Sep 30
Artificial Intelligence is the Holy Grail of computer science—and, for that matter, science fiction. But just how far have we come?
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Sep 12
Microsoft is next in line to build a mobile personal assistant, one that’s more than more than a robotic voice that obeys spoken commands. The feature will tie together all Microsoft products. So it’s probably appropriate that it’ll be named Cortana after the artificially intelligent character in Halo.
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Aug 14
How Machines Think
Posted in: Today's ChiliWhen people talk about artificial intelligence, it’s tempting to think that it means computers can think (a little) like humans. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it turns out that’s not quite the case.
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Jul 16
A growing number of “smart” apps are using artificial intelligence algorithms in order to give you a more efficient and more personalized mobile experience.
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Jul 15
Computers are good at a lot of things. Thinking like a grown-up human being is not one of them. Not yet, at least.
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Jul 11
We poke fun at Siri and pretend to get scared by Humanoid robots and make our neck hair stand up straight by watching quadrocopters do amazing things but the truth is, artificial intelligence is still pretty dumb. But that’s going to change! The rise of artificial intelligence is happening and they’re learning a lot more about us because we’re learning more about them. Sort of.
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Jul 02
"What if" is sort of a loaded phrase in the Marvel Universe. Writers have always been able to ramble off a What If… Wolverine had hot dogs for claws!? and then you’d see "WHAT IF: HOT DOG WOLVERINE" on a spinner rack. But sometimes, just from the nature of comics being batshit insane, we get thought experiments played out long form. And so after Age of Ultron ended with a huge influx of artificial intelligence beings in the Marvel universe, we now have Avengers AI, an Avengers team captained by the Vision. An entire team of gadget Avengers, basically.
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Jun 12
Sharp – Home cleaning robot “COCOROBO(RX-V90)” – Features artificial intelligence and voice-recognition capability
Posted in: Today's Chili
Home cleaning robot “COCOROBO (RX-V90)” will be out from Sharp in late June.
“COCOROBO” measures the dimensions of a room with an ultrasonic sensor, and it’s able to boost the suction power up when detecting an area with lots of dust and trash. It can run for a maximum of 100 minutes straight and clean up to a 3LDK sized (3 bedrooms, 1 living room, 1 dining area and kitchen) – roughly 43-tatami mat room/62㎡ room.
There are 2 other features that make “COCOROBO” become something more life-like: an artificial intelligence “COCORO Engine” that changes its feeling according to the size of a room or cleaning situation making it change its action, its lights and the words it says, and “Voice-recognition capability” that enables you to control it by voice.
Price: Open price
Model: RX-V90
Size: 304 x 304 x 99mm
Weight: 2.6kg
Charging time: 4 hours
Accessories: Remote control, charging stand, cleaning brush, replacement side brush 1 set (2 brushes), bumper cushion
May 20
Ionut Budisteanu of Romania certainly does seem to have a pretty bright future ahead of him, especially after he picked up the top prize at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, which so happens to be the largest high school science research competition in the world. This would mean that Ionut Budisteanu managed to earn the Gordon E. Moore Award, in addition to a $75,000 prize that was named in honor of the Intel co-founder and fellow scientist. According to the organizers of the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, “Their research demonstrates the value of hard work and creative thinking. All the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair finalists here this week show great promise in harnessing the power of science and innovation to solve problems and create opportunity for our global community.” Just what made Ionut’s work so valuable? Well, he manages to address a major global issue by potentially reducing the cost of a self-driving car dramatically, so much so that it could make such technology affordable to the mainstream folks.
Thanks to an array of 3-D radar and mounted cameras, Ionut has successfully created a feasible design for an autonomously controlled car which is smart enough to detect traffic lanes and curbs, in addition to keeping track of the real-time position of the car. The best part of the news is? The entire shebang would cost a mere $4,000, which is a whole lot more affordable that what Google is currently using in their self driving car project.
Ionut decided that processing webcam imagery using artificial intelligence technology to check out items like curbs, lane markers, and who knows, soccer balls which so happen to go out of the field of play and roll onto the road, would be able to eliminate the need for a high end 3D radar, resulting in the use of a low-resolution 3-D radar to get the job done when it comes to recognizing large objects such as other vehicles, houses, and obstacles like trees. Ionut ran 50 simulations with his system, where in 47 of them, no accidents were recorded. Three of the simulations that failed involved the non-recognition of people who were 65 to 100 feet (20 to 30 meters) away, and a slightly higher-resolution 3-D radar should get the job done down the road.
Press Release
[ Romanian teenager advances self-driving car idea copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
Apr 19
Meet Genesis Angels, A New $100M Fund For AI And Robotics, Co-Founded By Investor Kenges Rakishev And Chaired By Israel’s Ex-PM
Posted in: Today's Chili
For those startups in newer areas like robotics, artificial intelligence and augmented reality who complain that VCs are too focused on consumer internet companies, help is at hand: Genesis Angels is a new VC that has raised a fund of around $100 million, with a large chunk coming from co-founder and serial investor and Kazakh petrochemical mogul Kenges Rakishev, which it plans to use for early stage investments in emerging areas like these and others. Based in Israel, but looking for startups worldwide, Genesis launched just this week, naming ex-Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert as its chairman.
Moshe Hogeg, the other co-founder behind Genesis Angels (and founder and CEO of mobile video/photo startup Mobli, pictured here with Rakishev, left, and Olmert, center), says that the idea for Genesis came out of his and Rakishev’s observation that while the market for consumer internet services is saturated with a lot of me-too companies, there is a flourishing world of R&D in areas like robots and artificial intelligence that is not getting enough attention. It’s mostly giant tech companies like Google and Microsoft and academic institutions that are putting money into the very cutting edge of technology.
(Indeed, it was just yesterday, during Google’s earnings call, that CEO Larry Page talked about the “big bets” that Google wants to make on new technology. Google is not afraid to make big investments, he said, because the fear is that if it doesn’t it may miss out on the next big thing.)
The problem with this is that it leaves little room for startups. And although more recent developments like Kickstarter and Indigogo are creating a new groundswell of interest and financial support for some of these projets, there are yet others that will not want that kind of public profile for what they’re working on.
Hogeg describes Genesis’ role as something between the concept stage and when a VC may typically become interested in a company working on cutting-edge technology. “You can send the most brilliant scientist to a VC, but often it might take that scientist and his startup five years to create their products,” he explained in an interview. “VCs will say, ‘No problem, come back in four years.’ Genesis will invest in those companies in the meantime.” Typical investments will be in the range of $200,000 and $2 million.
If you visit Genesis Angels’ site, you will see that it already lists a number of companies in its portfolio, including Hogeg’s. These are listed, he says, because they are some of the investments Rakishev himself has made. Genesis, he notes, is still raising money for its first fund, with the total in play currently close to $100 million. Among those contributing to the fund are merchant bank Forbes & Manhattan, as well as private individuals who are well-known in the space of angel investments specifically around areas like hardware and new technology. The first three investments that are being made out of the new fund, Hogeg says, will be coming out shortly.
Ehud Olmert’s appointment as chairman is about laying the groundwork for the kind of assistance that Genesis Angels will be able to offer its portfolio companies, Hogeg says.
“He is a big believer in technology. Irasel invested the most in this area when he was still prime minister,” he notes. The relatively small country currently has some 3,000 tech companies, according to this report from the AP on the launch of the new VC.
Olmert took office in 2006 but left in 2009 under a corruption scandal cloud that he is still fighting. But that, apparently, has not affected his wider influence. “Mr Olmert is a very powerful man and he can use his contacts to help us and our companies, for example in partnering and joint ventures. He can open any door in the world.”
There have been other VC funds focused on these emerging areas. Dmitry Grishin, for example, the CEO of Mail.ru and founder of Grishin Robotics, last year started a $25 million fund dedicated to investing in other robotics companies (examples of his investments here, here and here).
It may be that Genesis teams up with people like this to cooperate on investments. “He shares a vision with us about this space,” says Hogeg.
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