|
|
|
|
|
Facebook Unleashes Four-Legged Robots; Data Taggers Riding High
|
|
|
|
|
|
Welcome back. Thanks to rapid advances in software, robots are getting smarter by the day. But there is still a long list of everyday tasks they’ve yet to master. Take walking. A research team that includes Facebook Inc. scientists is hoping to train the digital brains of four-legged robots to walk over sand, pebbles or snow without falling over, which they do more often than not. The team’s work involves creating simulated environments where AI-enabled systems can learn to negotiate tricky terrain step by step. Elsewhere, robots are learning to hold plastic drinking cups, size up suspicious characters and find lost car keys.
|
|
|
|
|
|
With AI training, a four-legged Unitree Robotics robot was able to navigate varying surfaces, including rocks, greenery, sand and soil. PHOTO: FACEBOOK INC.
|
|
|
|
|
Researchers from Facebook Inc., working with the University of California, Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon University, are developing an AI-powered tool dubbed Rapid Motor Adaptation, designed to help four-legged walking robots handle varying terrain like sand, stairs or slippery surfaces, WSJ’s John McCormick reports.
One step at a time. Rather than hand-coding mobility software, Rapid Motor Adaptation’s AI platform learns from simulated environments how to control the robot and how to quickly negotiate new conditions in real-life circumstances.
Where do things stand? In tests, the AI-enabled robot was able to cross a field of pebbles roughly 80% of time without losing its balance, researchers said.
Bots on the ground. The team hopes the technology will lead to wider adoption of walking robots on construction sites, in search-and-recovery missions and other tasks.
|
|
|
|
Corporate demand for AI is driving rapid growth for startups that prep data for smart software applications designed to glean business insights from massive amounts of unstructured data stashed in cloud storage systems, The Wall Street Journal reports.
|
|
|
Alexandr Wang, co-founder and CEO of San Francisco-based Scale AI. PHOTO: SCALE AI
|
|
|
High price tags. San Francisco-based Scale AI, a data labelling and management firm, hit a market valuation of more than $7 billion after its latest fundraising round in April, making it a clear market leader among startups offering similar services.
|
|
|
Cleaning up. Roomba autonomous vacuum maker iRobot Corp. started working with Scale AI late last year to build out more features for its room-cleaning robots, said Chris Jones, the company’s chief technology officer.
|
|
|
|
|
“The real world is going to be variable, and you need to adapt.”
|
— Jitendra Malik, a research scientist director at Facebook AI, on efforts to train walking robots
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Micron’s AI tool, in use since the second quarter, has generated additional yields in the low millions compared with what the company would have earned without it, the company’s treasurer said. PHOTO: JEREMY ERICKSON/BLOOMBERG NEWS
|
|
|
|
Micron Bets on Smart Tools
|
|
Memory-chip maker Micron Technology Inc. says it is earning millions of dollars in extra returns on its deposits using a smart software tool developed in house, The Wall Street Journal reports.
What it’s doing. The AI app allows the firm to invest its funds so they generate higher returns in the current low-interest-rate environment by crunching market data and recommending different asset classes and financial institutions that promise the highest yield.
The old way. The Boise, Idaho-based company previously relied on employees in its treasury division to determine the maximum amount it could earn by allocating cash across its deposit and investment accounts.
|
|
|
SoftBank Group Corp. is leading an investment round in facial-recognition firm AnyVision Interactive Technologies Ltd. that values the company at over $1 billion, The Wall Street Journal reports.
|
|
|
PHOTO: YUKI IWAMURA/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
|
|
|
Face in the crowd. AnyVision’s software scans crowds for suspected criminals or people on a private watch list, or zeroes in on individual faces to control access at barriers and gates, and may soon detect suspicious individuals based on their behavior.
|
|
|
Privacy concerns. The funding round comes as regulators and privacy activists put pressure on tech companies to keep facial-recognition technology in check, prompting many to stop or scale down development efforts.
|
|
|
|
|
$235 million
|
The amount facial-recognition technology developer AnyVision Interactive Technologies Ltd. raised in its latest funding round, led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund.
|
|
|
|
|
WSJ Pro AI Extra: The Future of AI
|
|
|
|
|
ILLUSTRATION: KEVIN HAND/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
|
|
|
|
|
July is AI month for The Future of Everything, a monthly report by The Wall Street Journal covering the way innovation and technology is changing everyday life. Here are some highlights from the latest edition.
-
Fraudster Faces. Hackers are pioneering new ways of tricking facial-recognition systems, from cutting the eyes out of photos to making a portrait "nod" with artificial intelligence
-
Buzz off Bees. Farmers, who have long relied on insects, wind and even human workers to pollinate their crops, could get extra help from AI-powered robots designed to pollinate everything from blueberries to almonds.
-
Robot Senses. With help from AI and special sensors, researchers are giving next-generation robots humanlike senses to perform tasks ranging from understanding speech in a noisy environment to sniffing out phony wine.
-
Predictive Policing. After a public backlash, software developers and city governments are rethinking how and when to use algorithms that promise to curb crime.
|
|
|
|
|
Broadcom, with offices in San Jose, Calif., has been pushing into enterprise software. PHOTO: JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES
|
|
|
|
Broadcom eyes SAS. Broadcom Inc. is in talks to buy pioneering data-analytics software firm SAS Institute Inc., valuing the 45-year-old firm in the range of $15 billion to $20 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. (The Wall Street Journal)
App Annie explores options. App research company App Annie Inc. is eyeing the possibility of making an acquisition, going public or a sale, while ramping up efforts to use AI for more efficient app-store analytics, such as rankings and other download data for devices. (The Wall Street Journal)
No solo JEDI deal. The Pentagon plans to scuttle a billion-dollar single-vendor cloud contract with Microsoft Corp., dubbed Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, in favor of seeking best-in-class capabilities, such as cloud storage and AI, from multiple cloud vendors. (The Wall Street Journal)
US Foods names CIO. US Foods Holding Corp. named former Tech Data Corp. Chief Information Officer John Tonnison as its new CIO, a move that comes as more food-service companies look to enterprise IT chiefs to deploy AI and other advanced tools, analysts say. (The Wall Street Journal)
Solar-power firm plans IPO. Heliogen Inc., which uses AI to position solar-power reflectors, is merging with a special-purpose acquisition company to go public in a combination that values the company at about $2 billion. (The Wall Street Journal)
Capital one builds AI bench. The bank says it is planning to hire 3,000 technology workers by the end of the year, with a focus on AI skills. (Fortune)
Boiled water advisory. MIT researchers used machine learning to estimate when cooling systems are about to reach a boiling crisis, the point at which overheated water insulates heat on a surface, rather than cooling it down. (MIT News)
Smart toys raise privacy flags. The growing market for AI-enabled toys, which collect data from children to personalize dolls or target educational programs, has some privacy watchdogs concerned over misuse. (CNBC)
Waves of computation. A team of university researchers and scientists, led by Argonne National Laboratory, are using an AI framework designed to detect gravitational waves with greater speed, scale and accuracy, offering the possibility of studying a larger swath of the universe. (University of Chicago News)
|
|
|
France’s Competition Authority fined Google $593 million for allegedly violating orders to negotiate paid deals with news publishers, raising pressure on the company in a global fight over how and whether tech companies should pay for news. (The Wall Street Journal)
ByteDance Ltd., the Chinese owner of popular short-video app TikTok, put on hold indefinitely its intentions to list offshore earlier this year after government officials told the company to focus on addressing data-security risks, people familiar with the matter said. (The Wall Street Journal)
Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk was in court Monday to defend the company’s purchase of SolarCity Corp., telling a judge that he didn’t act improperly during the negotiating process and doesn’t even enjoy running the electric-vehicle maker. (The Wall Street Journal)
|
|
|
|
|
|