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Robots Lend a Hand to Warehouse Workers; Chinese Startups Reflect Policy Priorities
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Welcome back. The rapid spread of Omicron has added yet another challenge for embattled employers: Workers calling in sick. Some sectors were already grappling with a chronic shortage of workers, before the latest Covid-19 variant struck toward the end of last year. Among them, one of the hardest hit has been logistics, where supply chain disruptions and surging e-commerce demand is running up against a dearth of warehouse staff.
Some logistics firms are filling gaps with robots. Recent advances in computer vision and smart software, which have made warehouse robots more sophisticated, allowing them to take on more tasks that have been largely done by people.
Take Puma North America Inc., a division of Puma SE. The company recently started using several robotic arms to assemble orders of clothing and shoes at a distribution center in Torrance, Calif., and plans to install more robots at another site outside Indianapolis.
As in other industries, technology isn’t about to outright replace human warehouse workers anytime soon, industry watchers say. But, they add, stop-gap measures sparked by Covid-19 are likely to change the way many companies operate–possibly for good.
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Automatons from Nimble Robotics help fill orders at Puma North America's warehouse in Torrance, Calif.
PHOTO: NIMBLE ROBOTICS
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Busy Warehouses Enlist Robots
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Robotic arms and other advances in machine-learning technology are moving automated picking systems from the lab to labor-strapped warehouses, as logistics operators look to automation to meet surging demand, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Helping hands. Businesses are using software-powered robotic arms to sort clothing and e-commerce parcels, pack bread and industrial supplies and, in some cases, pick electronics and consumer products from larger bins to prepare orders for delivery.
Get a grip. The technology from Nimble Robotics Inc., whose customers include Best Buy Co. and Victoria’s Secret & Co., uses a combination of cameras, grippers and AI to pluck items from bins that another automated system delivers to workstations usually staffed by people.
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Databricks Ventures, the new venture arm of data-lake startup Databricks Inc., made its investing debut this month and has “several more” unannounced deals in the pipeline, says the unit’s chief, Andrew Ferguson. Here are edited excerpts of his recent conversation with WSJ’s John McCormick.
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Andrew Ferguson, head of Databricks Ventures.
PHOTO: SCOTT R. KLINE
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How does a startup launch its own venture fund? “We’ve raised about $2.6 billion in capital in the last year or so. So even though we’re private, we’re very well capitalized and probably better capitalized than many companies that happen to already have gone public."
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How does Databricks Ventures work? “We’re not leading the financing rounds. The company has to be raising a Series A or Series B, or later. We’ll participate as a piece of that larger round.”
What kinds of startups? “It’s really any category where the product offering is complementary to Databricks.”
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ILLUSTRATION: SOL COTTI
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Businesses and researchers are dreaming up the next generation of methods to create and quantify personal data, such as smart thermometers and blood-glucose monitors, with the aim of leveraging data-collecting software to improve users’ health and happiness, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Under observation. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created a wall-mounted, laptop-size box for the home that uses machine learning to analyze electromagnetic waves around residents to track breathing, heart rate, movement, gait, time in bed and the length and quality of sleep.
Natural wonder. NatureDose, an app that tracks people’s time indoors and outdoors as they go about their daily routines, uses advanced mapping systems to determine a person’s proximity to trees, lakes and other natural elements, with resulting data being clinically tested to determine how time in nature impacts anxiety and depression.
Thirst for knowledge. The PÜL SmartCap, a mobile-connected water-bottle cap, recently hit the market promising to help consumers set goals and track their level of hydration,which has been shown to benefit brain function, heart health, digestion and other bodily functions.
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2.5 million
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The approximate number of interconnected smart thermometers in the U.S. linked in a cross-country health network developed by San Francisco-based startup Kinsa.
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China’s leaders have been trying to gain more control over tech firms’ data. The Alibaba headquarters in Hangzhou, China.
PHOTO: QILAI SHEN/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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China is luring record levels of investment into the country’s technology sector, even as it clamps down on consumer-technology firms like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and ride-hailing company Didi Global Inc., with the bulk of the money headed into areas favored by Communist Party priorities, such as semiconductors and AI, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Bigger budgets. Venture-capital investors put $129 billion into more than 5,300 startups in China in 2021, higher than the market’s last record of around $115 billion for 2018, according to data from investment database Preqin, which has tracked China venture-capital deals since 2000.
Five-year plan. China, which views technology development as a matter of national security, is aiming to speed up development of technologies that promise to reduce its reliance on foreign providers, including smart chips, artificial intelligence and quantum computing.
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Big Tech Faces Tougher Rules
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New laws under consideration in Europe, Asia and the U.S. could put sharp limits on how large technology firms use AI, while regulators globally are advancing dozens of investigations related to competition and privacy that could limit data sources for algorithms, The Wall Street Journal reports.
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Google offices in New York.
PHOTO: DESIREE RIOS FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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‘A new level’. Sinead McSweeney, Twitter Inc.’s global vice president for public policy says there “definitely a sense of there being a new momentum,” noting that the company recently implemented new legislative requirements in at least six countries: “It’s on a whole new level.”
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About face. Facebook announced in November that it would shut down its facial-recognition system in part because of potential regulations.
Too many cookies. Alphabet Inc.’s Google agreed to work closely with the Competition and Markets Authority on its plan to remove cookies, which track online activity and other user data, from its Chrome browser.
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“It’s a challenging exercise because, in many cases, the compliance times are short, and we actually have to start to prepare now for rules before the ink is dried.”
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— Kent Walker, Google’s senior vice president of global affairs, on an upswing in regulations governing the use of data, AI and other capabilities.
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Janet Leigh in Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho.’
PHOTO: BETTMANN ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
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In “Emotional,” Leonard Mlodinow, a physicist and author, offers a crash course in the field of emotional intelligence and how it affects the brain, offering insight into how machines may be programmed to think like humans, Matthew Hutson writes in The Wall Street Journal.
Mixed emotions. Sadness signals to the brain that something is wrong, and puts us in an analytical frame of mind geared to solving problems, while happiness expands our thinking and boosts creativity, Mr. Mlodinow says.
Running scared. Elsewhere in the book, he notes that AI-powered apps have been programmed to replay mistakes, which might be considered a form of regret; to explore their environments, a form of curiosity; and to eschew behavior associated with danger, a form of fear.
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The new Lakehouse for Retail platform from Databricks includes features aimed at tackling retail-specific problems such as forecasting.
PHOTO: DATABRICKS INC.
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Databricks launches retail data tool. Data analytics company Databricks Inc. launched a data-lake platform that helps retailers draw faster insights from data and help tackle challenges with inventory management, demand forecasting and recommendation modeling. the company said. (The Wall Street Journal)
Group seeks to boost healthcare AI. Led by Microsoft Corp., a coalition of businesses, healthcare providers, and education and research organizations are joining together in a bid to accelerate the adoption of AI in healthcare from diagnosing and treating disease to addressing disparities in care, according to Microsoft. (MedCityNews)
NFL tackles helmet impact. Kippei Matsuda, a data analyst from Osaka, Japan, took the top prize of $50,000 in a recent competition by the National Football League and Amazon.com Inc.’s Amazon Web Service to develop computer-vision models that detect the force of helmet impacts from game footage. (NFL.com)
Predicting viruses before they spread. Georgetown University and a global team of researchers are using AI to predict which viruses could infect humans, the animals that host them and where they might emerge next. (ScienceDaily)
Human-like bots more trusted. A study by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers says smart speakers like Amazon’s Alexa are more trusted by users when they respond to social cues in human-like ways, such as moving to look at the person who is speaking. (MIT News)
LSU joins flood-prediction project. Louisiana State University is joining researchers at University of Texas, Austin, the University of Notre Dame and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in testing the use of AI and machine learning to better predict coastal flooding, one of three projects funded by the Department of Energy’s Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research. (The Advocate)
Robotic study buddy. A seven-year-old German student, who is unable to attend classes in person, is using an avatar robot seated at his desk to interact with teachers and classmates, sending a blinking signal when he has a question or wants to contribute to a class discussion. (Reuters)
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Microsoft Corp. agreed to buy Activision Blizzard Inc. in an all-cash deal valued at $68.7 billion, using its largest acquisition by far to grab a videogame heavyweight that has been roiled by claims of workplace misconduct. (The Wall Street Journal)
The chief executives of major passenger and cargo airlines said there could be significant flight disruptions when new U.S. 5G service goes live this week, unless implementation of the wireless service within two miles of major airport runways is delayed. (The Wall Street Journal)
Activision Blizzard Inc. has fired or pushed out more than three dozen employees and disciplined about 40 others since July as part of efforts to address allegations of sexual harassment and other misconduct at the videogame giant, according to people familiar with the situation. (The Wall Street Journal)
Amazon.com Inc. said customers can continue to make purchases with Visa Inc. U.K. credit cards, stepping back from a threat to block such transactions because of the card network’s high fees. (The Wall Street Journal)
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