🍊 The Juice: A Data-Driven Economy
By: Michael Stewart
Tags: The Juice, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Synthetic Data, Computer Vision

Zumo Labs presents The Juice, a weekly newsletter focused on computer vision problems and sometimes just regular problems. Get it while it’s fresh.

Week of December 14–18, 2020

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As this incredibly unusual year draws to a close, one thing that remains the same is our human penchant for prediction. What’s coming in 2021 and beyond? We have our own take on that: Hugo takes you through the computer vision trends and breakthroughs of the 2010s, and then looks into the crystal ball to see what we can expect as we enter the 2020s. (Hint: It involves data.) Read the full piece on our blog.

What tech trends do you think will define the year 2021? Tweet us @ZumoLabs.

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#TisTheSeasonForRegulation

It’s been a busy week for regulators in the US and across the pond. The FTC ordered nine tech giants (Amazon, Discord, Reddit, Facebook, Snap, Twitter, WhatsApp, YouTube, and TikTok’s parent company ByteDance) to turn over the deets on what they are doing with consumer data. They want to understand not only how these companies “collect, use, track, estimate, or derive” personal data, but also how they apply algorithms and analytics to this data. Meanwhile in Europe, the European Commission has put forth The Digital Services Act, in what may well be the most comprehensive attempt at tech regulation so far.

FTC Issues Orders, via FTC, & The Digital Services Act, via the EU Commission.

#IoT

Computer visions algorithms have a reputation for being power hungry. But earlier this month a team from MIT demonstrated it is possible to pare down those algorithms and make them far more energy efficient. Here’s their paper on “the efficient neural architecture (TinyNAS) and the lightweight inference engine (TinyEngine)” they designed. This means in the near future it may be possible to run one of these optimized models on a battery, going months between recharges — opening up exciting new possibilities for the technology. Neat!

AI Algorithms Are Slimming Down to Fit in Your Fridge, via Wired.

#AboutFace

Earlier this month, Massachusetts legislators voted to pass a sweeping police reform bill that included a ban on the use of facial recognition by law enforcement. However, the bill didn’t pass by a veto-proof majority — and vetoing it is exactly what Governor Charlie Baker intends to do unless his concerns are addressed. One of his sticking points? He believes that facial recognition technology has demonstrable value to police, which puts him at odds with the ACLU of Massachusetts who consider it a grave risk to anonymity and privacy.

Massachusetts governor won’t sign police reform bill with facial recognition ban, via TechCrunch.

#BigDog

Boston Dynamics, the company that produces the robot most likely to hunt you down on foot one day, has been sold again — this time to Hyundai Motor Group. Hyundai acquired an 80% stake in the company, which got its start at MIT before spinning off, from Softbank which will retain the other 20%. We’re personally hoping Hyundai uses the tech to advance production of their incredible walking car concept.

Boston Dynamics sells to Hyundai Motor Group in $1.1 billion deal, via Ars Technica.

#Inventorama

Turns out that global patent filings for “fourth industrial revolution” technologies, including smart connected objects, Internet of Things, Big Data, 5G, and AI, grew at an average annual rate of almost 20% in the last five years according to a recent report from the European Patent Office (EPO). That’s nearly five times faster than the average of all technology fields. António Campinos, EPO President, said, “What we are seeing is not just an acceleration of the development of information and communications technology — it is a major shift towards a fully data-driven economy.”

Innovation in smart connected objects accelerating fast worldwide, via EPO.

#Fulllove<AI>chemist

Japan’s birthrate has plummeted precipitously over the past 20 years, and that’s the sort of thing that can cause issues for a nation with an aging population. In order to turn things around, the country is doubling down on their long history of matchmaking, planning to spend ¥2 billion ($19 million) over the next fiscal year to help its prefectures implement AI matchmaking systems. Here’s hoping the robots can help romance bloom.

We have a match! Japan taps AI to boost birth rate slump, via JapanTimes.

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📄 Paper of the Week

A Comprehensive Study of Deep Video Action Recognition

A great summary paper from the folks at AWS. Video recognition has made great strides in the last decade, but there are still many challenges that need to be addressed such as modeling long range temporal information in videos and high computation costs. If you are a visual learner be sure to check out Figures 2, 3, and 6.

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