or panoramic views via “virtual windows,” improve accessibility, and enable voice commands.
“We’re trying to move from selling equipment to selling services,” Tomio Pihkala, Kone’s executive vice president for new equipment business, said in a conversation with VentureBeat.
For those unfamiliar with the company, Kone is among the top providers of elevators and escalators globally, with 450,000 customers and around $9 billion in annual revenues. The company’s various installations transport 1 billion people each day.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Remote control The new Kone DX Class elevators build on a digital platform first unveiled by Kone last year , and which has been available as an upgrade to customers looking to modernize their elevator systems. Yesterday’s announcement concerned new elevators designed from the get-go with connectivity built in, allowing building owners to remotely control, activate, and deactivate specific services from a central dashboard. The setup includes a dynamic display, acoustics, and lighting that can be used to tailor the ambiance and interior.
Above: Kone DX Class elevator with display Moreover, the display can adapt as the elevator goes up and down, with lights serving as cues to the car’s movement and how close they are to reaching their desired floor.
Above: The new Kone DX Class elevator Among the examples demonstrated at the event yesterday, Kone illustrated how the display could effectively serve as a virtual window into the outside world. So if the building faces London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral, for example, the landmark could be shown inside the elevator, with the visual perspective changing as the elevator moves.
Partners One of the more high-profile service integration partners for Kone’s digital platform is Amazon’s Alexa digital assistant, which residents could use to beckon a lift while they’re still inside their apartment, thus saving them from having to wait. But in the future, this could be extended to other use cases. “There are many possibilities,” Pihkala said.
Other API partners on board for the launch include Spotify-backed Soundtrack Your Brand , which has a self-stated mission to “kill bad background music” via a Spotify-like B2B music-streaming service *.
For anyone that loves existing elevator music, this probably spells bad news, but for everyone else this partnership will allow landlords and building owners to customize the mood inside their elevators. Among the other partners mentioned at the launch event are service robot company Robotise and accessibility-focused navigation company BlindSquare.
Indeed, BlindSquare, alongside Alexa, hint at the possibilities offered by connected elevators in terms of improving accessibility. The fledgling Finnish startup is working with Kone to help building owners direct visually impaired users toward the elevator using beacons and an app — BlindSquare essentially tracks the location of the user in relation to the elevator to keep them on the right path via a mobile app.
The Kone DX Class elevators will be available in Europe first from December 2019, with other markets following in 2020. Given that the platform can be retrofitted to existing installations as well as new builds, this hints at the potential for the platform to be expanded with new feature sets further down the line. One obvious use case here would be facial recognition services that automatically identify individuals to take them to the correct floor, though it could also have accessibility ramifications alongside — or in place of — voice services.
Computer vision-based technology isn’t part of the Kone DX Class elevator lineup at launch, but the company is already working on this kind of technology elsewhere in its business, so this could feature as part of the platform in the future.
“Computer vision is really one of the big things which we are working on quite a lot,” Pihkala added. “There are many use cases — facial recognition in the context of accessibility is a really obvious one for us.” Above: The new Kone DX Class elevator The connected elevator isn’t a new phenomenon, as most of the big providers — including Kone — already leverage sensors and analytics for predictive maintenance.
But Kone’s embrace of connected services is notable from a business perspective, as it highlights how it’s pushing to monetize beyond mere elevator installations and maintenance. As seems to be the case for just about every company in the 21st century, Kone is adopting a subscription-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) model to generate recurring revenues after it sells its equipment.
“We are merging the technologies of tomorrow with the buildings of today to put the ‘smart’ into smart buildings,” Pihkala said. “We are changing our business profoundly towards a platform business. This means combining products and services over the lifetime of a building, which is very powerful.” Lift off Elevators don’t often constitute part of the narrative when urban innovation is discussed, but the mass transport system — and that is what it is — has transformed the very fabric of cities over the past century. The emergence of elevator safety systems specifically enabled cities to build higher and higher, transforming the upper floors — which were once servants’ quarters — into penthouses and plush apartments. It’s true that innovations such as steel and reinforced concrete contributed to the growth of high-rise properties, but without elevators nobody would want to live or work in them.
The world will be home to an estimated 10 billion people by 2050, one-quarter more than the Earth’s population today — and two-thirds of those will live in cities, according to United Nations figures. That’s a 10 percentage-point increase on today, and the only way to accommodate this influx of city-dwellers will be to build upwards. This will likely require more elevators.
“New technologies give us opportunities to create an integrated and easily adaptable building experience,” noted Kone president and CEO Henrik Ehrnrooth. “As buildings evolve, the elevators can also evolve in ways we have not seen before.” * Article updated 12/02/19 to clarify that despite its affiliations with Spotify, Soundtrack Your Brand operates a separate licensing and technical infrastructure to Spotify.
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"How Rossum is using deep learning to extract data from any document | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/how-rossum-is-using-deep-learning-to-extract-data-from-any-document"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages How Rossum is using deep learning to extract data from any document Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
The equivalent of over 100 human lifetimes is spent globally each day on data entry from invoices alone, according to Czech AI startup Rossum.
And that is why the company is using deep learning technology to help businesses ditch manual data entry altogether, freeing up humans to focus on more complex or creative tasks.
The problem Rossum is looking to fix is this: Each year an estimated 550 billion invoices are exchanged, and they come in all shapes, sizes, and formats. Extracting key information from these invoices has traditionally been a labor-intensive manual process, but automated tools are increasingly joining the fray. Unlike many traditional optical character recognition (OCR) data extraction tools, however, Rossum is using “cognitive data capture,” which involves pretraining machines to understand documents much like a human does.
OCR tools rely on different sets of rules and templates to cover every type of invoice they may come across. The training process can be slow and time-consuming, given that a company may need to create hundreds of new templates and rule sets. In contrast, Rossum said its cloud-based software requires minimal effort to set up, after which it can peruse a document like a human does — regardless of style or formatting — and it doesn’t rely on fully structured data to extract the content companies need.
The company also claims it can extract data 6 times faster than with manual entry while saving companies up to 80% in costs.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Rossum was founded out of Prague in early 2017 by former AI PhD students Tomas Gogar, Tomas Tunys, and Petr Baudis. In its first three years, the startup has secured big-name clients on every continent, including Siemens, Nvidia, IBM, Box, and Bloomberg. Today Rossum announced that it has raised $4.5 million since its inception — including $1 million in preseed funding to develop a minimal viable product between 2017 and 2018 and a $3 million seed round that closed last month.
The funding round was co-led by U.K.-based seed investors LocalGlobe and Seedcamp , with participation from some notable angel investors, including Ryan Petersen, Flexport CEO and founder; and Elad Gil, who sold his startup Mixer Labs to Twitter in 2009 before becoming an investor in Airbnb, Instacart, Pinterest, Square, and Stripe, among others.
“Invoice data management is a huge unsolved problem,” Gil noted. “Rossum’s traction shows that the company is in a great position to solve this problem, as well as [tackling] many other data entry tasks using its highly versatile platform.” Lay of the land Cognitive data capture isn’t a new concept. In fact, it’s something IBM has touted for a number of years as a means of extracting data from “never seen before” documents. A number of other organizations are also operating in this space, including long-established companies such as Kofax and Abbyy , while newer entrants include the likes of VC-backed HyperScience and Ephesoft.
Rossum is continuing on a similar trajectory, though it says its “cloud”- and “machine learning”-only approach strongly differentiates it from many of the more established platforms. Moreover, the company touts its friction-free signup, which includes a free trial period to demonstrate how it works.
“Staying in the cloud means that we don’t have to take care of on-premises installations and we have only one platform to take care of,” CEO Gogar told VentureBeat. “Therefore, all the engineering and research resources we spend [go] to all the clients equally.” Gogar likens Rossum’s cloud-based data extraction approach to what Salesforce did two decades ago when it applied a software-as-a-service (SaaS) business model to customer relationship management (CRM).
“In 1999, Salesforce said ‘We will do cloud-only CRM because it’s how to build the best product,'” Gogar said. “No one believed them, and now they are the best ones by far.” Rossum’s pretrained AI engine can be tried and tested within a couple of minutes of integrating its REST API. As with any self-respecting machine learning system, Rossum’s AI adapts as it learns from customers’ data. Rossum claims an average accuracy rate of around 95%, and in situations where its system can’t identify the correct data fields, it asks a human operator for feedback to improve from.
Above: Rossum in action Rossum claims 30 full-time employees, plus another 20 who work as “AI teachers” for its AI engine. With a fresh $3.5 million in the bank, the company plans to expand globally — including opening a new office in the U.S. — and target its technology at more sectors.
While Rossum’s clients are mostly using the platform to process invoices and similar documents, such as delivery notes, its technology can be applied to many different kinds of documents across industries, including accounting, logistics, insurance, and real estate management.
“Technology should make data entry easier and cheaper, but businesses have become too reliant on using old systems that no longer meet their needs,” Gogar said. “Rossum solves these problems without complicated, clunky integrations, without teams of developers, and without high costs. Our solution is smart enough to be tailored to suit any type of business, and it’s scalable to work with even the largest of firms.” In terms of costs, prices can vary greatly depending on the volume of documents that need to be processed and specific requirements, but Gogar said that subscriptions start at around $800 per month and that the platform is a “good fit” for companies that process more than 5,000 documents during that period.
RPA It’s worth noting the inherent synergies between companies like Rossum and the myriad robotic process automation (RPA) platforms out there. RPA is software that companies install on machines to help businesses automate laborious, repetitive tasks — it learns from human activity using computer vision and rule-based processes and then copies it.
A lot of money is flying around the RPA realm at the moment, with Automation Anywhere recently raising $290 million at a $6.8 billion valuation and UiPath closing a whopping $568 million funding round at a $7 billion valuation. A slew of big-name backers have invested in both these companies, including Salesforce, Alphabet, SoftBank, Goldman Sachs, Sequoia, and Accel.
Above: UiPath Studio for designing processes So what is the difference between what Rossum is doing and RPA? According to Gogar, they are complementary services, as RPA is generally better suited to structured data. As such, Rossum is actually a technology partner of RPA companies such as Blue Prism and UiPath. (Rossum investor Seedcamp is also an investor in UiPath.) “Rossum is very often an important piece of any automation project, and it works very well with major RPA platforms,” Gogar said. “RPA platforms are great at automating processes with structured data. Rossum is a gateway that converts unstructured data into a structured form. Therefore it allows automation in processes where it was not possible before.” Jobs With countless headlines proclaiming that AI is here to steal human jobs , companies are naturally sensitive to public perception when they develop automated technologies that will impact employment. That is why they often preemptively explain that they’re not trying to replace humans, but rather augment their jobs so they can do more interesting tasks instead.
This was echoed in a recent report commissioned by IBM , which found that while AI and automation would likely change how every job is performed, it would ultimately lead to an increased demand for creative skills. This is a sentiment Rossum is very much in tune with.
“Rather than replacing employees, Rossum’s aim is to speed up human operators, giving businesses more flexibility and reliability for their customers and helping employees focus their attention on more complex tasks or tasks that require creativity,” the company said.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Black Friday 2019: The best Alexa Gadgets, from microwaves to twerking bears | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/black-friday-2019-the-best-alexa-gadgets-from-microwaves-to-twerking-bears"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Black Friday 2019: The best Alexa Gadgets, from microwaves to twerking bears Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
Learn more.
Ever heard of Alexa Gadgets ? They’re Bluetooth devices meant to “enhance” voice interactions with Echo speakers and displays. Amazon made available a software development kit — the Alexa Gadgets Toolkit — in September 2017, and October marked the rollout of the Gadgets Toolkit in all locales where Alexa -enabled devices are sold. Among the initial crop of partners were Hasbro, Baby Plus, and eKids, and the Alexa Gadgets family subsequently expanded to devices and appliances from other manufacturers.
Whether you picked up a new Echo device on Black Friday or Cyber Monday or anticipate buying one in the near future, Alexa Gadgets can enhance your Alexa experience in countless ways. Here’s a roundup of some of the best to date.
Echo Buttons Amazon’s Echo Buttons are aptly named — they’re buttons that double as controllers for over 100 games and that power toggle smart home devices through compatible Echo speakers. (The Fire TV Cube, Fire TV, Fire-branded tablets, Echo Dot Kids Edition, and Amazon Tap aren’t currently supported.) With one Echo Button or several (up to four in total), you’re able to activate a Routine or customize a trivia game through Alexa Skill Blueprints , Amazon’s no-code service that enables the creation and publishing of custom voice apps.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Up to four Echo Buttons can be connected with compatible Echo devices using Bluetooth, and they can maintain a connection from up to 30 feet away. Each takes 2 AAA batteries and works with nearly every variant of Echo product, including the Echo Plus, Echo Dot, Echo Spot, and Echo Show.
Third Reality Smart Night-Light Third Reality’s Smart Night-Light is a night light, as the name implies — an LED-sporting and USB-powered night light , to be exact. It’s made specifically (and exclusively) for the Echo Flex , a diminutive Echo speaker that’s designed to plug into wall outlets , and it boasts a built-in sensor that automatically switches the light on when it’s dark.
The dimmable six-LED array — which reaches a maximum brightness of 20 lumens — can cycle among a spectrum of colors, and the setup mode automatically pairs the Night-Light with Alexa the minute it’s plugged in. Predictably, the Night-Light supports the full range of Alexa commands (e.g., “Alexa, change My Night-Light’s brightness to 20%” or “Alexa, change the My Night-Light to magenta”), which can be incorporated into Routines that dictate when the light switches on.
Gemmy Twerking Christmas Bear Plush Suffering from a distinct lack of twerking during the holiday season? Consider welcoming Gemmy’s Twerking Christmas Bear into your device family. The festive plush who loves to boogie lip-syncs with Alexa spoken responses and reacts to timers, alarms, reminders, and notifications. It dances along to music played through Amazon Music (but not third-party services like Spotify), and it perks up when you say the word “Alexa.” Like Echo Buttons, the Twerking Christmas Bear isn’t compatible with Fire TV Cube, Fire TV, Fire-branded tablets, Echo Dot Kids Edition, and Amazon Tap devices. However, it works with Echo products including the Echo Plus, Echo Dot, Echo Spot, and Echo Show.
Big Mouth Billy Bass Gemmy’s Alexa-powered Big Mouth Billy Bass launched to much fanfare late last year , perhaps because it was a long time coming. A retrofitted Billy Bass that tapped Amazon’s Alexa Voice Services API emerged online in 2016, a year after which the official product was announced. And those developments came over 16 years after the original Billy Bass’ debut in 1999, which enthusiastically warbled tunes like Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” The new and ostensibly improved Big Mouth Billy Bass dances to an original song — “Fishin’ Time” — out of the box, in addition to any song played through Amazon Music (and only Alexa Music). It lip-syncs along with Alexa responses such as weather and random facts (but not while dancing), and it swishes its tail when a timer, alarm, reminder, or notification event is triggered.
The Alexa-enabled Billy Bass works with most Echo product models, including the Echo Plus, Echo Dot, Echo Spot, and Echo Show.
AmazonBasics Microwave If a microwave’s on your holiday wish list, why not make it an Alexa-compatible model ? The AmazonBasics Microwave recognizes quick-cook voice presets that start microwaving vegetables, popcorn, potatoes, rice, and more, and it helpfully reorders popcorn when you’re running low (after automatically applying a 10% discount on the brand of your choice). It has 10 power levels, in addition to a kitchen timer and a child lock, and it works like a typical microwave, with an Ask Alexa button that lets you specify a cook time verbally.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Black Friday 2019: The best AI smartphones | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/black-friday-2019-the-best-ai-smartphones"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Black Friday 2019: The best AI smartphones Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Samsung Galaxy S10+ Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
Learn more.
Black Friday or Cyber Monday, take your pick; it’s that time of year again. If you’re in the market for a smartphone — and it’s statistically likely you are, given that 403.5 million handsets shipped last holiday season — there’s no better month to seek out promotions, discounts, and limited-time deals on new devices. Samsung is hosting a sale on Galaxy phones including the Galaxy S10e, S10, S10 Plus, and S10 5G, and OnePlus recently knocked $150 off the price of the OnePlus 7 Pro. Carriers like T-Mobile, Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon are awarding up to $700 in trade-in credits, and as for retailers, there’s the usual doorbusters.
It’s almost too much of a good thing — particularly if you aren’t committed to a brand, a model, or a manufacturer. Conventional wisdom would have you judge a device by its screen or perhaps its camera, but we took a different tack last year with our guide to the best phones for the AI enthusiast.
In this second edition, we rejiggered the categories somewhat to reflect new industry developments. But we’ve tried to remain true to the original mission: to highlight handsets that stand apart from the crowd with respect to their AI capabilities.
Smartphone with the best AI chip iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone 11 Pro Max Apple’s flagships nabbed the top spot in last year’s buying guide with their powerful AI chipsets, and the trend continues. The iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max sport the Cupertino company’s A13 Bionic , a custom chip manufactured on a 7-nanometer process that packs a whopping 8.5 billion transistors (up from its predecessor’s 6.9 billion transistors). It’s the fastest processor ever in a smartphone, according to Apple senior director of iPhone marketing Kaiann Drance, but arguably the highlight is the improved neural engine.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Said engine sits alongside the six-core processor (two high-performance Lightning cores and four high-efficiency Thunder cores) and graphics chip, with eight dedicated AI accelerators that that are up to six times faster than those in the previous-generation engine. A specialized controller helps to distribute machine learning workloads among the different subprocessors, enabling them to consume less power than those in the A12 and A11 while running over five trillion operations per second.
Tangibly, that translates to improved text-to-speech and computational photography capabilities. Apple senior VP of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller said that there’s “much more” natural language processing in the newest version of IOS — iOS 13 — accelerated by machine learning algorithms running on the neural engine. Also in tow is Deep Fusion , which snaps between three and seven photographs at multiple exposures and selects the best before combining them into one with idealized shadow, color detail, and highlight. And there’s the AI-powered Night Mode, which enhances brightness in dimly lit environments while preserving color and details.
Face ID, Animoji and Memoji, Portrait Lighting, and Apple’s ARKit augmented reality framework are among the other features optimized for the neural engine, in addition to the iPhone’s Portrait mode. After the shutter button is pressed, AI models attempt to figure out what kind of scene is being photographed and distinguish any subjects from the background. This thorough understanding of depth enables post-production editing of the blur and sharpness.
On the third-party side of the equation, developers can run code on the neural engine. San Jose software company Nex Team’s basketball app, HomeCourt, taps it to track and log shots, misses, and a player’s location on court in real time. Digital Masterpieces’ BeCasso app uses an AI technique called style transfer to recompose paintings, pictures, or sketches in the style of other images. And Memrise packs a classifier model that identifies objects and tells users how to say their names in any language.
Runner-up: Huawei Mate 30 Pro Above: Huawei’s Mate 30 Pro.
If you’re willing to forego Google apps and services including the Play Store, Huawei’s Mate 30 Pro is worthy of consideration. (Huawei is prevented from preinstalling Google software because of trade restrictions imposed by U.S. Commerce Department.) It tops the charts in AI Benchmark, an app developed by researchers at ETH Zurich that measures performance on a range of machine learning tasks, and it comes out ahead on typical AI benchmarks like MobileNet (Int8).
The Kirin 990 5G system-on-chip within is responsible for the computational boost. It’s a 7-nanometer wafer with 10.3 billion transistors and an eight-core architecture, with six cores reserved for low-to-middle-intensity workloads (like music and file transfers) and four high-performance cores. That’s all complemented by a 12-core graphics chip — the Mali-G76 — that leapfrogs the Adreno 640 inside Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855 in terms of efficiency.
But the arguable headliner is the Neural Processing Unit (NPU), a coprocessor optimized for the sort of vector math that’s the lifeblood of machine learning frameworks like Facebook’s Caffe2 and Google’s TensorFlow. Microsoft’s Translator app taps into it for tasks like scanning and translating words in pictures, and Huawei says its heterogeneous computing structure — HiAI — automatically distributes voice recognition, natural language processing, and computer vision workloads across it dynamically.
Just one of the cores in the NPU’s Da Vinci architecture — the evolution of the NPU in the Kirin 970 and 980, which were designed by Cambricon — is up to 24 times more efficient than a general-purpose processor core for tasks like facial recognition. Plus, it accelerates up to 90% of commonly used computer vision algorithms, including Inception, Deep Lab, VDSR, VGG, and MobileNet-SSD.
These manifest in the Mate 30 Pro’s Master AI, an “intelligent” scene recognizer akin to Samsung’s Scene Optimizer and LG’s AI Cam that adjusts the phone’s camera settings automatically — depending on ambient lighting, contrast, and other factors. An enhanced Night mode composites the best photos of a burst shot taken at multiple exposures, while an AI-assisted stabilization (AIS) and “4D” predict where subjects are moving to keep them in focus while intelligently cropping frames to smooth out jerky footage.
Smartphone with the best AI camera features Google Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL Above: The Google Pixel 4.
Is there a phone superior to the Pixel 4 with respect to AI-powered camera features ? We’d argue not. Last year’s Pixel lineup (the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL ) set a high bar, but Google cleared it with a veritable slew of enhancements.
A dedicated AI coprocessor — the next-generation Pixel Visual Core, which improves upon the imaging chip in the Pixel 3 — power-efficiently crunches millions to trillions of operations per second, accelerating the Pixel 4 series’ HDR+ feature (more on that later). It’s also responsible for speeding up Google’s Rapid and Accurate Image Super-Resolution (RAISR) technologies, which use machine learning to produce high-quality versions of zoomed-in images, as well as Zero Shutter Lag, which eliminates the delay between triggering the phone shutter and the moment the photo is actually recorded.
That’s only the tip of the iceberg. The Pixel 4 leverages AI to suss out white balance and recognize frequently photographed people, and to focus on those people when they’re detected in-frame. Autofocus mode tracks items of interest in view, eliminating the need to manually lock focus. As for Top Shot, it captures a burst frame before and after the shutter button is tapped and chooses the best shot automatically, taking into account things like smiles, open eyes, and gazes.
The Pixel 4’s most impressive photography feature might be Night Sight , which uses machine learning to boost the brightness of flash-free and ultra-dark images. It launched with the Pixel 3, but the Pixel 4’s incarnation boasts improved dynamic range and color thanks to support for longer exposure times (up to around 16 seconds). It also adds a focus option — Infinity — that slots alongside the existing Near, Autofocus, and Far options, as well as an astrophotography mode that enhances the contrast of the night sky to boost star visibility.
Smartphone with the best alternative AI assistant Galaxy Note10 and Galaxy S10 series Samsung’s Bixby assistant might not have the ubiquity of Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri, or Amazon’s Alexa, but it’s improving at a steady clip. Bixby now features better natural language processing and faster response times, along with built-in noise reduction tech. And as of October, it recommends voice apps based on context, like ridesharing and navigation apps when a users says “I need a ride.” In July, Samsung launched the Bixby Marketplace in the U.S. and South Korea, a dedicated app store where third-party developers can offer their own Bixby-compatible services, similar to Amazon’s Alexa skills. Through it, users can search for services — which Samsung calls “capsules” — that enhance Bixby. Capsules can be added with a tap, and the Bixby Marketplace supports ratings and reviews to help surface the best, or at least most popular, capsules.
Another relatively new addition to Bixby is Bixby Routines , which rolled out earlier this year. Much like Alexa Routines and routines on the Google Assistant, Bixby offers preset and personalized routines, such as Driving and Before Bed routines, that can be customized based on your habits.
Like any modern voice assistant, Bixby recognizes requests to add items to a calendar, queue up tunes, place calls, and launch apps, and it can answer basic questions about sports scores, movie showtimes, business hours, and more. More than 3,000 commands in seven languages (English, Korean, Chinese, German, French, Italian, and Spanish) are supported in all, including chained ones like “Open the gallery app in split-screen view and rotate misaligned photos” and “Play videos on a nearby TV.” Conclusion So there you have it: four flagship smartphones that make innovative use of AI across three distinct categories.
Apple’s 2019 iPhone lineup is far and away the winner on the chipset front — the upgraded neural engine, combined with powerful software tools and a thriving developer ecosystem, cement its lead. That said, Huawei nips at its heels, particularly when taking into account the Mate 30 Pro’s first-party camera features that tap the Kirin 990’s improved AI chip.
But the Mate 30 Pro’s camera falls short of Google’s Pixel 4 in the computational photography category. The Pixel 4 has one of the best smartphone cameras we’ve ever tested , thanks in large part to AI.
Last but not least, there’s the Samsung Galaxy Note10 and Galaxy 10 series , showcases for the latest version of Samsung’s Bixby assistant. Bixby might not be the most robust platform on the block, but it’s grown considerably better in recent months. And to our knowledge, Bixby Voice is one of the only (if not the only) voice assistants that can recognize chained commands and interact with app menus and submenus, making it great for hands-free usage.
Nearly every phone featured in our roundup is available for purchase at carrier stores, Amazon, Best Buy, and other major brick-and-mortar electronics stores. The Mate 30 Pro, it’s worth noting, hasn’t been made officially available in the U.S. — you’ll have to transact with a third-party retailer to get your hands on it.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Alexa controls for kitchen appliances, shades, and garage door openers are generally available | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/alexa-controls-smart-home-devices-inventory-sensors"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Alexa controls for kitchen appliances, shades, and garage door openers are generally available Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Amazon Alexa developers looking to support motorized window shades and kitchen appliances have reason to rejoice. A host of smart device control features previewed earlier this year are now generally available , including semantic extensions, cooking modes, and inventory sensors.
As of today, developers can map one of three building blocks — toggle, range, and mode — to model functionality for water valves, closets, drawers, garage doors, gates, curtains, shades, blinds, awnings, and other gadgets. Four semantic extensions support utterances that use “open,” “close,” “raise,” and “lower” commands, which Amazon notes are some of the more natural ways Alexa customers speak to appliances.
Developers can leverage extensions to control a projector screen with the request “Alexa, lower the movie screen,” or trigger a window blind with “Alexa, open the window.” And shades like those from IKEA (and soon Lutron and Schellenberg) can be adjusted using requests like “Alexa, raise the blinds” and “Alexa, open the blinds to 80%.” Plus, starting with manufacturers like Nexx, the extensions “open” and “close” will support garage door controls with phrases like “Alexa, close the garage door.” In a related development, the Cooking API is now available, allowing Alexa customers to control conventional ovens, pressure cookers, coffee makers, toasters, slow cookers, and more with voice. Select appliances — including GE Appliance ovens, June Ovens, and Traeger Grills — enable home chefs to check cooking progress and temperature, and 40 new modes let them specify cooking types and techniques, such as air-fry and pressure cook. Additionally, developers can now allow Alexa users to set a device’s temperature without specifying a duration, or to cook food until it reaches a given internal temperature.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! This afternoon also marks the official launch of inventory sensors, or any connected smart home device that uses a consumable or has replacement parts. Now, Alexa can let customers know when supplies used by their device (e.g., a printer, thermostat, toothbrush, washing machine, dishwasher, or vacuum cleaner) are running low or parts need replacement, and facilitate orders or reorders through Amazon’s Dash Replenishment Service.
There’s a reason Amazon’s devoting time and attention to smart home device integrations where Alexa is concerned. Smart home device shipments are expected to experience a 26.9% year-over-year uptick to 832.7 million units by 2020 and to hit 1.6 billion units by 2023. And of the 75% of respondents to a recent Dashbot survey who use voice assistants like Alexa at least once a day, 23% say they control smart home devices with their assistant. Of that group, 63% tap assistants for home automation multiple times a day.
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Subsets and Splits
Wired Articles Filtered
Retrieves up to 100 entries from the train dataset where the URL contains 'wired' but the text does not contain 'Menu', providing basic filtering of the data.