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"Google Assistant actions can now continuously listen for specific words | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/17/google-assistant-amp-continuous-match-mode-media-api-duplex-actions-builder"

"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 Assistant actions can now continuously listen for specific words 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. Google today detailed new tools for partners developing on Google Assistant, its voice platform used by over 500 million people monthly in 30 languages across 90 countries. Actions Builder, a web-based integrated development environment (IDE), provides a graphical interface to show conversation flows and support debugging and training data orchestration. Continuous Match Mode allows Google Assistant to respond immediately to a user’s speech by recognizing specified words and phrases. And AMP-compliant content on smart displays like Nest Hub Max speeds up browsing via the web. Google also revealed that Duplex, its AI chat agent that can arrange appointments over the phone, has been used to update over half a million business listings in Google Search and Google Maps to date. Back in March, CEO Sundar Pichai said Google would use Duplex “where possible” to contact restaurants and businesses so it can accurately reflect hours, pick-up, and delivery information during the pandemic. The company subsequently expanded Duplex in a limited capacity to the U.K., Australia, Canada, and Spain , adding support for the Spanish language in the last instance. “What’s at the heart of [the Assistant’s] growth is the simple insight that people want a more natural way to get what they need,” Google Assistant director of product management Payam Shodjai wrote in a blog post. “That is why we have invested heavily in making sure Google Assistant works seamlessly across devices and services and offers quick and accurate help. Over the last few months, we have seen people’s needs shifting, and this is reflected in how Google Assistant is being used and the role that it can play to help navigate these changes.” Media, Continuous Match Mode, and AMP With Home Storage and Continuous Match Mode, Google aims to spur the development of more contextually aware apps for Google Assistant. Home Storage provides a database for devices connected to a home graph — for example, a wireless network — that allows developers to save progress for individual users, like a score in a puzzle game. As for Continuous Match Mode, which will roll out over the next few months, it lets Assistant recognize specific words or sets of words that developers define. 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: An illustration of Google Assistant’s Home Storage capability. A bit more on Continuous Match Mode: Before Google Assistant begins listening for responses, it will announce the mic will remain enabled so users don’t have to employ additional prompts. According to a Google spokesperson, recording can continue for a maximum of 180 seconds — developers set the duration based on their requirements — but users can exit the mode by saying “cancel,” “exit,” “quit,” “stop” or “pause.” Perhaps more importantly, Continuous Match Mode respects account-level privacy settings and doesn’t treat voice data any differently. On the media front, Google Assistant’s updated Media APIs support longer-form sessions and enable users to resume playback of content across devices. (For example, you’re able to start video, music, and podcasts from a specific moment or pick up where you left off during a previous session.) And later this summer, Google Assistant-powered smart displays will gain support for the AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) framework, beginning with news articles from specific partners before expanding to other web content categories. Above: The updated Google Assistant Media APIs in action. AMP is an open source framework designed to speed up mobile web pages — Google asserts it can cut load times to less than one second by balancing the likelihood of a user clicking a result with device and network constraints. Hundreds of thousands of web domains across billions of pages use it (including VentureBeat), and it is Shodjai’s belief it will enable new, faster-loading smart display experiences via the web. “[We] want to bring the depth of great web content together with the simple and robust AMP,” he wrote. Actions Builder and Actions SDK Actions Builder is intended to eliminate the need for developers to hop between the Actions Console and Dialogflow, Google’s natural language understanding (NLU) platform, to build voice apps (which Google calls “actions”) for Google Assistant. As alluded to earlier, it allows users to manage NLU training data and provides advanced debugging tools, with native Actions Console integration that facilitates the building, testing, launching, and analysis of actions in one place. Complementing Actions Builder is an updated Actions SDK that delivers file-based representations of actions and the ability to use a local IDE. Now, developers can author NLU and conversation schemas locally and bulk import or export training data to improve conversation quality, or use a command-line interface to build and manage actions with existing source control and continuous integration tools. Above: Google’s new Actions Builder. Both Actions Builder and the Actions SDK benefit from a new conversation model and improvements to the Google Assistant runtime engine. For instance, intents and scenes let developers define training data and behavior for specific conversational contexts, with scenes serving as building blocks to delineate active intents, error handling, prompt-based responses, and more. Scenes also separate conversational flow definitions from fulfillment logic so they remain reusable across conversations, with transitions indicating when one conversational context switches to another. On the subject of the runtime engine, Google says it now provides faster responses and a smoother overall experience. It is also “smarter” insofar as Actions understand users better with the same amount of training data. “[It is now] easier to design and build conversations and users will get faster and more accurate responses. We’re very excited about this suite of products which replaces Dialogflow as the preferred way to develop conversational actions on Google Assistant,” Shodjai 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. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Amazon launches Alexa Conversations in beta, lets developers deep-link skills to mobile apps | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/07/22/amazon-launches-alexa-conversations-in-beta-lets-developers-deep-link-skills-to-mobile-apps"

"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 launches Alexa Conversations in beta, lets developers deep-link skills to mobile apps 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. Today during Alexa Live, a virtual event for Alexa vendors and developer partners, Amazon unveiled tools and resources designed to enable new Alexa voice app experiences. Among others, the company rolled out deep neural networks aimed at making Alexa natural language understanding more accurate for custom apps, as well as an API that allows the use of web technologies to build gaming apps for select Alexa devices. Amazon also launched Alexa Conversations in beta, a deep learning-based way to help developers create more natural-feeling apps with fewer lines of code. And it debuted a new service in preview — Alexa for Apps — that lets Alexa apps trigger actions like searches within smartphone apps. The reveals come as the pandemic supercharges voice app usage, which was already on an upswing. According to a study by NPR and Edison Research, the percentage of voice-enabled device owners who use commands at least once a day rose between the beginning of 2020 and the start of April. Just over a third of smart speaker owners say they listen to more music, entertainment, and news from their devices than they did before, and owners report requesting an average of 10.8 tasks per week from their assistant this year compared with 9.4 different tasks in 2019. Amazon says the deep neural networks for natural language understanding improve intent and slot value recognition accuracy by 15% on average. Intents represent actions that fulfill users’ requests, and they specify names and utterances a user would say to invoke the intent. Slot values are intent arguments like dates, phrases, and lists of items. “This essentially changes the modeling technology used by Alexa apps behind the scenes,” Nedim Fresko, vice president of Alexa devices, told VentureBeat in a phone interview. “We’re expanding it to cover more of the apps … that are out there.” The use of deep neural networks — which can currently generalize from phrases like “buy me an apple” to “order an orange for me” — will expand to 400 eligible skills in the U.S., Great Britain, India, and Germany by later this year, according to Amazon. VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Thanks to the new NFI Toolkit (in preview), developers can choose to provide Alexa with additional signals about requests their apps can handle. For example, they can provide alternate launch phrases customers might use to launch the app and intents that Alexa can consider when routing name-free requests, and then see the paths customers use to invoke the app from a dashboard. Fresko says early adopters have seen a 15% increase in usage. Alexa Conversations Alexa Conversations , which was announced last June in developer preview at Amazon’s re:MARS conference, shrinks the lines of code necessary to create voice apps from 5,500 down to about 1,700. Leveraging AI to better understand intents and utterances so that developers don’t have to define them, Amazon also says Conversations reduces Alexa interactions that might have taken 40 exchanges to a dozen or so. Conversations’ dialog manager is powered by two innovations, according to Amazon: a dialogue simulator and a “conversations-first” modeling architecture. The dialog simulator generalizes a small number of sample dialogues provided by a developer into tens of thousands of annotated dialogues, while the modeling architecture leverages the generated dialogues to train deep-learning-based models to support dialogues beyond the simple paths provided by the sample dialogues. Developers supply things like API access and entities the API has access to, in effect describing the app’s functionality. Once given these and a few example exchanges, the Conversations dialog manager can extrapolate the possible dialog turns. Conversations’ first use case, demoed last year, seamlessly strung Alexa apps together to let people buy movie tickets, summon rides, and book dinner reservations. (OpenTable, Uber, and Atom Tickets were among Conversations’ early adopters.) In light of the pandemic, that scenario seems less useful. But Fresko said it merely illustrates how Conversations can combine elements from multiple apps without much effort on developers’ parts; companies like iRobot and Philosophical Creations (which publishes the Big Sky app ) are already using it. “Dialogues are really difficult to emulate with brute force techniques. Usually, developers resort to dialog trees and flow charts to anticipate every turn the conversation can take, and the complexity can get blown out of proportion,” Fresko said. “With Conversations, you don’t have build context manually — we’ll just do it for you.” ‘Immersive’ audio and visuals Alexa Presentation Language (APL) , a toolset designed to make it easier for developers to create visual Alexa apps, is expanding to sound with APL for Audio. APL for Audio includes new mixing capabilities that support the creation of audio and soundscapes in Alexa apps; audio can be mixed with Alexa speech, multiple voices can be mixed together with sound effects, or visuals can be synced with clips that dynamically respond to users. “This reflects the reality that Alexa has become useful not only in speakers but in a variety of devices,” Fresko said. “It’s a big improvement in the workflow for developers — particularly developers of ambiance or meditation apps, that sort of thing.” Joining APL for Audio is the web API for games, which makes available open standards like Canvas 2D, WebAudio, WebGL, JavaScript, and CSS to Alexa developers. On Echo Show and select Fire TV devices, developers can use the web API for games to create experiences that launch web apps, which display on-device to handle voice requests and react to local events like the microphone listening and muting. End users can interact with the web app through voice, touch, or remote controls (on Fire TV). On the go The new Skill Resumption feature, which launches this week in preview, allows developers to experiment with running apps in the background on Alexa devices. It keeps an app’s logic intact to let customers engage with it as needed for an extended period of time or resume with it where they left off. Fresko gave this example: A user tells the Uber app for Alexa to hail a car, then switches away from the Uber app to music, the weather report, and news. As the car comes nearer, the Uber app comes back to the surface to notify them. “Skill Resumption … lets apps inform users from the background proactively,” Fresko said. “Think meditation or workout apps that keep a timer going while the user is performing other tasks.” Skill Resumption dovetails with Alexa for Apps, which integrates iOS and Android apps’ content and functionality with Alexa. Through deep linking, developers can assign tasks like opening a mobile app’s home page, rendering search results, and other key features to Alexa app voice commands. A yellow pages-type app could take advantage of deep linking to pull up a restaurant’s information when a user asks Alexa about it, Fresko explained, while a camera app could tie an Alexa command to the shutter button. TikTok publisher ByteDance worked with Amazon to support the command “Alexa, ask TikTok to start my recording.” Using Quick Links for Alexa (in beta for U.S. English and U.S. Spanish), developers can further leverage deep linking to drive traffic to voice apps from websites and mobile apps. They’re able to deep-link to specific content in their apps using URL query string parameters and add attribution parameters to measure online ad campaign performance. “This makes it easier for customers to find skills, and for developers to promote their skill on a variety of media. We expect it’ll lead to new opportunities,” Fresko said. Also announced today: In select regions, customers can now purchase premium in-app content — like expansion packs, monthly subscriptions, and consumables — on Amazon.com and on the displays of Echo devices with screens. Previously, the only way to make those purchases was through voice. (Amazon remains tight-lipped about exactly how much consumers spend on Alexa skills, but by some estimates , it’s at least $2 billion per year.) 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. All rights reserved. "

"Babylon Health claims its AI accurately triages patients in 85% of cases | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/03/31/babylon-health-ai-triages-patients-85-of-cases"

"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 Babylon Health claims its AI accurately triages patients in 85% of cases 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. Researchers at Babylon Health , the well-funded U.K.-based startup that facilitates telemedical consultations between patients and health experts, claim they’ve developed an AI system capable of matching expert clinician decisions in 85% of cases. If it holds up to scrutiny, the system could help relieve the overloaded U.S. health care system, which is anticipated to face a shortfall of between 21,000 and 55,000 primary care doctors by 2023. Triaging in this context refers to the process of uncovering enough medical evidence to determine the appropriate point of care for a patient. Clinicians plan a sequence of questions in order to make a fast and accurate decision, inferring the causes of a condition and updating their plan with each new piece of information. The Babylon Health team sought an automated approach built on reinforcement learning, an AI training paradigm that spurs software agents to complete tasks via a system of rewards. They combined this with judgments from medical experts made over a data set of patient presentations that encapsulated roughly 597 elements of observable symptoms or risk factors. The researchers’ AI agent — a Deep Q network — learned an optimized policy based on 1,374 expert-crafted clinical vignettes. Each vignette was associated with an average of 3.36 expert triage decisions made by separate clinicians, and the validity of each vignette was independently reviewed by two clinicians. VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! At each step, the agent asks for more information or makes one of four triage decisions. And with each new episode, the training environment is configured with a new clinical vignette. Then the environment processes evidence and triage decisions for the vignette and returns a value. If the agent picks a triage action, the system receives a final reward. To validate this approach, the researchers evaluated the model on a test set of 126 previously unseen vignettes using three target metrics: appropriateness, safety, and the average number of questions asked (between 0 and 23). During training on 1,248 vignettes, those metrics were evaluated over a sliding window of 20 vignettes, and during testing they were evaluated over the whole test set. The team reports that the best-performing model achieved an appropriateness score of 85% and a safety score of 93%, and it asked an average of 13.34 questions. That’s on par with the human baseline (84% appropriateness, 93% safety, and all 23 questions). “By learning when best to stop asking questions, given a patient presentation, the [system] is able to produce an optimized policy [that] reaches the same performance as supervised methods while requiring less evidence. It improves upon clinician policies by combining information from several experts for each of the clinical presentations,” wrote the paper’s coauthors, who point out that the agent isn’t trained to ask specific questions and can be used in conjunction with any question-answering system. “This … approach can produce triage policies tailored to health care settings with specific triage needs.” Controversy It’s worth noting that Babylon Health, which is backed by the U.K.’s National Health Service (NHS), has flirted with controversy. Nearly three years ago, it tried and failed to gain a legal injunction to block publication of a report from the NHS care standards watchdog. In February, it publicly attacked a U.K. doctor who raised around 100 test results he considered concerning. And it recently received a reprimand from U.K. regulators for misleading advertising. The thoroughness of its studies has also been called into question. The Royal College of General Practitioners, the British Medical Association, Fraser and Wong, and the Royal College of Physicians issued statements questioning claims made in a 2018 paper published by Babylon researchers that asserted its AI could diagnose common diseases as well as human physicians. “[There is no evidence it] can perform better than doctors in any realistic situation, and there is a possibility that it might perform significantly worse,” wrote the coauthors of a 2018 paper published in the Lancet. “Symptom checkers bring additional challenges because of heterogeneity in their context of use and experience of patients.” In response to the criticism, Babylon said that “[s]ome media outlets may have misinterpreted what was claimed” but said it “[stood] by [its] original science and results.” It described the 2018 test as a “preliminary piece of work” that pitted the company’s AI against a “small sample of doctors,” and it referred to the study’s conclusion: “Further studies using larger, real-world cohorts will be required to demonstrate the relative performance of these systems to human doctors.” In this latest paper, Babylon disclosed that the chief investigator and most coinvestigators were paid employees. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Researchers examine the ethical implications of AI in surgical settings | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/07/31/researchers-examine-the-ethical-implications-of-ai-in-surgical-settings"

"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 examine the ethical implications of AI in surgical settings 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. A new whitepaper coauthored by researchers at the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence examines the ethics of AI in surgery , making the case that surgery and AI carry similar expectations but diverge with respect to ethical understanding. Surgeons are faced with moral and ethical dilemmas as a matter of course, the paper points out, whereas ethical frameworks in AI have arguably only begun to take shape. In surgery, AI applications are largely confined to machines performing tasks controlled entirely by surgeons. AI might also be used in a clinical decision support system, and in these circumstances, the burden of responsibility falls on the human designers of the machine or AI system, the coauthors argue. Privacy is a foremost ethical concern. AI learns to make predictions from large data sets — specifically patient data, in the case of surgical systems — and it’s often described as being at odds with privacy-preserving practices. The Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, a division of the U.K.’s National Health Service based in London, provided Alphabet’s DeepMind with data on 1.6 million patients without their consent. Separately, Google, whose health data-sharing partnership with Ascension became the subject of scrutiny last November, abandoned plans to publish scans of chest X-rays over concerns that they contained personally identifiable information. Laws at the state, local, and federal levels aim to make privacy a mandatory part of compliance management. Hundreds of bills that address privacy, cybersecurity, and data breaches are pending or have already been passed in 50 U.S. states, territories, and the District of Columbia. Arguably the most comprehensive of them all — the California Consumer Privacy Act — was signed into law roughly two years ago. That’s not to mention the national Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which requires companies to seek authorization before disclosing individual health information. And international frameworks like the EU’s General Privacy Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) aim to give consumers greater control over personal data collection and 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! But the whitepaper coauthors argue measures adopted to date are limited by jurisdictional interpretations and offer incomplete models of ethics. For instance, HIPAA focuses on health care data from patient records but doesn’t cover sources of data generated outside of covered entities, like life insurance companies or fitness band apps. Moreover, while the duty of patient autonomy alludes to a right to explanations of decisions made by AI, frameworks like GDPR only mandate a “right to be informed” and appear to lack language stating well-defined safeguards against AI decision making. Beyond this, the coauthors sound the alarm about the potential effects of bias on AI surgical systems. Training data bias, which concerns the quality and representativeness of data used to train an AI system, could dramatically affect a preoperative risk stratification prior to surgery. Underrepresentation of demographics might also cause inaccurate assessments, driving flawed decisions such as whether a patient is treated first or offered extensive ICU resources. And contextual bias, which occurs when an algorithm is employed outside the context of its training, could result in a system ignoring nontrivial caveats like whether a surgeon is right- or left-handed. Methods to mitigate this bias exist, including ensuring variance in the data set, applying sensitivity to overfitting on training data, and having humans-in-the-loop to examine new data as it’s deployed. The coauthors advocate the use of these measures and of transparency broadly to prevent patient autonomy from being undermined. “Already, an increasing reliance on automated decision-making tools has reduced the opportunity of meaningful dialogue between the healthcare provider and patient,” they wrote. “If machine learning is in its infancy, then the subfield tasked with making its inner workings explainable is so embryonic that even its terminology has yet to recognizably form. However, several fundamental properties of explainability have started to emerge … [that argue] machine learning should be simultaneous, decomposable, and algorithmically transparent.” Despite AI’s shortcomings, particularly in the context of surgery, the coauthors argue the harms AI can prevent outweigh the adoption cons. For example, in thyroidectomy, there’s risk of permanent hypoparathyroidism and recurrent nerve injury. It might take thousands of procedures with a new method to observe statistically significant changes, which an individual surgeon might never observe — at least not in a short time frame. However, a repository of AI-based analytics aggregating these thousands of cases from hundreds of sites would be able to discern and communicate those significant patterns. “The continued technological advancement in AI will sow rapid increases in the breadths and depths of their duties. Extrapolating from the progress curve, we can predict that machines will become more autonomous,” the coauthors wrote. “The rise in autonomy necessitates an increased focus on the ethical horizon that we need to scrutinize … Like ethical decision-making in current practice, machine learning will not be effective if it is merely designed carefully by committee — it requires exposure to the real 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. All rights reserved. "

"LinkedIn previews shared InMails, Instant Job Notifications, and other features coming summer 2019 | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/02/12/linkedin-previews-shared-inmails-instant-job-notifications-and-other-new-features-coming-summer-2019"

"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 LinkedIn previews shared InMails, Instant Job Notifications, and other features coming summer 2019 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. Mere hours after the beta launch of LinkedIn Live, an invite-only video broadcast service for conferences and events, LinkedIn took the wraps off a new product geared toward recruiters and job seekers. This morning, the Microsoft subsidiary previewed the Intelligent Hiring Experience , a dashboard that collates LinkedIn’s existing hiring suite — comprising LinkedIn Recruiter, LinkedIn Jobs, and Pipeline Builder — in a streamlined, built-from-the-ground-up interface. The new feature is scheduled to launch in late summer 2019 with over 15 product enhancements, several of which will roll out in the coming months. “[There are] simply more people on LinkedIn looking for jobs [than] there ever have been,” John Jersin, vice president of Talent Solutions and Careers at LinkedIn, told reporters during a dial-in conference on Monday. “This new platform will allow all of [our] products to learn from each other so that matches in each system get more intelligent as you use our various products. And the new interface that we built on this platform will make it seamless to move from one step in the hiring process and one product straightaway to another.” Among the highlights are Recommended Candidates, a feature that learns the hiring criteria for a given role and automatically surfaces relevant candidates in a dedicated tab. The suggestions improve over time, LinkedIn says, as recruiters engage — or choose not to engage — with would-be employees among LinkedIn’s more than 610 million members. VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! LinkedIn says its AI-driven search engine leverages three core datasets in ranking results: the kinds of things people post on their profiles or recruiters write in job descriptions; searches that candidates and would-be employers perform, along with people and job listings they click on; and inferred characteristics, like skills a person might not have listed on their profile but which they likely learned in a previous job. Combined, these produce predictions for best-fit jobs and job seekers. “[We’ll be able] to automatically generate a search for our customers based on the criteria that they define. [Job posts] will be able to produce a set of recommended matches based on a set of technology investments that we’ve made to help us learn in real time from what recruiters are doing on our platform, from who they’re interacting with,” Jersin explained. “[We’ve focused] a lot of the new recommendations — AI and machine learning are improving the match rate between job seekers and opportunities.” Also on tap with the Intelligent Hiring Experience is Shared InMails, which enable recruiting team members to view candidate correspondences and add notes, annotations, and coworker mentions. There is also a “bulk reject” feature that allows recruiters to send a single applicant (or a group of applicants, as the case may be) the disappointing news, along with a personalized message. Additionally, there’s a slide-in profile feature under the Recruiting tools tab that makes it easier to view candidate profiles and pin notes, and Instant Job Notifications, which send push notifications to qualified candidates who’ve indicated that they’re actively looking for good fits. “One of the top insights that we’ve heard from job seekers is that they want fresh jobs as soon as they’re posted. So we’re taking our job database updates into real time,” Jersin added. With Instant Job Notifications, posting a job “will send qualified candidates that match that job a real-time notification that they’ll be able to click [on] in the first minutes of that job being posted online, and start applying immediately.” Employers are likely to embrace tools that promise to reduce the headache of traditional recruitment. Bringing on a worker costs businesses about $4,129, according to a report published by the Society for Human Resource Management. And in sectors like health services and financial services, it takes on average between 44 and 50 working days to find a qualified candidate. “The overall thing that we’re doing much, much better and that we’re going to continue focusing on is improving the quality of the matches that we recommend or [that] show up in search results,” Jersin said, “and what this means for recruiters is that they will see more qualified candidates … showing up in search results. [W]hat it means for job seekers is they’ll spend less time applying to jobs that are not going to work out for them — jobs that either they’re not going to be qualified for or they’re not ending up interested in at some point in the process.” Today’s news follows the launch of LinkedIn’s new applicant tracking system, Talent Hub, and an updated Recruiter platform and skills insights in LinkedIn Learning. In early 2018, LinkedIn rolled out a feature that shows prospective job candidates what their commute time for a specific role would be before they apply, and a tool that enables job seekers to request referrals from someone they know at a company before applying to a role. 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. All rights reserved. "

"LinkedIn's AI automatically generates photo text descriptions | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/10/10/linkedins-ai-generates-photo-captions-automatically"

"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 LinkedIn’s AI automatically generates photo text descriptions Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn LinkedIn: Ask for a referral 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. Are today’s computer vision technologies robust enough to generate text descriptions for photos across a range of domains? That’s the question scientists at LinkedIn have been investigating over the past several years, solutions to which they detailed in a blog post this afternoon. One of their more promising efforts is a tool that adds suggested alternative text descriptions for images uploaded to LinkedIn automatically, which it achieves using Microsoft’s Cognitive Services platform and a unique LinkedIn-derived data set. “Currently, LinkedIn allows members to manually add alternative text description when uploading images via web interface, but not all members choose to take advantage of this feature,” wrote contributing authors Vipin Gupta, Ananth Sankar, and Jyotsna Thapliyal. “To uphold our vision, we must make rich media accessible for all of our members … [That’s why] we are exploring to help us improve content accessibility at LinkedIn.” There’s myriad challenges where the task of automatic caption creation is concerned, Gupta and colleagues point out, perhaps most obviously the subjective nature of the captions in question. The best require a breadth of expertise and knowledge of various objects and their attributes, along with time-based information that helps to more accurately identify depicted activities. Above: An example of an alternative caption on LinkedIn. To address these barriers, the team tapped Cognitive Services’ Analyze API to develop a feature that generates alternative text descriptions for photos ranked by confidence score. They then recruited human evaluators to score its performance by reconciling the scores — which were informed by alternative text descriptions, categories, and tags — with labels they themselves wrote. 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 Microsoft’s API recognized groups of people, objects like newspapers, and places like a subway pretty successfully, it initially struggled with LinkedIn media containing images with professional context like slides, projectors, exhibitions, conferences, seminars, posters, certificates, charts, and more. The development team solved this by evaluating the correctness of existing alternate text descriptions on LinkedIn, which helped to expose exploitable patterns specific to the quality of the image captions. Having isolated the patterns, the team developed a meta classifier that helps to filter out text descriptions that “could harm [LinkedIn] member[‘s] experiences,” in addition to an image description correction module that identifies and fixes incorrect descriptions containing words like “screenshot.” This improved automatic caption generation, they say, set the stage for meta classifier models created that take into account tags taxonomy, an associated dictionary, and additional text associated with LinkedIn feed posts. Above: LinkedIn’s proposed automatic photo caption generator. “[The] addition of rich media within the LinkedIn feed raises a question: is the feed fully inclusive for all LinkedIn members? For instance, can a member who has a vision disability still enjoy rich media on the feed? Can a member in an area with limited bandwidth, which could stop an image from fully loading, still have the complete feed experience?” wrote Gupta and colleagues. “LinkedIn’s AI teams [continue to build] image description models for rich media content specific to the LinkedIn platform to help improve overall image description accuracy.” LinkedIn is no stranger to AI, of course. Its Recommended Candidates feature learns the hiring criteria for a given role and automatically surfaces relevant candidates in a dedicated tab. And its AI-driven search engine leverages data such as the kinds of things people post on their profiles and searches that candidates perform to produce predictions for best-fit jobs and job seekers. Indeed, LinkedIn in 2016 changed its feed from reverse-chronological order to something more personalized, making machine-learning based predictions about what users would like and share. 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. All rights reserved. "

"LinkedIn is using AI to spot and remove inappropriate user accounts | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/01/16/linkedin-is-using-ai-to-spot-and-remove-inappropriate-user-accounts"

"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 LinkedIn is using AI to spot and remove inappropriate user accounts Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn LinkedIn signage in the lobby of its San Francisco office. 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. Social networks including Facebook , Twitter , and Pinterest tap AI and machine learning systems to detect and remove abusive content, as does LinkedIn. The Microsoft-owned platform — which has over 660 million users, 303 million of whom are active monthly — today detailed its approach to handling profiles containing inappropriate content, which ranges from profanity to advertisements for illegal services. As software engineer Daniel Gorham explained in a blog post, LinkedIn initially relied on a block list — a set of human-curated words and phrases that ran afoul of its Terms of Service and Community Guidelines — to identify and remove potentially fraudulent accounts. However, maintaining it required a significant amount of engineering effort, and the list tended to handle context rather poorly. (For instance, while the word “escort” was sometimes associated with prostitution, it was also used in contexts like a “security escort” or “medical escort.”) This motivated LinkedIn to adopt a machine learning approach involving a convolutional neural network — a class of algorithm commonly applied to imagery analysis — trained on public member profile content. The content in question contained accounts labeled as either “inappropriate” or “appropriate,” where the former comprised accounts removed due to inappropriate content as spotted using the block list and a manual review. Gorham notes that only a “very small” portion of accounts have ever been restricted in this way, which necessitated downsampling from the entire LinkedIn member base to obtain the “appropriate” labeled accounts and prevent algorithmic bias. To further tamp down on bias, LinkedIn identified problematic words responsible for high levels of false positives and sampled appropriate accounts from the member base containing these words. The accounts were then manually labeled and added to the training set, after which the model was trained and deployed in production. VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Gorham says the abusive account detector scores new accounts daily, and that it was run on the existing member base to identify old accounts containing inappropriate content. Going forward, LinkedIn intends to use Microsoft translation services to ensure consistent performance across all languages, and to refine and expand the training set to increase the scope of content it is able to identify with the model. “Detecting and preventing abuse on LinkedIn is an ongoing effort requiring extensive collaboration between multiple teams,” wrote Gorham. “Finding and removing profiles with inappropriate content in an effective, scalable manner is one way we’re constantly working to provide a safe and professional platform.” LinkedIn’s uses of AI extend beyond abusive content detection. In October 2019, it pulled back the curtains on a model that automatically generates text descriptions for images uploaded to LinkedIn, achieved using Microsoft’s Cognitive Services platform and a unique LinkedIn-derived data set. Separately, its Recommended Candidates feature learns the hiring criteria for a given role and automatically surfaces relevant candidates in a dedicated tab. And its AI-driven search engine leverages data such as the kinds of things people post on their profiles and the searches that candidates perform to produce predictions for best-fit jobs and job seekers. 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. All rights reserved. "

"IBM researchers propose 'factsheets' for AI transparency | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2018/08/22/ibm-ai-transparency-factsheets"

"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 IBM researchers propose ‘factsheets’ for AI transparency 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. We’re at a pivotal moment in the path to mass adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). Google subsidiary DeepMind is leveraging AI to determine how to refer optometry patients. Haven Life is using AI to extend life insurance policies to people who wouldn’t traditionally be eligible, such as people with chronic illnesses and non-U.S. citizens. And Google self-driving car spinoff Waymo is tapping it to provide mobility to elderly and disabled people. But despite the good AI is clearly capable of doing, doubts abound over its safety, transparency, and bias. IBM thinks part of the problem is a lack of standard practices. There’s no consistent, agreed-upon way AI services should be “created, tested, trained, deployed, and evaluated,” Aleksandra Mojsilovic, head of AI foundations at IBM Research and codirector of the AI Science for Social Good program, today said in a blog post. Just as unclear is how those systems should operate, and how they should (or shouldn’t) be used. To clear up the ambiguity surrounding AI, Mojsilovic and colleagues propose voluntary factsheets — formally called “Supplier’s Declaration of Conformity” (DoC) — that would be completed and published by companies who develop and provide AI, with the goal of “increas[ing] the transparency” of their services and “engender[ing] trust” in them. VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Mojsilovic thinks that such factsheets could give a competitive advantage to companies in the marketplace, similar to how appliance companies get products Energy Star-rated for power efficiency. “Like nutrition labels for foods or information sheets for appliances, factsheets for AI services would provide information about the product’s important characteristics,” Mojsilovic wrote. “The issue of trust in AI is top of mind for IBM and many other technology developers and providers. AI-powered systems hold enormous potential to transform the way we live and work but also exhibit some vulnerabilities, such as exposure to bias, lack of explainability, and susceptibility to adversarial attacks. These issues must be addressed in order for AI services to be trusted.” Several core pillars form the basis for trust in AI systems, Mojsilovic explained: fairness, robustness, and explainability. Impartial AI systems can be credibly believed not to contain biased algorithms or datasets, or to contribute to the unfair treatment of certain groups. Robust AI systems are presumed safe from adversarial attacks and manipulation. And explainable AI systems aren’t a “black box” — their decisions are understandable by both researchers and developers. “Just like a physical structure, trust can’t be built on one pillar alone. If an AI system is fair but can’t resist attack, it won’t be trusted. If it’s secure but we can’t understand its output, it won’t be trusted. To build AI systems that are truly trusted, we need to strengthen all the pillars together. Our comprehensive research and product strategy is designed to do just that, advancing on all fronts to lift the mantle of trust into place.” The fourth pillar — lineage — concerns AI systems’ history. Documentation should shed light on algorithms’ “development, deployment, and maintenance” so that they can be audited throughout their lifecycle, Mojsilovic said. That’s where the factsheets come in — they would answer questions ranging from system operation and training data to underlying algorithms, test setups and results, performance benchmarks, fairness and robustness checks, intended uses, maintenance, and retraining. More granular topics might include governance strategies used to track the AI service’s data workflow, the methodologies used in testing, and bias mitigations performed on the dataset. For natural language processing algorithms specifically, the researchers propose “data statements” that would show how an algorithm might be generalized, how it might be deployed, and what biases it might contain. Natural language processing systems aren’t as fraught with controversy as, say, facial recognition, but they’ve come under fire for their susceptibility to bias. A recent study commissioned by the Washington Post found that smart speakers made by Google and Amazon were 30 percent less likely to understand non-American accents than those of native-born users. Mojsilovic and the team at IBM certainly have their work cut out for them. Well-publicized incidents like racially biased recidivism algorithms, highly inaccurate facial detection systems, and crash-prone autonomous cars haven’t done AI any favors. A survey by InsideSales.com in September found that 41.5 percent of respondents “couldn’t cite a single example of AI that they trust.” IBM, Microsoft, Accenture, Facebook, and others are actively working on automated tools that detect and minimize bias, and companies like Speechmatics and Nuance have developed solutions specifically aimed at minimizing the so-called “accent gap” — the tendency of voice recognition models to skew toward speakers from certain regions. But in Mojsilovic’s view, documents detailing the ins and outs of systems would go a long way to restoring the public’s faith in AI. “Fairness, safety, reliability, explainability, robustness, accountability — we all agree that they are critical. Yet, to achieve trust in AI, making progress on these issues will not be enough; it must be accompanied with the ability to measure and communicate the performance levels of a system on each of these dimensions,” she wrote. “Understanding and evaluating AI systems is an issue of utmost importance for the AI community, an issue we believe the industry, academia, and AI practitioners should be working on together.” 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. All rights reserved. "

"RAIL debuts license agreements for the responsible use of AI | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/02/11/rail-debuts-license-agreements-for-the-responsible-use-of-ai"

"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 RAIL debuts license agreements for the responsible use of 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. Researchers from Google, Microsoft, and IBM have joined together to create Responsible AI Licenses ( RAIL ). With its first two offerings available in the past two weeks, RAIL now offers end user license agreements and source code license agreements that software providers, researchers, and developers can include with their software to prevent harmful use of their technology. RAIL may create additional license agreements based on input from AI researchers and the broader AI community. “We recognized the risks our work can sometimes bring to the world; that led us to think about potential ways of doing this,” said cofounder Danish Contractor, who works at IBM Research in New Delhi during a phone interview with VentureBeat. “Our goal is to empower developers to be able to restrict the use of their AI technology and to prevent harmful and irresponsible use.” “The licenses in some sense could be a more grounded way of enforcing responsible use than just simply ethical guidelines which in the real legal world, for example, are just fruitless. They’re just a promise of something that we all aspire to be and do but there’s no real way of enforcing that,” he 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! Potential violations of a RAIL agreement, according to its creators, include if a fitness tracking app was used by an insurance provider to increase customer premiums or a camera filter that’s converted into deepfakes to deceive people and cause societal discord. A potential complication is the fact that AI systems can often be used for dual purposes : The same facial recognition software used to identify missing kids can also be trained to track down political dissidents. Over time, RAIL plans to become a “participatory agent of change” that engages with developers, technology providers, companies, researchers, and other members of the community, including those who violate clauses for responsible use, Contractor said. The initial target audience for RAIL are AI researchers who release papers and source code at popular machine learning conferences like NeurIPS (formerly NIPS), the recently held Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), or International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML). RAIL team members regularly attend such conferences as part of their work. AI research paper publication is up nearly 13 percent in the past five years, according to business analytics company Elsevier. Julia Haines, a senior user experience researcher at Google in San Francisco, said she sees RAIL as an “ever-evolving entity rooted in engagement with the broader community” both to develop licenses and to stay informed about emerging irresponsible use cases of AI. “The notion is not just to engage the tech community, but to engage domain experts in the areas in which AI is increasingly being used to understand what their concerns about malicious or negligent misuse are and to just try to stay on the cusp of the curve there with the broader community,” she said. RAIL’s cofounders met while participating in the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Future of Computing Academy, a group cochaired by Northwestern University assistant professor Brent Hecht. Growing up, Hecht said, open source software was seen as an unquestionable good, but in recent years many have come to understand there are ways in which open can cause harm. “We all expect this to be controversial,” Hecht said “and one of the big value adds here, in addition to licenses, is the discussion that we hope to start.” RAIL’s initial licenses are the result of conversations between the group and patent lawyer Christopher Hines over the better part of the past year. Hines is author of both license agreements. “I think it’s fair to say that there will likely be several legal challenges. I mean, at the end of the day, what we’re trying to do is control behavior using the legal mechanism of intellectual property rights and contract law,” Hines said. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Google brings cross-platform AI pipeline framework MediaPipe to the web | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/01/28/google-brings-cross-platform-ai-pipeline-framework-mediapipe-to-the-web"

"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 brings cross-platform AI pipeline framework MediaPipe to the web 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. Roughly a year ago, Google open-sourced MediaPipe , a framework for building cross-platform AI pipelines consisting of fast inference and media processing (like video decoding). Basically, it’s a quick and dirty way to perform object detection, face detection, hand tracking, multi-hand tracking, hair segmentation, and other such tasks in a modular fashion, with popular machine learning frameworks like Google’s own TensorFlow and TensorFlow Lite. MediaPipe could previously be deployed to desktop, mobile devices running Android and iOS, and edge devices like Google’s Coral hardware family, but it’s increasingly making its way to the web courtesy WebAssembly, a portable binary code format for executable programs, and XNNPack ML Inference Library, an optimized collection of floating-point AI inference operators. On the graphics and rendering side, MediaPipe now automatically taps directly into WebGL, a JavaScript API for rendering interactive 2D and 3D graphics within any compatible web browser, such that the browser creates a virtual machine at runtime that executes instructions very quickly. An API facilitates communications between JavaScript and C++, allowing users to change and interact with MediaPipe graphs directly using JavaScript. And all the requisite demo assets, including AI models and auxiliary text and data files, are packaged as individual binary data packages to be loaded at runtime. “Since everything runs directly in the browser, video never leaves the user’s computer and each iteration can be immediately tested on a live webcam stream (and soon, arbitrary video),” explained MediaPipe team members Michael Hays and Tyler Mullen in a blog post. VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Google leveraged the above-listed components to integrate preview functionality into a web-based visualizer — a sort of workspace for iterating over MediaPipe flow designs. The visualizer, which is hosted at viz.mediapipe.dev, enables developers to inspect MediaPipe graphs (frameworks for building machine learning pipelines) by pasting a graph code into the editor tab or uploading a file to the visualizer. Users can pan around and zoom into the graphical representation using a mouse and scroll wheel, and the visualization reacts to changes made within the editor in real time. Hays and Mullen note that currently, web-based MediaPipe support is limited to the demo graphs supplied by Google. Developers must edit one of the template graphs — they can’t provide their own from scratch or add or alter assets. TensorFlow Lite inference isn’t supported, and the graph’s computations must be run on a single processor thread. A lack of compute shaders — routines compiled for high-throughput accelerators — available for the web is to blame for this last limitation, which Hays, Mullen, and team attempted to work around by using graphic cards for image operations where possible and the lightest-weight possible versions of all AI models. They plan to “continue to build upon this new platform” and to provide developers with “much more control” over time. 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. All rights reserved. "

"The quick iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro review: Upgrades you can safely skip | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/09/23/the-quick-iphone-11-and-iphone-11-pro-review-upgrades-you-can-safely-skip"

"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 Review The quick iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro review: Upgrades you can safely skip 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. Choosing a new iPhone used to be easy. Apple premiered big changes with a new model number (say, “iPhone 4”) and made subtle changes next year in an “S”-branded sequel. Each year’s iPhone was either a tick or a tock, and once you bought in, you could upgrade every two years with either the redesign or the refinement. Now iPhones are on a tick-tock-tock cadence, either matching or causing user shifts toward longer, three-year upgrade cycles. There were so many similarities between the iPhone 6, 6S, and 7 that it’s hard to remember how they changed, even though each was “the best iPhone ever” when it came out. Having spoken with many users of older iPhones, my sense is that people are so satisfied with their devices that they’ll only upgrade when their phones stop working properly or there’s some huge new feature. If that’s the bar by which you’re measuring your upgrade needs, this is a good year to hold off if you can. Apple has introduced the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max, but once you look past their slightly different back glass, they’re decidedly S-series updates — really the iPhone XRS, iPhone XSS, and iPhone XSS Max, on the tick-tock-tock system. Minus their camera changes, which are admittedly non-trivial, they’d have barely any reason to exist as new models. Reliable reports suggest that next year’s iPhones will be dramatically overhauled with improved screens, much faster cellular performance, and even better camera hardware. Need something to tide you over? Last year’s iPhones are cheaper and less different from this year’s than ever before. So who should consider the iPhone 11 family? That’s a good question, and one I’ll answer below. Apple’s name game iPhone names became confusing over the last few years, thanks in part to the iPhone X (“10”) and the subsequent releases of the upgraded iPhone XS and semi-downgraded iPhone XR, which normally would have been called the iPhone 9. Now Apple has cleaned up the names: The iPhone XR’s sequel is the iPhone 11, while the iPhone XS and XS Max sequels are the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max. Following recent Apple precedent, the Pro name doesn’t mean anything except “more stuff” and “more expensive.” The iPhone 11 Pro doesn’t have a ProMotion screen, professional-grade cameras, or better processor performance. There’s also no linear progression from non-Pro to Pro screen sizes or body sizes, an issue Apple is expected to address next year. Instead, the 6.1-inch-screened iPhone 11 has two rear cameras, while the two Pro models are respectively smaller (5.8-inch) and larger (6.5-inch) in size, each with three rear cameras. But unlike last year, where the entry-level iPhone XR oddly had the longest battery life of the three models, this year’s iPhones step up in battery life as you pay more. Obscuring battery life for fun and profit After years of providing largely accurate run time estimates for iPhones, Apple now deliberately obscures each model’s battery life. For the last two years, it has said only that new models outperform their predecessors by a certain number of hours, so only by working backwards from older models can you discern the following new estimates of maximum battery life: iPhone 11: 15.5-16.5 hours for internet use or video playback. iPhone 11 Pro: 19.5 hours of internet or video use. iPhone 11 Pro Max: 21.5 hours of internet or video use. While Apple isn’t doing consumers any favors by making these numbers difficult to calculate, it’s true that no single number captures how people use their phones. Real-world battery drain depends on how you use the device, including screen brightness, speaker volume, and the types of apps you run; games and video recording are among the most significant battery killers. Note that Apple’s numbers are based on moderate rather than maximum screen brightness and speaker output — which tend to get brighter and/or louder every device generation or so — as well as wireless network configurations that can’t necessarily be held completely consistent from year to year. So unless you’re planning to keep your screen dim and steer clear of games, view these numbers as maximums and you’ll be satisfied. Bear in mind that you’ll also be enjoying superior screen and/or processor performance compared with earlier devices. Above: Mophie now sells a $139 three-device wireless charger designed to refuel an iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods at the same time — a concept Apple suggested as AirPower, then cancelled. Screen and processor performance Although every iPhone 11 version looks virtually identical from the front, their screens are different. The base iPhone 11 has a 6.1-inch “Liquid Retina” LCD screen with 1792 x 828 resolution — that’s less than a 1080p television, as spec obsessives pointed out with the identical iPhone XR display last year. You fall to a 5.8-inch size but jump to a 2436 x 1125 resolution with the iPhone 11 Pro, and climb to 6.5 inches at 2688 x 1242 for the Max version. There are only two changes this year. Apple doubled the contrast ratio of the Pro models to 2,000,000:1 by increasing the typical (800 nits) and peak (1200 nits) brightness of the screen for HDR video playback, a tweak the company calls “Super Retina XDR.” In practice, I’d wager that 99.9% of users would have a hard time seeing any difference between this year’s and last year’s screens, or between the Super Retina XDR and 625-nits Liquid Retina displays under typical usage conditions. They’re all as bright, colorful, and pixel-rich as the eye can see, while lacking in only one major regard: They could all stand to be brighter for outdoor viewing. Above: Night shift, a feature that automatically reddens the display at night, can mess with the new XDR screen’s color performance. This year, Apple removed the force-sensing 3D Touch feature from the Pro screens, replacing it with the same single-level “Haptic Touch” alternative found on the iPhone XR and iPhone 11. 3D Touch was only modestly useful and poorly adopted, so losing it doesn’t make much of a difference. To make up for the omission, all of the new devices now support Live wallpaper that you can touch to animate, a feature Apple withheld from the XR last year. The iPhone 11 also gets a larger and cooler collection of Live wallpaper choices than the Pro models — six variations of shifting colored blobs versus the Pro’s four particle explosions. On the processor front, Apple’s new A13 Bionic chip takes a fine step up from last year’s A12 Bionic, boasting roughly 20% improvements in single- and multi-core benchmarks. Geekbench 5 tests across all three iPhone 11 models suggest they’re all using the same A13 variant with the same clock speeds, backed by 4GB of RAM. This enables them to offer superb, even Mac-beating single-core performance, with multi-core performance that only falls short of last year’s iPad Pro (Geekbench 5 benchmarked at 4600). In some years, the A series chips take such big steps that you can see or feel the difference versus prior models, but that’s generally not the case for the iPhone 11 — except if you’re really looking for it within specific apps. A much-improved neural processor is capable of assisting in the background with more complex computational photography tasks, as discussed in the camera section below. And for games, the iPhone 11’s Metal performance is over 40% better than the iPhone XS’s, though still only 70% of last year’s iPad Pro (Geekbench 5 Metal score: 9145), which boasted Xbox One-rivaling performance in a tablet form factor. Apple’s approach means that any iPhone 11 can outperform today’s fastest Android phones by a significant amount in direct computational comparisons — even including dedicated gaming phones based on Qualcomm’s somewhat obscure Snapdragon 855 Plus chipset. But that’s offset by Apple’s major weakness in 2019: its reliance on Intel 4G modems as competitors shifted to Qualcomm’s faster 5G modems. Wireless performance and U1 To simplify a much larger discussion, Apple’s choice of Intel modems previously meant that iPhones only lost cellular speed races against Android flagships by small amounts. The differences were there, but not enough for most people to care. 5G cellular is another story, since the 5G to 4G performance gulf is huge: Users are already seeing speeds 7 times faster on average, and 20 times faster in some cases. If 3G to 4G was the difference between crawling and walking, 4G to 5G is the difference between walking and running. There’s a lot of bad information out there on this topic, but here’s the truth: Early 5G networks are already operational in some countries, and over the next two years they’ll spread while improving in performance. Thanks to Qualcomm, every major Android OEM has either already started shipping 5G phones or will be doing so for the holidays. By next year, most new phones are expected to include 5G modems, enabling users to enjoy hugely faster downloads over the three years they might keep their phones. While all the new iPhones technically support “Gigabit LTE,” cell tower realities mean that you probably won’t get any faster cellular performance from an iPhone 11 than last year’s models. In my testing with Ookla’s Speedtest, the iPhone 11 Pro typically saw the same mediocre 30Mbps 4G speeds as an iPhone XR, despite generation-better internal hardware. This isn’t anywhere near the device’s capabilities, but tracks with the latest studies of typical U.S. 4G download speeds. The only time I saw the iPhone 11 or 11 Pro hit speeds in the 500-600Mbps range was over a Wi-Fi 5 connection with my 1Gbps home broadband service; the new phones notably include Wi-Fi 6, as well, for whenever Wi-Fi 6 routers become common. That’s excellent performance over Wi-Fi, but a OnePlus 7 Pro clocked 606Mbps on the same Wi-Fi 5 test — and hit nearly 500Mbps on a 5G cellular connection in Los Angeles. Above: The OnePlus 7 Pro 5G can achieve cellular speeds akin to the iPhone 11’s fastest Wi-Fi speeds, if you’re near 5G towers. Unless you’re planning to upgrade again soon, buying an iPhone 11 means being stuck with 4G — albeit late-stage, multi-antenna 4G — during international 5G rollouts. The huge performance benefits of 5G were enough for Apple to abruptly switch to Qualcomm for next year’s iPhones, and for Intel to cease making smartphone modems. You can decide what’s best for your own pocketbook, but if you’re looking for a big leap forward to justify a new phone purchase, you’ll find it next year in 5G. It’s also worth noting that Apple has added a new “ultra-wideband” wireless chip called the U1 to all three iPhone 11 models, saying only that it enables more precise device location for wireless data transfers. For now, the only way to test it is to AirDrop a file from one iPhone 11 to another, a process that doesn’t seem much different from before, but it’s possible that the chip will enable future accessories, such as Apple locator tags and/or wireless AR headsets. Until that happens, the chip is just a curiosity. Cameras Much has been made of the iPhone 11’s ugly rear camera squares, which have increased dramatically in size from what used to be called “camera bumps” in prior devices. But I’d argue the new cameras are the only reason to upgrade from a one- or two-year-old iPhone to an iPhone 11. While next year’s devices are expected to take another leap forward, superior photography is the sole way 2019’s iPhones stand out from 2018’s. There are three key changes this year. First and foremost, each iPhone gains a 0.5x ultra wide-angle rear lens and sensor, such that the iPhone XR’s 1x rear camera moves to a 0.5x (13mm/120-degree FOV) + 1x (26mm) combination, and the iPhone XS’s 1x + 2x (52mm) rear camera becomes 0.5x + 1x + 2x. You’re not gaining more zoom-in capability; instead you get more zoom-out to capture larger landscapes. Somewhat disappointingly, Apple’s updated Camera app feels like a work in progress rather than a finished product. Between an influx of new icons, semi-secret gestures, and a hidden tray for settings, the once simple Camera app has finally become more confusing than third-party alternatives. So while you can enjoy more features, you’ll have to teach yourself to use them, and re-learn some old ones, too. There are more buttons than before, some inside a tray that opens when you press an arrow at the edge of the screen. Much of the UI can go transparent to provide a larger view for composing shots, aided by adding the output from two of the rear cameras together. Shifting between the ultra-wide and standard lenses is fairly easy and fun, and if you learn the new app’s button-swipe tricks, you can quickly record a video while shooting photos, take burst photos, and open the tray to access settings. Oddly, in-tray icons duplicate persistent flash and Live photo buttons, while two Night Mode buttons appear out of nowhere when ambient light gets dim, disappearing otherwise. The jury’s out on whether average users will appreciate the new 0.5x perspective more than a superior zoom lens. On the one hand, the ultra-wide angle introduces some obvious (and natural) distortion. But on the other hand, it’s likely to change the way many people take pictures and videos. With the potential to capture so much of a background, you’ll really begin to consider the ideal framing for a photo or video, while finding it easier to capture grand vistas without stepping backwards five feet — the larger world will suddenly feel closer at all times. As a long-time photographer, I prefer the approach OnePlus took with the rear camera array on the OnePlus 7 Pro 5G, which goes from 0.6x to 3x (5x total zoom) rather than Apple’s 2x (0.5x to 1x) range on the iPhone 11 and 4X (0.5x to 2x) range on the iPhone 11 Pro. This enables better close-ups and landscape shots that are nearly as wide. Additionally, OnePlus’s 1x camera can switch between 12- and 48-megapixel modes, while Apple’s is stuck at 12. One can argue about the practical value of a tiny 48-megapixel sensor, but it’s nice to have the option for additional detail when you need it. Resolution does matter. The second change Apple made this year was bumping each iPhone 11 model’s front camera from last year’s 7 megapixel resolution, such that the front and rear cameras now all share 12 megapixel resolutions. You can now toggle the front camera between a full, wider frame or a more cropped view akin to last year’s, and record slow-motion 1080p video at up to 240fps (“slofies,” in Apple parlance), as well as 4K video at up to 60fps. I found perspective distortion from the wider angle to be a little distracting when moving around during FaceTime calls, but it’s not terrible. Third, Apple is introducing two computational photography features: Night Mode and Deep Fusion. Night Mode is available now, automatically switching the camera to capture and composite multiple images to produce brighter images at night. In my testing, the feature works quite well — akin to Google’s Night Sight — while also benefitting from superior light gathering from the rear lenses. Any shot you take in dim light will look brighter than on even the best prior iPhones, and if Night Mode automatically activates, it will bring brightness and color levels up even further, assuming you hold the device still for a second or two to let it work its compositing magic. Deep Fusion promises to rapidly snap nine images and take the best details from each to create an idealized final photo — a machine learning trick Apple is calling “mad science.” We’ll have to see how the feature actually works when it’s released, but it’s clear that computational photography is (belatedly) becoming a major enabler of next-generation cameras, and possibly the most transformational element of this year’s devices. Going forward, I’d like to see Apple bring a 3x optical zoom lens and higher resolution sensor array to the rear of iPhones, while minimizing the front camera within a dot, or behind the screen. But reports suggest that it may instead just focus on 3D depth scanning by adding a time-of-flight sensor to the rear camera array and using a smaller front notch instead of the large ones we’ve seen over the last three cycles. Regardless, next year is likely to bring some major changes. Charging and USB-C One subtle but potentially important difference between the iPhone 11 and both iPhone 11 Pro models is a difference in chargers and charging cables. While the iPhone 11 comes with the same 5W USB wall charger and USB-to-Lightning cable found in many prior iPhone boxes, both iPhone 11 Pro models ship with 18W USB-C wall chargers and USB-C-to-Lightning cables. Each of the last several iPhones has been capable of refueling faster when connected to an 18W charger, but Apple has sold the better chargers and cables separately until this year. Their inclusion this time signals that the consumer transition to USB-C is well underway, as you can use the same cable to recharge from USB-C ports on many laptop and desktop computers, as well as the latest iPad Pros. One feature that’s not included with the iPhone 11s, despite rumors, is bidirectional wireless charging — the ability of an iPhone to refuel AirPods or an Apple Watch on the go. Each model is still capable of recharging using a wireless inductive charger, however, and there are a huge number of Apple-licensed (Mophie) and more basic, less expensive Qi chargers that make recharging as easy as resting your phone on a mat. Above: Totalee is one of many companies now offering attractively minimalist Qi wireless chargers that work with iPhones. Apple-licensed chargers tend to be capable of refueling iPhones faster than standard Qi models, a factor that matters more in the iPhone 11s than before due to their larger battery capacities. If you really need high-speed charging and are willing to (breathe deeply) connect a cable to get it, the 18W adapter is the way to go. Choosing a model, if at all, and conclusions Assuming you’re seriously in need of replacing your iPhone right now, you have a fairly straightforward choice to make: the “good for everyone” iPhone 11 or one of the “better for some people” iPhone 11 Pros. I’d personally fork the choice this way: If you’re a serious photographer, go with one of the 256GB Pro models, picking one based on the screen size that best fits your needs; otherwise, choose the less expensive 11, preferably at a 128GB capacity. If you follow this recommendation, you’re looking at the following prices for your investment: iPhone 11: $749 (128GB). Save $50 by going with a tight 64GB storage capacity, which you may cramp with photos, but probably skip the $849 256GB model. iPhone 11 Pro: $1,149 (256GB). Save $150 by dropping to 64GB storage, or go nuts with the $1,349 512GB model. iPhone 11 Pro Max: $1,249 (256GB), again $150 less with 64GB, or $200 more for 512GB. Make no mistake; Apple knows the models I spotlighted are in its sweet spots and deliberately sells just-uncomfortable-enough steps under them to bring people in the door and then compel them to spend more for extra memory. You could probably squeeze your favorite apps, photos, videos, and so on into 64GB of storage, but then you’ll need to worry about deleting things in the future to manage free space, and who wants to deal with that? Picking the iPhone 11 over the Pro has advantages beyond price. You get to pick from six glossy colors, including new pale yellow and purple shades, a nice new mint green, a slightly flatter red than XR’s, and straightforward black and white versions. Meanwhile, the Pros come in space gray, silver/white, midnight green, and pink-hinted gold. The Pro models have frosted rear glass with a glossy camera, the inverse of the 11, and use a much stronger Gorilla Glass variant to promise greater drop and water resistance than the base model — cases are still recommended. I really like the frosted glass look, though the previously black Pro is now decidedly closer to gray, matching the latest iMac Pros and Mac minis, while the green color is only barely visible, and the former white is closer to silver than Apple’s bright white Magic Trackpad. Because I cover Apple professionally, I typically upgrade my iPhone every year regardless of whether it’s worthwhile or not, just to stay current with the technology. I also take lots of pictures and videos each year, so a non-trivial camera upgrade alone is enough to matter to me. But this isn’t the way most people operate, so with $699 to $1,449 (plus taxes) of your money on the line, I’m giving you the same advice I’d offer a friend: Pass on all three of these models if you can. Apple’s tick-tock-tock strategy has yielded 2019 iPhones that are so similar to last year’s models that you’d have trouble picking them out of a lineup from the front — and might not like looking at them from the back. Due to improvements in Android designs, screens, and cameras, this isn’t a year when Apple is destroying its rivals on anything except chip performance. Even then, it’s a laggard in modems and will need until at least next year to catch up. The iPhone 11s are best suited to hard-core Apple fans who update frequently, and users who can’t or don’t want to wait until next year when huge changes are guaranteed. If you’re in one of those camps, you’ll be very happy with Apple’s latest incremental updates; otherwise, I’d recommend saving your money for 2020. 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. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Google AI open-sources EfficientDet for state-of-the-art object detection | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/03/18/google-ai-open-sources-efficientdet-for-state-of-the-art-object-detection"

"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 AI open-sources EfficientDet for state-of-the-art object detection 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. Members of the Google Brain team and Google AI this week open-sourced EfficientDet, an AI tool that achieves state-of-the-art object detection while using less compute. Creators of the system say it also achieves faster performance when used with CPUs or GPUs than other popular objection detection models like YOLO or AmoebaNet. When tasked with semantic segmentation , another task related to object detection, EfficientDet also achieves exceptional performance. Semantic segmentation experiments were conducted with the PASCAL visual object challenge data set. EfficientDet is the next-generation version of EfficientNet , a family of advanced object detection models made available last year for Coral boards. Google engineers Mingxing Tan, Google Ruoming Pang, and Quoc Le detailed EfficientDet in a paper first published last fall , but revised and updated it on Sunday to include code. “Aiming at optimizing both accuracy and efficiency, we would like to develop a family of models that can meet a wide spectrum of resource constraints,” the paper, which examines neural network architecture design for object detection, reads. VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Authors say existing methods of scaling object detection often sacrifice accuracy or can be resource intensive. EfficientDet achieves its less expensive and resource-hungry way to deploy object detection on the edge or in the cloud with a method that “uniformly scales the resolution, depth, and width for all backbone, feature network, and box/class prediction networks at the same time.” “The large model sizes and expensive computation costs deter their deployment in many real-world applications such as robotics and self-driving cars where model size and latency are highly constrained,” the paper reads. “Given these real-world resource constraints, model efficiency becomes increasingly important for object detection.” Optimizations for EfficientDet takes inspiration from Tan and Le’s original work on EfficientNet. and proposes joint compound scaling for backbone and feature networks. In EfficientDet, a bidirectional feature pyramid network (BiFPN) acts as a feature network, and an ImageNet pretrained EfficientNet acts as the backbone network. EfficientDet optimizes for cross-scale connections in part by removing nodes that only have one input edge to create a simpler bidirectional network. It also relies on the one-stage detector paradigm, an object detector known for efficiency and simplicity. “We propose to add an additional weight for each input during feature fusion, and let the network to learn the importance of each input feature,” the paper reads. This is the latest object detection news from Google, whose Google Cloud Vision system for object detection recently removed male and female label options for its publicly available API. 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. All rights reserved. "

"eSight 4 bolsters the sight-enhancing wearable's displays and design | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/07/28/esight-4-bolsters-the-sight-enhancing-wearables-displays-and-design"

"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 eSight 4 bolsters the sight-enhancing wearable’s displays and design 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. Although the wearable headset market focuses largely on virtual and augmented reality, some of the screen, camera, and form factor innovations are making significant differences for low-sight users — people who would love to enjoy plain old reality without needing eye surgery. Today, Canadian assistive vision company eSight is updating its family of vision-enhancing wearables with eSight 4, a headset that looks even more like a pair of conventional glasses while featuring multiple performance improvements, collectively enabling people to return to work and life activities that were impacted by declining eyesight. On the hardware side, eSight 4 leapfrogs over its predecessor by doubling the display brightness, a significant boon to low-vision users. There’s also a small improvement in display resolution, which jumps to 1280×960 for each of two OLED screens, up from 1280×768 in eSight 3. The field of view holds steady at 37.5 degrees diagonal, which is to say the area of enhancement will look like a particularly detailed window inside the wearer’s overall area of vision. Image contrast enhancements, a reverse color display option, and dim lighting optimizations are also included to improve acuity. As before, users can magnify what eSight’s camera sees with up to 24X zoom, but improved autofocus and image stabilization systems make objects sharper faster, enabling users to get clear looks at short-, medium-, and long-range objects. On the other hand, the camera has shifted from 21.5 megapixels in eSight 3 down to 18 megapixels in eSight 4, a change the company says creates the “best match” between the screen, camera, and liquid lens systems for magnification purposes. Cosmetics don’t tend to be critically important in vision assistance systems, but eSight 4 evolves from the prior curved bar-style design into a shape that looks like continuous lens sunglasses with a camera centered in front of your nose. Inside, users can manually adjust both the interpupillary (left-right) distance of the screens and their depth relative to conventional eyeglasses, enabling users to achieve up to 20/20 visual acuity — a 7-line gain on vision charts and 12-letter improvement in contrast. A fabric-lined halo-style headband magnetically holds a three-hour battery in the back while permitting the front screens to tilt bioptically in a range of +35 to -10 degrees. eSight 4 continues to be a self-contained solution with 256GB of storage, three speakers, and an integrated flashlight to provide illumination as needed, as well as an IR range finder, temperature sensor, accelerometers, and a gyroscope. It also offers Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity to connect with Android and iOS phones, as well as the option of wired connectivity to HDMI devices. Users can use the eSight app to view their smartphone screens and videos directly through the headset, among other applications. The eSight 4 is priced at $5,950 — the same as eSight 3 — with the option of $99 per month financing. Two magnetically detachable batteries are included in the package, along with a USB cable, power adapter, and carrying case. The company says typical users have between 20/60 and 20/800 visual acuity, with some up to 20/1400 acuity, across over 20 different eye conditions, ranging from cataracts to macular degeneration, optic atrophy, and retinal detachment. Users interested in testing the new headset themselves can sign up for an at-home trial here. 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. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Researchers use AI and audio to predict where objects will land | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/07/07/researchers-use-ai-and-audio-to-predict-where-objects-will-land"

"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 use AI and audio to predict where objects will land 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 a new preprint study , researchers at Carnegie Mellon University claim sound can be used to predict an object’s appearance — and its motion. The coauthors created a “sound-action-vision” data set and a family of AI algorithms to investigate the interactions between audio, visuals, and movement. They say the results show representations derived from sound can be used to anticipate where objects will move when subjected to physical force. While vision is foundational to perception, sound is arguably as important. It captures rich information often imperceptible through visual or force data, like the texture of dried leaves or the pressure inside a champagne bottle. But few systems and algorithms have exploited sound as a vehicle to build physical understanding. This oversight motivated the Carnegie Mellon study, which sought to explore the synergy between sound and action and discover what sort of inferences might be made. The researchers first created the sound-action-vision data set by building a robot — Til-Bot — to tilt objects, including screwdrivers, scissors, tennis balls, cubes, and clamps, on a tray in random directions. The objects hit the thin walls of the plaster tray and produced sounds, which were added to the corpus one by one. VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Four microphones mounted to the 30×30-centimeter tray (one on each side) recorded audio while an overhead camera captured RGB and depth information. Tilt-Bot moved each object around for an hour, and every time the object made contact with the tray, the robot created a log containing the sound, RGB and depth data, and tracking location of the object as it collided with the walls. With the audio recordings from the collisions, the team used a method that enabled them to treat the recordings as images. This allowed the models to capture temporal correlations from single audio channels (i.e., recordings by one microphone) as well as correlations among multiple audio channels (recordings from several microphones). The researchers then used the corpus — which contained sounds from 15,000 collisions between over 60 objects and the tray — to train a model to identify objects from audio. In a second, more challenging exercise, they trained a model to predict what actions were applied to an unseen object. In a third, they trained a forward prediction model to suss out the location of objects after they’d been pushed by a robotic arm. Above: Forward model predictions are visualized here as pairs of images. The left image is the observation before the interaction, while the right image is the observation after the interaction. Based on the object ground truth location (shown as the green dot) before interaction, the audio embedding of the object and action taken by the robot (shown as a red arrow), trained forward model predicts the future object location (shown as a red dot). The object-identifying model learned to predict the right object from sound 79.2% of the time, failing only when the generated sounds were too soft, according to the researchers. Meanwhile, the action prediction model achieved a mean squared error of 0.027 on a set of 30 previously unseen objects, or 42% better than a model trained only with images from the camera. And the forward prediction model was more accurate in its projections about where objects might move. “In some domains, like forward model learning, we show that sound in fact provides more information than can be obtained from visual information alone,” the researchers wrote. “We hope that the Tilt-Bot data set, which will be publicly released, along with our findings, will inspire future work in the sound-action domain and find widespread applicability in robotics.” 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. All rights reserved. "

"Apple left another big macOS security hole open for 90 days, Google says | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/03/04/apple-left-another-big-macos-security-hole-open-for-90-days-google-says"

"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 left another big macOS security hole open for 90 days, Google says Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn The 2016 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, running macOS Sierra. 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. Nearly five years ago, Google formed its Project Zero research group to reduce the impact of zero-day attacks on users, and since then it has reported numerous bugs to companies such as Apple — notably chastising its rival last October for taking too long to fix bugs, and sneaking details of fixes into already published security advisories. Today, the Project Zero team revealed (via NeoWin ) another “high severity” macOS kernel bug that can allow an attacker to take control of a Mac, which it says Apple has left unfixed for 90 days. If this sounds similar to the last Google-Apple bug situation, it is and it isn’t: Once again, the latest bug could impact millions of Mac users, but this isn’t a case of complete neglect. This bug enables an attacker to quietly modify a mounted disk image, then get the Mac to run the modified code by exploiting macOS’s memory management system. The reason it’s so severe is that users mount disk images all the time, yet macOS doesn’t re-check the images when it automatically purges and reloads content in the course of managing its limited memory. Because of that, the Mac will have no idea that it’s copying modified and potentially malicious code to be executed. As dangerous as that sounds, Project Zero says that Apple is aware of the issue and plans to fix it in a future macOS release, though 90 days have already passed since the vulnerability was discovered and reported to the company. The researchers are working with Apple on a patch, but there isn’t a timeline yet for its release. VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Beyond Google, Apple has faced criticism recently for its bug-addressing practices. The company apparently ignored multiple user reports of an astonishing bug in FaceTime until news stories and social media posts began to circulate. Last month, a German researcher criticized the company for not offering bug reporting bounties for macOS, and said he was refusing to disclose a serious password-related bug to Apple, but has since changed his mind. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Apple adds Macs, Watches, and Apple TVs to $1 million bug bounty program | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/08/08/apple-adds-macs-watches-and-apple-tvs-to-1-million-bug-bounty-program"

"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 adds Macs, Watches, and Apple TVs to $1 million bug bounty program 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. Roughly three years ago, Apple began paying security researchers for discoveries of unknown vulnerabilities in iOS, and today, it’s responding to long-standing requests by adding macOS, watchOS, and tvOS devices to the list. Additionally, the company is now offering a maximum reward of $1 million for the most serious security issues, providing researchers with even more incentive to report rather than horde their findings. The news went public today at the annual Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas (via TechCrunch ), where lead Apple security developer Ivan Krstić disclosed key updates to the bug bounty program. Apple will now pay $1 million for a deadly serious exploit — a zero-click attack that enables complete, persistent control of an iPhone’s kernel with nothing more than knowledge of the device’s phone number — up from a peak of $200,000 before. Less serious exploits will qualify for smaller amounts. For the company, the risk of low payments has been that security researchers will instead hand their findings off to private organizations, such as Grayshift and Cellebrite , that will subsequently exploit Apple’s devices for profit. To further incentivize proactive reporting, Apple is also offering a 50% bonus to researchers who report pre-release vulnerabilities before general release, and next year will provide select “vetted and trusted” researchers with pre-jailbroken iPhones that may have vulnerabilities at the secure shell level. Above: A list of new security researcher rewards for Apple’s expanded bug bounty program. Apple TV, Apple Watch, and Mac users will also benefit from the bug reporting program, which was previously focused largely on Apple’s iPhones and iPads. In February, German security researcher Linus Henze criticized the company for not offering Mac bug bounties, and publicly disclosed a large Mac password protection exploit that otherwise would have remained private. Google’s Project Zero team has also weighed in on the topic, noting that Apple has left major Mac vulnerabilities unfixed for months at a time, compromising user security in the process. 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 year alone, the company has twice limited FaceTime access over iPhone and Apple Watch vulnerabilities that could seriously compromise users’ privacy, enabling callers to listen to their unanswered devices. Researchers have also uncovered security issues in Macs’ Intel chips and macOS’ app whitelisting system, which could lead to broad exploits of Apple’s computers. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Apple blasts Google Project Zero over iOS Uighur security claims | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/09/06/apple-blasts-google-project-zero-over-ios-uighur-security-claims"

"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 blasts Google Project Zero over iOS Uighur security claims 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. Google’s Project Zero team hasn’t been shy in accusing Apple of lax security practices or sneaky updates to its security advisories over the last year, most recently claiming that Apple sat on major iOS vulnerabilities that let hackers target China’s Uighur Muslim community. Apple returned fire in a rare statement today, accusing Google of creating a “false impression” to stoke fears of a widespread, extended compromise of iPhone security. While the technical details of the vulnerabilities are complex, Google’s accusation was that exploits were found in iOS 10, 11, and 12, which “indicated a group making a sustained effort to hack the users of iPhones in certain communities over a period of at least two years.” Project Zero didn’t name the targeted communities, but later reports identified them as primarily Uighur Muslims, a group that has been targeted by the Chinese government, as well as other users who might have inadvertently been drawn into the hacks. Google’s latest allegations were especially unusual in that they came roughly a half year after the vulnerabilities were reported to Apple and addressed. Though there are often lags between the discovery of security exploits, their patching, and public disclosure, this particular set of exploits was addressed within 10 days of Project Zero’s contact with Apple — nowhere near as long as Apple has been accused of sitting on exploits in the past. Apple’s statement today describes the attack as sophisticated but narrow in focus, affecting fewer than a dozen Uighur websites, and most likely active for roughly two months rather than two years. In other words, though the exploits might have impacted two years (and three generations) of iOS releases, the actual website attacks were far briefer in nature. As Apple explains: VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Most users shouldn’t be concerned about weaknesses in their iPhones, the company suggests. “iOS security is unmatched because we take end-to-end responsibility for the security of our hardware and software,” hinting at Google’s largely software-based work with Android, which leaves other companies to fine-tune Android hardware designs. “We will never stop our tireless work to keep our users safe.” Though Project Zero’s blog post focused on vulnerabilities in iOS, it quickly emerged that Apple wasn’t the only company targeted by the attacks. Google’s own Android platform and Microsoft’s Windows had their own vulnerabilities, enabling attackers to gather device identification numbers, phone numbers, locations, usernames, and other private details from users who visited 11 different Uighur sites, including Turkistan TV, the Uighur Times, and the Turkistan Press. It’s unclear whether the hackers were officially Chinese state-sponsored or not, but China’s government has actively surveilled and persecuted the minority group for years, increasing the likelihood of at least unofficial government involvement in the hacks. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Trump security team considers building U.S. 5G network to counter Chinese spying threats (Updated) | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2018/01/29/trump-security-team-considers-building-u-s-5g-network-to-counter-chinese-spying-threats"

"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 Trump security team considers building U.S. 5G network to counter Chinese spying threats (Updated) Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn FILE PHOTO - A video promotes the 5G mobile wireless standard at the Qualcomm booth during the 2017 CES in Las Vegas, Nevada January 6, 2017. 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. ( Reuters ) — President Donald Trump’s national security team is looking at options to counter the threat of China spying on U.S. phone calls that include the government building a super-fast 5G wireless network, a senior administration official said on Sunday. The official, confirming the gist of a report from Axios.com, said the option was being debated at a low level in the administration and was six to eight months away from being considered by the president himself. The 5G network concept is aimed at addressing what officials see as China’s threat to U.S. cyber security and economic security. The Trump administration has taken a harder line on policies initiated by predecessor Barack Obama on issues ranging from Beijing’s role in restraining North Korea to Chinese efforts to acquire U.S. strategic industries. 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 month AT&T was forced to scrap a plan to offer its customers handsets built by China’s Huawei after some members of Congress lobbied against the idea with federal regulators, sources told Reuters. In 2012, Huawei and ZTE Corp were the subject of a U.S. investigation into whether their equipment provided an opportunity for foreign espionage and threatened critical U.S. infrastructure. Some members of the House intelligence committee remain troubled by security threats posed by Huawei and ZTE, according to a congressional aide. Issues raised in a 2012 committee report about the Chinese firms have “never subsided,” the aide said, adding that there was newer classified intelligence that recently resurfaced those concerns. “We want to build a network so the Chinese can’t listen to your calls,” the senior official told Reuters. “We have to have a secure network that doesn’t allow bad actors to get in. We also have to ensure the Chinese don’t take over the market and put every non-5G network out of business.” In Beijing on Monday, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China prohibited all forms of hacking, but did not specifically address the 5G network security issue. “We believe that the international community should, on the basis of mutual respect and trust, strengthen dialogue and cooperation and join hands in addressing the threat of cyber attacks,” Hua told a regular news briefing. Major wireless carriers have spent billions of dollars buying spectrum to launch 5G networks, and it is unclear if the U.S. government would have enough spectrum to build its own 5G network. Furthermore, Accenture has estimated that wireless operators will invest as much as $275 billion in the United States over seven years as they build out 5G. Last year, T-Mobile US Inc spent $8 billion and Dish Network Corp $6.2 billion to win the bulk of broadcast airwaves spectrum for sale in a government auction. An AT&T spokesman said they could not comment on something they have not seen, and added, “Thanks to multi-billion dollar investments made by American companies, the work to launch 5G service in the United States is already well down the road.” Later this year, AT&T is set to be the first to launch mobile 5G service in 12 U.S. locations, the spokesman said. A Verizon spokesman declined to comment. Representatives for Sprint and T-Mobile did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Another option includes having a 5G network built by a consortium of wireless carriers, the U.S. official said. “We want to build a secure 5G network and we have to work with industry to figure out the best way to do it,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Axios published documents it said were from a presentation from a National Security Council official. If the government built the network, it would rent access to carriers, Axios said. A looming concern laid out in the presentation was China’s growing presence in the manufacture and operation of wireless networks. A concerted government push could help the U.S. compete on that front, according to the presentation. A 5G network is expected to offer significantly faster speeds, more capacity and shorter response times, which could be utilized for new technologies ranging from self-driving cars to remote surgeries. Telecom companies and their suppliers consider it to be a multibillion-dollar revenue opportunity. ( Reporting by Steve Holland and Pete Schroeder; Additional reporting by Duston Volz, Suzanne Barlyn and David Shepardson, and Michael Martina in Beijing; Editing by Chris Sanders, Peter Cooney and Clarence Fernandez ) Update at 9:30 a.m. Pacific : The White House has responded to the NSC and FCC stories via Recode , stating that the government currently has no plans to build a 5G network, and that the NSC proposal was outdated and floated by a staff member — “not a reflection of some imminent, major policy announcement — and probably might never be.” 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. All rights reserved. "

"U.S. reaches deal to keep China's ZTE in business | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2018/05/26/u-s-reaches-deal-to-keep-chinas-zte-in-business"

"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. reaches deal to keep China’s ZTE in business Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn People stand at ZTE's booth during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, February 27, 2017. 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. ( Reuters ) — The Trump administration told lawmakers the U.S. government has reached a deal to put Chinese telecommunications company ZTE back in business after it pays a significant fine and makes management changes, a senior congressional aide said on Friday. U.S. President Donald Trump appeared to confirm the deal in a tweet late on Friday. “I closed it down then let it reopen with high level security guarantees, change of management and board, must purchase U.S. parts and pay a $1.3 Billion fine.” The reported deal involving China’s second-largest telecommunications equipment maker ran into immediate resistance in Congress, where Democrats and Trump’s fellow Republicans accused him of bending to pressure from Beijing to ease up on a company that U.S. intelligence officials have suggested poses a significant risk to U.S. national security. ZTE was banned in April from buying U.S. technology components for seven years for breaking an agreement reached after it violated U.S. sanctions against Iran and North Korea. After ZTE makes a series of changes it would now be allowed to resume business with U.S. companies, including chipmaker Qualcomm Inc. 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 deal, earlier communicated to officials on Capitol Hill by the Commerce Department, requires ZTE to pay a substantial fine, place U.S. compliance officers at the company and change its management team, the aide said. The Commerce Department would then lift an order issued in April preventing ZTE from buying U.S. products. ZTE shut down most of its production after the ruling was announced. Fox News said Trump told them on Thursday that he had negotiated the $1.3 billion fine with Chinese President Xi Jinping in a phone call. ZTE, which is publicly traded but whose largest shareholder is a Chinese state-owned enterprise, agreed last year to pay a nearly $900 million penalty and open its books to a U.S. monitor. The penalty stemmed from for breaking an agreement after it was caught illegally shipping U.S. goods to Iran and North Korea, in an investigation dating to the Obama administration. The company has lost over $3 billion since the April 15th ban on doing business with U.S. suppliers, according to a source familiar with the matter. Trump on Tuesday floated a plan to fine ZTE up to $1.3 billion and shake up its management as his administration considered rolling back more severe penalties that have crippled the company. Responding to news of the administration’s deal with ZTE, Republican Senator Marco Rubio tweeted: “Yes they have a deal in mind. It is a great deal … for #ZTE & China. #China crushes U.S. companies with no mercy & they use these telecom companies to spy & steal from us.” Rubio, as well as Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer and Chris Van Hollen, said Congress should act to stop Trump from letting ZTE get back into business. “If the administration goes through with this reported deal, President Trump would be helping make China great again,” Schumer said Friday on Twitter. “Would be a huge victory for President Xi, and a dramatic retreat by Pres Trump. Both parties in Congress should come together to stop this deal in its tracks.” U.S. intelligence and U.S. law enforcement agencies have serious concerns that ZTE and other Chinese telecommunications firms use their equipment to gather intelligence on U.S. citizens. The U.S. Department of Defense has also stopped selling ZTE’s mobile phones and modems in stores on its military bases, citing potential security risks. William Evanina, the acting director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said at his May 15 confirmation hearing that he would not use a ZTE phone nor recommend that anyone in a sensitive position in government use one. Chinese officials sought a pullback on ZTE as part of any broader deal to prevent a trade war between the world’s two biggest economies. U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is scheduled to visit China next week for another round of talks. White House legislative director Marc Short told PBS Friday that Ross “would be making that announcement in the coming day” of a resolution of the ZTE issue. ZTE needs U.S. components for its mobile phones and network equipment. U.S. companies provide an estimated 25 percent to 30 percent of components in ZTE’s equipment. As part of the agreements ZTE made last year it dismissed four senior employees. Shares of ZTE’s U.S. suppliers traded higher on Friday. Optical networking equipment maker Acacia Communications Inc, which got 30 percent of 2017 revenue from ZTE, rose 4.4 percent. Optical component company Oclaro Inc, which received 18 percent of its fiscal 2017 revenue from ZTE, rose 2.7 percent. Reuters reported earlier this week citing sources that a proposed trade deal with China would lift the ZTE ban. In return, China would eliminate tariffs on U.S. agriculture or agree to buy more farm products from the United States. 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. All rights reserved. "

"U.S. accuses China of violating cyber espionage agreement | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2018/11/09/u-s-accuses-china-of-violating-cyber-espionage-agreement"

"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. accuses China of violating cyber espionage agreement Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn China has a new committee evaluating games. 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. ( Reuters ) — China has been violating an agreement with the United States aimed at stopping cyber espionage through the hacking of government and corporate data, a senior U.S. intelligence official said on Thursday. When asked if China was violating the 2015 agreement between then President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping, National Security Agency official Rob Joyce said: “We think they are.” But he added that the quantity and number of attacks had dropped “dramatically” since the agreement. “While it’s not black and white, (China) met the agreement or they didn’t meet the agreement, it’s clear that they are well beyond the bounds today of the agreement that was forged between our countries,” Joyce 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! Speaking in Beijing on Friday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying rejected the U.S. allegations. “The U.S. accusations lack factual basis. China firmly opposes them,” she told a daily news briefing. China and the United States have important shared interests in cyberspace, Hua said. “We urge the U.S. side to cease its baseless criticism of China, and meet China halfway in jointly safeguarding the two countries’ momentum for cooperation and communication in the realm of cybersecurity,” she said. In September 2015, Obama announced he had reached a “common understanding” with China’s Xi on curbing economic cyber espionage, but threatened to impose U.S. sanctions on Chinese hackers who persist in committing cyber crimes. The two leaders said they agreed that neither government would knowingly support cyber theft of corporate secrets or business information. The agreement, however, stopped short of any promise to refrain from traditional government-to-government cyber spying for intelligence purposes. That could include the massive hack of the U.S. federal government’s personnel office this year that compromised the data of more than 20 million people. U.S. officials have traced that back to China, but have not said whether they believe the Chinese government was responsible. The United States and China will hold a delayed top-level security dialogue on Friday, the latest sign of a thaw in the countries’ strained relations amid an ongoing trade row ahead of a planned meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi at the Group of 20 summit meeting in Argentina at the end of November. ( Reporting by Christopher Bing; Additional reporting by Michael Martina in Beijing; Editing by G Crosse ) 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. All rights reserved. "

"China Unicom moves first Chinese 5G launch up to May | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/04/22/china-unicom-moves-up-5g-launch-to-may"

"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 China Unicom moves first Chinese 5G launch up to May Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn People walk past outside the China Unicom office building in Beijing, October 9, 2013. 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. Closely following the launches of early 5G networks in the United States, South Korea, and Europe, China Unicom has decided to move up its commercial 5G rollout to May 2019, accelerating the start of consumer 5G services in China. The largely state-owned carrier announced the news tonight at its Partner Conference in Shanghai alongside 5G chipmaker Qualcomm and a host of device makers. This evening’s announcement is significant in establishing China’s place in the “race to 5G,” which has been somewhat ambiguous despite rollouts elsewhere in the world. While the gigantic, populous country boasts the world’s largest mobile user base, it took years to bring 4G services online, though it scaled quickly thereafter, establishing China as the world’s largest market for mobile devices. 5G is “a very different scenario,” Qualcomm 5G marketing director Ignacio Contreras tells VentureBeat, and is “coming fast” to the country. Instead of lagging behind, China will offer 5G at the beginning of its lifecycle, though it’s unclear just how geographically widespread the high-speed, low-latency networks will actually be at first. The carrier says it will offer initial service in seven cities, including Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, and Xiong’an New Area. In the similarly capacious United States, Verizon and AT&T have launched 5G networks in “parts of” over 20 cities, albeit with decidedly spotty service. Three carriers in the much smaller nation of South Korea launched similarly partial 5G coverage in major cities this month, and Switzerland’s SwissCom debuted something closer to nationwide coverage last week, notably with roughly half the land mass to blanket with service. VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Following a recent demonstration of 8K VR streaming over 5G in Chongqing, China Unicom is offering conference visitors the chance to try live 5G service demos, including 5G cloud gaming and high-definition video streaming. The carrier is also showing off some of the initial 5G devices that will work with its network, which will rely solely on mid-band spectrum at first, and the non-standalone version of 5G NR to speed adoption across the territory. “China Unicom is excited to work closely with the broader ecosystem to accelerate 5G launch in China,” said China Unicom network expansion head Qiang Fu. “Because accelerating the path to 5G in the unified 3GPP specification is critical to the industry and consumers, China Unicom has been committed to collaborating with partners across the industry to provide users with 5G NR-compliant products and services that will enable successful 5G commercialization.” China Unicom’s launch will be backed by numerous Qualcomm Snapdragon X50 modem-based 5G devices from Chinese companies, most notably including OnePlus, OPPO, Vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE. Initially, many of these devices will be fairly similar to one another thanks to their use of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855 chipset, but there will be variations in both form factor and pricing. For instance, flexible-screened Alpha smartwatch maker Nubia is releasing a “mini 5G” smartphone designed to be smaller than the roughly 6.4-inch-screened 5G phones other carriers have shown. And Xiaomi is expected to offer Chinese consumers a 5G phone in the sub-$700 price range, well below the $1,000 and up premium pricetags favored by LG’s and Samsung’s South Korean smartphones. Other companies will offer 5G-ready devices for the Chinese market. Domestic manufacturer Huawei has promised to offer aggressively priced 5G devices with its own Balong 5000 modems , as well as a $2,600 foldable tablet-phone called Mate X. Taiwan’s MediaTek is planning to supply chips for mid-range and premium phones for Chinese consumers, as well. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Huawei plans 'invincible' overhaul after ban, says U.S. lags in 5G | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/08/12/huawei-plans-invincible-overhaul-after-ban-says-u-s-lags-in-5g"

"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 Huawei plans ‘invincible’ overhaul after ban, says U.S. lags in 5G Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei at the company headquarters in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China, June 17, 2019. 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. With no sign of a deal to resume normal U.S. business operations on the horizon, embattled Chinese mobile supplier Huawei is reportedly embarking on a major overhaul that will “help [it] achieve victory.” The company estimated a completion date of within the next three to five years and said it is planning to mount an “invincible iron army” to avoid crumbling under a U.S. ban. Further, it believes the U.S. is lagging behind in 5G technology — a key area that Huawei has focused on, to its detriment in the West. Huawei disclosed its plan in an early August letter from CEO Ren Zhengfei, seen by Bloomberg, that properly anticipated continued problems between the company and the U.S. government. U.S. president Donald Trump has continued to tie the company’s fate to resolution of an extended trade dispute with China. Last week, he suggested that the U.S. was “not going to do business with Huawei” but added that this “doesn’t mean we won’t agree to something if and when we make a trade deal.” The trade ban has damaged Huawei’s relationships with key U.S. vendors, such as Android operating system maker Google and mobile chip developer Qualcomm. Absent specific and limited exemptions from the Commerce Department, U.S. companies are currently precluded from offering business support to Huawei, imperiling its ability to update its Android smartphones and manufacture certain products. While Ren’s letter doesn’t offer details about the overhaul, the implications are fairly clear: Eliminate reliance on U.S. technologies and partners by adopting local and/or self-made alternatives. Last week, Huawei revealed HarmonyOS , an operating system previously known as HongMeng , which will initially power smart non-phone devices while the company builds the software and developer infrastructure to use it in phones — if that becomes necessary. VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Security concerns over next-generation 5G cellular technology were the trigger for global U.S. actions against Huawei, which has been accused of leaving insecurities in its cellular devices that could be exploited for Chinese government surveillance. Huawei has suggested that it has a lead in 5G, and its CEO reportedly took a shot at its largest antagonist, stating that “the U.S. doesn’t use the most advanced 5G technology,” without providing further details. Ren’s bluster on 5G could be no more than chest thumping. Huawei is generally known for providing comparatively inexpensive — rather than leading-edge — mobile equipment. Moreover, while every major U.S. carrier has launched a commercial 5G network, including the latest millimeter wave hardware, China is still focused on regionally limited 5G launches and remains months away from a reported October commencement of commercial 5G service. But Ren might be referring to limited U.S. use of dual-spectrum 4G/5G solutions , which are expected to boost data speeds in the 5G era. As Huawei struggles to regain its footing internationally it is expected to lay off hundreds of U.S. employees and either scale back or close its U.S. operations, which have reportedly been prevented from interacting with its other divisions due to the U.S. ban. Ren compared the ban’s impact to bullets hitting explosive oil tanks and said the company “absolutely” needs to complete its reorganization in three to five years. 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. All rights reserved. "

"China Mobile leaks cheap 5G plans with data caps and 3 speed tiers | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/10/29/china-mobile-leaks-cheap-5g-plans-with-data-caps-and-3-speed-tiers"

"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 China Mobile leaks cheap 5G plans with data caps and 3 speed tiers Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn China Mobile is a Chinese state-owned telecommunication company providing mobile voice and multimedia services. 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. China’s launch of commercial 5G services has been one of the year’s more unusual stories: A national multi-carrier rollout that was planned for October 1 shifted to November 1, and the top three carriers reportedly preregistered 10 million 5G customers before revealing service prices. Now one of the carriers appears to have leaked pricing plans, and they’re surprisingly aggressive, signaling China’s interest in establishing itself as a huge market for 5G hardware and services. According to details posted by the Chengdu branch of China Mobile (via cnBeta ), the carrier will offer monthly 5G data plans starting at only 128 Yuan ($18), setting a new international floor for the high-speed service, with the most premium plan priced at 598 Yuan ($85). Unsurprisingly, the $18 plan will come with significant restrictions — limited voice talk time with 30GB of total data, speed capped at 300Mbps — while higher-end plans will offer up to 300GB of total data, speed capped at 500Mbps or 1Gbps, with additional talk time. Interestingly, the China Mobile leak suggests all three major operators will have the same entry-level pricing and similar packages, differentiating their offerings with network quality and customer service. For instance, while China Mobile’s “basic” 5G service will hit 300Mbps as a peak, users won’t have priority network access in busy areas — the faster and pricier “enjoyment” and “speed” plans will offer either “priority” or “optimal” network access during times of congestion. China Telecom and China Unicom , by comparison, may offer more talk time but different local 5G coverage. Pricing for 5G data plans has been a major point of discussion over the past year as carriers across the globe have wrestled with encouraging early adoption and use of new high-speed network assets while paying for significant infrastructure investments. In South Korea, carriers have split between capped and unlimited plans , with the latter starting at $70. U.S. carriers have largely focused on $70-$90 “unlimited” monthly plans while offering no access options at historically popular sub-$50 price tiers. That could change by year’s end, as T-Mobile rolls out a nationwide but likely slower 5G offering at a more aggressive price. 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. 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. All rights reserved. "

"China Telecom teases Samsung W20 5G folding phone for November 2019 | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/11/01/china-telecom-teases-samsung-w20-5g-folding-phone-for-november-2019"

"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 China Telecom teases Samsung W20 5G folding phone for November 2019 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. Now that China has officially launched 5G data plans across multiple carriers and cities, the race to establish early winners in the 5G handset market is officially underway. To that end, China Telecom is already trying to grab attention with an interesting option: a new Samsung folding phone called the W20 5G. The Chinese carrier used social networking site Weibo to announce a November debut date for the new device, saying (via Google Translate): Now that 5G plans are officially commercialized, how can the W20 be absent? See you in November! Samsung W20 5G: New form, beyond expectations. It’s quite likely the device shown in China Telecom’s Weibo post is the same device teased during Samsung’s Developer Conference this week in San Jose. A brief video showed a device similar to a Galaxy S10 phone folding in half like a bifold wallet, without any further explanation, specs, or product name. China Telecom’s post appears to confirm that a device with the same physical characteristics will be 5G-capable and officially revealed this month, at least in China. While folding phones have been a frequent topic of discussion in 2019, they haven’t yet proved to be either practical or affordable. Samsung’s $2,000 Galaxy Fold was infamously plagued with hinge and screen issues just before its initial release, leading to an extended delay and reworking of the design. Huawei similarly delayed its folding phone, the $2,600 Mate X , blaming software issues. Both devices transform from smartphone shapes into small tablets. The more conventional “flip phone” shape was a proven success in the era before smartphones, leading to blockbuster sales and iconic status for Motorola’s RAZR series of phones , which all but evaporated in the wake of Apple’s iPhone release. However, the only obvious advantage of bringing such a design to smartphones is in reducing the device’s footprint in a pocket or bag, at the cost of doubling its thickness. Motorola is revisiting the RAZR series with a new folding phone that appears to be similar to the W20 5G, effectively splitting a tall, portrait-oriented screen into two shorter halves that fold into a wallet-like shape. It’s unclear whether either or both of the companies have solved key complaints about the Galaxy Fold — an obvious seam in the center of the screen and susceptibility of the plastic screen cover to damage. 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. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Donald Trump extends U.S. telecom supply chain ban aimed at Huawei and ZTE | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/13/donald-trump-extends-u-s-telecom-supply-chain-ban-aimed-at-huawei-and-zte"

"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 Donald Trump extends U.S. telecom supply chain ban aimed at Huawei and ZTE Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn A surveillance camera is seen next to a sign of Huawei outside a shopping mall in Beijing, China January 29, 2019. 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. ( Reuters ) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday extended for another year an executive order signed in May 2019 declaring a national emergency and barring U.S. companies from using telecommunications equipment made by firms posing a national security risk. The order invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which gives the president the authority to regulate commerce in response to a national emergency that threatens the United States. U.S. lawmakers said Trump’s 2019 order was aimed squarely at Chinese companies like Huawei and ZTE. The U.S. Commerce Department is also expected to again extend a license, set to expire on Friday, allowing U.S. companies to keep doing business with Huawei , a person briefed on the matter said. The department has issued a series of extensions of the temporary license and previously extended it until April 1. Huawei, the second-largest maker of smartphones, is also a major telecoms equipment company that provides 5G network technology. In March, the Commerce Department sought public comments on whether it should issue future extensions and asked what was the “impact on your company or organization if the temporary general license is not extended?” The Commerce Department also asked about the costs associated with ending the licenses. Wireless trade association CTIA urged the department to approve a “long-term” license extension, writing that “now is not the time to hamper global operators’ ability to maintain the health of the networks.” The group argues that “ongoing, limited engagement with Huawei to protect the security of equipment and devices in the market benefits American consumers by reducing the risk that they will be subject to device compromise.” CTIA also asked Commerce to “reinstate and modify its prior authorization for standards development work to allow for exchanges with Huawei in furtherance of global telecommunications standards.” The Commerce Department and Huawei declined to comment. Since adding Huawei to an economic blacklist in May 2019, citing national security concerns, the department has allowed it to purchase some U.S.-made goods in a move aimed at minimizing disruption for its customers, many of which operate wireless networks in rural America. In November, the Federal Communications Commission designated Huawei and ZTE as national security risks, effectively barring their rural customers in the United States from tapping an $8.5 billion government fund to purchase equipment. Steven Barry, who heads the Competitive Carriers Association, told a congressional hearing in March that rural carriers were “essentially attempting to rebuild the airplane in mid-flight” by having to remove and replace network equipment. 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. All rights reserved. "

"China asks U.S. to stop 'unreasonable suppression' of Huawei | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/16/china-asks-u-s-to-stop-unreasonable-suppression-of-huawei"

"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 China asks U.S. to stop ‘unreasonable suppression’ of Huawei Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Huawei signage is pictured at their store at Vina del Mar, Chile, July 14, 2019. 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. ( Reuters ) — China’s foreign ministry said on Saturday the United States needed to stop the “unreasonable suppression” of Chinese companies like Huawei, and a Chinese newspaper said the government was ready to retaliate against Washington. The Trump administration on Friday moved to block global chip supplies to blacklisted telecoms equipment company Huawei, spurring fears of Chinese retaliation and hammering shares of U.S. producers of chipmaking equipment. China will firmly defend its companies’ legal rights, the foreign ministry said in a statement in response to Reuters’ questions on whether Beijing would take retaliatory measures against the United States. China’s Global Times newspaper on Saturday quoted a source close to the Chinese government as saying that Beijing was ready to take a series of countermeasures against the United States, such as putting U.S. companies on an “unreliable entity list” and imposing restrictions on U.S. companies such as Apple, Cisco, and Qualcomm. The newspaper, published by the People’s Daily , the official newspaper of China’s ruling Communist Party, said the source also mentioned halting the purchase of Boeing airplanes. “China will take forceful countermeasures to protect its own legitimate rights” if the United States moves forward with the plan to change rules and bar essential suppliers of chips, including Taiwan-based TSMC, from selling chips to Huawei, the Global Times quoted the source as saying. Tensions between the world’s two largest economies have spiked in recent weeks, with officials on both sides suggesting a hard-won deal that defused a bitter 18-month trade war could be abandoned months after it was signed in January. In addition to the move on Huawei, the U.S. Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, which oversees billions in federal retirement dollars, this week also said it would indefinitely delay plans to invest in some Chinese companies that are under scrutiny in Washington. 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. All rights reserved. "

"FCC approves $16 billion auction for rural broadband | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/09/fcc-approves-16-billion-auction-for-rural-broadband"

"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 FCC approves $16 billion auction for rural broadband Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn FCC Chair Ajit Pai. 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. (Reuters) — The U.S. Federal Communications Commission voted on Tuesday to adopt auction procedures to provide up to $16 billion to areas that lack broadband service , including nearly 6 million unserved rural homes and businesses. The FCC voted to commence the auction on Oct. 29. Auction applicants will be required to offer voice and broadband services in unserved locations in exchange for receiving monthly payments over 10 years. The three FCC Republican commissioners approved the proposal, while the two Democrats dissented in part. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, a Republican, said Americans without access to high-speed internet “deserve access as soon as possible. They cannot afford to wait … while we work to develop new, more granular broadband coverage maps” that will be used to award a subsequent $4 billion. Democratic FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel disagreed, however, saying the commission should ensure it has better maps detailing where service is lacking. “We are rushing billions out the door with a brazen disregard for our legal obligation to do so based on accurate data and that means when it comes to broadband we are going to leave millions behind,” she said. Another Democrat on the panel, Geoffrey Starks, said he would have “preferred to start with a smaller budget or shorter term of support so that the bulk” of funds “could be spent after we complete the mapping overhaul.” FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, a Republican, said the “auction will allow providers to bring millions of Americans across the digital divide.” A May FCC report said 18.3 million people in the United States lack access to broadband, but Democrats say that underestimates the problem, while Republicans note the report found the number without access has fallen by 30% since 2016. The proposal also will allow low earth orbit satellite systems , such as those made by SpaceX, to take part in the auction. SpaceX is developing a low latency, broadband internet system using low Earth orbit satellites. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Malwarebytes reports consumer cyberattacks dropped as hackers target businesses | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/01/23/malwarebytes-reports-consumer-cyberattacks-dropped-as-hackers-target-businesses"

"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 Malwarebytes reports consumer cyberattacks dropped as hackers target businesses Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Cybersecurity 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. Malwarebytes said in a new report that cyber attacks on businesses soared in 2018 while consumer hacks dipped. In its 2019 State of Malware Report, Malwarebytes found that criminals are increasingly drawn to the big payoffs that come with attacking companies compared to the piecemeal gains of going after individuals. “The year 2018 was action-packed from start to finish,” said Adam Kujawa, director of Malwarebytes Labs, in a statement. Kujawa noted that over the course of the year , the company tracked bad actors diversifying their cryptomining attacks , expanding tactics aimed at Android and Mac platforms, trying new browser-based attacks, and rolling out new types of Trojan-based attacks to steal data. VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! As a result, malware detection for businesses rose 79 percent in 2018 compared to 2017. This included an increase in “backdoors, miners, spyware and information-stealers.” While countries such as the U.S., U.K., and Germany all made the top 10 list for countries with most business attacks, the Asia-Pacific region saw a big spike in malware last year, the report says. For consumers, the company tracked about 775 million malware attacks in 2018, down from about 800 million in 2017. There had been a slight uptick against consumers at the end of 2017, due to cryptocurrency miners, but those lost steam in 2018 as cryptocurrency valuations plunged. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Google removes malicious browser add-ons from Chrome Web Store after 32 million downloads | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/18/google-removes-malicious-browser-add-ons-from-chrome-web-store-after-32-million-downloads"

"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 removes malicious browser add-ons from Chrome Web Store after 32 million downloads Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Google Chrome 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. ( Reuters ) — A newly discovered spyware effort attacked users through 32 million downloads of extensions to Google’s market-leading Chrome web browser , researchers at Awake Security told Reuters, highlighting the tech industry’s failure to protect browsers as they are used more for email, payroll, and other sensitive functions. Alphabet’s Google said it removed more than 70 of the malicious add-ons from its official Chrome Web Store after being alerted by the researchers last month. “When we are alerted of extensions in the Web Store that violate our policies, we take action and use those incidents as training material to improve our automated and manual analyses,” Google spokesperson Scott Westover told Reuters. Most of the free extensions purported to warn users about questionable websites or convert files from one format to another. Instead, they siphoned off browsing history and data that provided credentials for access to internal business tools. VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Based on the number of downloads, it was the most far-reaching malicious Chrome store campaign to date, according to Awake cofounder and chief scientist Gary Golomb. Google declined to discuss how the latest spyware compared with prior campaigns, the breadth of the damage, or why it did not detect and remove the bad extensions on its own despite past promises to supervise offerings more closely. It is unclear who was behind the effort to distribute the malware. Awake said the developers supplied fake contact information when they submitted the extensions to Google. “Anything that gets you into somebody’s browser or email or other sensitive areas would be a target for national espionage, as well as organized crime,” said former National Security Agency engineer Ben Johnson, who founded security companies Carbon Black and Obsidian Security. The extensions were designed to avoid detection by antivirus companies or security software that evaluates the reputations of web domains, Golomb said. If someone used the browser to surf the web on a home computer, it would connect to a series of websites and transmit information, the researchers found. Anyone using a corporate network, which would include security services, would not transmit the sensitive information or even reach the malicious versions of the websites. “This shows how attackers can use extremely simple methods to hide, in this case, thousands of malicious domains,” Golomb said. All of the domains in question, more than 15,000 linked to each other in total, were purchased from a small registrar in Israel — Galcomm — known formally as CommuniGal Communication. Awake said Galcomm should have known what was happening. In an email exchange, Galcomm owner Moshe Fogel told Reuters that his company had done nothing wrong. “Galcomm is not involved and not in complicity with any malicious activity whatsoever,” Fogel wrote. “You can say exactly the opposite; we cooperate with law enforcement and security bodies to prevent as much as we can.” Fogel said there was no record of the inquiries Golomb said he made in April and again in May to the company’s email address for reporting abusive behavior, and he asked for a list of suspect domains. Reuters sent him that list three times without getting a substantive response. The Internet Corp for Assigned Names and Numbers, which oversees registrars, said it had received few complaints about Galcomm over the years, and none about malware. While deceptive extensions have been a problem for years, they are getting worse. They initially spewed unwanted advertisements and now are more likely to install additional malicious programs or track where users are and what they are doing for government or commercial spies. Malicious developers have been using Google’s Chrome Store as a conduit for a long time. After one in 10 submissions was deemed malicious, Google said in 2018 it would improve security, in part by increasing human review. But in February independent researcher Jamila Kaya and Cisco Systems’ Duo Security uncovered a similar Chrome campaign that stole data from about 1.7 million users. Google joined the investigation and found 500 fraudulent extensions. “We do regular sweeps to find extensions using similar techniques, code and behaviors,” Google’s Westover said, in language identical to that of Google after Duo’s report. ( Reporting by Joseph Menn, editing by Greg Mitchell and Leslie Adler. ) 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. All rights reserved. "

"Why did Lawbreakers and Agents of Mayhem bomb? GamesBeat Decides | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2017/09/19/why-did-lawbreakers-and-agents-of-mayhem-bomb-gamesbeat-decides"

"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 Why did Lawbreakers and Agents of Mayhem bomb? GamesBeat Decides 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. Fall is upon us, and we are gasping for breath under a deluge of games. That’s one of the reasons this week’s episode of the GamesBeat Decides podcast is extra long. We spend a ton of time talking about games before diving into some news, but the big topic this week is all about big games like Lawbreakers, Agents of Mayhem, and Battleborn crashing and burning immediately after launching. Lawbreakers has only a couple hundred people playing at any one time, and Agents of Mayhem was the No. 16 best-selling game in the United States during its debut month of August, according to industry-tracking firm The NPD Group. Lawbreakers and Agents are the latest releases from Cliff Bleszinski and Saints Row team Volition, respectively. These are important creators who have made hits before, but their latest projects are commercial flops. What makes this even more fascinating is that neither game is critically reviled. Few people hate Agents of Mayhem or Lawbreakers — it’s just that no one is playing them. You can get that discussion in the second half of our episode. In the first segment, we talk about everything else. Here’s the full list of discussed games: Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite Divinity: Original Sin 2 Talisman: Digital Edition Hearthstone Fortnite: Battlegrounds Observer The Little Ball That Could Metroid: Samus Returns Subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Google Play Music , or Stitcher Listen on Cast GB Decides on Facebook Watch live on Twitch Watch on YouTube Subscribe to the RSS Follow us: GamesBeat on Twitter GamesBeat Decides on Twitter JeffGrubb on Twitter Mike Minotti on Twitter Stephanie Chan on Twitter Jason Wilson on Twitter Anthony Agnello on Twitter 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. All rights reserved. "

"Crucible impressions: A hero shooter with a slower pace, smaller teams, and one pretty map | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/19/crucible-impressions-a-hero-shooter-with-a-slower-pace-smaller-teams-and-a-pretty-map"

"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 Crucible impressions: A hero shooter with a slower pace, smaller teams, and one pretty map 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. Amazon has been cooking its science fiction Crucible game for years, and now it’s finally letting players into the world of the free-to-play team shooter on the PC. It’s an important first PC game from Amazon that will provide competition for Overwatch and Riot’s new Valorant , which is in beta testing. And it will help determine whether Amazon, an e-commerce and data services company, can find its way in games. Crucible is a hero shooter, where you choose from a roster of aliens, robots, and humans, and work with teammates to hunt opponents, take down hostile creatures, and capture objectives. You have to balance your team with tanks, snipers, brawlers, and such. And you fight it out on the planet Crucible, which in addition to dangerous critters has a valuable resource dubbed Essence. Players begin each match by selecting from a lineup of 10 hunters (Amazon will add more over time), each with distinct loadouts of weapons and abilities. With anywhere from two players to eight players on a team, you’ll quickly notice there isn’t an overwhelming number of combatants like the 150 in Call of Duty: Warzone, as Crucible was designed from the start to be watchable. This is from Louis Castle , the head of Seattle’s Relentless Studios at Amazon, in an interview with GamesBeat. 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’s exciting to watch anybody playing Crucible. You can jump in, randomly pick a character, watch them, and it’s instantly exciting,” Castle said. “The map is relatively small compared to the big open world maps in some of the battle royales out there. The team size, the number of players, is intentionally small, so the match resolves more quickly.” Amazon’s Twitch livestreaming division is no doubt eager to get excited about a home-grown game. And it’s nice to see Amazon think about the strengths that it offers as a company, with game designers creating games that will show well on Twitch. Crucible will be the first of two major titles from Amazon Games in 2020, followed by the launch of New World in August 2020. Previously, Amazon released The Grand Tour Game, a racing title for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2019. Before that, the company worked on various mobile games for the Amazon App Store. I’ve played the game for a few hours, and these are my impressions. I don’t feel that’s enough time to give this game a full review, but it is enough for me to see what sort of skill you need to play it. The tutorial can take you through how to play the game in a matter of minutes. But you’ll have to learn how to play the characters one-by-one. What you’ll like Above: Summer is a flamethrowing hunter in Crucible. Good variety of characters Crucible has a hunter for most playstyles. Earl is an interstellar trucker built like a tank. He has a giant gun with four barrels. Bugg is a robot botanist who can lay down plants that attack if you step within range of them. Summer is a former welder who wields flamethrowers. She can point her weapons downward and use the propulsion to fly for short distances, giving her the ability to escape from a hairy combat situation or catch up to a fleeing enemy. Drakal is a melee-only character with a giant ax and a chain that can pull somebody to him. Ajonah is a sniper who can lay mines as you chase after her. These heroes are recognizable enough for you to know what they can do on the battlefield and give you time to counter them. In the larger battles, chances are your team has a hero who can nicely counter whatever the enemy throws at you. These characters are all well designed, and they fit into the colorful terrain of the game’s first map. Before each match, you can customize the way the character levels up during the match. Three modes add variety Above: Crucible forces you to fight your environment on the planet as well as multiplayer enemies. Crucible is launching with three modes: Heart of the Hives, Harvester Command, and Alpha Hunters. In Heart of the Hives, two four-player teams battle giant boss Hives that spawn throughout the world. Each Hive contains a Heart, and the first team to capture three Hearts wins the match. The battle is balanced between racing to defeat the opposing team and battling to survive and capture the powerful Hives. Harvester Command challenges two teams of eight players to capture and hold Harvesters spread across the map, vying for control of the Essence that drew them all to the planet. The first team to deplete its opponent’s resources wins. This is a bit like Domination mode in Call of Duty, though there are five control points instead of just three. Of all three modes, I felt the most useful in this one, which was easy for me to grasp. In Alpha Hunters, eight teams of two fight to be the final team standing. When I played this game, we had some trouble finding enemy teams to hit. But there’s no excuses in this kind of fight. If you take on the enemy, you win if you shoot better or work better together than the enemy duo does. If you die, you’re out of the game. You can make alliances with other players, but then you can break the alliances at the end in order to go for a victory. As Castle said, these smaller team modes and the smaller map lead to matches winding up quickly. I think that would be even more true if, as mentioned down below, the game played a little faster. 1 2 View All 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. All rights reserved. "

"Louis Castle interview: How Amazon labored for 5 years to make team shooter Crucible | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/19/louis-castle-interview-how-amazon-labored-for-5-years-to-make-team-shooter-crucible"

"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 Louis Castle interview: How Amazon labored for 5 years to make team shooter Crucible Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Crucible 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. Amazon spent five years developing Crucible , the free-to-play team shooter game that launches on the PC today. The competitive multiplayer game lets players choose from a diverse roster of aliens, humans, and robots to battle on the planet Crucible, where they can collect the resource Essence while avoiding death from fellow hunters and the environment. Louis Castle, the cofounder of Westwood Studios and co-creator of games such as Command & Conquer, joined Amazon in 2017, and he runs the Relentless Studios game studio at Amazon in Seattle. Relentless made Crucible, which has elements of multiplayer games such as Blizzard’s Overwatch, Riot’s Valorant, and even Call of Duty. The game debuts with three models: Heart of the Hives (4-vs.-4), where players battle big bosses and capture their hearts to win; Alpha Hunters, eight teams of two players each in a final team standing match; and Harvester Command, where players capture and hold spots on a map. I talked with Castle about how Amazon made the game and the thinking behind its design. We’ll find out soon if those decisions resonate with players who are eager to play new games while in lockdown. 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 game was originally scheduled to come out in March, but Amazon decided to push the launch back to May 20 so the team could deal with the pandemic’s disruption as it finished work, Castle said. He also noted that the game was made from the beginning to be watchable, and all eyes are going to be on this first major PC game release from Amazon. Here’s an edited transcript of our interview. GamesBeat: I was chatting with a developer who said this project started about four years ago? Castle: It’s a little difficult to pin it down. The game started about five years ago, but it’s gone through some pretty big changes. It was announced before I joined the company at a TwitchCon in September 2016. When I came onboard, we had a playable version, and we had a community group already put together, 100 people or so. It was quite a good number. From the very beginnings, when it was barely stood up as a playable prototype, it’s always had community guidance. When I came to Amazon it was the project that resonated with me as being customer-obsessed , the way Amazon likes to be. It’s one of the things that attracted me to Crucible. All the leadership is tied into community. It’s been built hand in hand with a bunch of advisers. Above: Louis Castle runs Relentless Studios at Amazon. GamesBeat: How big would you say the team was when you got there? Were you going in just to run the game, or more to manage a larger studio? Castle: The quick answer is we’re not supposed to give exact sizes of teams. But it’s smaller than teams that would be working on competitive titles in the same space. It’s nowhere near some of the larger teams I’ve worked with in my career. It’s a relatively small, scrappy team. GamesBeat: Was it a prototyping team or a production team at that point? Castle: When I came onboard, there were two groups at Amazon. Amazon has a principle of single-threaded leaders, so there were two single-threaded leaders that had development teams under them. When I came on board, one of those groups was being redistributed to start on The Grand Tour and to do some stuff for Lumberyard. The other one was Crucible. It was a reasonably sized, adequate — it was bigger than a prototype team. It was a full-size development team. They had a game that was playable. I had a chance to play it in the lab, and it was quite fun. There were a number of concerns at that time, which have of course been remediated since then, but right from the get-go the game has always been a lot of fun to play. GamesBeat: How did this get going? Castle: I was called by my friend Rich Hilleman [an Amazon game executive and former chief creative director at Electronic Arts]. I’d known Rich since I was in high school, so it’s been a long time. He said, “Hey, you should talk to Mike Frazzini [vice president of games at Amazon].” It just so happened that I was contracting for companies like Kixeye and Kabam and a bunch of others. Everything was closing out at the same time, and I was looking for new work. I talked to Mike, and there was a lot of talk about the kinds of roles I could do at Amazon. He asked me point-blank, “What would you like to do? What would be your favorite thing to do?” I said, “Well, I’ve been in the trenches for a few years now, working on actually touching the code again. I like being closer to the products. It’d be great to be a head of studio again. I like working with the teams directly.” He said, “We can work that out.” I went in and did the interviewing at Amazon. I love the teams I’m working with. I love the work. I’m super happy to be doing it. Mike Frazzini shares internally with our group the original pitch to the senior team leaders at Amazon, the same way that Jeff Bezos shares that letter to the shareholders. Just a reminder of the north star. We have a real reason to be here. Amazon’s games, for ages — as a company, AWS, is used by about 80 percent of the top game companies in the world. All the features, all the services we offer. We’re also selling games too as a retailer. It’s not that big of a jump to say that we should not just be offering up the stack tools, but also down the stack tools. That’s how Lumberyard got built, and there are lots of cool things still coming from game tech. We’re all in on games in lots of ways. One of the things you should be doing if you’re making products for customers is knowing you understand the customer’s position. As an internal customer, having game teams makes a lot of sense. It slowed us down in the beginning a bit, because we were trying to do an awful lot of things at once. I’m proud of how they came out and people rallied around the excitement of building something that’s truly obsessed right from the team level. Above: Crucible is coming on May 20 on the PC. GamesBeat: Was it difficult learning how to use Lumberyard, using a new game engine? Castle: Lumberyard has a lot of interesting features about it, because it’s been built with a lot of ideas around feedback from customers and things like that. We’re working very closely with that group and with other customers on unannounced products. It’s the same internally. It was nice to have a team that’s dedicated to a technology base right there next to you. It’s also caused some amount of friction, because it’s a brand-new thing. The nice thing about Amazon is we can build whatever tools we want. We were building on Lumberyard because that made a lot of sense at the time. We may or may not be doing that. I’m sure it just depends on the project. But Lumberyard is a great tool. It’s good at many things that it does. Lots of companies, especially simulation companies that love the highly technical scale issues in Lumberyard — for game development it’s not as mature as some of the other game engines, but we’ve managed to make something that’s as competitive as anything else out there. GamesBeat: When you came in, did you reboot the project in some way, or re-orient it? Castle: There was something I did. I first came on board in February. By July we had a big playtest, about 250 players. It was pretty interesting that in July 2017, we had 250 people playing this in the wild. I liked the feedback from all the customers. It was clear that we were on to something exciting, and they were itching to play it. This was before PUBG had become too big, and way before Fortnite. The game was a character-based shooter. Even back then it had some battle royal aspects to it. It had all these other features you’re seeing that are unique when you play it, the attention to detail in the map and the placement of objects, the MOBA aspect of characters leveling up during the match. All this stuff that you don’t see in other games in the genre. The reason Crucible predates all those games — it has not been developed in parallel to the industry finding all the fun in these competitive games. I felt like we needed to do a big technology upgrade on our networking infrastructure. Some of the team members convinced me that we needed to change some of the core tech around entity component systems, so that we would be able to have better scalability. For the nontechnical people out there, it’s more about making this a fair place to play. It’s performant over many kinds of connections. We could update the graphics quite a bit with some dynamic global illumination. Stuff that’s in Unreal Engine 5 now, that’s in Crucible. It’s not quite exactly what they’re doing, but it gets the same effect. There was a visual upgrade. Online play had to be better. That would also require us to rewrite the game. The previous version of the game was live for the full year-plus that it took to rewrite the game engine, just so we could keep playing with our alphas and make sure that we refined the game. We have a game that’s been in testing for more than three years, more or less in the same state it’s in right now. That shows in the quality of the experience and the balance of all the characters. 1 2 3 View All 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. All rights reserved. "

"Valorant launches on June 2 | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/21/valorant-launches-on-june-2"

"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 Valorant launches on June 2 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Sage in Valorant. 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. Riot Games announced today that its team-based shooter Valorant will have its official launch for PC on June 2. The free-to-play game has been in beta since April 7 and has already become a hit with many streamers, influencers, and pro players. That testing period will end on May 28. Once that happens, Riot will reset player accounts and patch in new content. Setting back player progress from a beta is common for competitive games like this, as it will put everyone on equal footing when Valorant launches. For years, Riot has focused on a single game, the MOBA League of Legends. While that free-to-play title has been a huge hit, Riot has begun to diversify its library in recent years, including with the auto battler Teamfight Tactics and the digital card game Legends of Runeterra. Valorant will be the studio’s most ambitious post-League of Legends project yet. Unlike with Teamfight Tactics or Legends of Runeterra, Valorant has no story or world connection to the League of Legends universe. 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 game is similar to Valve’s Counter-Strike series. One team tries to plant a bomb (or spike, as it’s called in Valorant) while the other has to stop them or defuse the bomb if it’s set. Players earn money after every round based on things like how many kills they got and if their team won or lost, and they can use that cash to buy things like armor and guns. Unlike with Counter-Strike, Valorant is hero-based, similar to games like Riot’s own League of Legends or (if you want another shooter example) Blizzard’s Overwatch. Each hero has access to a unique set of abilities. For example, one character can create walls, another can blind the enemy team with a flash bang, and another can set up smoke clouds across the map. But at the end of the day, success still depends largely on your ability to aim and shoot. 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. All rights reserved. "

"PlayBrain raises $1.9 million for League of Legends esports events in Japan | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/02/27/playbrain-raises-1-9-million-for-league-of-legends-esports-events-in-japan"

"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 PlayBrain raises $1.9 million for League of Legends esports events in Japan Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn PlayBrain's staff in Tokyo. 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. PlayBrain has raised $1.9 million in seed funding for its business of staging esports events in Japan, including the League of Legends Japan League. The money comes from investors, including the Berlin-based Bitkraft Esports Ventures, one of the most prolific esports investment firms. PlayBrain will use the new funding to scale the team, accelerate growth, and support costs to lead the creative direction, operation, and commercialization of League of Legends Japan League (LJL). Market researcher Newzoo reported that 67.6 million players in Japan will spend $19.2 billion in 2018, making it the third-largest games market in the world. This deal marks the first Western investment in esports in the Japanese market. PlayBrain is a full-service esports tournament and media company in Tokyo. Its mission to help brands reach gamers and fans through large-scale esports event production. PlayBrain has partnered with Riot Games and Yoshimoto to lead in the operation of the LJL league. Established by Riot Games, LJL is the largest esports league in Japan. PlayBrain also works with the most prominent brands in gaming including, Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, CD Projekt, Bandai Namco Entertainment, Twitch, and Supercell. 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: Playbrain founder Mike Sheetal. “As a company that is multicultural and multilingual, we see ourselves as a bridge connecting the Japanese competitive gaming community to the rest of the world,” said PlayBrain founder Mike Sheetal in a statement. “The investment from Bitkraft Esports Ventures will enable us, and the Japanese esports market as a whole, to gain more ground in the global esports industry by developing the next generation esports cultural products born out of Tokyo’s distinct youth culture and helping foreign brands effectively enter, and engage, with Japan’s gaming community.” “With a $19 billion games market, Japan is a sleeping giant in esports and is finally waking up and recognizing its potential to become one of the largest markets globally next to China and the US,” said Bitkraft founding partner Malte Barth, in a statement. “This investment comes at the perfect time, ahead of the 2020 Olympics when all eyes will be on Tokyo, and Japan’s quickly growing esports ecosystem.” 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. All rights reserved. "

"23 countries seek access to Apple and Google's contact tracing technology | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/21/23-countries-seek-access-to-apple-and-googles-contact-tracing-technology"

"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 23 countries seek access to Apple and Google’s contact tracing technology Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn FILE PHOTO: A Swiss soldier shows on a mobile device the contact tracking application created by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) 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. ( Reuters ) — Authorities in 23 countries across five continents have sought access to contact tracing technology from Apple and Alphabet’s Google , the companies announced on Wednesday as they released the initial version of their system. But authorities would have to stop requiring phone numbers from users under the companies’ rules, one of several restrictions that have left governments fighting the novel coronavirus frustrated that the world’s top two smartphone software makers undercut the technology’s usefulness by prioritizing user privacy. Apple and Google said several U.S. states and 22 countries have sought access to their technology, but it is unclear how many will end up publishing mobile apps that use it. Using apps to accelerate contact tracing, in which authorities identify and test people who were recently near a virus carrier, has emerged as a tool to stem new outbreaks. It could help authorities test more potentially infected individuals than they would normally be able to based on patients recalling recent interactions from memory. But some governments contend their app-based efforts would be more effective if they could track users’ locations to identify hot spots for virus transmission and notify them about possible exposure through calls or texts, rather than a generic push notification. Apple and Google have barred authorities using their technology from collecting GPS location data or requiring users to enter personal data. “We have a collision of tech, privacy, and health professionals, and the Venn diagram doesn’t really have a spot where they all overlap,” said Chester Wisniewski, a principal research scientist at cybersecurity company Sophos. Australia, the United Kingdom, and other countries that have sought to develop their own technology are experiencing glitches, draining device batteries and seeing limited adoption. Apple and Google have said their system will more reliably use Bluetooth connections between devices to log users who are in physical proximity for at least five minutes. Developers of contact tracing apps for Austria, Germany, and Switzerland told Reuters this week they were moving forward with the Apple-Google technology and were fine not knowing users’ phone numbers. Other governments are hedging their bets. Norway plans to compare the effectiveness of its Smittestopp app with an Apple-Google-based app, Gun Peggy Knudsen, acting deputy director of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, said in an interview. Smittestopp, which has a development budget of about $5 million, accesses GPS location and requires phone numbers. But it has seen limited use because of a low number of new infections. “If the tracing is so much better with the Apple-Google tool, then perhaps we should switch, and we would consider what we need to do to do the switch,” Knudsen said. North Dakota, which offered the first U.S. contact tracing app, told Reuters on Wednesday it will leave its initial Care19 app as a location-tracking “diary” tool to help patients jog their memories. But it also will release a new Care19 Exposure app based on the Apple-Google technology. The Australian government said it was in talks with Apple and Google about enhancing its COVIDSafe app, which currently requires phone numbers, postcodes, and age ranges. ( Reporting by Paresh Dave, editing by Tom Brown. ) 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. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Yves Guillemot interview -- Ubisoft is backing new platforms like Google Stadia to expand gaming | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/06/09/yves-guillemot-interview-why-ubisoft-is-supporting-google-stadia-and-other-new-platforms"

"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 Yves Guillemot interview — Ubisoft is backing new platforms like Google Stadia to expand gaming Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft, is happy. 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. Yves Guillemot wants gaming to reach billions more people. That’s why the CEO of Ubisoft, one of the world’s biggest video game companies, welcomes cloud gaming platforms such as the newly announced Google Stadia. In advance of the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) , the big game trade show in Los Angeles this week, I spoke with Guillemot about his views of the game industry and the opportunity to make games more accessible to a lot more people. He was bullish on cloud gaming services like Stadia and their ability to bring gamer to wider audiences. “What we saw [with Stadia] is that streaming is going to [be big],” Guillemot said. ” It will be available for free if you play on a low resolution. [It’s revolutionary, it’s going to give access to everyone and with the ability to play on a tablet]. That will put pressure on the industry, with a new model that can help the industry grow tremendously. Microsoft will almost certainly answer Sony. Sony announced they will come with a machine next year, and Microsoft is certainly going to say something in response.” “These two events are huge,” he added. “They give us a chance for us to have our triple-A games on mobile devices. Those are the big trends that are going to change the industry.” 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! One of the most attractive things about Stadia is that, once the base version launches next year, you will be able to get started with just a $70 controller and use that to be able to play just about any game. That will reduce the friction, or the obstacles that get in the way of gaming, for many people around the world. Above: Google has a few colors for its Stadia controllers. Guillemot also believes that cross play and cross progression (where you can pick up a saved game on any device) are also very important features for cloud gaming. That will enable you to play with all of your friends, regardless of which platform you own. “That’s pretty cool,” he said. Asked how the device makers will differentiate themselves in such a world, Guillemot said that the competition will be fierce and the devices makers will have to provide a good experience. Players will have a choice. As for E3, the big game trade show in Los Angeles this week, Guillemot said the company will have three titles debuting in the fourth quarter. Ubisoft will describe these games at its press event on Monday, and he said we will have to wait and see which leaks are correct and which are not. One thing that will become clear at the press event is that Ubisoft is adapting its portfolio to reach a larger audience via better accessibility. “We want to have games that are easy to access and can be played by everyone,” Guillemot said. Above: Happy Yves Guillemot. That’s a reference to Stadia again and cloud gaming in general, so that you can access games both the TV and mobile devices. As for next-generation consoles, the improved processing power will enable “more intelligent game worlds with deeper systems, the ability to play with more friends and have more social interactions,” he said. The games will take advantage of the immense power of server farms. Ubisoft has more than 16,000 employees today, which is dramatically higher than a decade ago and compares to 12,000 in 2018. That has been driven in part by the live operations, or the ability to add to games and update the play experiences long after the games are launched. The longer people play the games, the more others will come along and buy the game, helping games monetize over a longer time. That, in turn, gives Ubisoft more resources to create new brands and new games. And in contrast to many other big companies, Ubisoft still follows a “tentpole” strategy, where it has big games that support the main part of the “tent,” as well as smaller games that can exist underneath that tent. Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2 took as many as 2,000 people working for up to seven years to bring the game to completion. Above: The Just Dance dancers at Ubisoft’s E3 2018 press event. Guillemot said each publisher is different, but he said, “We certainly want to do better than those guys. So we are working on our systems and our way of doing things to make sure we do better than the competition.” Sometimes that means bringing a game out every year, and sometimes it means switching, as in the case of Assassin’s Creed, so that developers have more time and the title does not come out every year. with a new game every year, he said. And since content refreshes happen a lot more often, and players stay immersed in a big title for longer times, there isn’t as much need to come out with a brand new title every year, Guillemot said. Above: Ubisoft Station F As for experimental titles like the education-oriented Discovery Tour by Assassin’s Creed, Ubisoft is pleased that teachers are using the non-violent version of the game world to educate children. “We love that there are more and more teachers using it,” he said. “We want to go deeper and be more interactive.” Regarding game fans, Guillemot said they are more social and want to communicate and share a lot more than they used to. They want the capacity to create or stream. Guillemot believes that modders and creators will want more tools to create their own content, and Ubisoft will prove it. Of course, some fans are not behaving so well right now. Asked if he thinks digital civility needs more work, he said yes. Without good behavior, he said, you don’t get the full experience. “You have all sorts of people, and so it needs constant work,” he said. “There are a lot of tools to understand and detect bad behavior. You can tell people that if you continue it, it will be bad for you.” Above: Yves Guillemot (right) at the introduction of Beyond Good & Evil 2 at E3 2017. Regarding E3, Guillemot said he is very excited for the show. He acknowledged that virtual reality is catching on slower than expected. But he noted a number of the participants have a lot of capacity to invest in VR to make it stronger. Blockchain , meanwhile, is “unstable,” he said. That means that applying blockchain to gaming is still going to be challenging. The opportunities are huge, but it’s not clear exactly what is going to catch on yet. As for artificial intelligence, Guillemot said he is excited to see it being used in animations and other tasks to make humans more efficient at their work. He also said that he embraces technological change and platform changes because it creates the opportunity for disruption. “In fact, each time you have a disruption, you can be more creative. People are open to new technologies, and so you can try new things,” Guillemot said. “That is very rewarding for the team. And we have to go fast because we have to be the first,” Guillemot said. “That is very rewarding for the team. And we have to go fast because we have to be the first.” Guillemot said he was pleased with the collaboration with Nintendo on the Switch with Mario + Rabbids, and he said that relationship would continue. Above: Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto (left) and Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot present what was one of gaming’s most unlikely marriages at E3 in 2017. Ubisoft survived a hostile takeover attempt by Vivendi. Tencent agreed to buy Vivendi’s stake and Vivendi went away. Asked why it’s important for Ubisoft to be independently owned, Guillemot said, “Everything we just said is actually, as we have seen. The industry is changing so often that you have to take risks. And when you’re part of a big corporation, you spend your time explaining to all the people that it should be good to go there. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Assassin's Creed: Valhalla creative director steps down amid sexual misconduct allegations | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/24/assassins-creed-valhalla-creative-director-steps-down-amid-sexual-misconduct-allegations"

"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 Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla creative director steps down amid sexual misconduct allegations Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Assassin's Creed: Valhalla. 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. Ashraf Ismail is stepping down as creative director on Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. This comes after multiple people alleged that Ismail lied about being married to keep them in a relationship with him. Publisher Ubisoft has confirmed the move. “I am stepping down from my beloved project to properly deal with the personal issues in my life,” Ismail wrote on Twitter. “The lives of my family and my own are shattered. I am deeply sorry to everyone hurt in this.” Ismail did not say what actions actually shattered his life and those of his family. In multiple accounts on social media , people allege that Ismail would lie repeatedly about his marriage. As for Assassin’s Creed, the franchise is moving forward without Ismail. Ubisoft hasn’t provided a release date for Valhalla beyond later this year. The company didn’t address release timing or the allegations against Ismail in its statement: 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! Ashraf Ismail is stepping down from the project to take a leave of absence. The development team is committed to delivering a great game in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. For his part, Ismail also said he is stepping down to protect his coworkers at Ubisoft. “There are hundreds of talented, passionate people striving to build an experience for you that do not deserve to be associated with this,” Ismail wrote on Twitter. “I wish them all the best.” 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. All rights reserved. "

"Sexual abuse allegations rock the game industry again | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/24/sexual-abuse-allegations-rock-the-game-industry-again"

"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 Sexual abuse allegations rock the game industry again Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Words associated with a person concerned with sexual abuse, according to Crisis Text Line data. 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. The game industry reached a new boiling point this week as more than 200 people made allegations of sexual assault , rape, and harassment. They took to social media to tell harrowing tales of overcoming fear of ostracism and proceeded to relate stories of disgusting behavior by their abusers. This week feels like a new upheaval in the industry’s attempt to deal with discrimination. It comes a matter of weeks after the Black Lives Matter protest began to shake up the industry — along with the entire nation — about mistreatment of Black people. That eruption elicited a positive response from the game industry to do better in its treatment and representation of Black people. And it seems this new eruption will also result in changes for women and other abused people — so long as the movement doesn’t fizzle, perhaps due to inaction by those in power, as has happened in the past after big moments such as in 2019 or 2014. It’s happened before The response is different compared to 2014, when a smaller number of women criticized the sexist culture of gaming and were pilloried by anonymous critics on the internet in a controversy known as Gamergate. Feminist critic Anita Sarkeesian, game developers Zoe Quinn and Brianna Wu, and others warned that the game industry had a sexism and harassment problem, though much of that discussion focused on how women were depicted in games, alleged corruption in game journalism, and the lack of representation of women in game companies. In the summer of 2018, Kotaku published a long story on a culture of sexism at Riot Games , showing systemic problems at a company where 20% of the then-1,700 or so staff were women. Riot apologized , changed its management practices and staff , and came up with new values to put its “bro culture” behind it. 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! Another eruption happened in September 2019, as the #MeToo movement came to games. Coming off the movement that hit the media and entertainment industries, a handful of cases involved allegations of men sexually abusing women in gaming. Allegations of abuse named prominent independent game developer Alec Holowka, the co-creator of indie hit Night in the Woods. He died by suicide shortly after allegations were leveled against him. Other accusations also shed light on the gaming industry’s #MeToo problem, but they were often one-off cases that came and went in the news cycle. And in the wake of Holowka’s death, the ire of anonymous posters often went against those who dared to speak out for “ruining the lives” of the alleged abusers. The past week The allegations this time have hit every part of the industry: game developers, marketers, publicists, influencers, game journalists, livestreamers, and companies big (Ubisoft) and small. While many women faced further harassment from anonymous posters on Twitter, this wave of allegations was also marked by an outpouring of supportive comments. They included women who corroborated the stories of women who came out with stories of abuse, which made it harder for the accused men to hide behind denials. “I stand by you” or “I believe you” are common reactions on many of the posts from survivors. Clearly, as last year’s eruption demonstrated, the survivors sharing their stories took enormous risks because they had to weigh whether the disclosures would lead to backlash. Much of that backlash has happened, but support has been forthcoming as well. One case unleashed the latest allegations A former community manager named Karissa (@SJBsMama on Twitter) started with an accusation on June 17. https://twitter.com/SJBsMama/status/1274175397337411586 In the case of Chris Avellone, a prominent writer on games such as Dying Light 2, the allegations were so numerous, as were the corroborating statements of others, that game developers immediately cut ties with Avellone. Gato Salvaje, the maker of the upcoming The Waylanders role-playing game, said that Avellone is no longer associated with its project. Techland also cut ties with Avellone on Dying Light 2. Here's the statement regarding our cooperation with Chris Avellone: pic.twitter.com/ozLXZdVPZw — Techland (@TechlandGames) June 22, 2020 Online Performers Group CEO Omeed Dariani stepped down from his post after allegations of abuse by an Overwatch community development leader on Twitter. The streamer Lono apologized on Twitter for his behavior toward women after he was called out by fellow influencers. Astro Gaming quickly said it would stop sponsoring Lono. And on Wednesday, Ashraf Ismail, the creative director of Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, also stepped down from his role in Ubisoft’s next major game following allegations. I am stepping down from my beloved project to properly deal with the personal issues in my life. The lives of my family and my own are shattered. I am deeply sorry to everyone hurt in this. — Ashraf Ismail (@AshrafAIsmail) June 24, 2020 Ubisoft also said it is investigating a number of allegations leveled in the past few days against its employees for abuse, rape, and harassment. “We are deeply concerned by these accusations. We take any allegations of abuse or harassment very seriously and we are looking very closely into the allegations to determine next steps,” an Ubisoft spokesperson said in an email to GamesBeat. Updated statement from Ubisoft: Concerning recent allegations raised against certain Ubisoft team members: We want to start by apologizing to everyone affected by this – we are truly sorry. We are dedicated to creating an inclusive and safe environment for our teams, players, and communities. It is clear we have fallen short of this in the past. We must do better. We have started by launching investigations into the allegations with the support of specialized external consultants. Based on the outcomes, we are fully committed to taking any and all appropriate disciplinary action. As these investigations are ongoing, we can’t comment further. We are also auditing our existing policies, processes, and systems to understand where these have broken down, and to ensure we can better prevent, detect, and punish inappropriate behavior. We will be sharing additional measures that we are putting in place with our teams in the coming days. Our goal is to foster an environment that our employees, partners, and communities can be proud of –one that reflects our values and that is safe for everyone. Many of the allegations are now archived in a Medium post created by Jessica Richey , a streamer in New York. Those allegations include responses from those accused where available. It seems many of the industry’s biggest companies have multiple cases, leading to allegations that they didn’t enforce their human resources policies. Twitch CEO Emmett Shear stated that the company was looking into incidents related to its employees. Insomniac Games, the maker of Marvel’s Spider-Man, was also accused by a former employee of doing little to stop predators. The company said it was taking appropriate steps to address the accusation. The discussions also spilled into poor treatment of employees in general. IGN’s former management, for example, was accused of mistreating journalists and forcing them to create incorrect stories, along with allegations of sexual misconduct. Many game companies have recently pledged their support for Black Lives Matter and committed to rooting out racism in their ranks. Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox, pledged that Microsoft would investigate the circumstances surrounding the resignation of a Black employee at Mixer ( which it’s shutting down ) because of what the employee said was racist treatment. And now it seems that sexism and sexual harassment will also be investigated — again. It appears a lot more people will be watching now to see if investigations result in change. [Updated 3:17 p.m. 6/25/20: Added new Ubisoft statement]. 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. All rights reserved. "

"For work from home, technology's convenience matters more than its power | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/22/for-work-from-home-technologys-convenience-matters-more-than-its-power"

"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 For work from home, technology’s convenience matters more than its power Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn As Polaroid demonstrated, a technology's convenience sometimes outweighs its raw power and performance. 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. Over the years I’ve worked as a technology journalist, I’ve been lucky enough to watch multiple product categories evolve from their earliest days to maturity and sometimes sunsetting — a cyclical process that is rarely identical between different types of products, but often has similarities from category to category. One common thread I’ve noticed is that at some point, multiple products within a category tend to become similar (or satisfactory) enough in horsepower that those differences matter less than a critical convenience one offers over the others , so the “winner” isn’t the strongest or most diverse alternative, but rather the one with the best user experience. For better or worse, the coronavirus pandemic abruptly pushed much of the labor force into the cold water tank of working from home, and many companies are signaling that this change will continue for months after public spaces reopen. Companies such as Apple have reported notable upticks in their sales of traditional and tablet computers for use in home offices, but regardless of the platform or devices you or your employer prefer, the focus today should be on convenience and user experience, not just raw horsepower. Beyond the need to churn out traditional work product — concepts, documents, objects, or services — modern work-from-home scenarios now force parents to become responsible for their kids’ education and/or childcare, straining even the most career-focused individual’s ability to focus on their projects. It’s in that context that convenience has emerged as a potentially decisive advantage for businesses that sell products: Saving precious moments of a user’s time isn’t just a “life hack,” but rather the only way to juggle multiple overlapping responsibilities. Some companies have made fortunes capitalizing on convenience. In decades past, Polaroid popularized instant but mediocre photos that didn’t require a visit to a photo processing lab, which meant they could be enjoyed faster but would fade more quickly than rivals. Ronco similarly created a billion-dollar business by focusing squarely on the simplicity of its “set it and forget it” countertop rotisserie oven. Legendary marketing guru Ron Popeil knew there was magic in putting a whole chicken or slab of beef into a device and coming back later to find a ready-to-serve meal for four, and his company built the product solely to deliver that exact experience. For various reasons, technology companies focused for decades on specs and performance rather than convenience and user experience, but Apple’s growing successes at the start of the 2000s began to change the discussion. The company’s CEO marketed multiple new technology innovations with a mantra — “it just works” — that promised to free users from being mired in the specifics. Apple engineers had already sanded off the rough edges, he suggested, so you could just enjoy the benefits without thinking much about them. Above: Apple’s Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro (left) and Brydge Pro+ (right). I’ve spent much of the past month thinking about the relationship between power, convenience, and user experience because of several products I’ve tested for work-from-home purposes. What pushed me over the edge to write about it was a new iPad Pro keyboard-trackpad combination called Brydge Pro+ , the first such accessory to be announced for Apple’s tablet, but the third to reach average consumers. There’s no need to fully review Pro+, but it’s worth thinking about why it fails compared with its rivals. On one hand, Pro+ is the best-looking, best-feeling iPad keyboard-trackpad out there, and reasonably priced for what it’s supposed to deliver. Made from aluminum, it feels more like something Apple would make than the plasticky iPad Pro Magic Keyboard Apple actually released. It uses wireless Bluetooth to connect to the iPad, and has its own battery, so its backlit keyboard (with a full row of useful shortcut keys!) and nicely sized tracking surface don’t erode the tablet’s own power source when you use them. But in real world use, Pro+ turns out to be the least convenient option, and that matters a lot. Something in the firmware or Bluetooth connection has led the tracking to feel less smooth in Brydge’s implementation than competing keyboards from Apple and Logitech. Even though it’s measurable in milliseconds rather than seconds, there’s a hint of lag, and it doesn’t support all the multi-touch gestures (including quick app switching) that you can use with the Magic Keyboard. This actually impacts productivity, and Brydge knows as much: It says it’s still working on Pro’s firmware to improve performance, and claims “it won’t stop” until the experience lives up to expectations. The fact that Pro+ happens to be substantially less expensive than Apple’s own option isn’t lost on me; there’s a $100 difference between Brydge’s metal design and Apple’s mostly plastic one. But if Apple’s success over the past two decades has demonstrated anything, it’s that some people — many people, even — will pay a premium for something that’s easier to use and/or more convenient, despite other issues it may have. As we work to recover from the pandemic, other companies looking for success with today’s salary- and time-constrained consumers might not be able to rely on Apple-level extra profits. But they should follow this lesson: Convenience matters to technology users, perhaps now more than ever, and focusing on making your products easier to use will give you the edge you need to win over your next wave of customers. 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. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Android Wear is now Wear OS by Google | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2018/03/15/android-wear-is-now-wear-os-by-google"

"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 Android Wear is now Wear OS by Google 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. Google has confirmed last week’s rumor on Reddit : Android Wear has been rebranded to Wear OS by Google. In short, Google’s wearable operating system is no longer tied to Android — it’s “a wearables operating system for everyone.” Users will begin to see the new name on their watch and phone app “over the next few weeks.” Google explains that Android Wear was always meant to bring wearables to as many people as possible. After bringing iOS support to Android Wear in August 2015 , Google has continued to make sure the platform works for both Android and iOS users. In 2017, one out of three new Android Wear watch owners also used an iPhone, Google revealed. While the name is new today, Google promises there is more to come. Without going into detail, the company said “new features and improvements” will be released “over the coming weeks and months.” Google also shared a few numbers about the platform today. Since launch, more than 50 watches running Android Wear have been built so far “to help you manage your fitness, connect with the people who matter most, and show you the information you care about.” The company saw more than 60 percent year-over-year growth in activations between the 2016 holiday season and the 2017 holiday season. And yet the platform has been unable to keep up with the competition. The biggest players in the space , including market leaders Apple, Fitbit, and Xiaomi, don’t use it. They have their own operating systems tailored for their devices. But Google isn’t giving up — it’s just doubling down on marketing. Update at 8 p.m. Pacific : Google has released a list of watches that will get the Wear OS platform update. There are 33 so far: Casio PRO TREK Smart WSD-F20 Casio WSD-F10 Smart Outdoor Watch Diesel Full Guard Emporio Armani Connected Fossil Q Control Fossil Q Explorist Fossil Q Founder 2.0 Fossil Q Marshal Fossil Q Venture Fossil Q Wander Guess Connect Gc Connect Huawei Watch 2 (both cellular & non-cellular versions) Hugo BOSS BOSS Touch Kate Spade Scallop LG Watch Sport LG Watch Style Louis Vuitton Tambour Misfit Vapor Michael Kors Access Bradshaw Michael Kors Access Dylan Michael Kors Access Grayson Michael Kors Sofie Montblanc Summit Movado Connect Mobvoi Ticwatch S & E Nixon Mission Polar M600 Skagen Falster Smartwatch TAG Heuer Connected Modular 41 TAG Heuer Connected Modular 45 Tommy Hilfiger 24/7 You ZTE Quartz 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. All rights reserved. "

"Qualcomm's Snapdragon Wear 3100 smartwatch chipset promises up to 2 days of battery life | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2018/09/10/qualcoms-new-snapdragon-wear-3100-smartwatch-chipset-delivers-up-to-two-days-of-battery-life"

"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 Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear 3100 smartwatch chipset promises up to 2 days of battery life 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. After a series of false starts and missed forecasts, the smartwatch market has finally started to come into its own. Android Wear, Google’s smartwatch operating system, was recently redesigned, relaunched, and rechristened Wear OS. And smartwatches sales have never been better, with shipments hitting a record 10 million globally in Q2 2018. That’s all despite the fact that the Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear 2100 , one of the most popular choices in chipsets among manufacturers, is more than two years old. It wasn’t particularly cutting edge at launch, and competitors like Apple and Samsung have long since leapfrogged it with their respective architectures. Qualcomm hasn’t been sitting on the sidelines, to be fair — it launched the Snapdragon Wear 2500 , a midrange system-on-chip designed for LTE-equipped kids’ watches running a custom version of Android, earlier this year. But on the eve of a press event where Apple’s expected to announce a next-gen Apple Watch, the San Deigo chipmaker jumped back into the ring today with a new high-end chipset: the Snapdragon Wear 3100. It’s based on a brand-new architecture Qualcomm claims is the most efficient it’s ever created, optimized for wearables-specific use cases like step tracking, heart rate monitoring, and always-on connectivity. A new coprocessor Above: The Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100’s coprocessor is a fraction of the size of a penny. “We had two mantras when we were designing this chip: make smartwatches more useful, and make them last longer,” Pankaj Kedia, senior director and business lead of Qualcomm’s Smart Wearable division, told VentureBeat in a phone interview. “That’s how we’re increasing their utility. That was the laser focus.” 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 that end, the company’s engineers stuffed the Snapdragon Wear 3100 with a four A7 cores and two secondary chips — a digital signal processor (DSP) and an ultra-low power coprocessor (QCC1110) — in what Qualcomm calls a “big-small-tiny” arrangement. The “big” A7 cores handle intensive, complex tasks like switching between apps, while the “small” and “tiny” DSP and coprocessor perform sensor fusion and other background chores. The way Kedia tells it, the coprocessor — a diminutive 5.2mm x 4mm chip that’s the product of more than five years of research — is the inarguable showrunner. It taps a Qualcomm-designed memory module that draws a mere 0.6 volts of power, and it’s altogether 20 times more power-efficient than the A7 cores. “What is different about the [new chipset] fundamentally is that it’s designed for how we use smartwatches,” Kedia said. “It’s very different from how you use your phone. You don’t shut a smartwatch down at night — it’s working for you 24/7, always sensing you and monitoring your sleep patterns. Today’s architectures are not meant for that.” So what’s it do? It’s principally meant for light workloads like listening for the wake phrases that precede voice commands (“OK, Google”), streaming music in the background, and updating digital watch faces. However, it’s designed to be extensible — OEMs can tap the coprocessor for real-time sleep and activity monitoring, for example, or for heart rate tracking. “OEMs want to bring their own algorithms, especially the sports customers. That’s what they bring to the table. The coprocessor takes the brunt of that processing,”, Kedia explained. The coprocessor — along with the DSP and A7 cores — drive three smartwatch operating modes intended to boost battery life. Enhanced ambient mode displays a basic watch face UI in up to 16 colors, with a smoothly animated second hand, live complications, and ambient brightness. Traditional watch mode dispenses with those bells and whistles in favor of a basic analog watch face. Dedicated sports mode — which isn’t available at launch, but will arrive later with sports OEMs, Kedia said — enables core features like heart rate and GPS tracking, but nothing else. Above: The three new modes enabled by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear 3100. All three are made possible by both a “dual display” architecture that allows the A7 cores and coprocessor to render elements on-screen cooperatively, and by a new power management subsystem (PMW3100) that supports “lower power” and “higher integration” than previous generations. “When you talk to smartwatch customers, they tell you they want rich, live, and colorful complications — they want the watch to look like a watch, ” Kedia said. “Watches with the Snapdragon 3100 will continue to function as watches for an extended period of time. We’re targeting the fashionistas and sports people who don’t want to switch to a different form factor because of battery life concerns.” Qualcomm provided a blow-by-blow comparison of the Wear 3100 and Wear 2100’s power consumption: Lowest power mode: 67 percent lower GPS and location batching: 49 percent lower Keyword detection: 43 percent lower Clock update once per minute: 35 percent lower MP3 playback: 34 percent lower Voice queries over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi: 13 percent lower The translates to gains of about four to twelve hours in practice (depending on the form factor), or between a day and a half to two days of battery life. In traditional watch mode, Wear 3100 devices can last up to a week on a charge with 20 percent battery (or up to 30 days with full battery), according to Qualcomm, or 15 hours in dedicated sports mode (with a 450mAh battery). The DSP, A7 cores, and coprocessor aren’t the Snapdragon Wear 3100’s only highlights. There’s a new NFC chip from silicon supplier NXP that supports more readers and smaller antenna designs; a 4G LTE modem with high-performance gallium arsenide power amplifiers; and a new power management system that makes charging more efficient. The first Wear 3100-based devices will ship “this holiday season,” Kedia said, from the Fossil Group, Louis Vuitton, and Montblanc. (The Montblanc Summit 2 was announced during an event on Monday.) Interestingly, Qualcomm’s not planning to phase out the Snapdragon Wear 2100 or any of the other SKUs in its wearable portfolio — at least for now. “The number one segment we’ve seen is smartwatches for kids, and the 2500, 1100, and 1200 are great for this. We’ll continue to support them,” Kedia said. Momentum in the market With the launch of the Wear 3100, Qualcomm’s building on pretty impressive momentum in the wearables market. Its partner list reads like a who’s who of the fashion, fitness, and consumer electronics industries: Misfit, Nixon, Huawei, LG, Boss, Guess, Kate Spade, Porsche, Diesel, Fossil, Michael Kors, Movado, Skagen, Armani, Gucci, Marc Jabocs, Asus, ZTE, and Mobvoi. Its chips are in more than 200 wearables on the market and about 80 percent of Wear OS devices today, Kedia said. “We ship, roughly speaking, one new product a week with our customers,” he said. “It’s similar to what happened in the phone space. If you … compare the number of products shipping, it’s one of [our] fastest-growing segments.” It certainly seems that way. Analysts at IDC project smartwatch shipments will hit 124.9 million by the end of 2018, up 8.2 percent from the prior year. Moreover, according to MarketWatch , it’ll be worth $35.7 billion by 2024. Kedia credits the segments’ continued growth with its broad appeal. “I don’t think of [smartwatches] as a consumer electronics space. It’s fashion — whether you’re buying a luxury smartwatch from Louis Vuitton, a fashion watch from Tag Heuer, or a general-purpose watch from LG.” 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. All rights reserved. "

"Google adds Tiles to Wear OS, making key apps easier to see and swipe | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/01/google-adds-tiles-to-wear-os-making-key-apps-glanceable-and-swipeable"

"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 adds Tiles to Wear OS, making key apps easier to see and swipe 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. Though there still isn’t a Wear OS “ champion ” device to compete with the Apple Watch , Google isn’t giving up on refining its smartwatch operating system , and the latest evidence is a semi-new feature called Tiles. Six different Tiles will enable Wear OS users to quickly glance and swipe through key bits of information gathered on the watch, somewhat akin to the app dock Apple added to watchOS 3 in 2016. While Apple’s dock focuses on quick access to whatever the current user’s most recently used apps might be, Google’s solution appears to be optimized for the most commonly used smartwatch features across masses of users. Each Tile has a clean, straightforward design with a single screen full of information, plus actionable buttons to dive into full apps where appropriate. The initial Tiles cover a nice swath of features: Goals displays your current progress towards fitness goals and lets you start a workout, Next Event uses calendar data to tell you where you need to be, and Forecast spotlights upcoming weather. At launch, there are also Tiles for heart rate monitoring, current news headlines, and setting or monitoring a timer; Google says it will be adding more as time goes on. If there are some Tiles you prefer to see first, you can change the order either on the watch itself or by using the Wear OS by Google app. As is commonly the case with Wear OS updates , there’s no specific date for Tiles’ rollout to individual watches: Google says they’ll roll out “over the next month,” with unspecified features varying “by phone OS, watch or country.” 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. All rights reserved. "

"The quick Apple Watch Series 5 review: Always on, yet somewhat off | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/09/23/the-quick-apple-watch-series-5-review-always-on-yet-somewhat-off"

"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 Review The quick Apple Watch Series 5 review: Always on, yet somewhat off 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. Frontrunners commonly face the challenge of maintaining their leads without knowing just how far ahead they are — an obstacle tackled, at their peril, by looking back at those behind them. That’s Apple heading into the Apple Watch’s fifth year: It’s the smartwatch industry’s clear leader, but the length of its lead and next steps are both ambiguous. A desire to eliminate the remaining advantages of key rivals might explain why the new Apple Watch Series 5 is less of a sequel to the Apple Watch Series 4 than a tiny bump. Without changing much else, it adds the always-on screen feature found in Samsung (and other) smartwatches and a compass akin to Garmin devices. Unfortunately, they’re not as well-executed as one might expect from Apple. I was enthusiastic in recommending last year’s model both to new customers and to upgraders, but after testing Series 5, I was less impressed. Here’s a quick look at what you need to know before considering a purchase. It’s still an iPhone accessory As its name suggests, the Apple Watch is indeed a timepiece, but its primary value comes from tracking physical activities and displaying notifications from an iPhone. You can customize how it looks using a still too limited collection of Apple-designed watch faces, and navigate through apps using a tiny grid of icons. Over time, heart rate monitoring and ECG measurement have emerged as two of its signature health features, alongside tracking of everything from steps to swim strokes to various exercises. Even after multiple generations, the Series 5 isn’t ready to be used completely on its own. The wrist-based wearable wirelessly pairs with your iPhone for most of its daily data needs, but it can be used for stretches as a standalone audio player — assuming you supply AirPods or other Bluetooth headphones. Apple continues to promise 18-hour battery life before charges and recommends placing the device on a wireless charger as you refuel your iPhone (and possibly AirPods) at night. Third parties stepped in to create convenient two- or three-in-one wireless chargers for this purpose after Apple cancelled its own multi-charger, AirPower. Above: Mophie’s 3-in-1 wireless charging pad is a $140 alternative to Apple’s cancelled AirPower. Series 5 ships with watchOS 6.0, which goes the furthest toward freeing the wearable from constant dependency on an iPhone — adding an on-device App Store and additional tweaks that let the new Watch (and its two predecessors) work briefly on their own if you spend the extra cash for a cellular model. Even so, you’ll need to use an iPhone to manage the Watch and make full use of its features. The first Apple Watch without a major boost Every year since the Apple Watch Series 1 replaced the all-but-forgotten Series 0 model, Apple has bumped the S-series processor’s performance by up to 2 times compared with the previous year’s model. Those boosts mattered, too: Each new Apple Watch started up noticeably faster than the last one — something that early adopters know made a difference — while becoming snappier with app loading, Siri requests, and updating software. Apple Watch Series 5 has an S5 chip inside, but you’d barely know it from Apple’s introduction of the device. The company doesn’t offer any tech specs for the processor but apparently opted to reuse the CPU and GPU found in last year’s S4. I had hoped Apple would use an off year to shrink and cut power consumption of the prior chip while holding performance constant, but that apparently hasn’t happened with Series 5. During my testing, Series 5’s battery life was noticeably worse than Series 4’s. After a normal day of use, the new watch was at 35%, while its predecessor had twice the remaining power. So while Apple’s promise of “all-day” battery life is still accurate this year, that’s only because the official 18-hour number hasn’t changed, despite undisclosed annual advances in prior models. Unless Apple improves watchOS, it looks like you’ll have to avoid using Series 5’s new features to get Series 4-like battery results. The always-on screen is a key difference There were a few obvious omissions in Apple Watches, compared with rivals, but two have stood out for years: the lack of an always-on screen and sleep tracking. In both cases, power drain was the culprit, as keeping the screen on and/or running the sensors overnight were apparently too much for the Watches’ little batteries. Rather than further impacting longevity, Apple just said no. Series 5’s single biggest upgrade is a persistent screen, which Apple has accomplished in two ways. The display now cuts its refresh rate when the screen’s not facing you, conserving power, while software dims and reduces the complexity of screen content to keep fewer of the OLED pixels “on.” Above: This is what a classic watch face normally looks like, with no screen dimming applied. In practice, this means you can “steal a glance” at the display from off angles. The watch face I’ve used for years, Motion, devolves and slightly shrinks from bright white text with a colorful animated jellyfish into gray text with no background or movement. Turn the Series 5 to face you, and the shrinkage reverses, with dim text going bright and background animation returning. Above: This is what the always-on Series 5 screen looks like off angle, with automatic dimming, blurring, and zoom-out effects applied. It’s a cool feature — sort of. If you’re using an app when your wrist turns away, it becomes a deliberately obscured blur in the background until your wrist turns back. I can understand why Apple did this from a user experience standpoint, as there may be a need to quickly return back and restore focus to the app, but it often doesn’t look great. My personal take is that the zoom-in transition effect is too jarring, actively reminding you that the screen is shifting modes when it should just be happening magically without calling attention to itself. From where I stand, the always-on screen arrives at a time when it couldn’t matter less to most — underscore most — prior Apple Watch buyers. The majority of Apple’s existing users have come to accept, perhaps not even grudgingly, that the display will remain off when you’re not looking at it and will almost always turn on the moment it’s in the “right” orientation to be seen. But there are use cases such as while riding a bike or otherwise unable to move your arm when the feature could be handy, and Apple might win over holdout customers with the feature. You can turn the always-on screen off and add several extra hours of battery life to Series 5 in the process. While I suspect most new Apple Watch users won’t do so, it’s nice that it’s an option, and there might be good reason to consider doing so next year. Rumors ahead of the Series 5 introduction suggested that sleep tracking was coming to this year’s Watch, but nothing was announced at Apple’s media event. It could show up in watchOS 7 as an option for some Watch models, including Series 5, such that you’ll have to choose between always-on screen use during the day or sleep tracking throughout the night. That’s just speculation, but it would explain why this year’s Series 5 sales pitch was so bare in features — no one wants to be told up front that they have to choose which new Watch ability to use. Finally, a compass Apple added GPS to the Apple Watch so long ago — Series 2 — it’s surprising that compass hardware (also known as a magnetometer) hasn’t come to the platform until now. GPS and compass hardware debuted sequentially in the 2008 iPhone 3G and 2009 iPhone 3GS , so Apple has precedent for adding the features separately, even though doing so can strip a GPS map user of immediate, precise orientation data. It’s worth noting that iPhones continued to have modest orientation problems years after Apple added the first compass: To recalibrate the magnetometer you sometimes had to wave the device in a figure-eight motion. Even today, when my car relies on an iPhone’s CarPlay for GPS navigation, I frequently find that the iPhone’s compass initially points in the wrong direction, and iOS seems to wait on movement data to determine where it’s actually heading. Hidden inside one of the least intuitively designed tiny Apple Watch icons Apple has yet come up with, the Series 5 compass app looks really nice — far more like compasses in watches than the unpleasantly minimalist, airplane-styled compass found on iOS. It combines elevation, incline, and latitude/longitude coordinates with seemingly degree-precise digital and analog compass directions. With a firm press on the screen, the Compass app lets you set a red visual bearing on the outer ring, so you can know if you’re headed in the right direction. You can also see orientation data within the Maps app, in the form of a blue arc that starts wide with possible orientations and narrows as it becomes more confident about your direction. (The map doesn’t currently spin to match your current orientation as it does on the iPhone.) There’s a caveat, though. The company notes in small print on its site and in a pre-app warning that the Series 5’s compass is subject to interference from magnetic watch bands. Unfortunately, magnetic Apple Watch bands aren’t just numerous — they’re some of the best options available, including the Milanese Loops, Leather Loops, and Modern Buckles sold in Apple Watch bundles at premium prices. What value is a compass that doesn’t reliably point in the right direction? In my personal testing with the Compass, the difference between the iPhone 11 Pro and Apple Watch compass readings was generally between 3 and 25 degrees, most often swaying in the 5 to 10 degree range. When both devices were set to “use true north” and the Watch wasn’t using a magnetic band, the difference was in the 4-5 degree range. But with my (official Apple) Milanese Band on, the Compass apps showed differences as profound as the iPhone pointing east while the Apple Watch pointed west. The Maps apps showed the iPhone having a seemingly high degree of confidence (a narrow arc) that I was facing Main Street, while the Series 5 was somewhat less sure (a wide arc) I was facing the opposite way. If I took off the band, a shrinking arc suggested that the Watch confidence increased. Here’s hoping a software update improves the accuracy. Until then, compass users might want to consider using a basic band, which I don’t see as a good solution. A note on cellular Ever since the Series 3 model debuted two years ago, the Apple Watch has come in two versions: a “GPS” model reliant on Wi-Fi and a “GPS + Cellular” model with Wi-Fi and 4G. The cellular version sells for a $100 premium over the aluminum model’s base price and enables the Watch to access data and — for a mere 1.5 hours — make phone calls even without a nearby iPhone or Wi-Fi network. Apple has only spotlighted one minor addition to the Series 5’s cellular functionality: a new ability to automatically contact the correct local emergency services when you’re traveling with the cellular feature turned on. I’ve had a Series 4 with cellular functionality for a year, but I refuse to pay a $10-$15 monthly carrier charge to use what’s at best a limited, battery-killing feature; I certainly wouldn’t expect to activate it on the Series 5 during travel, given that its battery life is already iffy. Cellular battery life remains generally unimpressive in this year’s model: Apple promises only 1.5 hours of phone calling time, 4 hours of independent LTE data connectivity, 5 hours of GPS and LTE outdoor workout (read: run or bike) tracking, or 7 hours of audio playlist streaming from a full battery charge. In other words, use any or all of these features frequently and you’ll probably have to recharge the watch mid-day, rather than overnight. That said, an issue that impacts the iPhone 11 this year — its lack of 5G network support — isn’t a competitive problem for the latest Apple Watch, which would get little benefit at this stage from a higher-bandwidth connection. As wearables evolve into smartphone alternatives, and potentially the processing sources for AR glasses, higher-capacity wireless capabilities will become more important. Materials, capacities, and pricing The only other changes this year are in materials, storage capacities, and pricing, though collectively these shifts are relatively minor. Most notably, there are two new body materials, bringing this year’s tally to four: Aluminum: $399 (40mm) / $429 (44mm) with GPS and either Sport Band or Sport Loop. Add $100 for Cellular. Stainless Steel: $699 (40mm) / $749 (44mm) with GPS + Cellular and either Sport Band or Sport Loop. Cellular is always included. Titanium: $799 (40mm) / $849 (44mm) with GPS + Cellular and Sport Loop. Cellular is always included. Ceramic: $1,299 (40mm) / $1,349 (44mm) with GPS + Cellular and Sport Loop. Cellular is always included. As expected , Apple is offering the titanium and ceramic models at steep premiums over their predecessors, positioning both as Edition versions — the first time Apple has offered two materials in that questionably deluxe category. Titanium comes in forgettably metallic silver and black versions, each coated for cosmetic reasons, and it remains to be seen how well they’ll stand up over time. Ceramic is back to a glossy white color that looks a lot like plastic. I’ve never been sure who these Edition watches are really made for, but the prices and materials don’t appeal much to me. Over the years, I’ve found myself struggling to choose between aluminum and steel models for one primary reason: I strongly prefer the look, feel, and durability of Apple’s steel Watches, but their sky-high prices (especially compared with rival smartwatches) make it hard to upgrade frequently — especially as Apple’s old Watch trade-in prices are awful, peaking at $110. That’s not even enough to bump an aluminum purchase to steel or to cover even half the cost of a new flagship model, so you’re better off handing down your old Watch than trading it in. As shown below, this year’s “space gray” aluminum model is as close to black as I’ve yet seen, and a really nice match with Apple’s official black Milanese loop. If you don’t mind that its screen uses an unnamed, scratchable version of Gorilla Glass rather than scratch-resistant sapphire and that its body is also more likely to show scratches and dents than the carbon-coated “space black” steel watch, there’s every reason to save the money and pick aluminum. It’s also worth briefly noting that Apple has dropped the Milanese Loop’s price from $149 to $99, and bundles with that band now carry only a $50 premium rather than the prior $100. In my view, this is the best and most practical band Apple sells, but its prior pricing enabled no-name $15 knockoffs to capture most of the market share. If you’re looking for a black or gold band that won’t tarnish like the knock-offs, Apple’s version is now a more reasonable option. Just bear the aforementioned compass issue in mind. Last but not least, all Series 5 models have been bumped from 16GB to 32GB of storage capacity — a change no one was asking for but everyone can be happy about. watchOS 6 users have access to 27GB of storage once formatting and OS needs are taken into account. Since earlier Apple Watches with 8GB of capacity are rapidly getting to the point where watchOS is eating up most of their storage space, the extra breathing room for music and apps is welcome, especially if Apple is holding last year’s prices (largely) constant. Conclusions I began this review by mentioning the interplay between frontrunners and followers — the fact that a leader might look back to check on the rest of the pack, rather than staying focused on what’s ahead. With the Apple Watch, it feels like Apple is using the $400+ Series 5 to catch up with sub-$300 options from Samsung and Garmin instead of blazing a new trail of its own. If you’re the type of person who looks at feature lists and checks off boxes before making a purchase, this year’s model eliminates a few more gaps between Apple’s wearables and rivals. Series 5 doesn’t move the needle, though: There’s nothing as paradigm-changing as last year’s ECG feature to push the platform forward, and depending on your situation, even the all-new compass might not be a reliable tool until software (hopefully) improves its performance. Similarly, the always-on screen is a big draw for Apple Watch holdouts, but I suspect that its implementation will split prior Watch owners into pleased and disappointed camps. So if you’re in that “holdout” category, consider the Series 5. Apple’s smartwatch is a mature product that delivers enough value to be worthy of its entry price, and if you are concerned about your heart’s health, it could be a godsend. That said, skip the more expensive models, particularly the Edition ones, unless you are okay either skipping “must have” future upgrades or don’t mind dropping $700 or more each time a new watch comes out. Small tweaks and lower Series 3 pricing might well bring new people to the Apple Watch platform over the next year, but there’s no need for current Series 4 users to upgrade to Series 5. As a Series 4 user who seriously considered upgrading for the screen alone, I ultimately decided to pass after real-world testing, instead waiting to see what Apple releases in 2020. Unfortunately, Apple’s direction for the Watch going forward is a question mark, so I’m hoping — once again — for better battery life, faster processing, and better communication speeds, plus third-party watch faces and subtle refinements to Series 5’s new features. If you can hold out, consider doing so until Series 6, or at least until there’s a nice sale on the Series 5. A lot will change over the next year or so, and even if you don’t want to wait that long to see what happens, a little patience will probably save you some money. 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. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Firefox 76 arrives with password management and Zoom improvements | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/05/mozilla-firefox-76"

"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 Firefox 76 arrives with password management and Zoom improvements Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Firefox logo 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. Mozilla today launched Firefox 76 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Firefox 76 includes new Firefox Lockwise password functionality, Zoom improvements, and a handful of developer features. You can download Firefox 76 for desktop now from Firefox.com , and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. According to Mozilla, Firefox has about 250 million active users , making it a major platform for web developers to consider. The coronavirus is impacting not just everyone spending more time in their browsers as they learn and work from home , but also the software developers building the browsers. Google was forced to delay Chrome 81 , skip Chrome 82 altogether, and move Chrome 83 up a few weeks. Microsoft followed suit with Edge’s release schedule, consistent with Google’s open source Chromium project , which both Chrome and Edge are based on. Last month, Mozilla made it clear that while “some of our competitors have had to slow down or stop work,” it is sticking with its 2020 Firefox release schedule. Mozilla this year sped up Firefox releases to a four-week cadence (previously they arrived every six to eight weeks). Even before the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, Firefox staff and contributors worked remotely, tested on remote hardware, and collaborated across timezones. While the schedule remains unchanged, Mozilla did shift its roadmap to avoid shipping changes that might negatively impact the user experience on, or possibly break, government and health services websites. The company also committed to fixing video conferencing issues. Firefox Lockwise Lockwise, the password management service formerly known as Firefox Lockbox, is getting smarter. The Firefox feature already lets you generate, manage, and protect all those passwords for streaming services, grocery deliveries, and anything else that helps during the pandemic. 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 you share your device with family or roommates, Lockwise in Firefox 76 can now protect your saved passwords. When you try to view or copy a password from your “Logins and Passwords” page, you will be prompted for your device’s account password. It’s also now easier to check the security of your passwords (click on the hamburger menu button => Logins and Passwords). If any of your online accounts were involved in a website breach or use a vulnerable password, an icon indicator next to the website address will let you know. A Vulnerable Password alert appears when a password is identical to a password that has been breached. A Website Breach alert appears when your login and password is involved in a breach and includes more details about the breach. Lockwise can also now generate secure passwords (minimum of 12 random letters, numbers, and symbols) for more sites. That means when you’re creating a new account or want to change your password, Lockwise will now ask if you’d like to generate and save a new password. Audio and rendering improvements Firefox 76 adds support for Audio Worklets, which run custom JavaScript audio processing code for applications like VR and gaming on the web. Unlike their predecessor, ScriptProcessorNode , worklets run off the main thread in a similar way to web workers. Mozilla also notes Audio Worklets are “being adopted by some of your favorite software programs.” The company specifically called out Zoom, which has become a phenomenon of its own during the pandemic. In short, you now join Zoom calls in Firefox without having to download or install the Zoom client. Next up is WebRender, Mozilla’s next-generation GPU-based 2D rendering engine meant to make browsing feel faster and smoother by moving core graphics rendering processes to the GPU. It’s rolling out to more Firefox for Windows users , specifically on modern Intel laptops with a small screen (<= 1920×1200). Windows, Mac, and Linux There are a few other additions in this release. Here’s the full Firefox 76 for desktop changelog : With today’s release, Firefox strengthens protections for your online account logins and passwords, with innovative approaches to managing your accounts during this critical time. Firefox displays critical alerts in the Lockwise password manager when a website is breached. If one of your accounts is involved in a website breach and you’ve used the same password on other websites, you will now be prompted to update your password. Automatically generate secure , complex passwords for new accounts across more of the web that are easily saved right in the browser. If you don’t have a master password set up for Firefox, Windows and macOS now requires a login to your operating system account before showing your saved passwords. Picture-in-Picture allows you to multitask, the small video window following along no matter what you are doing on your computer, across different applications and even workspaces. Now, when you are ready to focus on the video, a double click can take the small window into full screen. Double click again to reduce the size again. Firefox is now supporting Audio Worklets that will allow more complex audio processing, like VR and gaming on the web, and is being adopted by some of your favorite software programs. With this change, you can now join Zoom calls on Firefox saving you the need for additional downloads. WebRender continues its roll out to more Firefox for Windows users , now available by default on modern Intel laptops with a small screen (<= 1920×1200) for improved graphics rendering. Two updates to the address bar improve its usability and visibility: The shadow around the address bar field is reduced in width when a new tab is opened, and the bookmarks toolbar has expanded slightly in size to improve its surface area for touchscreens. Testing mobile interactions using DevTools’ Responsive Design Mode now mimics the device behavior for handling double-tap to zoom. This builds on previous improvements to correctly rendering meta-viewport tags, allowing developers to optimize their sites for Firefox for Android without a device. Double-clicking table headers in DevTools’ network request table now resizes the column width to fit the content, making it easier to expand the important data. WebSocket inspection now supports ActionCable message preview, adding to the list of automatically formatted protocols like socket.io, SignalR, WAMP, etc. Various security fixes. Audio playback is currently not working when running the 32-bit Windows version of Firefox from a network drive. This will be addressed in an upcoming future Firefox release. Developers are also getting some goodies. Firefox 76 brings better JavaScript debugging (ignore entire folders, collapsed output for larger console snippets, copy full URLs in call stack, and always offer Expand All in JSON preview). There are more network inspection tricks (Action Cable support in WebSocket inspection, hide WebSocket Control Frames by default, double click to resize Network table columns to fit, and improved Network response details and copying). The input element’s min and max attributes now work correctly when the former’s value is greater than the latter. The numberingSystem and calendar options of the Intl.NumberFormat , Intl.DateTimeFormat, and Intl.RelativeTimeFormat constructors are now enabled by default. The IntersectionObserver() constructor now accepts both Document and Element objects as its root. If you’re a web developer, check out the details here: Firefox 76 for developers. Mozilla once again did not update Firefox for Android. The Android team is still working on Firefox Preview , a new version of Firefox for Android powered by GeckoView. Mozilla plans to launch the new Firefox for Android in the first half of 2020 — it’s got less than two months left. Mozilla releases new Firefox versions every four weeks. Firefox 77 is currently slated for June. 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. All rights reserved. "

"GitHub launches bot-powered learning lab for budding developers | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2018/04/19/github-launches-bot-powered-learning-lab-for-budding-developers"

"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 GitHub launches bot-powered learning lab for budding developers 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. GitHub is launching a new bot-powered learning lab to help budding developers get up to speed on all things GitHub. The San Francisco-based code-hosting platform, which hosts some 80 million repositories and claims 27 million users, recently celebrated its tenth year in business. It has been rolling out a bunch of collaboration-focused tools of late, including a team discussions tool to help plan projects and share information, while its Atom text editor now lets developers collaborate on code simultaneously. Indeed, collaboration between coders and teams serves as a core underpinning facet of what makes GitHub tick, and this extends into training, with a dedicated training team previously helping to run in-person and remote training sessions on how to use the GitHub platform. The GitHub Learning Lab , which officially launches today, builds on GitHub’s prior history of training people, except this time GitHub is using bots to expedite the learning process. There is no videoconferencing or webcasts here. Above: GitHub bot “After training thousands of people to use Git and GitHub, the GitHub Training Team has established a tried-and-true method for helping new developers retain more information and ramp up quickly as they begin their software journeys,” the company said in a blog post. “And now, we’re making those experiences accessible to developers everywhere with GitHub Learning 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! The bot helps users work through issues in a repository environment, passing comment on any work that you do while checking over pull requests — notifications of changes you’ve made — in a similar fashion to how a human project lead might do. Above: GitHub Learning Lab If the bot isn’t able to help with a specific question you have, there are humans on hand too via the GitHub Learning Lab forum , which includes outside experts and members of GitHub’s in-house training team. The learning lab exists within GitHub itself, and all lessons are designed with practicality in mind, according to the company. For now, the GitHub Learning Lab offers just five courses, though this will expand over time. Introduction to GitHub Communicating Using Markdown GitHub Pages Moving Your Project to GitHub Managing Merge Conflicts “We’ll be expanding how this app helps new developers, inviting new course authors, and adding more topics as we go,” the company added. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Microsoft announces Teams for consumers, Skype daily active users up 70% to 40 million | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/03/30/skype-passes-40-million-daily-active-users-up-70-due-to-coronavirus"

"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 announces Teams for consumers, Skype daily active users up 70% to 40 million 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. As part of its Microsoft 365 for consumers news today, the company announced Microsoft Teams for consumers and new Skype metrics. Skype has passed 40 million daily active users, an increase of 70% month over month. Furthermore, Skype to Skype calling minutes are up 220% month over month. Less than two weeks ago, Microsoft shared that Teams usage exploded 110% in the past four months. Many of today’s new Office feature announcements have tie-ins with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and working from home trend. But Skype and Microsoft Teams are arguably the most relevant as people look to connect online. Microsoft has shared very few usage numbers since acquiring Skype for $8.5 billion in October 2011. Skype’s monthly active users, for example, haven’t been updated since August 2015 — 300 million has been the number for years. With usage exploding due to COVID-19, however, the company was eager to talk up Skype, and then pivot to Microsoft Teams, its fastest-growing business app ever. Today’s news focused on consumer features, and indeed the company wants Microsoft Teams to expand beyond businesses. Microsoft Teams for consumers Microsoft Teams for consumers will offer features “for your personal life.” The company wants you to use Teams to plan trips, neighborhood gatherings, and book club meetings. You can share photos and videos in a group chat and make video calls, as you might expect. Additionally, you will soon be able to collaborate over shared to-do lists, assign tasks to specific people, and coordinate schedules. VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! And for your daily life, Microsoft is promising features to share grocery lists, organize across family calendars, and store important information like Wi-Fi passwords and account info. You’ll even be able to get location updates via the Microsoft Family Safety app announced today. Microsoft Teams for Android and iOS will get these new features in preview “in the coming months.” Skype’s future in question Microsoft wants you to use Skype for your personal life “in the meantime.” Until Microsoft Teams gets these features, consumers should continue to use Skype. This suggests that for consumers, Skype’s days are numbered, much as Skype for Business is being phased out in favor of Microsoft Teams. When asked, Microsoft didn’t confirm or deny this. “For now, Skype will remain a great option for customers who love it and want to connect with basic chat and video calling capabilities,” a Microsoft spokesperson told VentureBeat. “With the new features in the Microsoft Teams mobile app, we see Teams as an all in one hub for your work and life that integrates chat, video calling, [and the] ability to assign and share tasks, store and share important data with your group, [and] share your location with family and friends, whereas Skype is predominantly a chat and a video calling app platform. We have nothing more to share.” 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. All rights reserved. "

"Microsoft reports $35.0 billion in Q3 2020 revenue: Azure up 59%, Surface up 1%, and LinkedIn up 21% | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/04/29/microsoft-earnings-q3-2020"

"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 reports $35.0 billion in Q3 2020 revenue: Azure up 59%, Surface up 1%, and LinkedIn up 21% Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Microsoft office sign. 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. Microsoft today reported earnings for its third fiscal quarter of 2020, including revenue of $35.0 billion, net income of $10.8 billion, and earnings per share of $1.40 (compared to revenue of $30.6 billion, net income of $8.8 billion, and earnings per share of $1.14 in Q3 2019). All three of the company’s operating groups saw year-over-year growth. Analysts had expected Microsoft to earn $33.7 billion in revenue and report earnings per share of $1.26. The company thus easily beat expectations. Eyes are on Microsoft during the coronavirus pandemic, given its prominent role in the software and cloud industries. And so far, so good: “COVID-19 had minimal net impact on the total company revenue,” Microsoft said. Unlike tech giants Google and Facebook , Microsoft doesn’t generate the majority of its revenue from advertising and thus might not feel the impact of the coronavirus crisis as deeply. The company’s stock was up 4% in regular trading and up another 3% in after-hours trading. Microsoft returned $9.9 billion to shareholders in the form of share repurchases and dividends during the quarter. “We’ve seen two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement. “From remote teamwork and learning to sales and customer service to critical cloud infrastructure and security — we are working alongside customers every day to help them adapt and stay open for business in a world of remote everything. Our durable business model, diversified portfolio, and differentiated technology stack position us well for what’s ahead.” A 59% revenue increase for Azure indicates a return to slowing cloud growth for the company. The figure has been falling steadily: 76% in Q2 2019, 73% in Q3 2019, 64% in Q4 2019, and 59% in Q1 2020. It rebounded slightly to 62% in Q2 2020. Slowing growth is normal, but the pandemic could accelerate the trend. 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! Microsoft’s release noted that “cloud usage increased, particularly in Microsoft 365, including Teams, Azure, Windows Virtual Desktop, advanced security solutions, and Power Platform, as customers shifted to work and learn from home.” More cloud usage but slower revenue growth might suggest Microsoft is willing to delay or waive bills and fees for Azure customers in hopes of keeping them loyal in the long run. Microsoft does not break out exact Azure revenue numbers, likely to avoid comparisons with industry leader AWS. Operating group highlights Here are the highlights across Microsoft’s three operating groups: Productivity and Business Processes: Up 15% to $11.7 billion. Office commercial revenue grew 13%, Office consumer and cloud revenue was up 15%, and Dynamics revenue increased 17%. LinkedIn revenue jumped a solid 21%, and Office 365 consumer subscribers hit 39.6 million. Intelligent Cloud: Up 27% to $12.3 billion. Server products and cloud services revenue grew 30%, while Enterprise Services revenue increased 6%. The big number as always was Azure revenue, which was up 62%. More Personal Computing: Up 3% to $13.2 billion. Windows OEM revenue was “relatively unchanged year over year,” while Windows commercial revenue increased 17%. Search advertising revenue minus traffic acquisition costs increased 1%. Surface revenue increased by 1%, and Xbox content and services revenue increased 2%. Microsoft Office continues to be a cash cow for the company, with the pivot to an Office 365 subscription business largely deemed a success. Having nearly 40 million consumer subscribers of Office 365 is significant, but it still pales in comparison to the enterprise side. In Q3 2020, Microsoft passed 258 million paid Office 365 business seats (up from 200 million) and 75 million daily active users for Teams. The story with Windows is probably the most notable. Whatever number of computers consumers bought earlier this year was negated by an overall PC shipment decline for the quarter. Commercial Windows revenue was likely saved by Microsoft ending support for Windows 7 on January 14, 2020. Before the pandemic hit, many businesses were likely still upgrading. Q4 2020 will be brutal for Windows revenue. “The effects of COVID-19 may not be fully reflected in the financial results until future periods,” Microsoft wrote in its release. LinkedIn, Surface, and Gaming Office and Windows aside, Microsoft continues to see dividends from its LinkedIn acquisition , which closed in December 2016. The company has seen double-digit growth for LinkedIn ever since. But there was a warning in Microsoft’s release: “In the final weeks of the quarter, there was a slowdown in transactional licensing, particularly in small and medium businesses, and a reduction in advertising spend in LinkedIn.” Surface continues to bring in $1 billion each quarter. Q1 is typically the company’s worst quarter for Surface, while Q2 is the best. Q1 2020 and Q2 2020 followed that pattern. Q3 2020 was flat, which looks like good news for Microsoft, given that PC shipments were down overall. In October, Microsoft held its annual hardware event , where it refreshed its lineup with the Surface Laptop 3 , Surface Pro 7 , Surface Pro X , and Surface Earbuds in time for the holiday season. Q3 2020 was the first full quarter of sales for these devices, and they seemed to survive. Next month, Microsoft is expected to announce the Surface Book 3 and Surface Go 2. The company will have to market them heavily in this economic climate. For gaming, Q1 2020 and Q2 2020 were disappointments for Microsoft. Q3 2020 was a little better. Xbox content and services revenue increased 2%, and gaming revenue as a whole declined 1%. Microsoft stopped breaking out Xbox Live monthly active users a few quarters ago. But given that games are performing well during the pandemic , the company brought it back. On the earnings call, Microsoft shared that Xbox Live now has nearly 90 million monthly active users, Xbox Game Pass has more than 10 million subscribers, and Project xCloud has hundreds of thousands of active users in preview across seven countries. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Microsoft Teams passes 75 million daily active users | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/04/29/microsoft-teams-passes-75-million-daily-active-users"

"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 Teams passes 75 million daily active users 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. The coronavirus pandemic is juicing up numbers for remote work and learning. Microsoft’s fiscal Q3 2020 earnings call kicked off with CEO Satya Nadella sharing a slew of big numbers. The biggest one: Microsoft Teams has passed 75 million daily active users. That’s up 70% from 44 million daily active users just six weeks ago, which was already up 110% four months prior. Microsoft attributed the spike in part to COVID-19. “We saw more than 200 million meeting participants in a single day this month, generating more than 4.1 billion meeting minutes,” Nadella said on the call. “Teams now has more than 75 million daily active users, engaging in rich forms of communication and collaboration, and two thirds of them shared, collaborated, or interacted with files on Teams.” Not just about video calls Microsoft is eating its own dog food — this was the first time the company used Teams to host its earnings call. Teams is the company’s Office 365 chat-based collaboration tool that competes with Slack (12 million DAUs as of October), Facebook’s Workplace (3 million paid users as of October), and Google’s Hangouts Chat (no user number shared). Other apps, such as video conferencing tools, have also seen huge numbers due to the pandemic. Last week, Zoom passed 300 million participants and Google Meet passed 100 million participants. Last month, Microsoft shared that Skype’s daily active users were up 70% to 40 million. The difference between apps like Teams and Skype is an important distinction that you’ll continue to hear Microsoft make, especially as it prepares to launch Teams for consumers. “Teams is not just about having lots and lots of video meetings,” Nadella said on the call. “Teams is about actually getting work done where meetings and video is one part. So that’s, for example, something [where the] utility of it will only increase for our customers as some people come back to work.” Once the pandemic is over, everyone will be watching to see where usage numbers for these services land. VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Nadella also added that in health care alone, there were more than 34 million Teams meetings in the past month. More than 183,000 educational institutions now rely on Teams, and 20 organizations with more than 100,000 employees are also now using Teams. Teams is Microsoft’s fastest-growing business app ever. Microsoft defines DAUs for Teams as “the maximum daily users performing an intentional action in a 24-hour period across the desktop client, mobile client, and web client. Intentional actions include sending or replying to a chat, joining a meeting, or opening a file in Teams. Passive actions like auto boot, minimizing a screen, or closing the app are not included.” Nadella also reported that Microsoft had 258 million paid Office 365 seats in the past quarter. That means some 29% of Office 365 business users could be using Teams every day (or less, depending on how many are using the free version of Teams ). Regardless of how Teams for consumers fares, there’s still plenty of room for Teams to grow. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Disney's streaming chief Kevin Mayer leaves to become TikTok CEO | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/18/disneys-streaming-chief-kevin-mayer-leaves-to-become-tiktok-ceo"

"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 Disney’s streaming chief Kevin Mayer leaves to become TikTok CEO 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. ( Reuters ) — Walt Disney’s top streaming executive, Kevin Mayer, will leave the entertainment and theme park giant to become CEO of TikTok, the popular video app owned by China’s ByteDance , the companies said on Monday. Mayer led the successful launch of the Disney+ streaming service in November , but in February he was passed over for the role of Disney’s new CEO. Mayer’s appointment will be effective June 1, when he will also become chief operating officer of ByteDance, the Chinese company said. TikTok, which allows users to create short videos with special effects, has become wildly popular with U.S. teenagers doing viral challenges that pair dances with music clips from the app’s library. TikTok has hinted at ambitions to build a music streaming business, announcing in January that it was partnering with U.K.-based music rights agency Merlin to expand its musical selections. ByteDance’s Chinese ownership, however, has sparked concerns in Washington about TikTok’s handling of personal data. The company uses sophisticated artificial intelligence to make video recommendations based on users’ behavior on the app. In November, the U.S. government launched a national security review of ByteDance’s $1 billion acquisition of social media app Musical.ly, which became TikTok. Two senators introduced a bill to ban federal employees from using TikTok on government-issued phones. One of those senators, Republican Josh Hawley, said TikTok previously told him its executives could not testify before Congress because they were located in China. “But this new executive lives in the USA,” Hawley wrote on Twitter on Monday. “I look forward to hearing from him. Under oath.” To appease concerns, ByteDance has stepped up efforts to separate TikTok from much of its Chinese business and has made several high-profile executive hires in recent months. It appointed former Microsoft intellectual property chief Erich Andersen as global general counsel in January, after hiring Vanessa Pappas, a veteran YouTube executive, to run its U.S. operations last 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! Speculation over Mayer’s future began swirling in February after Disney named Robert Chapek CEO. Mayer, who has a “loud and forceful” style, according to a former Disney executive, was seen as a dealmaker who had only recently been put in charge of a large profit-and-loss division. His relative lack of operating experience was a main reason he did not get the top job, the former executive said. A ByteDance spokesperson said the company had “no reservations” about Mayer’s operational experience. “Any company in our sector would be delighted to have him onboard.” Under Mayer’s leadership, Disney+ collected more than 50 million subscribers in five months. Disney named Rebecca Campbell, a 23-year company veteran, to replace Mayer as head of the direct-to-consumer and international division, which includes the streaming media units Disney is counting on to drive future growth. 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. All rights reserved. "

"How Wimbledon and Watson are using AI to curate video highlights | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/07/05/how-wimbledon-and-watson-are-using-ai-to-curate-video-highlights"

"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 How Wimbledon and Watson are using AI to curate video highlights Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn IBM's Watson helps Wimbledon collate and produce highlights 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. The Wimbledon tennis championship is among the world’s most prestigious sporting events. First held in 1877, it’s also the oldest tennis tournament in the world. Much has changed in the past 142 years — from the players’ attire to the quality of their equipment — but behind the scenes an AI evolution is transforming how footage is captured and curated for public consumption. For context, Wimbledon has 18 grass courts, which host nearly 700 matches over a two-week period, spanning men’s and women’s singles, doubles, mixed doubles, and more. The six main “show courts” alone — which host the most prominent matches — each average around four matches a day. For the first time, last year all 18 courts were televised, using a mixture of “manned” and “robotic” cameras. This can give viewers unprecedented access, but it also creates a heck of a lot of footage, too much for mere mortals to sift through in a timely manner. This is where IBM believes automation can help. Above: Wimbledon IBM has actually worked with Wimbledon organizers at the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club (AELTC) for three decades, taking care of general IT operations, cybersecurity, and all customer-facing digital properties, including apps and websites where fans catch up on all the action. For the past six years , IBM has lent its Watson AI smarts to all manner of applications , but more recently it has been ramping up Watson’s use at Wimbledon, where it helps capture all the best bits of each game and package them as highlights within two minutes of a match ending, updating what had been a labor-intensive manual effort. VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! “We’re taking an activity that traditionally would take a lot of manpower, create a lot of costs for the club, [and] take a lot of time and allowing Wimbledon to get those highlights out as quick as it can,” said Simon Boyden, chief architect at IBM, in a briefing with VentureBeat. To do this, the AI analyzes such elements as players’ gestures and reactions (e.g. celebratory air punches and fist pumps) and listens to crowd noises, like gasps and cheers. For Wimbledon 2019 highlights, IBM says it trained Watson to leverage even more acoustics data, such as detecting each strike of the ball — which helps in terms of enabling tighter automated cropping of highlights around key action in games and could also help identify long rallies. Above: Wimbledon highlights, powered by Watson AI bias Of course, there is the perennial issue of AI bias to contend with. The Wimbledon environment contains many scenarios that could mislead an automated system — Center Court will have more fans (and hence more noise), while a megastar such as Roger Federer will likely have more vocal support than the world’s 89th ranked player who’s on Court 18. To detect the best action regardless of these external factors, IBM has trained Watson to better recognize trends and patterns in the acoustics — creating a kind of fourth data point to reduce the chance of bias. This result is enabled through AI OpenScale, which IBM debuted last year and which offers a suite of autonomous bias detection and mitigation tools — continuously monitoring for predjudicial decision-making across AI applications. Specific to Wimbledon, this technology helps Watson “learn” the overall noise of a crowd and use that as a kind of normalizer so that any subsequent high points will be measured relative to the baseline. Ace stats In producing video highlights, Watson also taps gameplay statistics for further context. These stats are generated by tennis players (often county-level players) who are employed to sit courtside to identify subjective data points like unforced errors, in addition to other statistical tidbits — such as aces or double faults — and milestone moments in a tennis match, such as break point, set point, or match point. This collaborative approach actually helps demonstrate the role people play in training AI systems — at least for now. How close we are to automating the data capture process is another question. “This is very much an active area,” Boyden said. “You can [already] do 70% or 80% of it in an automated way — that would be great in a club training situation or something like that, but the challenge we have for Wimbledon is that they are looking for 100% accuracy all of the time.” What will likely happen going forward is a series of incremental changes, with Watson gradually taking on more responsibilities. For now, it is aiding people, but in the next step it could start making recommendations, with a tennis expert asked to confirm Watson’s assertions. “The point where we’re 100% convinced that Watson will get it right every single time? That’s probably going to be a few more years,” Boyden added. 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. All rights reserved. "

"YouTube for Android and iOS now supports 60fps video | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2015/06/30/youtube-for-android-and-ios-now-supports-60fps-video"

"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 YouTube for Android and iOS now supports 60fps video 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. YouTube today announced videos can now be viewed at 60 frames per second (fps) on Android and iOS. This change is being made server-side, meaning you don’t need to update your app to see the higher-quality videos. On October 29, YouTube quietly turned on 60fps support for videos uploaded on that date and later, but only on the desktop site, which requires using YouTube’s HTML5 player (the site ditched Flash for HTML5 by default in January). Clips uploaded before that date remain at 30fps, while new videos shot at 60fps play back at their proper frame rate. A YouTube spokesperson confirmed with VentureBeat that the new 60fps support on Android and iOS is just for videos, not livestreams. YouTube’s desktop site added support for 60fps livestreams in May , but Google has yet to talk about the same support coming to mobile. 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 you haven’t seen these higher-quality videos yet, check out the example YouTube links to above (make sure to change the quality to 720p60 or 1080p60). Below, we opened up this video on YouTube for Android to show you the new 60fps options. In short, today’s addition merely brings the YouTube mobile apps to the same level as the YouTube desktop site, YouTube for Apple TV, and YouTube for PS3/PS4. If you’re viewing YouTube on a mobile browser or via some third-party app (such as on Windows Phone), you unfortunately won’t be able to take advantage of the higher frame rate options. 60fps is great for fast-action videos, but it’s particularly awesome for video games. Today’s update is part of an ongoing war YouTube has started waging with Twitch, the current live-streaming king in gaming and esports. Amazon bought Twitch for $970 million in August, following months of rumors that Google would snatch it up. With that failure in its rearview mirror, Google is now aiming to launch a new YouTube Gaming app this summer. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Qualcomm's Snapdragon 690 promises mainstream 5G phones with 192MP cameras | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/16/qualcomms-snapdragon-690-promises-mainstream-5g-phones-with-192mp-cameras"

"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 Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 690 promises mainstream 5G phones with 192MP cameras 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. Fulfilling its promise to bring the latest 5G cellular technologies to mass market consumers in 2020, Qualcomm today announced the Snapdragon 690 — a more affordable mobile platform with integrated global 5G connectivity, plus a variety of higher-tier features that premiered in 8- and 7-series devices. Chief among them is support for cameras with up to 192-megapixel photos and 30-frame-per-second 4K HDR videos, including the necessary AI chip improvements to process such high-bitrate photos and videos. Snapdragon 690 will continue 5G’s evolution from a rare, ultra-premium feature into table stakes for modern smartphones, a process that began with Qualcomm’s release of premium Snapdragon X50 modems and continued with its X55 successor. The Snapdragon 690 incorporates a new modem, the X51, which promises global 5G band and global multi-SIM support, but is notably only capable of connecting to sub-6GHz 5G networks — not millimeter wave towers. This means that the 690 is initially likely to appear in devices targeted at non-U.S. markets. For businesses, the impact of mainstream 5G smartphones will be a critical raising of the floor for cellular network performance, enabling content creators and service providers to confidently deliver to a much larger audience offerings that depend upon greater bandwidth and responsiveness than 4G’s bare minimums. Qualcomm says that the Snapdragon 690 will enable 5G to come to smartphones priced to be affordable to over 2 billion users across the world. Video, AR, or gaming streams that might have been unreliable on 4G will be assuredly solid on 5G, enabling both the rollout of new cellular-based services and superior versions of past services for users of even entry-level devices. Compared with Qualcomm’s predecessor 6-series platform Snapdragon 675, the 690’s Kryo 560 CPU also promises up to 20% better performance, graphics rendering that’s as much as 60% faster, and support for 120Hz displays. Snapdragon 690 also includes Qualcomm’s 5th-gen AI Engine , which promises a 70% improvement in AI tasks compared with the 675, enabling camera improvements such as smooth transitions between ultrawide, regular, and telephoto lenses. Qualcomm is also bringing its Hexagon Tensor Accelerator to the 6-series for the first time, enabling high-speed, artifact-free real-time AR photo filters. 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 will be up to OEMs to decide whether to make full use of the 690’s camera capabilities by incorporating third-party imaging sensors and lenses, but the pipeline for ultra-high-resolution imagery is there. Six months ago, there was novelty in the very idea of a roughly 200-megapixel camera in any smartphone , let alone an affordable one, and 4K HDR video capture wasn’t exactly a budget feature. Now both of these features can come to Snapdragon-based phones priced in the $300-$400 range. Whether that happens remains to be seen, but Qualcomm says that Snapdragon 690-based phones will be announced and released by OEMs in the second half of 2020, fueled by operators that are excited to get 5G into every device at every price point. The initial list of brands will likely include LG, Motorola, Nokia, Sharp, TCL, and Wingtech. Additionally, devices based on the company’s latest 7-series (765/765G) Snapdragon chips were delayed somewhat by the coronavirus pandemic, Qualcomm notes, but are now “imminent,” and will help fulfill the company’s ambitions for mid-market devices that straddle the line between premium and entry-level performance. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Control your computer by waving at it with the new MYO armband | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2013/02/25/control-your-computer-by-waving-at-it-with-new-myo-armband"

"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 Control your computer by waving at it with the new MYO armband Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn The MYO armband lets people control their computers, phones, and other devices with their gestures. 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. Get ready to unleash your inner Jedi. Today, hardware startup Thalmic introduced an armband that wirelessly controls your computer, phone, and other digital devices. The band is called MYO. The electrodes in the device pick up on electrical activity in your muscles. Combined with motion sensors, that means MYO can tell what gestures you are making with your hand. The first version of the product recognizes around 20 gestures, from hand waves down to slight movements of individual fingers, and you connect it to your computer, phone, or other devices through Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy. “There is a trend towards more tightly integrating technology with who we are as people,” said founder Stephen Lake in an interview with VentureBeat. “How can you make technology an extension of yourself? By making it something that is naturally integrated with you all the time. Our hands have evolved over millions of years to have incredible control and manipulate things. Now we are connecting natural sets of actions to the digital world. Suddenly, you have the power of the entire internet at your fingertips.” Thalmic is participating in Y Combinator’s winter 2013 class. Although this prestigious accelerator program is most known for its portfolio of software companies, hardware is a growing area of interest. On Saturday, Y Combinator held its first “hardware hackathon” where participants design, hack, and improve hardware of all kinds. Hardware is a hot topic within the technology community right now. The quantified self-movement and connected devices for your body and your home (such as FitBit, Pebble, Lockitron, and Nest) are exploding in popularity with both consumers and investors. Furthermore, technological advancements such as 3D printing, new funding platforms such as Kickstarter, and organizations dedicated to nurturing hardware companies such as Tech Shop and Lemnos Labs have made it easier than ever before to bring a hardware product to market. Leap Motion’ s controller is perhaps the most well-known gesture-control gadget out there right now. This small rectangular device lets users control their computer “in three dimensions” using their hand and finger movements, combined with Leap Motion’s software. Leap has raised $44 million to date from big name investors and signed deals with Asus and Best Buy to support mainstream distribution. It hasn’t set an official release date for Leap Motion’s controller, but it will cost $70 when it launches this spring. MYO is available for preorder for $149 and is slated to ship in late 2013. Leap Motion and MYO are part of the next wave of “human/machine interface.” MYO is Leap Motion’s first real competitor, however, Lake said that MYO’s unique muscular sensing technology makes it more accurate and easy-to-use than other versions that use cameras. That approach is less precise and can lead to “gorilla arm,” a phenomenon where the user must keep their arm elevated for the device to work. A few years ago, Microsoft was working on a prototype called MUCI that used medical electrodes, which require contact with the skin, to enable gesture control. But this was not feasible for mass marketing purposes. Like Leap Motion, MYO’s device aims to be as discreet as possible so the person using it forgets she’s wearing it, and actually gets to feel like Jedi Knight. Thalmic is also working on an API for developers that want to experiment and build applications based on the technology. Lake said that the applications are endless, ranging from medical robotics to a DJ looking for new ways to make music. Thalmic Labs is based in Kitchener, Ontario. The team was inspired to apply to Y Combinator after sharing workspace with Buffer Box, a class from Y Combinator Summer 2012 class that was acquired by Google in November. Since unveiling the product this morning, consumers have placed over 2,000 orders. Photo Credit: Thalmic Labs 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. All rights reserved. "

"Daqri Worksense lets workers tag and scan their environments in AR | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2018/03/07/daqri-worksense-enables-new-ar-productivity-applications"

"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 Daqri Worksense lets workers tag and scan their environments in AR Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Daqri has work apps for augmented reality glasses. 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. Daqri is announcing a new suite of augmented reality productivity applications as part of its push to increase adoption of its AR smart glasses. While virtual reality (VR) enthusiasm is moving slowly, AR is gaining more traction, and Los Angeles-based Daqri is trying to catch that wave by launching the Daqri Worksense Pro Subscription, a service that delivers AR software and hardware, including Daqri’s smart glasses. Daqri Worksense is a productivity suite of AR applications that enables the most common AR tasks, helping organizations improve existing business processes. Daqri Worksense includes five applications. Above: Daqri has new AR apps for enterprise customers. “Augmented reality in an enterprise or industrial context needs to be able to clearly improve the solutions to existing problems in order to gain adoption. This will then lead the leveraging of richer functions in AR as it matures,” said Ian Hughes, senior analyst for internet of things (IoT) at market researcher 451 Research, in a statement. “It is also important for any implementation to integrate with existing systems and data. The Daqri Worksense Suite provides common task solutions, such as remote worker support or guided work instructions, but also adds richer elements such as 3D environment scanning and model viewing in situ. Connectors to enterprise systems are also available in the suite.” 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! These elements include Daqri Show, which enables better video and voice collaboration. It lets you invite others into your live work space and show them what you are seeing. They can guide your point of view and annotate your real-world view with digital tools and instructions. It is aimed at tasks such as collaborating with remote experts who can show you what needs to be done, or for product support situations when a phone call does not provide enough context. Daqri Show is based on the Daqri Remote Expert app that has been used by customers for over a year. Another new app is Daqri Scan, which can instantly scan your environment, facilities, or equipment to create photo-realistic 3D digital models. It can replace more expensive, single-purpose hand-held scanners. Above: Daqri enables remote repair through augmented reality. Daqri is also launching Daqri Tag, which lets you attach your information and notes to real-world facilities, objects, and assets. You will be able to assign different types of content type to tags. Daqri Tag also enables digital information to flow from existing systems, such as IBM Maximo for asset management, into the real world where it belongs. Then there’s Daqri Model, BIM 360 Edition. You can use it to bring 3D objects from Autodesk BIM 360 Docs into view for review, discussion, or training and to compare designs to actual work in progress. The last new app is Daqri Guide, which helps you stay on track and learn how to do new tasks with references that include task lists, work instructions, and a variety of digital content types — from documents to videos. Daqri Show is available now, and the rest of the Daqri Worksense Suite is available in an early adopter program. “Daqri is improving communication and quality in construction by bringing 3D models to life on project sites by integrating with Autodesk’s BIM 360 construction management platform,” said Sarah Hodges, director of Autodesk’s Construction Business Line, in a statement. “We’ve worked closely for some time with the Daqri team to develop professional-grade augmented reality, and we are thrilled to share this new visualization capability with our customers.” Daqri said those who buy its smart glasses before May 31 will get a six-month trial of Daqri Worksense Pro. Rivals include Scope AR , Ngrain, and Vuforia. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2 drops to $999 and adds Qualcomm's XR1 | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/20/google-glass-enterprise-edition-2-levels-up-with-qualcomms-xr1-and-smith-frames"

"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 Glass Enterprise Edition 2 drops to $999 and adds Qualcomm’s XR1 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2. 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. Six years after Google Glass was unveiled, it goes without saying that the first major augmented reality headset wasn’t the massive success some imagined: The $1,500 Enterprise Edition was ultimately pitched almost exclusively to businesses, and after less than two years, the company had to tell people it hadn’t been abandoned. It’s been a while, but Google is today ready to officially unveil Google Glass Enterprise Edition 2 , a followup with a faster processor, improved camera, and new Smith Optics frames — now for $999. The sequel has been publicly in the works for long enough to qualify as an open secret, having been outed with FCC filings and apparent benchmarks last year. But there’s more to the story: While leaks suggested it would feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 processor, it’s actually arriving with a superior Snapdragon XR1 chip, which Google touts as offering significantly more processing power, greater energy efficiency, and support for both AI and computer vision. The chip has a 1.7GHz clock speed with four cores, and overall battery life is now up to 8 hours between recharges with an 820mAh cell. Google also says that it’s bumping the camera from 5MP to 8MP in still resolution, with 720p video support, but it didn’t have anything to say about enhancements to Glass’ display. Prior models included a 640 by 360 pixel screen inside a clear, prism-shaped box in front of one eye, and that is still the case with Glass 2; a Google representative merely described it as “similar.” Optional Smith Optics safety frames are perhaps the most eye-catching change. Glass 2 appears to house almost all of its hardware inside the right stem, with asymmetrical bulges on that side, while the front can use hip, thick plastic lens frames instead of a rimless design — there’s also a thin wired frame closer to the original model. The new model also adds a USB-C port for faster recharging, and features both Bluetooth 5 and Wi-Fi 5 support. 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! On the software side, Google says that Glass Enterprise Edition 2 will be easier to develop for, as it’s built on Android and can leverage existing APIs, as well as Android Enterprise Mobile Device Management for scaled deployments. As benchmarks suggested last year, it runs Android 8.1 Oreo, but with both Android Pie and Q now in the wild, it could get an update in the future. Google is taking orders for the Glass Enterprise Edition 2 starting today. While the company’s own MSRP is $999, third-party pricing will vary based on the partner it’s sourced from, with some companies offering installment plans and/or supplementary services that may make it more or less affordable. 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. All rights reserved. "

"North pulls Focals smart glasses ahead of 'sleeker' upgrade in 2020 | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/12/10/north-pulls-focals-smart-glasses-ahead-of-sleeker-upgrade-in-2020"

"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 North pulls Focals smart glasses ahead of ‘sleeker’ upgrade in 2020 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn North's Focals 2.0 teaser image 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. North , an augmented reality (AR) wearables company backed by Amazon and Intel, has announced that it’s pulling its current Focals smart glasses off the market in preparation for a new incarnation sometime in 2020. The Canadian company isn’t giving too much away in terms of how Focals 2.0 will differ from the current version — but we do know that they will be 40% lighter, with a “sleeker” look that makes them “nearly indistinguishable” from standard glasses. The company also promises a 10-times higher resolution retinal display compared to the originals and will offer a broader range of prescription support. Somewhat cryptically, North also said in a blog post that it’s moving beyond a display that offers “instant access to your digital life” toward a future “where computing moves into the world around us.” North will reveal key details such as price, new features, and launch date in the coming months. Above: Focals 2.0 teaser “The first generation of Focals marked the evolution of traditional glasses to smart glasses, with a considered design representing the first true everyday smart glasses available on the market,” North cofounder and CEO Stephen Lake said in a separate press release. “Focals 2.0 are at a completely different level, as the most advanced smart glasses ever made. They represent an enormous step forward in engineering the future.” 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 story so far North, formerly known as Thalmic Labs, pivoted from gesture- and motion-guided devices to holographic eyewear last year. Focals represented the first North-brand product, connecting to smartphones over Bluetooth to display key notifications directly in the wearer’s field of view. A separate connected ring called Loop is also required and allows users to control the glasses by clicking with their finger. This setup saves you fiddling with any buttons on the glasses or your smartphone — it’s all about being discreet. Moreover, the spectacles sport a built-in mic so you can ask Alexa questions, with answers delivered on the display or via a little speaker. Above: Focals by North Much has happened in the 14 months since Focals first went to market. In February, the company scythed the price nearly in half from $999 to a $600 starting price , and then it laid off some 150 employees to cut costs. A month later, news emerged that North had raised $40 million in debt financing , its first outside funding since it closed a $120 million round from big-name backers that include Amazon’s Alexa Fund and Intel Capital back in 2016. North is now applying its learnings from not only the past year but its entire history prior to its pivot. “We spent the last year in the market learning how to build, sell, and support smart glasses with our first generation product that we now will combine with over five years of research working on the technology upgrades in Focals 2.0,” Lake said. Top specs A number of companies are working to bring smart glasses to the mass consumer market. Earlier this year, Vuzix started selling its $1,000 Blade AR smart glasses, which feature additional functionality, such as the ability to watch Netflix and Amazon Prime videos on the display. Vuzix’s glasses also allow users to snap photos and shoot videos via an on-board camera. Elsewhere, Snapchat parent Snap recently doubled down on its wearables ambitions with the launch of dual-camera Spectacles to create 3D AR content. Despite these efforts, smart glasses have yet to really take off in the consumer realm, something North is clearly looking to change by keeping things simple. It wants to make smart glasses smaller, lighter, and more discreet, which means we probably won’t see any built-in cameras on Focals 2.0. It’s worth noting that Focals were originally only available to buy through North’s physical retail showrooms in Toronto and New York, in addition to roving pop-up showrooms that toured key cities across North America. Back in September, however, North opened up online orders for the first time, allowing consumers to measure up their glasses themselves using the iPhone’s TrueDepth camera. That move eliminated one of the major obstacles to acquiring North’s eyewear, and with Focals 2.0 we may see more of North’s technology in the wild over the coming year. “Focals 2.0 is such an incredible step forward, and we are gearing up to bring to market at scale,” North CTO and cofounder Matthew Bailey added. “Since launching Focals last fall, we have consistently updated the product experience and will continue to add new features and functionality to our first product generation as we build to our launch of 2.0.” 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. All rights reserved. "

"Magic Leap announces layoffs and enterprise refocus to ensure second AR headset | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/04/22/magic-leap-announces-layoffs-and-enterprise-refocus-to-ensure-second-ar-headset"

"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 Magic Leap announces layoffs and enterprise refocus to ensure second AR headset 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. The Magic Leap 1 augmented reality headset hasn’t exactly been the world-changing success its developers intended. Today, the company announced that it’s making the difficult choice to lay off employees, cut costs, and refocus more heavily on enterprise customers so its next-generation model Magic Leap 2 will actually reach the market. While the company hasn’t disclosed the scope of either the layoffs or the enterprise pivot, they’re not entirely surprising. Despite funding from major tech companies such as Google and the support of top U.S. wireless carrier AT&T , Magic Leap has struggled to win broad adoption from consumers or developers, in large part because of its $2,300 to $3,000 pricing. After focusing its initial “Creator Edition” model on developers, it relaunched the headset last December and focused on promoting enterprise applications. In recent months, the company reportedly hoped to be acquired for $10 billion, which seemed highly unlikely even before coronavirus outbreaks began across the world. Today’s announcement blamed the outbreaks for decreasing access to investment capital, forcing the internal changes. Magic Leap’s announcement comes at a pivotal point for the mixed reality industry. Increasing demand for virtual reality headsets to facilitate work-from-home meetings and in-person online collaboration hasn’t yet been matched by consumer uptake for augmented reality glasses like Magic Leap’s. However, some AR headset makers are seeing major upticks in orders for glasses that can be used as tools for coronavirus screening or cooperative medical care. Generally, both VR and AR appear to have bright futures , but creating apps for Magic Leap’s standalone platform requires additional development work compared with Windows- and Android-based rivals. For the time being, Magic Leap says that it’s working to negotiate revenue-generating enterprise deals for its platform, and changing its operations and spending to “ensure delivery of Magic Leap 2.” The company has openly discussed its second-generation headset since the launch of the original model, suggesting that physical prototypes already existed under cloths in its CEO’s office, but hasn’t provided specifics as to the new model’s features and changes. However, AT&T partnered with the company to provide 5G know-how and network infrastructure , implying that the headset might go from using Wi-Fi and a large puck-shaped wearable processing unit to a partially or substantially cellular design. 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 those laid off was Graeme Devine, who previously co-founded Trilobyte and created popular computer games The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour. He also worked on id Software’s Quake III Arena , and had a games-focused role at Apple. At Magic Leap, Devine served as chief creative officer and senior vice president of games, apps, and creative experiences. Devine indicated in social media posts that Magic Leap had decided to pivot to hardware, which could have broader implications for its software platform. We’ve reached out to Magic Leap for additional details on the scope of the layoffs, and will update this article with those details if and when we know more. Bloomberg reports that “people familiar with the matter” have confirmed that around 1,000 people will be affected, or roughly half the company’s workforce, resulting in the winding down of Magic Leap’s consumer business. Updated on May 21, 2020 at 1:00 p.m.: According to a subsequent report from The Information , Magic Leap today sent out a corporate memo that it has secured an additional $350 million in funding, enabling it to keep paying employees for the immediate future. The company had faced a June 21 deadline to raise additional money or “realize an alternative corporate option,” else its remaining employees would lose their jobs as well. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Trivia Crack maker Etermax launches Words & Ladders mobile game | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/03/31/trivia-crack-maker-etermax-launches-words-ladders-mobile-game"

"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 Trivia Crack maker Etermax launches Words & Ladders mobile game Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn From the makers of Trivia Crack comes Words & Ladders. 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. Etermax , the Argentine studio that made Trivia Crack and Word Crack, has launched Words & Ladders, a new mobile game where players solve riddles. Words & Ladders is now available worldwide for free on Android and iOS in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and German. Inspired by the ancient Indian board game Moksha Patam, Words & Ladders brings to mobile devices a lively and colorful version that, in addition to entertaining, stimulates lateral thinking with riddles in order to advance in the game, the company said. Etermax product owner Federico Segovia said in a statement that the game is aimed at curious minds. It emphasizes the value of words as a tool to streamline thinking and share knowledge with friends, family, and other users. He said you can play Words & Ladders at any time and in any place, fine-tuning your memory, improving your vocabulary, and testing your popular culture knowledge, with thousands of puzzles. Above: Words & Ladders is reminiscent of Chutes & Ladders. The game highlights the funny Gallerino, who needs the help of the wisest players to discover the hidden words on the steps towards the goal. The challenger must reach the top of an ascending board of 100 squares (kind of like Chutes & Ladders), while facing the skills of friends, family or random opponents by correctly answering the puzzles that are presented on the climb. Whoever proves to be the fastest will win the game. 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! You earn coins, or buy them at store, and they provide benefits in the game. The winner of a game receives a medal, which gives you rewards by completing and unlocking park attractions in the section with floating islands. To start the game, the player spins the wheel, which will indicate the number of squares a player will advance. After landing on a square, players must answer a riddle by filling in the correct word in less than 30 seconds. Above: Players test their trivia knowledge in Words & Ladders. Landing on a ladder serves as a shortcut to move faster in the board. But landing on a slide will make you move back. Also, players can collect coins distributed in the squares automatically while moving up; however, if they fall on the opponent’s square, they have to answer two consecutive riddles to move forward. Whoever manages to reach the finish line first becomes the winner of the game and receives medals. The medals allows users to complete the park attractions in the section with floating islands and win rewards. Once an island is complete, a new one is unlocked. Etermax, founded in 2009 as an international tech company, has had 700 million downloads for titles such as Trivia Crack, Trivia Crack 2, and Word Crack. The company is also offering in-game advertising services in Latin America through an extensive network of more than 1,800 titles. Etermax was founded in Argentina and it has offices in Uruguay and Germany as well as commercial support in Brazil and Mexico. Although the game is available for free on Android and iOS, it has in-game advertising an in-game shopping system in the Words & Ladders store, where you can purchase coins to give you greater opportunities in the 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. 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. All rights reserved. "

"DHL will invest $300 million to quadruple robots in warehouses in 2019 | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2018/11/29/dhl-will-invest-300-million-to-quadruple-robots-in-warehouses-in-2019"

"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 DHL will invest $300 million to quadruple robots in warehouses in 2019 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn A Locus robot designed to work together with humans in DHL warehouses 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. DHL Supply Chain, a logistics division of DHL, today announced it will invest $300 million to modernize 60 percent of its warehouses in North America with more IoT sensors and robots. Robotic process automation and software made to reduce workflow interruptions will also play a role. Such technology is already in operation in 85 DHL facilities, or roughly 20 percent of warehouses across North America. Funding announced today will bring emerging technology to 350 of DHL Supply Chain’s 430 operating sites. The company has more than 35,000 employees in North America. Robots from companies like Locus Robotics that were made to collaborate with humans to fulfill orders are currently being used in some of DHL’s more modern facilities, but no specific vendor or company has been selected to supply robots as part of the new initiative, DHL Supply Chain North America CEO Scott Sureddin told VentureBeat in a phone interview. Conversations are ongoing with more than 25 robotics and process automation industry leaders, DHL Supply Chain president of retail Jim Gehr said. DHL Supply Chain warehouse robots will work primarily with unit-picking operations and will be able to complete a range of tasks, from collaborative piece picking to shuttling items across a factory to following human packers. VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! “With collaborative robots, we have seen increases in picking productivity by over 100 percent increase, and those are gains we had not seen in the prior decade,” Gehr said. A DHL Supply Chain innovation center for research and exploration of ideas surrounding the future of the supply chain industry is scheduled to open outside Chicago in September 2019 and will complement existing innovation centers in Europe and Asia. The new center will work with its counterparts in other parts of the world, but robot trials will continue to take place inside facilities in operation today. “When it’s time to do a pilot, we really have to do that on the operating floor out there in a warehouse, so we can kind of report back, share our different findings with them, and then they can pick and choose what they want to display in the innovation center for customers and things like that,” Gehr said. 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. All rights reserved. "

"CommonSense Robotics announces 'world's first' underground micro-fulfillment center | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/07/11/commonsense-robotics-announces-worlds-first-underground-micro-fulfillment-center"

"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 CommonSense Robotics announces ‘world’s first’ underground micro-fulfillment center Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn CommonSense Robotics' underground micro-fulfillment center. 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. Israel-based CommonSense Robotics , a micro-fulfillment startup that last October launched its first autonomous sorting center in downtown Tel Aviv, today announced that it’s broken ground on what it claims is the world’s first underground automated warehouse, in partnership with one of Israel’s largest grocery chains. It’ll be located blocks from Rothschild Boulevard, in a parking structure beneath Shalom Meir Tower, and it’ll measure just 18,000 square feet with an average clearance height of 11 feet. Cofounder and CEO Elram Goren says the center — which will be a full-service grocery site with three temperature zones, supporting on-demand fulfillment of fresh, ambient, chilled, and frozen items — will enable CommonSense’s partner to fulfill delivery orders in less than an hour. Furthermore, he says that thanks to a combination of robotic sorting systems and AI, the fulfillment center will prep items more quickly than the average team of human workers. “With ecommerce logistics pushing both retailers’ profitability and urban infrastructures to the breaking point, it’s clear that we need to reinvent the way goods are fulfilled and delivered within cities,” said Goren. “In order to fulfill and deliver on demand, you inherently need to be closer to your end customers, but that’s really hard in cities. Taking ecommerce fulfillment underground inside cities is one way we can enable retailers to fulfill online orders in close proximity to their customers — while doing so profitably.” CommonSense takes a hybrid approach to fulfillment. Robots within its site’s walls — orchestrated by software that breaks orders into tasks and delegates those tasks autonomously — bring items awaiting shipment in totes to teams of employees, who pack individual orders. Other robots move packaged orders to dispatch, where they’re loaded onto a scooter or van. 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 company’s first fulfillment center , which it claims is one of the world’s smallest, measures just 6,000 square feet in total and services over 400 orders a day for drugstore chain Super-Pharm. That’s a twelfth the size of Apple’s 5th Avenue store in New York City and substantially smaller than most hubs, some of which have floor plans exceeding 120,000 square feet. CommonSense raised $20 million in a funding round led by Playground Global last year, and it has its sights set on international expansion. The company is in talks with a number of large grocery retailers in the U.S. and U.K. and intends to launch “multiple sites” across the East Coast this year. Of course, it’s far from the only firm bringing micro-fulfillment tech to retail. Takeoff Technologies ‘ platform, which works out of pharmacies, convenience stores, and quick-service restaurants, doubles as a pick-up station, complete with lockers for easy access. Commerce giant Walmart partnered with Alert Innovation in August 2018 to deploy AlphaBot , an autonomous fulfillment system capable of picking and transporting the “vast majority” of grocery items. That’s not to mention the more than half-dozen startups deploying robots in store aisles. California company InVia Robotics raised $20 million this past summer to bring subscription-based robotics to ecommerce warehouses. In the U.K., supermarket chain Ocado recently took the wraps off of a picking and packing robot that can grasp fragile objects without breaking them. And French startup Exotec’s AI system Skypod taps robots capable of moving in three dimensions. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Attabotics raises $25 million to miniaturize fulfillment centers with robots | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/07/30/attarobotics-raises-25-million-to-miniaturize-fulfillment-centers-with-robots"

"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 Attabotics raises $25 million to miniaturize fulfillment centers with robots Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn One of Attabotics' in-warehouse structures. 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. Attabotics , a robotics supply chain company headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, today announced it has secured $25 million in a series B funding round led by financial and strategic investors Coatue, Comcast Ventures, and Honeywell, alongside returning backers Forerunner Ventures and Werklund Growth Fund. The fresh capital brings the company’s total raised to $32.7 million following grants from the Opportunity Calgary Investment Fund, and CEO and CTO Scott Gravelle says the funds will enable Attabotics to expand its team, scale its manufacturing operations, and develop new technologies. “We applied the three-dimensional structure of ant colonies into a fulfillment system, built for modern commerce, that is flexible, scalable, and accelerates the shipping and delivery process,” said Gravelle, who cofounded Attabotics with Jacques LaPointe, Rob Cowley, and Tony Woolf in 2015. “Commerce is at a crossroads, and in order for retailers and brands of all types and sizes to thrive, they need to adapt and take advantage of new technologies to effectively meet consumers’ growing demands.” Attabotics’ novel fulfillment automation technology condenses rows and aisles of warehouse shelves into single, vertical storage structures. Orchestrated fleets of robotic shuttles within these structures move horizontally and vertically along the X, Y, and Z axes, retrieving goods and delivering them to the perimeter, where workers pick, pack, and ship them. The company claims its modular all-in-one supply chain product can reduce a retailer’s required warehouse needs by 85% while accelerating shipping. Furthermore, it says its technology has already been adopted and deployed by unnamed “major” brands and retailers in the U.S. and Canada across apparel, food, beverage, and home goods verticals. VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! “Supply chain efficiency, particularly relative to improving fulfillment speed and capabilities, is a critical (costly) strategic issue for brands and retailers to address as they struggle to meet the pressures of today’s competitive consumer environment while staying profitable,” said Forerunner Ventures’ Eurie Kim. “Attabotics provides retailers of all sizes with an innovative back-end system that not only enables them to meet the ever-increasing bar for faster delivery, but also allows them to manage vast inventory assortment and seamless returns, all while allowing the business to focus on its most important job — delighting customers.” Attabotics’ technology isn’t unlike that of Israel-based CommonSense Robotics , which also takes a hybrid approach to fulfillment. CommonSense’s machines — managed by software that breaks orders into tasks and delegates those tasks autonomously — bring items awaiting shipment in totes to teams of employees, who pack individual orders while other robots move packaged orders to dispatch. The company’s first fulfillment center (which it claims is one of the world’s smallest) measures just 6,000 square feet in total, and its second is 18,000 square feet with an average clearance height of 11 feet. Of course, Attabotics and CommonSense are far from the only companies bringing micro-fulfillment tech to retail. Takeoff Technologies’ platform, which works out of pharmacies, convenience stores, and quick-service restaurants, doubles as a pick-up station, complete with lockers for easy access. And commerce giant Walmart partnered with Alert Innovation in August 2018 to deploy AlphaBot , an autonomous fulfillment system capable of picking and transporting the “vast majority” of grocery items. That’s not to mention the more than half-dozen startups deploying robots in store aisles. California company InVia Robotics raised $20 million this past summer to bring subscription-based robotics to ecommerce warehouses. In the U.K., supermarket chain Ocado recently took the wraps off a picking and packing robot that can grasp fragile objects without breaking them. And French startup Exotec’s AI system Skypod taps robots capable of moving in three dimensions. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Call of Duty: Warzone Season 4 changes will force players into close combat | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/11/call-of-duty-warzone-season-4-changes-will-force-players-into-close-combat"

"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 Call of Duty: Warzone Season 4 changes will force players into close combat 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. Activision is kicking off Season 4 for both Call of Duty: Modern Warfare multiplayer and its Call of Duty: Warzone battle royale modes. It’s a big update that will deliver new maps, features, and modes. Modern Warfare is one of the most popular Call of Duty games in years, and the free-to-play Warzone mode has had more than 60 million downloads in a couple of months. Season 4 has been eagerly awaited in part because it was put on hold for 10 days during the recent unrest. And Captain Price, one of the lead characters in the Modern Warfare story, will show up as part of the ongoing narrative for the backstory behind the multiplayer combat. Price arrives amid the chaos to help put an end to the ongoing conflict between the Coalition and Allegiance forces in the city of Verdansk, where Warzone takes place. Warzone updates Above: Season 4 of Modern Warfare multiplayer is here. For Warzone, the updates will introduce three major in-game elements that will bring players into closer combat. The three events will happen after the first drop kit and before the Gulag (the prison where eliminated combatants go for single combat) closes. The events can happen with very little notice. 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! With Jailbreak, all of the eliminated players who are awaiting single combat in the Gulag are released back into the map. This can mean a lot of players will parachute into the map at once. Players get a minute’s notice so they can find and tag weapons for the parachuting returnees to pick up. This should encourage players to stick around and spectate, even after they die. Another event, dubbed Fire Sale, will dramatically lower the prices that you have to pay at Buy Stations on the battle royale map. In Warzone, you can pick up money on the ground or take it from downed soldiers. You can use that money to buy back other players in your squad who have been killed. You can also buy a self-revive kit, armor, and Killstreaks like Cluster Bomb Attacks. But the prices are pretty steep for most of the things you buy. With Fire Sale, the price of the items in the Buy Stations drops dramatically (up to 80% or even free), but it only lasts for a minute. So that means everybody will rush to a Buy Station at once, and that will force a lot of combat. A Fire Sale would be the perfect time to pick up a unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV, or recon drone), an armor box for your squad, or a lethal Killstreak. During a Fire Sale, you could buy back a dead comrade for free; normally, that costs $4,500, a steep price in the game. The only thing that isn’t discounted is a Loadout Box, which parachutes onto the field and gives you your favorite Loadout from Modern Warfare. Lastly, a Supply Chopper could show up. It is a heavily armored helicopter flying over the Verdansk map. It can take a lot more damage, like a couple of rocket hits. But if you bring it down, the chopper will rain down a bunch of supplies when it crashes. The loot includes three UAVs, two armor boxes and munitions boxes, a gas mask, a grenade launcher, and tons of cash at a minimum. If no one shoots the chopper down, it leaves the battlefield. One of the pluses is a lot of action. One of the negatives is that it will be a field day for snipers watching the hot spots. New Season 4 modes for Warzone Above: Modern Warfare is getting an update with Season 4. During Season 4, limited-time modes will debut. In Juggernaut Royale, the massive Juggernaut suit drops into Verdansk in the form of three different airdrops. Once you get to each location, you can don the suit. With it, you’ll have higher health, a minigun, and a music track to accompany you during the Warzone match. You’ll still be able to ride in vehicles and climb ladders, and your zero-fall damage will be accompanied by a ground pound that damages anyone in the immediate area. If any of the Juggernauts are sent to the Gulag, after a brief delay period, a new Juggernaut care package will be marked on the Tac-Map and deploy into Verdansk. The game will also have a Realism mode, where you have a minimal heads-up display but can deal increased damage with headshots. And the Warzone Rumble will let you face off in Verdansk in a giant Team Deathmatch battle. In this mode, 50 human players will battle 50 others. And free-to-play Warzone users can experience another multiplayer free access weekend on June 12 at 10 a.m. Pacific to June 15 at 10 a.m. Pacific. I went in for a few rounds this morning, joining the 50v50 Warzone Rumble. It was like a big Ground War fight, with people constantly parachuting into the front line. Modern Warfare changes Above: The Zhokov Scrapyard map in Modern Warfare is back. Modern Warfare multiplayer will get a new map, a new Ground War battlefield, and a Gunfight map. The latest multiplayer maps for 6-vs.-6 players are Zhokov Scrapyard and Hardhat. In addition, there will also be a Gunfight playlist during the Free Access Weekend featuring seven maps. Owners of the full version of Modern Warfare can get Zhokov Scrapyard, a standard multiplayer map from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. It’s a frenetic map with a scrapped airliner in the middle of it. I remember this as a frenetic, small map where death comes fast. You can use full-metal jacket bullets to pierce the airplane hull to hit enemies. In Barakett Promenade, players will get a new Ground War map (up to 64 players). It has a lot of rooftops for vertical fighting, and plenty of building interiors too. And the Trench map is a new one for the one-on-one or two-on-two Gunfight matches. This map is a network of interconnected trenches. You can get up and move quicker by rising up out of the trenches, but you are more exposed when you do that. You can also use a Battle Pass in-game purchase to get Captain Price and his Operator Missions. When you charge into a fight with Price, the familiar Ride of the Valkyries battle horn will play. There are also a bunch of other features and modes you can see here. 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. All rights reserved. "

"VB Transform 2020: Women in AI to kick off the digital AI conference of the year | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/11/vb-transform-2020-women-in-ai-to-kick-off-the-digital-ai-conference-of-the-year"

"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 VB Transform 2020: Women in AI to kick off the digital AI conference of the year Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn VB Transform - 2019 Women in AI Breakfast Bias in AI models and algorithms is among the biggest challenges in applied AI. Women leaders and practitioners have been leading the charge in tackling those blind spots. They’re at the forefront in thinking about how the ethics of applied AI, and how it can center empathy, fairness, and human centricity to create truly balanced models and more powerful algorithms. For these essential principles to take root among organizations and data scientists, women need to be represented at a far higher percentage in the AI workforce. Unfortunately, despite the renewed effort to broaden hiring efforts and attract more women, black, and POC workers, the gender equity gap in the tech industry remains notorious and overwhelming. Despite the fact that AI is set to fundamentally reshape society, just 12% of machine learning researchers are women. The AI Now Institute last year estimated that women currently make up only 24.4% of the computer science workforce and receive median salaries that are only 66% of the salaries of their male counterparts, while a report by the National Center for Women in Information Technology found out that nearly half the women who go into technology eventually leave the field — more than double the percentage of men who leave. How do we bring more women into the AI conversation, ensure their contributions are heard, and support them in a field where gender imbalance and bias continues to make it difficult for women to advance? Part of the solution is keeping the effort to address the gender imbalance at the forefront of the AI conversation, and continuing to shine a light on the issue. VentureBeat has committed to being a voice in this effort. As part of the company’s undertaking, it is putting women front and center at this year’s VB Transform , for the second year in a row at the Women in AI Breakfast, presented by Intel and Capital One. Women in AI Breakfast VentureBeat’s 2nd annual Women in AI Breakfast at VB Transform celebrates the women in AI who are revolutionizing the industry. The breakfast, which will now be hosted digitally this July 15, 2020, will feature a discussion on how women are advancing AI and leading the trend of AI fairness, ethics, and human-centered AI, as well as how intersectionality and diversity are critical in achieving the most powerful and innovative AI visions. Join the Women in AI Breakfast livestream on July 15 at 7:30 a.m. Pacific. Jaime Fitzgibbon, founder and CEO of Ren.ai.ssance Insights, will moderate a conversation with Kay Firth-Butterfield, head of AI and Machine Learning and member of the Executive Committee, World Economic Forum; Dr. Timnit Gebru, co-lead of Ethical AI Research Team, Google Brain; and Francesca Rossi, IBM Fellow and AI Ethics Global Leader, IBM Research. Carla Saavedra Kochalski, Director of Conversational AI & Messaging Products, Capital One, and Huma Abidi, Senior Director of AI Software Products, Intel, will share opening and closing remarks, plus a mainstage report back. Women in AI Awards Extraordinary women thinkers, leaders, and innovators in AI will also be honored for the second year in a row at the Women in AI Awards. Join online as we’ll honor women who have made outstanding contributions in five areas: Responsibility & Ethics of AI, AI Entrepreneur, AI Research, AI Mentorship, & Rising Star. We’re actively accepting nominations for these initiatives and encourage you to submit your nominations here. Last year’s 2019 Women in AI Leadership Award winners included Tess Posner, founder and CEO of AI4ALL; Charu Sharma, founder and CEO, Nextplay AI; Dr. Dyann Daley, founder and CEO, Predict-Align-Prevent; Dr. Fatmah Baothman, professor of artificial intelligence at King Abdulaziz University; and more. Winners were chosen by a panel of industry experts and leaders from 140+ global nominations. Anu Bhardwaj, the founder of Women Investing in Women Digital , explained that 2019 winners were chosen based on a strong commitment to changing the status quo, with a goal of recognizing individuals who advocated for and practiced inclusivity in their communities. Register today for access to the three-day event, or request an invitation to the Women in AI Breakfast. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Waymo expands autonomous truck testing to Texas and New Mexico | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/01/23/waymo-expands-autonomous-truck-testing-to-texas-and-new-mexico"

"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 Waymo expands autonomous truck testing to Texas and New Mexico Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Waymo's now doing trucks 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. Waymo ‘s autonomous vehicles have driven more than 20 million miles, and the Alphabet subsidiary is now expanding its geographic footprint into Texas and New Mexico. In a tweet this morning, Waymo announced it will begin testing self-driving trucks on “promising” commercial routes in the two states as it pursues new transportation solutions. Tests will be primarily along Interstates 10, 20, and 45 and through metropolitan areas like El Paso, Dallas, and Houston. Chrysler Pacifica vans retrofitted with Waymo’s technology stack will map roads ahead of driverless Peterbilt trucks as part of a project known as Husky. The move comes after the company began mapping the streets of Los Angeles to study congestion and expanded testing to highways in Florida between Orlando, Tampa, Fort Myers, and Miami. It also follows Waymo’s self-driving truck pilots in the San Francisco Bay Area, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, and on Metro Phoenix freeways (as well as on the I-10 between Phoenix and Tucson). Demand for driverless trucks is strong. They are predicted to reach 6,700 units globally, totaling $54.23 billion this year, and stand to save the logistics and shipping industry $70 billion annually while boosting productivity by 30%. Besides cost savings, the growth is driven partly by a shortage of human drivers. In 2018, the American Trucking Associates estimated that 50,000 more truckers were needed to meet demand, even after proposed U.S. Transportation Department screenings for sleep apnea were sidelined. This week, we’ll start driving our Chrysler Pacificas and long-haul trucks in Texas and New Mexico. These are interesting and promising commercial routes, and we’ll be using our vehicles to explore how the Waymo Driver might be able to create new transportation solutions. pic.twitter.com/uDqKDrGR9b — Waymo (@Waymo) January 23, 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! But Waymo has formidable rivals in TuSimple , Thor Trucks, and Pronto.ai, and in Aurora, which attracted a $530 million investment at a valuation over $2 billion in February. There’s also Ike, a self-driving truck startup founded by former Apple, Google, and Uber Advanced Technologies Group engineers that has raised $52 million , and venture-backed Swedish driverless car company Einride. Meanwhile, Paz Eshel and former Uber and Otto engineer Don Burnette recently secured $40 million for their startup, Kodiak Robotics. That’s not to mention Embark — which integrates its driverless systems into semis and launched a pilot with Amazon to haul cargo — or autonomous truck solutions from incumbents like Daimler and Volvo. Momentum and future expansion Google first started testing autonomous cars equipped with lidar sensors, radar, cameras, and powerful onboard computers on San Francisco roads as part of a stealth project in 2009. The unit was rebranded to Waymo in 2016 and spun out as an Alphabet subsidiary led by John Krafcik, former president and CEO of Hyundai North America. Waymo One hasn’t grown far beyond Phoenix geographically, but it’s moving incrementally toward a broader launch in the continental U.S. To this end, a Waymo One app for iOS launched last month in the App Store. Like the app for Android, which launched publicly in April, Waymo One for iOS hails rides from almost any Phoenix-area location 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It prompts customers to specify both pickup and drop-off points before estimating the time to arrival and the cost of the ride. As in a typical ride-hailing app, users can also enter payment information and rate the quality of rides using a five-star scale. Shortly after announcing a partnership with Lyft to deploy 10 cars on the ride-hailing platform in Phoenix, Waymo revealed that a portion of its self-driving taxis no longer have a safety driver behind the wheel. Completely driverless rides remain available to only a “few hundred” riders in Waymo’s Early Rider program, the company says. Waymo is poised to expand the size of its operations drastically in the coming months. It’s on track to add up to 62,000 Chrysler Pacifica minivans to its fleet and has signed a deal with Jaguar Land Rover to equip 20,000 of the automaker’s Jaguar I-Pace electric SUVs with its system by 2020. (A few of the I-Paces are currently undergoing testing on public roads in San Francisco.) According to marketing firm ABI, as many as 8 million driverless cars will be added to the road in 2025, and Research and Markets anticipates that there will be some 20 million autonomous cars in operation in the U.S. by 2030. Assuming Waymo maintains its current trajectory, investment bank UBS believes the company will dominate the driverless car market in the next decade, with over 60% market share. That might be optimistic — Yandex, Tesla, Zoox, Aptiv, May Mobility, Pronto.ai, Aurora, Nuro, and GM’s Cruise Automation are among Waymo’s self-driving car competitors, to name just a few. Daimler last summer obtained a permit from the Chinese government that allows it to test autonomous cars powered by Baidu’s Apollo platform on public roads in China. Beijing-based Pony.ai , which has raised $214 million in venture capital, launched a driverless taxi pilot in Irvine in October. And startup Optimus Ride built out a small autonomous shuttle fleet in New York City, becoming the first to do so. 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. All rights reserved. "

"DARPA-backed Soft Robotics raises $23 million for autonomous grippers and sorters | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/01/20/darpa-backed-soft-robotics-raises-23-million-for-autonomous-grippers-and-sorters"

"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 DARPA-backed Soft Robotics raises $23 million for autonomous grippers and sorters 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. Soft Robotics raised another $23 million to continue developing its solutions to the seemingly intractable problems gripping and sorting machines face. As work published by MIT and others has established, picker robots struggle with complex poses and unfamiliar objects. That’s because they not only have to locate objects and understand how to grasp them, but because they’ve got to set them down such that they don’t sustain damage or disturb their surroundings. Truly versatile picker robots could transform warehouses in industries from ecommerce to manufacturing. CEO Carl Vause said this capital infusion, which comes after Soft Robotics partnered with industrial giant FANUC to integrate its systems with the latter’s robots through a new controller, will accelerate the startup’s next phase of growth. “Variability is the kryptonite of the robotics industry,” he added. “By offering a system that is able to grasp and manipulate items that vary in size, shape, and weight, we are able to solve the problem of high variability in both products and processes.” Soft Robotics describes its grippers as a “fundamentally new class” of machine — those that are adaptive, plug and play, repeatable, and reliable. Its mGrip product allows builds with multiple configurations and spacing options with a cycling time of 3-4 times per second and “sub-millimeter” precision, thanks in part to its air-filled soft plastic design. The company’s SuperPick is a robot-agnostic solution comprising a vision system and AI engine that reports real-time metrics, enabling capabilities that include exception handling, remote operator access, object detection, bin localization, grasp detection, grasp quality analysis, and precision placement. VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Soft Robotics supplies every component necessary to get its systems up and running, including control units and software that provides control of grip parameters including force, actuator spacing, and opening width. The controller itself can store up to eight grip profiles in total. Soft Robotics was founded by Carmichael Roberts and George Whitesides in June 2013. Whitesides, a member of Harvard University’s Whitesides Research Group, pioneered many of the technologies underpinning them, including the “Pneu-Net” soft robotics actuator, as part of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) ChemBots program. After securing licensing rights to the Whitesides patent portfolio and grants from DARPA, Soft Robotics went on to nab Dow 30 and Fortune 500 customers in food and beverage, manufacturing, and logistics market segments, including Just Born Quality Confections (the maker of Peeps). The robotics market is on the upswing, as alluded to earlier. Analysts at Allied Market Research anticipate it will reach $5.186 billion by 2023 as tasks like pick-place, packaging, transportation, packaging, and palletizing become increasingly automated. A recent survey published by EyeForTransport reflects this — it revealed an 18% year-over-year increase in the testing of warehouse robotics, with 25% of the 100 companies surveyed revealing that they piloted robots in a limited number of warehouses in 2019. Soft Robotics’ oversubscribed funding round — a series B — was co-led by Calibrate Ventures and Material Impact, with participation from new investor FANUC Corp and existing investors Honeywell, Hyperplane, Scale, Tekfen Ventures, and Yamaha. It brings the company’s total raised to $48 million following a $20 million series A raise in May 2018. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Covariant raises $40 million to bring robots to low-tech industries | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/06/covariant-raises-40-million-to-bring-robots-to-low-tech-industries"

"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 Covariant raises $40 million to bring robots to low-tech industries Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Covariant founders left to right: Rocky Duan, Tianhao Zhang, Pieter Abbeel, and Peter Chen 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. Covariant today announced the close of a $40 million series B funding round to bring its robotic control systems to additional industries and create more systems capable of picking, placing, and unloading objects in warehouses. Until now, Covariant has focused its efforts on ecommerce picking robots in highly automated warehouses. It may be best known for its work in robotic grasping , the task of picking up objects with a robotic hand or gripper. The startup — whose founders met at OpenAI and the University of California, Berkeley — has raised $67 million to date. After emerging from stealth earlier this year with support from deep learning luminaries like Geoffrey Hinton, Jeff Dean, and Yann LeCun, Covariant stated that the Covariant Brain system is capable of picking and packing some 10,000 items with 99% accuracy. Above: A KNAPP robot using Covariant in an Obeta warehouse in Berlin, Germany Robotics manufacturer ABB signed a partnership with Covariant in February, following a picking and sorting test held by ABB last year in which Covariant outperformed 20 other systems. In March, Covariant and Knapp signed a partnership to release a picking robot solution. Covariant has primarily deployed robots in warehouses with high levels of automation, but the funding will be used to expand the company’s footprint to include warehouse environments with low rates of automation, or where work is done entirely with human labor today. VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Covariant CEO Peter Chen told VentureBeat examples of low automation industries include mail and parcel delivery, with companies like UPS or the U.S. Postal Service. “There are a lot of tasks where grasping is the first step in robotic manipulation, but it’s one of the many steps in other use cases that we’re looking into tackling — and that obviously go beyond just the logistics supply chain industry, like going to manufacturing, recycling, agriculture. These are places where people still use their hands a lot to do very repetitive kinds of tasks,” Chen told VentureBeat in a phone interview. A series of studies MIT economists released this week found that robotics are most prevalent in four manufacturing industries: automakers (38% of robots in use), electronics (15%), plastics and chemicals (10%), and metals manufacturers (7%). The study also found that robots replace on average 3.3 jobs, but businesses that move quickly to adopt robots can also add employees to their payroll. Since learning that the core principles behind sorting ecommerce items in warehouses apply to other industrial applications, Chen expects Covariant will begin to develop robotic systems that go beyond tasks like loading and unloading boxes. “Even though we have seen our robots operating in high-automation warehouses doing order picking and packing orders for consumers, the underlying technology is a lot more extensible than that, and that’s the key thing that we look to bring more to markets with our partners and solve more additional use cases,” Chen said. He said Covariant has recently seen increased usage from clients hoping to avoid supply chain disruption. Since the start of the pandemic, Chen said, clients want robots for consistency and reliability or to avoid a slowdown in case of shelter-in-place orders in the future. “What COVID-19 has shown us is some of the vulnerabilities and weaknesses in the supply chain, and now [the question is] ‘How can we invest in the next generation of robotics to help us be more resilient?'” he said. In addition to opening up new industries, the funding will also be used to grow the research and engineering teams for the Covariant Brain robotics system. The round was led by Index Ventures, with participation from Amplify Partners and Radical Ventures. Index Ventures partner Mike Volpi will join Covariant’s board of directors. Covariant was founded in September 2017 and is based in Berkeley, California, with plans to move to nearby Emeryville in the weeks ahead. In other news, last week Covariant cofounder and Berkeley AI Research codirector Pieter Abbeel open-sourced RAD , a module the team says is capable of improving any reinforcement learning algorithm, and published other reinforcement learning work at the ICLR machine learning research conference. 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. All rights reserved. "

"The Enduring Legacy of Zork | MIT Technology Review"

"https://www.technologyreview.com/2017/08/22/149560/the-enduring-legacy-of-zork"

"Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts The Enduring Legacy of Zork By Elizabeth Woyke archive page In 1977, four recent MIT graduates who’d met at MIT’s Laboratory for Computer Science used the lab’s PDP-10 mainframe to develop a computer game that captivated the world. Called Zork, which was a nonsense word then popular on campus, their creation would become one of the most influential computer games in the medium’s half-century-long history. The text-based adventure challenged players to navigate a byzantine underground world full of caves and rivers as they battled gnomes, a troll, and a Cyclops to collect such treasures as a jewel-encrusted egg and a silver chalice. During its 1980s heyday, commercial versions of Zork released for personal computers sold more than 800,000 copies. Today, unofficial versions of the game can be played online, on smartphones, and on Amazon Echo devices, and Zork is inspiring young technologists well beyond the gaming field. It’s an impressive legacy for a project described by its developers as a hobby, a lark, and a “good hack.” Here’s the story of Zork’s creation, as recounted by its four inventors—and a look at its ongoing impact. Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling—who between them earned seven MIT degrees in electrical engineering and computer science, political science, and biology—bonded over their interest in computer games, then in their infancy, as they worked or consulted for the Laboratory for Computer Science’s Dynamic Modeling Group. By day, all of them but Blank (who was in medical school) developed software for the U.S. Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which funded projects at MIT. On nights and weekends, they used their coding skills—and mainframe access—to work on Zork. In early 1977, a text-only game called Colossal Cave Adventure—originally written by MIT grad Will Crowther—was tweaked and distributed over the Arpanet by a Stanford graduate student. “The four of us spent a lot of time trying to solve Adventure,” says Lebling. “And when we finally did, we said, ‘That was pretty good, but we could do a better job.’” By June, they’d devised many of Zork’s core features and building blocks, including a word parser that took words the players typed and translated them into commands the game could process and respond to, propelling the story forward. The parser, which the group continued to fine-tune, allowed Zork to understand far more words than previous games, including adjectives, conjunctions, prepositions, and compound verbs. That meant Zork could support intricate puzzles, such as one that let players obtain a key by sliding paper under a door, pushing the key out of the lock so it would drop onto the paper, and retrieving the paper. The parser also let players input sentences like “Take all but rug” to scoop up multiple treasures, rather than making them type “Take [object]” over and over. Vibrant, witty writing set Zork apart. It had no graphics, but lines like “Phosphorescent mosses, fed by a trickle of water from some unseen source above, make [the crystal grotto] glow and sparkle with every color of the rainbow” helped players envision the “Great Underground Empire” they were exploring as they brandished such weapons as glowing “Elvish swords.” “We played with language just like we played with computers,” says Daniels. Wordplay also cropped up in irreverent character names such as “Lord Dimwit Flathead the Excessive” and “The Wizard of Frobozz.” Within weeks of its creation, Zork’s clever writing and inventive puzzles attracted players from across the U.S. and England. “The MIT machines were a nerd magnet for kids who had access to the Arpanet,” says Anderson. “They would see someone running something called Zork, rummage around in the MIT file system, find and play the game, and tell their friends.” The MIT mainframe operating system (called ITS) let Zork’s creators remotely watch users type in real time, which revealed common mistakes. “If we found a lot of people using a word the game didn’t support, we would add it as a synonym,” says Daniels. The four kept refining and expanding Zork until February 1979. A few months later, three of them, plus seven other Dynamic Modeling Group members, founded the software company Infocom. Its first product: a modified version of Zork, split into three parts, released over three years, to fit PCs’ limited memory size and processing power. Nearly 40 years later, those PC games, which ran on everything from the Apple II to the Commodore 64 in their 1980s heyday, are available online —and still inspire technologists. Ben Brown, founder and CEO of Howdy.ai , says Zork helped him design AI-powered chatbots. “Zork is a narrative, but embedded within it are clues about how the user can interact with and affect the story,” he says. “It’s a good model for how chatbots should teach users how to respond to and use commands without being heavy-handed and repetitive.” For example, the line “You are in a dark and quite creepy crawlway with passages leaving to the north, east, south, and southwest” hints to players that they must choose a direction to move, but it doesn’t make those instructions as explicit as actually telling them, “Type ‘north,’ ‘east,’ ‘south,’ or ‘southwest.’” Brown’s chatbot, Howdy, operates similarly, using bold and highlighted fonts to draw attention to keywords, like “check in,” and “schedule,” that people can use to communicate with the bot. Jessica Brillhart , a filmmaker who creates virtual-reality videos , also cites Zork as an influence: “It provides a great way to script immersive experiences and shows how to craft a full universe for people to explore.” hide by Elizabeth Woyke Share linkedinlink opens in a new window twitterlink opens in a new window facebooklink opens in a new window emaillink opens in a new window This story was part of our November/December 2017 issue. Popular This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI Melissa Heikkilä Everything you need to know about artificial wombs Cassandra Willyard How to fix the internet Katie Notopoulos New approaches to the tech talent shortage MIT Technology Review Insights Keep Reading Most Popular This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI The tool, called Nightshade, messes up training data in ways that could cause serious damage to image-generating AI models. By Melissa Heikkilä archive page Everything you need to know about artificial wombs Artificial wombs are nearing human trials. But the goal is to save the littlest preemies, not replace the uterus. By Cassandra Willyard archive page How to fix the internet If we want online discourse to improve, we need to move beyond the big platforms. By Katie Notopoulos archive page New approaches to the tech talent shortage Early-career programs enable tech companies to invest in the future workforce via upskilling and education. By MIT Technology Review Insights archive page Stay connected Illustration by Rose Wong Get the latest updates from MIT Technology Review Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more. Enter your email Thank you for submitting your email! It looks like something went wrong. We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive. The latest iteration of a legacy Advertise with MIT Technology Review © 2023 MIT Technology Review About About us Careers Custom content Advertise with us International Editions Republishing MIT News Help Help & FAQ My subscription Editorial guidelines Privacy policy Terms of Service Write for us Contact us twitterlink opens in a new window facebooklink opens in a new window instagramlink opens in a new window rsslink opens in a new window linkedinlink opens in a new window "

"Postmates' Serve is a robot that delivers your food, refreshments, and more | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2018/12/13/postmates-serve-is-a-robot-that-delivers-your-food-refreshments-and-more"

"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 Postmates’ Serve is a robot that delivers your food, refreshments, and more 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. Next time you order something from Postmates , a robot might greet you at the doorstep. The San Francisco on-demand delivery firm today unveiled Serve, a four-wheeled delivery rover that’s capable of autonomously navigating sidewalks and city streets. It’s the first commercial product from Postmates’ new research and development lab, Postmates X, and comes as Postmates reveals that it’s now averaging 4 million deliveries each month in 550 cities. Serve’s colorful, LED-laden exterior belies its complex internals. The meter-high robot packs a suite of sensors including RGB cameras, sonar, time-of-flight sensors, GPS, and a lidar sensor supplied by Velodyne, plus a control panel with a “Help” button, a video chat display, and a touchscreen. Nvidia’s Xavier platform powers the little guy, and its electric motors carry up to 50 pounds for 25 miles on a charge — enough to make a dozen deliveries per day, by Postmates’ estimation. It’s mostly driverless, but Serve’s progress is overseen remotely by a team of human pilots ready to take control in the event of a problem. And to ensure it operates within San Francisco’s newly enacted delivery robot rules, which limit companies to three robots each, capped at a speed of three miles per hour, Postmates said it’s soliciting a permit from the City. VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! At the start, in municipalities where Serve will be deployed in the next year (including Toronto and Los Angeles), it’ll fulfill direct deliveries to customers. (A top hatch conceals a cargo compartment that’s unlocked with the Postmates phone app or a passcode.) But it can also deliver food from restaurants to dispatch hubs in congested neighborhoods, Postmates says, from where delivery people can take packages the last mile. With the rollout of Serve, Postmates enters a lucrative autonomous delivery market filled with well-funded startups like Marble , Starship Technologies , Boxbot, Dispatch, and Robby, to name a few. (Postmates previously partnered with Starship to pilot delivery robots.) The McKinsey Institute forecasts, in fact, that driverless rovers like Serve will make up 85 percent of last-mile deliveries by 2025. And that’s not to mention companies like Nuro , which teamed up with grocery giant Kroger for self-driving grocery deliveries in the U.S. this summer; Robomart, which recently announced plans to test its driverless grocery store on wheels; Udelv, which partnered with Farmstead in the Bay Area to transport perishables to customers’ doorsteps; and Ford , which is collaborating with Postmates to deliver items from Walmart stores in Miami-Dade County. But Ali Kashani, Postmates’ vice president of robotics, envisions Serve as more than just a delivery robot. It could one day deliver medication, patrol neighborhoods, and help to eliminate food waste, he told Wired in an interview. “Somehow, as a society, we are OK with the fact that we are moving a two-pound burrito with a two-ton car,” Kashani said. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Google makes dataset of 50 million drawings available on its cloud | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2018/11/15/google-makes-dataset-of-50-million-drawings-available-on-its-cloud"

"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 makes dataset of 50 million drawings available on its cloud Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Deborah Schmidt packing QuickDraw data into letters 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. You can tell a lot about a person by the way they doodle. That’s the conceit behind Quick Draw , an interactive web experiment launched by Google’s Creative Lab in November 2016. It recruits intrepid web surfers to illustrate prompts with sketches, all the while leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to attempt to identify what was drawn — sort of like a high-tech version of Pictionary. Quick Draw has collected more than 1 billion drawings across 345 categories, 50 million of which Google open-sourced last year — complete with metadata, including prompts and geographical user locations. Today, it’s making them available through Google Cloud Platform (GCP) in the form of an API and an accompanying Polymer component. (Polymer, for the uninitiated, is an open source JavaScript library for building web applications.) Starting this week, any GCP customer who joins the public Google Group can add the API to their library by searching for it and adding it to a project. With the Polymer component, doodles can be displayed in a web-based app with a single line of code. “When we release the dataset, it was basically a file for every one of the 345 categories, and it was a little bit cumbersome to work with,” Nick Jonas, creative technologist at Google’s Creative Lab, told VentureBeat in a phone interview. “A lot of these studies that have been done over the past year are large analyses on the entire dataset. We got some feedback from developers who said they wanted an easier way to prototype with the data quickly.” 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: Adding the Quick, Draw! API to a project in Google Cloud. The Quick Draw API — which uses Google Cloud Endpoints to host a Node.js API, Jonas explained — provides access to the same 50 million files contained in the original dataset, but obviates the need to download them in their entirety. It returns a JSON object or an HTML canvas rendering for each drawing — one doodle. “It’s a way for users not to have to download gigs and gigs of data before they can start playing with it,” Jonas said. There are surprising insights to be gleaned from the data. A study by Quartz in June found that 86 percent of U.S. players drew circles counterclockwise, while 80 percent of Japanese drew them clockwise. (The difference, the publication found, can be attributed to the top-left-to-bottom-right stroke order in Japanese writing.) Meanwhile, an internal survey out of Google Research discovered that users from Western countries tend to doodle fish facing the opposite direction from those drawn by Asian users. The dataset’s also been used creatively. British artist Neil Mendoza used a face-tracking algorithm to apply Quick Draw sketches atop a human head, and German-based computer scientist Deborah Schmidt tapped a subset of 300,000 random doodles to fill in letter templates with collages. Above: Neil Mendoza mapping Quick Draw facial features to a human face. In the future, the team is considering migrating the doodles to a database, which would afford fine-grain access control. In theory, users would be able to perform queries like “Give me a recognized drawing from China in March 2017.” “I just want to encourage people to use [the dataset] in new ways and to contribute and see how this can possibly expand,” Jonas said. “I just want to encourage developers to play with it.” 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. All rights reserved. "

"Researchers propose a 'fairer' product recommendation algorithm | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/04/researchers-propose-a-fairer-product-recommendation-algorithm"

"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 propose a ‘fairer’ product recommendation algorithm 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 a paper published this week on the preprint server Arxiv.org, researchers affiliated with Rutgers, the University of California, and the University of Washington propose an approach to mitigate what they characterize as an “unfairness problem” in product recommendation algorithms. They say their algorithm provides high-quality explainable recommendations on state-of-the-art real-world data sets, and that it reduces the recommendation unfairness in several key aspects. It’s an open secret that AI systems and the corpora on which they’re trained often reflect race, gender, and other stereotypes and biases; indeed, Google recently introduced gender-specific translations in Google Translate chiefly to address gender bias. The researchers peg the blame on an imbalance of AI model training data. For instance, economically disadvantaged groups are disinclined to make large numbers of purchases on ecommerce platforms like Amazon and eBay, which leads to insufficient historical user-item interactions. Because recommendation systems learn from these user-item interactions, the systems become subject to bias that leads to certain users being treated unfairly. The researchers sought to address the problem specifically for knowledge graph-based systems, which preserve structured and relational knowledge and thus elucidate the reasons for recommendations. They studied Amazon data sets for four item categories — CDs and vinyl, clothing, cell phones, and beauty — and analyzed the differences between inactive users (i.e., those who don’t purchase anything) and active users (purchasers). The results appear to show that although the inactive group constitutes the majority of users (95%) in the data set, their user-item data patterns lack diversity. Moreover, the inactive group obtains far worse scores on Simpson’s Index of Diversity — a metric originally developed to assess biodiversity that is now used to quantify unfairness — compared with the active group. The team proposes a “fairness-aware” path reranking algorithm for explainable recommendations to remedy this, following from the observation that knowledge graphs consider user-item paths as pertinent recommendation signals. For instance, a person might wish to purchase the same bracelet as another person since both purchased the same key chain, and they might also consider a sweater because it matches the brand of a previous purchase. Given a set of users from different groups, the goal of the team’s algorithm is to maximize recommendation quality by ranking the paths for each user under the constraints of group and individual fairness. (In this context, group fairness refers to when users from two groups maintain the same probability, while individual fairness implies that similar individuals are treated similarly.) 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’ algorithm takes into account: A path score that considers a more varied set of paths beyond the kinds that dominate the historic user-item interaction data, specifically by incorporating debiasing weighting. A diversity score that considers the fairness with respect to explainable path diversity for each user-item pair. A recommendation score that calculates the preference scores between users and items. A ranking score that ranks items to determine the order in which they’re to be presented, adhering to the recommendation score and the fairness score. In experiments on the aforementioned Amazon data sets, the researchers say their algorithm improved in terms of both recommendation and fairness effectiveness compared with a baseline recommendation system. On the clothing data set, it achieved 3.101% on normalized discounted cumulative gain (which evaluates ranking quality by considering the position of correctly recommended items) versus the vanilla system’s 2.856%, and it decreased group unfairness from 1.410% to 0.233% while finding more correct recommendations. The coauthors acknowledge their algorithm sacrificed some performance for the most active users, but they consider this an acceptable tradeoff considering that it boosted performance for the inactive users. They plan to release it in open source in GitHub in the near future. “In this work, we study the prominent problem of fairness in the context of state-of-the-art explainable recommendation algorithms over knowledge graphs … It is fairly remarkable that after adopting the fairness-aware algorithm over two recent state-of-the-art baseline methods, we are able to retrieve substantially better recommendation results than the original methods,” the coauthors wrote. “We conjecture that our algorithm better harnesses the potential of current explainable recommendation methods by adapting the path distribution so that more diverse reasoning paths can be served to the users. Since the inactive users undergo a prejudiced treatment due to the homogeneous user interactions with lower user visibility, they tend to benefit more under our fairness-aware algorithm.” 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. All rights reserved. "

"Drone companies abdicate responsibility in selling to law enforcement | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/12/drone-companies-abdicate-responsibility-selling-drones-to-police"

"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 Drone companies abdicate responsibility in selling to law enforcement 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. It’s an open secret that law enforcement is deploying drones to surveil the nationwide protests against racial injustice. Indeed, in an open letter, Democrats in Congress questioned why agencies including U.S. Customs and Border Protection launched drones and spy planes to monitor largely peaceful marches. The policy question of the moment, then, is not whether drones should be used by law enforcement. Rather, it’s whether manufacturers, distributors, and suppliers should sell drones to buyers who might misuse them, like the police. A tactic companies often employ when engaging ethically problematic customers is the abnegation of responsibility. They assert they’re merely platform providers and therefore bear no responsibility for what buyers do with their technology. Events in recent weeks, however, make clear that sidestepping the complicity issue isn’t tenable (if it ever was). While drones might be used as a tool for good, law enforcement tells us, a lack of accountability, transparency, and oversight makes that a tough argument to swallow — and reinforces the notion that selling drones to police is at best irresponsible. VentureBeat asked DJI, Parrot, and Skydio whether any customers were using their drones to keep tabs on protesters. Parrot declined to comment, while DJI said this isn’t something the company is tracking. (As of April, DJI drones had gone to 43 law enforcement agencies in 22 states to monitor social distancing around the pandemic, and partners like Axon continue to sell the company’s drones to police officers.) Skydio, which Forbes recently reported is in the midst of a pivot toward law enforcement contracts, said it wasn’t aware of customers using its drones to monitor peaceful protests. “Skydio is firmly committed to developing drone technology, and the rules that govern the use of drones, in a manner that protects privacy and civil liberties,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “In our work with government customers, Skydio highlights and promotes the bedrock obligation to uphold civil liberties — including the First Amendment freedom to peaceably assemble and petition for change. We stand with those demonstrating for justice and equality, and we condemn anyone — uniformed, elected, or otherwise — who seeks to bring them harm. We are committed to developing technology in a responsible manner that advances both safety and liberty.” 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 distributor side, Skyfire Consulting, which tailors drone-based solutions to public safety agencies in the U.S., told VentureBeat it has several clients who have used aircraft in response to the protests. As for Flymotion, a competitor offering drones with long-range zoom cameras, thermal imaging sensors, loudspeakers, lighting systems, and facial recognition technology, it said its operation teams have directly assisted law enforcement in “protest operations.” (When reached for clarification, Flymotion said that none of those efforts involved the use of facial recognition.) Certainly, it’s possible that police generally are using drones as a means of civil liberties-conscious observation. The Voice of San Diego reports that the Carlsbad Police Department, which has historically sought input on its drone program at public events and last year released internal logs describing drone flights in response to a records request, deployed drones in early June in coordination with officers on the ground ostensibly to prevent violence between protesters and antagonizers. On the other hand, Carlsbad’s video of the protests will be retained for at least one year in accordance with departmental policy — or potentially longer in the case of active criminal investigations. (The American Civil Liberties Union argues that police drone footage should be kept no more than 24 hours to guard against unlawful spying.) That’s worrisome, considering dozens of cities around the country are reportedly using software that allows police to comb through surveillance footage to identify protesters. Forty-four states have enacted laws regulating the use of drones by law enforcement, the National Conference of State Legislatures notes , but only a fraction of those require a warrant before the government may use a drone. And while laws in Virginia and Oregon ban weapons being attached to police drones, Florida law explicitly defines law enforcement drones as devices that can carry a “lethal or nonlethal” payload. In the absence of progress at the legislative level, it appears to be incumbent upon drone companies to reconsider whom they’re actively doing business with. While police drones can play a valuable role in, for instance, missing persons cases by covering areas of treacherous terrain faster than officers on foot can, a dearth of protections around their usage conjures fears about how law enforcement might abuse them. 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. All rights reserved. "

"The challenges of developing autonomous vehicles during a pandemic | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/04/28/challenges-of-developing-autonomous-vehicles-during-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic"

"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 challenges of developing autonomous vehicles during a pandemic 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 the months since the coronavirus prompted shelter-in-place orders around the world, entire companies, industries, and economies have been decimated. One market that appeared poised to escape the impact was autonomous vehicles, particularly in the case of companies whose cars can be used to transport supplies to health care workers. But it seems even they aren’t immune. In March, many high-profile startups and spinoffs, including Uber, Cruise, Aurora, Argo AI, and Lyft, suspended real-world testing of their autonomous vehicle fleets, citing safety concerns and a desire to limit contact between drivers and riders. Waymo went one step further, announcing that it would pause its commercial Waymo One operations in Phoenix, Arizona — including its fully driverless cars, which don’t require human operators behind the wheel — until further notice. The interruptions present a mammoth engineering challenge: how to replicate the data collected by real-world cars while the fleets remain grounded for months or longer. This problem has never been tackled before, and some experts believe it’s insurmountable. Even Waymo CEO John Krafcik has said that real-world experience is “unavoidable” in driverless car development. But some of the industry’s biggest players — including Waymo — are trying anyway. VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Data is the new oil Virtually every autonomous vehicle development pipeline leans heavily on logs from sensors mounted to the outsides of cars, including lidar sensors, cameras, radar, inertial measurement units (IMUs), odometry sensors, and GPS. This data is used to train the family of machine learning models that underpin driverless vehicles’ perception, prediction, and motion planning capabilities. These systems make sense of the world and the objects within it and dictate the paths vehicles ultimately take. For instance, Tesla compiled a corpus of tens of thousands of occluded stop signs to teach a model to recognize similar signs in the wild. And Cruise used a combination of synthetic and real-world audio and visual data to train a system that detects police cars, fire trucks, ambulances, and other emergency vehicles. Real-world data collection also entails mapping, which in the context of autonomous vehicles refers to the creation of 3D, high-definition, centimeter-level maps of roads, buildings, vegetation, and other static objects in the world. Ahead of testing in a new location, companies like Waymo and Cruise deploy sensor-equipped, manually driven cars to map the routes driverless vehicles could possibly take. These maps help the vehicles localize themselves in the world, and they also provide valuable contextual information, like speed limits and the location of traffic lanes and pedestrian crossings. In lieu of all this, autonomous vehicle companies must rely on the data they’ve collected to date — and perturbations or modifications of that data — for system development and evaluation. Fortuitously, many of these companies have invested in simulation to scale testing beyond what’s possible in the real world. Simulation Waymo Waymo says it drives 20 million miles a day in its Carcraft simulation platform — the equivalent of over 100 years of real-world driving on public roads. Moreover, the company says that Waymo Driver, its autonomous vehicle software suite, has accumulated over 15 billion simulated autonomous miles to date. That’s up from 10 billion simulated autonomous miles as of July 2019. “There’s a lot of information in [Carcraft],” Jonathan Karmel, Waymo’s product lead for simulation and automation, told VentureBeat. “That’s why we use a range of tools internally to extract the most important signals — the most interesting miles and useful information.” Using web-based interfaces to interact with Carcraft simulations, Waymo engineers leverage real-world data to prepare for edge cases and explore ideas, selecting encounters from Waymo’s more than 20 million autonomous miles on roads in 25 cities. As both the software and scene evolve, keeping the environment around Waymo Driver up to date maintains realism. That entails modeling agent behavior and using reactive agents (such as other cars, cyclists, and pedestrians) who respond to the new position of the virtual cars. Waymo says it also synthesizes realistic sensor data for cars and models scenes in updated environments. As its virtual cars drive through the same scenarios Waymo vehicles experience in the real world, engineers modify the scenes and evaluate possible situations. They also manipulate those scenes by virtually adding new agents into the situation, such as cyclists, or by modulating the speed of oncoming traffic to gauge how the Waymo Driver would have reacted. Over time, the simulation scenarios are amplified through a large number of variations to assess the desired behavior of Waymo Driver. That information is used to improve both safety and performance. “I look at sensor simulation work as being able to [augment] our real-world miles,” said Karmel. “We have the capabilities to incrementally understand the real world as things change, and as we continue to make changes to improve the state of [our systems’] performance, we continue to [create] new challenges in simulation.” Above: Real-world Waymo car data used in simulation. In addition to constructing scenarios informed by real-world driving data, Waymo deploys never-before-tested synthetic scenarios captured from its private test track. The company says this enables it to continue to expand the number of miles it can simulate. The majority of learning and development is done in simulation, according to Karmel — well before updated versions of Waymo Driver hit real-world roads. An oft-overlooked aspect of these learning and development processes is comfort. Waymo says it evaluates multiple “comfort metrics,” like the ways people respond to vehicles’ various driving behaviors. This on-road testing feedback is used to train AI models and run them in simulation to validate how different scenarios influence rider comfort, from figuring out the ideal braking speed to ensuring the car drives smoothly. “We’re … beginning to better understand the components that make a ride comfortable,” explained Karmel. “Some of the key components are things like acceleration and deceleration, and we want to receive that information into simulation to predict what we think a rider or driver reaction would have been in the real world. There’s a machine learning model to predict what those reactions are in [Carcraft].” Beyond Carcraft, Waymo’s engineers tap tools like Content Search, Progressive Population-Based Augmentation (PPBA), and Population-Based Training (PBT) to support various development, testing, and validation efforts. Content Search draws on tech similar to that powering Google Photos and Google Image Search to let data scientists locate objects in Waymo’s driving history and logs. PBT — which was architected in collaboration with Alphabet’s DeepMind — starts with multiple machine learning models and replaces underperforming members with “offspring” to reduce false positives by 24% in pedestrian, bicyclist, and motorcyclist recognition tasks. As for PPBA, it bolsters object classifiers while decreasing costs and accelerating the training process, chiefly because it only needs annotated lidar data for training. Cruise Cruise also runs lots of simulations — about 200,000 hours of compute jobs each day in Google Cloud Platform — one of which is an end-to-end, three-dimensional Unreal Engine environment that Cruise employees call The Matrix. It enables engineers to build any kind of situation they’re able to dream up, and to synthesize sensor inputs like camera footage, lidar, and radar feeds to autonomous virtual cars. “Handling the long tail is the reason autonomous vehicles are one of the most difficult and exciting AI problems on the planet, and also the fact that we expect extremely high performance levels from autonomous vehicles and their underlying models,” Cruise head of AI Hussein Mehanna told VentureBeat. “When you look at the training data, you have thousands of lidar scan points, high-resolution images, radar data, and information from all sorts of other sensors. All of that requires a significant amount of infrastructure.” Above: An end-to-end simulation environment within The Matrix, GM Cruise’s simulation platform. Cruise spins up 30,000 instances daily across over 300,000 processor cores and 5,000 graphics cards, each of which loops through a single drive’s worth of scenarios and generates 300 terabytes of results. (It’s basically like having 30,000 virtual cars driving around at the same time.) Among other testing approaches, the company employs replay, which involves extracting real-world sensor data, playing it back against the car’s software, and comparing the performance with human-labeled ground truth data. It also leverages planning simulation, which lets Cruise create up to hundreds of thousands of variations of a scenario by tweaking variables like the speed of oncoming cars and the space between them. According to Cruise VP of simulation Tom Boyd, engineers make choices about which elements of scenarios to model and the granularity at which to model them. For instance, they weigh whether simulating a tire slip — which is dependent on a car’s mileage, road conditions, and even the metal used on the axle — is more important than modeling lidar reflections off of car windshields and rearview mirrors or radar multipath returns. Another way Cruise manages simulation trade-offs is through frameworks that serve the different levels of accuracy tests require. Those that don’t need 3D graphics can run on commodity hardware up to 100 times real-time. “No vehicle dynamics software model is perfectly accurate,” said Boyd. “They can get complex, and it would be easy for us to spend months of development effort to resolve extremely minor differences between how the [autonomous vehicle] acts in simulation and on the road.” Tools within Cruise’s engineering suite include the web-based Webviz , which has its roots in a hackathon project and which is now used by roughly a thousand monthly active employees. The latest production version lets engineers save configurations, share various parameters, and watch vehicle simulations as they run on remote servers. There’s also Worldview, a lightweight and extensible 2D/3D scene renderer that lets engineers quickly build custom visualizations. Aurora Aurora, the self-driving car company founded by former Waymo engineer Chris Urmson, says that the virtual cars within its Virtual Testing Suite platform complete over a million tests per day on average. This platform and other tools enable the company’s engineers to quickly identify, review, categorize, and convert the majority of events and interesting on-road scenarios into virtual tests, and to run thousands of tests to evaluate a single change to the master codebase. The Virtual Testing Suite comprises a mix of codebase tests, perception tests, manual driving evaluations, and simulations. Engineers write both unit tests (e.g., seeing if a method to calculate velocity gives the right answer) and integration tests (e.g., seeing whether that same method works well with other parts of the system). New work must pass all relevant tests before it’s merged with the larger code, thereby allowing engineers to identify and fix any issues. A series of specialized perception tests in simulation are created from real-world log data, and Aurora says it’s developing “highly realistic” sensor simulations so that it can generate tests for uncommon and high-risk scenarios. Other experiments they regularly run in the Virtual Testing Suite assess how well Aurora Driver — Aurora’s full-stack driverless platform — performs across a range of driving benchmarks. No matter the nature of the test, custom-designed tools automatically extract information from Aurora’s log data (e.g., how fast a pedestrian is walking) and plug it into various simulation models, which is designed to save engineers time. Above: A visualization of real-world driving data from one of Aurora’s test cars. The company says that in the months since Aurora halted all real-world testing, its vehicle operators have joined forces with its triage and labeling teams to mine manual and autonomous driving data for on-road events that can be turned into simulated virtual tests. Aurora also says it’s building new tools, such as a web app designed to make crafting simulations even easier for engineers, and that it’s enhancing existing pipelines that will support the creation of new testing scenarios. Elsewhere, Aurora engineers are continuing to build and refine the company’s vehicle maps — the Aurora Atlas — in areas where Aurora Driver will operate when it resumes on-road testing, a spokesperson tells VentureBeat. They’re adding new maps to Cloud Atlas, the versioned database specially designed to hold Atlas data, tapping into machine learning models that automatically generate annotations like traffic lights. Advancements in AI and machine learning have made it easier to teach car-driving agents to navigate never-before-seen roads within simulations. In a recent technical paper , researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory describe an approach not unlike Aurora’s that involves Virtual Image Synthesis and Transformation for Autonomy (VISTA), a photorealistic simulator that uses only a real-world corpus to synthesize viewpoints from potential vehicle trajectories. VISTA was able to train a model that navigated a car through previously unseen streets — even when the car was positioned in ways that mimicked near-crashes. “We don’t anticipate that COVID-19 will delay our progress in the long term, largely due to our investments in virtual testing, but it has demonstrated the urgency for self-driving transportation that can move people and goods safely and quickly without the need of a human driver,” said Urmson in a statement. “That’s why we’re more committed to our mission than ever and continue to hire experts in all disciplines, pay everyone at the company, and find ways to advance development on the Aurora Driver. As our industry comes together, ingenuity, dedication, and thoughtful leadership will get us through these challenging times.” Uber Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group (ATG), the division spearheading Uber’s autonomous vehicles projects, retains a team that continuously expands the test set within Uber’s simulator based on test track and road behavior data. Every time any adjustment is made to the self-driving system’s software, it’s automatically re-run against the full suite of simulation tests, ATG head of systems engineering and testing Adrian Thompson told VentureBeat. ATG engineers use tools like DataViz, a web-based interface that ATG developed in collaboration with Uber’s Data Visualization Team, to see how cars in simulation interpret and perceive the virtual world. DataViz offers realistic representations of elements like cars, ground imagery, lane markers, and signs. It does the same for abstract representation (by way of color and geometric coding) for algorithmically generated information such as object classification, prediction, planning, and lookaheads. Together, they enable employees to inspect and debug information collected from offline and online testing, as well as to explore information in the process of creating new scenarios. Above: Uber’s Autonomous Visualization System, a web-based platform for vehicle data. Thompson says that Uber’s decision to ramp up development of its modeling and simulation tools over the past two years is paying dividends. In something of a case in point, the company is now using over 2 million miles of sensor logs augmented with simulations to accomplish the “vast majority” of its AI training and validation, he said. “We have experienced very little disruption to our AI model development trajectory due to the absence of road operations,” said Thompson. “Our test track testing is meant to validate our models, so we’re able to maintain, if not accelerate, our pace of development during this time.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, Thompson also says that the virtual cars in Uber’s simulation environment are driving more miles than before the pandemic. He doesn’t attribute this to the health crisis per se, but he says that COVID-19 provided an opportunity to continue scaling simulations. “We have well-established strategic plans in place to expand our simulated mileage further. It’s part serendipity that our model-based development approach has made our operations more robust to situations like this pandemic,” he added. “We will continue this rapid expansion of our simulation capability for the foreseeable future, and have no plans to reduce simulated miles driven even after the pandemic is behind us.” Lyft Lyft was in the midst of developing a new vehicle platform when it was forced to halt all real-world testing. Nevertheless, Jonny Dyer, director of engineering at Lyft’s Level 5 self-driving division, tells VentureBeat that the company is “doubling down” on simulation by leveraging data from the roughly 100,000 miles its real-world autonomous cars have driven and calibrating its simulation environment ahead of validation. Specifically, Lyft is refining the techniques it used in simulation to direct agents (such as virtual pedestrians) to react realistically to vehicles, in part with AI and machine learning models. It’s also building out tools like a benchmarking framework that enables engineers to compare and improve the performance of behavior detectors, as well as a dashboard that dynamically updates visualizations to help create diversified simulation content. Dyer says that Lyft isn’t so much focused on challenges like simulating camera, lidar, and radar sensor data, but instead on traditional physics-based mechanisms, as well as methods that help identify the right sets of parameters to simulate. “It’s not a game of scale with simulation models — it’s really more about simulating the right miles with high fidelity,” he said. “We’re focusing on that fidelity aspect and getting simulation closer to telling us the types of things that real-world driving does. It’s the question of not just simulating a large number of miles, but simulating the right miles.” Lyft also reworked its validation strategy to weigh more heavily on things like structural and dynamic simulation in light of the pandemic, according to Dyer. The company had planned to perform real-world testing prior to these steps — and it still will in some capacity — but the shutdown forced its hardware engineers to pivot engineering toward simulation. For example, a senior computer engineer mounted the high-performance server that runs Lyft’s autonomous vehicle technology stack — which contains eight graphics cards and a powerful x86 processor — in her bedroom with four desk fans blowing on it to keep it cool. Another engineer built an electrolytic corrosion setup in his garage with a Raspberry Pi and circuit boards he’d purchased on eBay. Yet another engineer converted the cricket pitch in his backyard into a lidar sensor range, with full-sized street signs he’s using to perform calibration for the new sensors Lyft plans to integrate. Industry challenges Despite the Herculean efforts of the autonomous vehicle companies grounded by COVID-19, it seems likely that a few will emerge from the pandemic worse for wear. Simulation is no substitute for testing on real roads, some experts assert. A longstanding challenge in simulations involving real data is that every scene must respond to a self-driving car’s movements — even though those that might not have been recorded by the original sensor. Whatever angle or viewpoint isn’t captured by a photo or video has to be rendered or simulated using predictive models, which is why simulation has historically relied on computer-generated graphics and physics-based rendering that somewhat crudely represents the world. (Tellingly, even Wayve , a U.K.-based startup that trains self-driving models solely in simulation, relies on feedback from safety drivers to fine-tune those models.) A paper published by researchers at Carnegie Mellon outlines the other challenges with simulation that impede real-world hardware development: The reality gap: Simulated environments don’t always adequately represent physical reality — for example, a simulation lacking an accurate tire model might not account for realistic car behaviors when cornering at high speeds. Resource costs: The computational overhead of simulation requires specialized hardware like graphics cards, which drives high cloud costs. According to a recent Synced report , training a state-of-the-art machine learning model like the University of Washington’s Grover , which generates and detects fake news, can cost in excess of $25,000 over a two-week period. Reproducibility: Even the best simulators can contain non-deterministic elements that make reproducing tests impossible. Indeed, Yandex — which continues to operate its self-driving cars in public roads in locations where it’s allowed, such as Moscow — says that while simulation can aid autonomous vehicle development, public testing remains critical. Shifting to a full simulation program without on-road tests will slow the progress of autonomous vehicle development in the short term, the company asserts, because developing a simulation with 100% accuracy and complexity might require as much problem-solving and resources as developing self-driving technology itself. “[Without real-world testing,] self-driving companies won’t be able to collect critical real-world driving data,” a Yandex spokesperson told VentureBeat. “[Additionally,] driving simulations and running vehicles on test tracks can help prove that vehicles meet specific requirements in a laboratory environment. Driving on public roads presents much more complex, real-world dynamics that the self-driving platforms need to face, including different weather conditions and a variety of pedestrian and driver behavior.” Beyond exposing autonomous driving systems to these complex dynamics, Ars Technica’s Timothy B. Lee notes that testing ensures sensors and other hardware have a low failure rate; that the cars will use safe passenger pickup and dropoff locations; and that fleet operators are well-trained to handle any contingency. It also allows companies to identify issues that might crop up, like whether there are enough vehicles available for rush-hour service. Dyer doesn’t disagree with these sentiments entirely, but he’s generally more optimistic about the prospect of simulated testing. Simulation is well-suited for structured and functional testing on test track data, he says, which make up a large slice of Lyft’s autonomous vehicles roadmap. “The reality is that all simulation is somewhat limited in that you have to calibrate it and validate it against reality. … It’s not going to replace driving on the roads anytime soon [because] you can’t do everything in simulation. But I do think that we’re making tremendous progress in our simulation environment,” he said. “In this respect, the pandemic hasn’t been a setback at all. There’s a lot of basic stuff that comes out of these big engineering projects like tech debt and infrastructural things that you want to fix, but that becomes hard to fix when you’re in the middle of an operational program. Investing in these will, in my opinion, pay off in a big way once we’re back.” Skeptics like Boston Consulting Group senior partner and managing director Brian Collie anticipate the pandemic will delay the commercialization of driverless car technology by at least three years. As if on cue, Ford today announced it will delay plans to launch an autonomous vehicle service to 2022; the automaker had been collaborating with Argo AI and testing its go-to-market strategy through pilot programs Postmates, Walmart, Domino’s and local partners. Karmel concedes that there might be bumps in the road — particularly with Waymo’s testing paused — but he says with confidence that the pandemic hasn’t materially affected planned rollouts. “If you just focus on synthetic miles and don’t start bringing in some of the realism that you have from driving in the real world, it actually becomes very difficult to know where you are on that curve of realism,” said Karmel. “That said, what we’re trying to do is learn as much as we can — we’re still getting thousands of years of experience during this period of time.” 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. All rights reserved. "

"Tessian raises $13 million to use machine learning for securing enterprise email | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2018/06/17/tessian-raises-13-million-to-use-machine-learning-for-securing-enterprise-email"

"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 Tessian raises $13 million to use machine learning for securing enterprise email 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. Tessian announced today that it has raised $13 million in venture capital as the U.K.-based company seeks to address the problem of enterprise email security through automation. Formerly known by the more literal name CheckRecipient, Tessian uses machine learning to discover and fix misaddressed emails, a seemingly mundane hiccup that in fact causes big security headaches when sensitive information falls into the wrong hands. Tessian notes that the U.K.’s Information Commissioner’s Office receives more security incident reports about misaddressed emails than about any other type of security issue. And new European privacy rules could result in hefty fines for such mistakes. “With the recent report from the ICO that misaddressed emails are now the number one data security incident reported to them, and GDPR now in full swing, companies should make addressing this risk a top security priority,” said Tessian CEO and cofounder Tim Sadler, in a statement. “It’s human nature to fear scary things like hackers or malware, but we often don’t think twice about the dangers behind something as familiar and ingrained as sending an email. In reality, that’s where an overwhelming threat lies.” VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Tessian’s machine intelligence technology scours corporate email networks to analyze common patterns and detect anomalies. If it detects something unusual in an email someone is trying to send, it will send a warning suggesting the user check the contents. The latest round of funding was led by Balderton Capital and included participation from previous investors Accel, Amadeus Capital Partners, Crane, LocalGlobe, Winton Ventures, and Walking Ventures. Above: Tessian’s employees The company raised a seed round last year, and now has 50 employees. According to a press release, its annual recurring revenue has grown 400 percent over the last 12 months. In addition to investing in product development, the company plans to use the latest funding to grow its marketing and sales divisions. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Vade raises $79 million to shield email inboxes from phishing attempts, malware, and spam | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/06/12/vade-raises-79-million-to-shield-email-inboxes-from-phishing-attempts-malware-and-spam"

"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 Vade raises $79 million to shield email inboxes from phishing attempts, malware, and spam 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. Vade Secure , a France- and Boston-based company developing an email filtering stack to protect against phishing, malware, and spam, today announced that it has entered into a €70 million ($79 million) financing agreement with General Catalyst and Neolane founder Stephan Dietrich (who will serve as Vade’s board chair), following the closure of a €10 million ($11.3 million) seed round in September 2017. If the capital infusion is approved by French authorities, it will bring the 10-year-old company’s total raised to €80 million ($90.5 million). CEO George Lotigier says this will support a go-to-market strategy focused on servicing customers through managed service providers in North America, Europe, and Japan; help further develop Vade’s machine learning-based threat detection; and expand its security solutions for third-party email platforms. He claims that Vade’s solutions currently shield more than 600 million inboxes across over 5,000 customers, including Comcast, British Telecom, Orange, SoftBank, Fujitsu Cloud Services, NTT Comm, Telstra, and Cisco. “I am truly excited about this investment from General Catalyst. It validates our strategy and, more importantly, allows us to accelerate our goal to revolutionize the email security market through the application of machine learning and a comprehensive view of threats as they emerge in real time worldwide,” Lotigier added. “[W]e have a unique opportunity to capitalize on the market disruption caused by the industry shift from on-premise hosted email to the adoption of cloud-based email platforms.” Vade’s bespoke filters leverage over 10,000 rules and billions of data points, AI models, and predictive heuristics to block attacks proactively. To detect phishing, for instance, Vade’s supervised algorithms analyze more than 40 URL and web page characteristics (e.g., how the page was created and its use of obfuscation techniques) and their contexts (file paths and scripts) both on receipt and any time a user clicks into a message. 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: Vade Secure’s Office 365 solution. Vade sifts through copies of emails — both internal and external — crawling URLs in real time and following redirections to determine whether the final page is fraudulent. It builds anonymous profiles that establish baseline communication patterns among employees, and when a potentially malicious payload or spoofing attempt is detected, it displays a customizable banner alert within affected emails. Vade’s system updates each minute, and it takes into account the origin of emails and attachments in identifying previously unseen malware. Additionally, it scans outgoing emails to identify botnet infections and provides a running count of valid, suspect, or rejected messages. It also relegates both suspicious and non-priority emails (like advertising and newsletters) to a quarantine space, where they can be released on command. They’re automatically categorized by priority, and Vade’s filters add a single-click unsubscribe button to those sent from mailing list servers. Vade’s suite is compatible with Office 365, Exchange, G Suite, Zimbra, and others, and doesn’t require MX record changes or sandboxed storage. Better still, it runs on any machine with 2-4 processor cores, 2GB of RAM, a 60GB hard drive, and two network ports. “As an entrepreneur who built Datto from the ground up into a multi-billion dollar business, I lived and breathed manage service providers,” said General Catalyst investor Austin McChord, who will join Vade’s board of directors alongside former Akami CEO Paul Sagan and Matthew Brennan. “From the moment I first saw Vade Secure, I realized the company’s immense potential to be an essential piece of solving cybersecurity for managed service providers. The instantly deployable Office 365 protection is the perfect mix of enterprise-grade security and total automation that today’s managed service providers need.” 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. All rights reserved. "

"Ironscales raises $15 million to defeat phishing attacks with AI | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/06/17/ironscales-raises-15-million-to-defeat-phishing-attacks-with-ai"

"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 Ironscales raises $15 million to defeat phishing attacks with 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. Ironscales , a Tel Aviv and Atlanta startup developing a holistic phishing prevention, detection, and response platform, today revealed that it’s secured $15 million in series B financing led by K1 Investment Management. The newfound funds bring the company’s total raised to over $25 million, and founder and CEO Eyal Benishti says the money will be put toward building out Ironscales’ stateside operations. It’s ripe timing. This past year, Ironscales experienced triple-digit growth and ten times revenue growth in the U.S. alone as it added dozens of brands to a client base just shy of 1,000, with the largest gains coming from the financial services, health care, retail, and education segments. “While email phishing is the oldest and most recognizable cyberattack technique, it remains an extremely complex problem that today requires the power of both artificial and human intelligence in an ongoing cycle of innovation for it to have any positive effect on an organization’s security posture,” said Benishti. “K1 has always believed in our vision for modernizing email security, and we’re thankful once again for their continued deep operational assistance as Ironscales continues to build out our U.S. operations.” Above: Ironscales’ cloud dashboard. Ironscales, a graduate of Israel-based incubator 8200 EISP whose founding team included alumni of the Israel Defense Forces’ Intelligence Technology unit, employs what it calls hybrid human intelligence — a combination of machine learning and intelligence tools designed for security professionals — to nip phishing attempts in the bud. Its platform integrates with Office 365, Exchange, and G Suite and benefits from insights derived from spoofing attempts, breaches, and security incidents shared anonymously by certified 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! Take Ironscales’ IronShield, for instance. It’s a cloud-based protection module that helps defend against real-time malware, credential threats, account takeovers, and phishing websites using AI, sandboxing techniques, and malicious URL and link detection. Suspicious emails are routed to third parties for analysis and trigger responses if they’re deemed to be malicious, while computer vision algorithms ingest login pages to determine whether they’re legitimate. IronSights complements IronShield with fingerprinting tech that flags anomalies by taking into account factors like IP addresses, communication contexts, and other metadata. It plays nicely with Ironscales’ Federation module, which logs phishing attack details and cross-references users across Ironscales’ customer base for emails containing a similar pattern. If a match is found, Federation communicates with IronTraps, Ironsights’ automatic forensics and incident response service, which blocks or remediates the attack from inboxes across all endpoints. Ironscales’ IronSchool provides security awareness training to employees, beginning with an assessment that grades their ability to recognize phishing attempts. Based on their results, they’re guided through short courses made up of staged and real-world phishing attacks to help improve their awareness of malicious email messages. As for security teams, they can tap the wisdom of Themis, Ironscales’ AI -driven virtual assistant that learns continuously from tens of millions of emails weekly. It considers “dozens” of different phishing protection decisions and criteria in deciding on a response plan to incidents, and it can automatically make and implement its decisions adherent to built-in confidence levels and company policy. “Since we initially partnered with Eyal and the rest of the team, the company has performed exceptionally,” said K1 managing partner Hasan Askari. “Ironscales’ differentiated method of phishing prevention, detection, and remediation has clearly resonated with enterprises. We’re thrilled to continue to support Ironscales as the company builds on the impressive momentum that they’ve exhibited over the past few years.” Ironscales employs people in Tel Aviv, across Europe, and at its North American headquarters in Atlanta, and it plans to more than double its headcount in the coming months. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Valimail raises $45 million to thwart email phishing attacks | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/06/19/valimail-raises-45-million-to-thwart-email-phishing-attacks"

"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 Valimail raises $45 million to thwart email phishing attacks Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Valimail homepage 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. Anti-phishing startup Valimail has raised $45 million in a series C round of funding from Insight Partners. Launched in 2016 , Valimail has built an automated cloud-based platform that helps companies establish the authenticity of in-bound emails, as well as spotting outbound phishing attacks which is often referred to as BEC (“business email compromise”), where cyber criminals target a company’s customers with emails that appear to come from one of the company’s employees. The San Francisco-based startup, which has adopted email authentication protocols such as DMARC (“Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance”) as part of its efforts, has claimed some big-name clients, including Uber, Yelp, and WeWork. “By delivering the world’s first fully automated, identity-based solution for protecting email, we are transforming the way the global enterprise thinks about email security,” said Valimail CEO and cofounder Alexander García-Tobar in a statement. “In short, we are delivering trust — we make enterprise email trustworthy, both for inbound and outbound messages.” Prior to now, Valimail had raised around $39 million, and with another $45 million in the bank it plans to “accelerate the expansion” of its products, grow its partnerships, and expand globally. VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Email growth Despite the rise in team-collaboration tools such as Slack and mobile messaging apps like WhatsApp, email continues to serve as a key mode of communication for consumers and companies alike. Some 4 billion users were estimated to have sent nearly 300 emails each day in 2018, a figure that’s set to grow in the coming years — email is going nowhere yet. However, a rise in phishing attacks has opened the door for myriad startups looking to mitigate the risks posed by online fraudsters. Earlier this week, Ironscales announced it had raised $15 million to help thwart phishing attacks with AI, while last week Vade announced a whopping $79 million raise to protect email inboxes from phishing attempts, malware, and spam. “Phishing and business email compromise attacks are on the rise around the world and the losses have mounted into the billions,” added Insight Partners VP Thomas Krane. “It’s clear that other email security technologies have not solved this urgent global problem. Valimail’s ‘trust layer’ represents a fundamentally better approach to solving this crisis of fake sender identities.” 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. All rights reserved. "

"How could COVID-19 change AR/VR's future? | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/04/25/how-could-covid-19-change-ar-vrs-future"

"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 could COVID-19 change AR/VR’s future? 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. COVID-19 is impacting the lives of billions. Early-stage technology markets like virtual and augmented reality are trivial by comparison. However, AR/VR companies are dealing with knock-on effects both positive and negative. This analysis explores the potential future for AR/VR in the context of the silent cyclone we’re all going through. Digi-Capital’s long-term virtual and augmented reality forecast is for the AR/VR market to reach around $65 billion revenue by 2024. However, the next two years are forecast to be impacted by COVID-19-related factors including (but not limited to) physical lockdowns, brick-and-mortar retail closures, essential ecommerce delivery limitations, supply chain disruption (supplier, manufacturer, distribution, wholesale, retail) and recession/depression economic impacts. Although these and many other factors have far greater implications, let’s define what we mean in relation to AR/VR: Physical lockdowns: Much of the planet is in different stages of physical lockdown, making getting together impossible or illegal in many parts of the world. This is exacting a terrible toll , but it could turn out to be a net positive for AR/VR adoption and use. Families and friends catching up and socializing remotely, enterprise users collaborating within their own organizations and with others, and service providers carrying on business remotely where possible, are a few examples of activities where AR/VR could help. AR/VR use cases are in some ways only limited by the nature of the interactions (such as where they can be done virtually rather than physically) and the imagination of developers and users. So physical lockdowns could become a critical demand driver for AR/VR in the short to medium term. Brick-and-mortar retail closures: The crisis has been devastating for physical retail , bringing the sector to a standstill and accelerating some long-term trends by years (if not decades). For brick-and-mortar stores that survive, their future appears to be fundamentally changed short-, medium-, and long-term. At first blush this could benefit AR/VR, but there are specific aspects which might not be as positive. 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! Essential ecommerce delivery limitations: Ecommerce trends appear to have been accelerated at an unprecedented rate by the crisis, which on the face of it could be positive for AR/VR. However, there are limitations being imposed on eCommerce deliveries in some categories by giants like Amazon , which could counter some of the benefits. Supply chain disruption (supplier, manufacturer, distribution, wholesale, retail): Global supply chains across sectors have been optimized to keep customers happy and costs down. While the U.S.-China trade war had already begun to have an impact on global supply chains, the crisis has been far more significant. This is as true for AR/VR as any other industry. Recession/depression economic impacts: Depending on which economists turn out to have been right, the world appears to be going into a recession or depression the likes of which is in living memory only for the elders in our communities. Of all the factors we’re looking at, this could prove most critical for AR/VR’s future. AR/VR sector impacts In the context of these five factors, we’ll examine the impact on major AR/VR business models across hardware sales, ad spend, ecommerce sales, enterprise (ex-hardware), app stores, location-based entertainment, and video. AR/VR hardware sales Physical lockdowns could be a plus for AR/VR hardware demand, as individuals and businesses look to stay connected during the crisis. However, brick-and-mortar retail closures might be a net negative for AR/VR hardware, as mass consumers beyond early adopters might not be able (or in some cases willing) to try before they buy. Arguably, this is a bigger deal for AR/VR headsets than familiar technologies like smartphones, tablets, PCs, and consoles. It is also too early to fully understand the long-term behavioral changes around trying on something in a retail store that is worn on the face. Essential ecommerce delivery limitations (where applicable) might be negative for AR/VR hardware sales, as it is hard to argue that AR/VR headsets are essential items. Supply chain disruption (supplier, manufacturer, distribution, wholesale, retail) looks to have had an impact on specific companies’ AR/VR hardware supply chains in the short-term , despite other companies appearing to ramp up production during the crisis. And while recession/depression economic impacts might not have had a negative effect on short-term demand for specific AR/VR hardware sold out in Q1 2020 , it is important to monitor whether or not this becomes a bigger factor as the year progresses. Digi-Capital’s existing forecasts for AR/VR hardware sales were relatively conservative for 2020/2021 already, with an uptick forecast if and when Apple launches smartphone tethered smartglasses by late 2022 (as discussed previously, only Tim Cook and his inner circle really know the answer to that question). Yet there still appear to be significant negative implications for AR/VR hardware sales in the short-term. As both the course of the crisis and supply chain normalization are hard to determine at this stage, Digi-Capital is taking a negative position short-term and a neutral-stance medium-term on the impact of the crisis on AR/VR hardware sales. Ad spend Mobile AR advertising has seen much of relevant ad spend going towards traditional ad units viewed around user generated mobile AR content (such as filters and lenses on messaging platforms), rather than just mobile AR ad units. It’s worth noting that this does not mean that sponsored mobile AR filters and lenses are not a significant part of the mix going forward. By comparison, VR and smartglasses advertising are a relatively small part of the mix. Physical lockdowns look at first blush like they should be positive for mobile AR advertising, as mobile messaging use has seen a significant uptick since the crisis started (when compared to 2019’s weekly average, TikTok usage in the first week of March grew by 130% for a weekly total over 3 billion hours, with increases in both user numbers and average time per session). This provides more eyeballs and relevant advertising inventory. However, the closure of bricks-and-mortar retail has dramatically impacted the spending power of an entire category of advertisers across the board (not just mobile AR advertising). Similarly, essential eCommerce delivery limitations (where applicable) and supply chain disruption (supplier, manufacturer, distribution, wholesale, retail) could see more advertisers withdraw across industries. It’s hard to justify advertising products and services that can’t be delivered or supplied to customers. By far the largest negative impact for AR/VR ad spend is recession/depression economic impacts. Most companies continue to be significantly impacted by the crisis, advertising budgets have been cut by many advertisers and messaging platform holders like Facebook are seeing their short-term advertising revenue forecasts downgraded. While the crisis impacts all media advertising, not just mobile AR/VR, Digi-Capital is taking a negative stance on AR/VR adspend due to the crisis in the short to medium-term. Ecommerce sales Physical lockdowns and bricks-and-mortar retail closures look like a catalyst for ecommerce sales in general, and AR/VR in particular. Mobile AR enabled ecommerce also looks like it could become a primary beneficiary, due to the high active installed base of mobile AR and the ability to virtually showroom products using mobile AR at home during lockdown. This makes mobile AR ecommerce’s ability to increase customer propensity to buy by up to 11-fold look like a potential force multiplier. Yet the data on ecommerce impacts from COVID-19 have shown mixed results , so any uplift could be limited. Essential ecommerce delivery limitations (where applicable) could put a dent in eCommerce companies’ ability to capitalize on the opportunity. This could have a stronger impact if ecommerce categories like home furnishings and decoration (a leading category for mobile AR ecommerce) are deemed non-essential. Similarly, supply chain disruption (supplier, manufacturer, distribution, wholesale, retail) could limit the range and volume of products for sale. Last, but by no means least, the economic impact of a recession or depression could have a negative impact on consumer and enterprise confidence and demand for eCommerce sales more broadly. With countervailing factors in play, Digi-Capital is taking a broadly neutral position on AR/VR ecommerce sales in the short- to medium-term. Enterprise (ex-hardware) Physical lockdowns look like a plus for AR/VR enterprise software and services, as companies try to find ways to get their internal and wider external teams to communicate, collaborate and find a path forward during the crisis. The crisis has the potential to become an accelerator to existing trends for enterprise AR/VR adoption. Bricks-and-mortar retail closures aren’t a big factor for enterprise AR/VR, but essential eCommerce delivery limitations and supply chain disruption (supplier, manufacturer, distribution, wholesale, retail) could become issues. If companies can’t get the new tech to their teams and relevant supply chains are disrupted, enterprise demand might not be met by supply. However, recession/depression economic impacts are a much bigger factor. Even though CIOs are prioritizing spending on technologies supporting remote work, many IT budgets have been cut and nonessential tech projects cancelled. As discussed before, enterprise augmented reality and virtual reality remain early stage despite moving further up the chain from pilots to production in some companies. Balancing these supply and demand factors, Digi-Capital has a neutral stance on enterprise AR/VR in the short to medium-term. App stores Physical lockdowns have proven to be a boon for both app downloads and usage on mobile app stores. This has already resulted in increased revenue for the mobile AR market leader Niantic’s Pokémon Go and potentially VR app developers. The biggest impact for AR/VR app store revenues from the crisis could be in the dominant games category. Brick-and-mortar retail closures and essential ecommerce delivery limitations have less impact on AR/VR apps, but supply chain disruption (supplier, manufacturer, distribution, wholesale, retail) has already seen delays to the launch of triple-A VR games titles. It’s not clear how this factor will stabilize yet. The big unknown is the economic impact of a global recession or depression on in-app-purchases and premium apps. Unavoidable choices between essential household needs and entertainment could slow spending on AR/VR apps in the medium-term, but uncertainties remain. Digi-Capital is taking a neutral position on AR/VR app store revenue through at least the next quarter. This could change as more hard data becomes available. Location-based entertainment Physical lockdowns have effectively shuttered location based entertainment globally (not just AR/VR), and many location based VR businesses have closed their doors for now. An open question is if and when consumers will return at scale to location based entertainment where contact with others and surfaces they’ve touched is unavoidable (again, not just AR/VR). With high standards of hygiene already required for wearing a headset on your face and holding controllers in your hands, both practical and behavioral issues could play a bigger role going forward. The closure of bricks-and-mortar location based entertainment venues (again, not just AR/VR) has been devastating for the sector in both short and medium-terms. As above, the long-term is an open question. Essential ecommerce delivery limitations and supply chain disruption (supplier, manufacturer, distribution, wholesale, retail) are negative for location based VR, even though closed businesses have bigger issues than the supply of new AR/VR hardware and software to worry about. The same is the case for recession/depression economic impacts. Digi-Capital is taking a negative stance on location based AR/VR entertainment for 2020/2021, with a hoped for recovery in the long-term. Video Physical lockdowns have been a massive booster for video consumption more broadly , and could potentially provide a tailwind for VR video players. Bricks-and-mortar retail closures could be a mild positive for VR video, despite a relatively limited uplift from multiplex cinema closures. Essential ecommerce delivery limitations are less of an issue, but supply chain disruption (supplier, manufacturer, distribution, wholesale, retail) is a negative for live-action VR video (like 360 video). This is particularly an issue for 360 video in now shuttered live-action sports, which had been a specific area of promise for the sector. Animated VR video companies able to accommodate remote working might fare better during the crisis. While there is limited visibility on the short-term, recession/depression economic impacts for VR video could become an issue over time. The medium-term tradeoff between basic needs and entertainment is hard to determine at this stage. Digi-Capital’s forecast for VR video was already relatively modest, so our neutral to mildly negative stance on the sector has limited economic impact. 1 2 View All 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. All rights reserved. "

"Enterprise chatbot platform Avaamo raises $14.2 million round led by Intel Capital | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2018/05/08/enterprise-chatbot-platform-avaamo-raises-14-2-million-round-led-by-intel-capital"

"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 Enterprise chatbot platform Avaamo raises $14.2 million round led by Intel Capital Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Avaamo 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. Enterprise chatbot startup Avaamo announced today that it has raised $14.2 million as the company seeks to expand its artificial intelligence-based chat service. The round was led by Intel Capital, but also included investment from Ericsson Ventures, Mahindra Partners, Wipro Ventures, and WI Harper. The company has now raised a total of $23.5 million since coming out of stealth in 2014. Partner Arun Chetty led the investment for Intel Capital and has joined Avaamo’s board. “Avaamo’s conversational intelligent assistants are already deployed globally in more than 40 countries and even greater global expansion is on the horizon as enterprises seek an AI-based conversational computing solution to improve last mile automation,” said Ram Menon, cofounder and CEO of Avaamo, in a statement. Menon founded Avaamo in 2014 with Sriram Chakravarthy, a former colleague from Tibco. The pair decided to specialize in conversational interfaces that leverage “deep-learning software” to target enterprise users, with a particular focus on supply chain, HR, sales support, claims processing, and insurance advisory. VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Over the past three years, the company claims it has developed a more sophisticated interface to better handle customer questions in those industries. The latest funding will be used primarily to expand sales and marketing. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Mindsay raises $10 million for cross-platform chatbots | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/29/mindsay-raises-10-million-for-cross-platform-chatbots"

"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 Mindsay raises $10 million for cross-platform chatbots 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 the enterprise domain, conversational AI can free up employees from menial and repetitive tasks, catalyzing division-wide boosts in productivity. Customers don’t seem to mind, either — analysts at Forrester report that 45% of end users prefer chatbots to other forms of communication for customer service inquiries. Perhaps that’s why research firms like Markets and Markets anticipate the segment will reach $15.7 billion by 2024, driven by increased demand for AI-powered support services and omnichannel deployment, along with reduced chatbot development costs. Startups like Paris-based Mindsay are filling the need happily. The company, which was founded in 2016, provides a software-as-a-service (SaaS) suite of conversational chatbots tailored to meet the requirements of large hospitality and service, transportation, and ecommerce companies. And it reports that after just three years, business is booming. Mindsay today announced that it’s raised $10 million in series A financing led by White Star Capital, with participation from previous investors Partech and Mindsay customers Paris Aeroports and Accor. The infusion comes as Mindsay’s year-over-year revenue growth eclipses 300%, and as it prepares to expand its team of 40 people in Paris, Madrid, and the U.S. to 120. According to CEO Guillaume Laporte, Mindsay will use the funding to further develop the AI model that allows its assistants to improve using real-time conversations, and to expand its offerings to retail. VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! “Through the creation of self-learning conversational marketing tools (virtual agents), our mission is to provide the most effective and precise answers to the most frequently asked questions from online customers,” said Laporte. “This improves customer engagement and satisfaction and reduces workload for customer support teams by 80%, allowing customer service teams to focus on complex requests and drive efficiency.” Mindsay’s platform enables customers to build, maintain, and monitor on a single platform chatbots that work across websites, mobile apps, and social media, including WhatsApp, WeChat, Amazon’s Alexa, and the Google Assistant. Admins can connect to new channels using visual tools, or leverage a built-in cloning function to copy features and scenarios from existing bots to new bots. Clients can import training data to kickstart a use case or tap models prebuilt by Mindsay, which support over 10 languages, seamless handoff to human agents, and real-time push notifications. (Configurable dynamic rules determine when a conversation should be handed over to an agent.) The chatbots’ human-curated knowledge databases can be edited, exported, and viewed from Mindsay’s cloud dashboard. From this same cloud dashboard, bot managers can access a drag-and-drop interface from which they’re able to add images, buttons, sliders, videos, maps, text, or media from external APIs, customer relationship management systems, global distribution systems, and more to each chatbots’ answers. Mindsay’s approach might be more holistic than most, but it’s not terribly unique. Startups like Ojo Labs and Ada have raised tens of millions of venture capital for conversational AI targeting real estate and enterprise, as have Jane.ai , Clinc , and Wade & Wendy. But Laporte asserts that bespoke algorithms are its secret sauce. Toward that end, Mindsay taps natural language processing to identify information contained in messages sent to its bots (like city names and departure dates, for example) and to retrieve and contextualize responses. Moreover, it measures 40 signals to analyze if the bot is giving the correct answer, which the company’s analytics team uses to identify high-frequency use cases and intents and to guide customers through future improvements. Mindsay says that its customer base now spans five countries and includes brands like Disney; airline giants Iberia and Vueling; airport operator Groupe ADP; European rail operators RATP, SNCF, Keolis, and Thalys; and business travel company CWT. Mindsay’s chatbots have answered 12 million messages to date, the company says — a volume that’s growing at over 20% each month. “With more than 100 million passengers traveling through our airports in Paris each year, ADP is constantly working to improve and personalize our passengers’ experience. Mindsay offers a powerful way for us to interact with our customers, giving them direct access to information about our airports at any moment,” said CEO of ADP Group Edward Arkwright, whose company will join Mindsay’s board of directors alongside Partech Ventures and Accor. “This funding will allow Mindsay to accelerate their growth, global expansion, and product development in partnership with ADP Group’s airport network in France and abroad.” 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. All rights reserved. "

"Google Docs is getting Smart Compose to help G Suite users write faster | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/11/20/google-docs-is-getting-smart-compose-to-help-g-suite-users-write-faster"

"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 Docs is getting Smart Compose to help G Suite users write faster Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Smart Compose for Google Docs 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. Google has announced plans to bring its AI-powered Smart Compose feature to Google Docs users as part of G Suite. The company announced its intentions as part of its annual Google Cloud Next conference in the U.K. capital earlier today. By way of a quick recap, Google first debuted Smart Compose for Gmail last year , serving as an automated tool to help users formulate drafts as they type. It’s kind of like auto-complete for entire emails, given that it predicts what it thinks you want to type next using historical grammar and typing patterns — if you like the suggested text, you just swipe or hit the tab key to accept it. Smart Compose can also leverage contextual cues to make suggestions; for example, if you’re writing a message on a Friday, it may suggest “Have a nice weekend” to complete the email. Smart Compose arrived for all G Suite users last September , and in the intervening months it has expanded into new languages and landed on more mobile devices, having initially been limited to Pixel phones. 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 makes complete sense that Google is now expanding Smart Compose to Google Docs for G Suite, given that there is nothing about the underlying technology that makes it inherently suitable only for emails. Many people who write business documents, such as contracts or marketing copy, often start their drafts in Google Docs, and predictive writing could help speed up the process, prevent repetitive writing, and even reduce spelling or grammatical mistakes. Above: Smart Compose in Docs It is worth noting here that, as with email, Smart Compose will work better if it’s used regularly, as it will improve over time as it becomes accustomed to a user’s writing style, grammar, and common word sequences. There is one small point worth mentioning here though. Given that Smart Compose does require Google to process some aggregate textual data during the beta stage so it can learn and make suggestions, some companies may not be comfortable signing up before the full launch. According to Google, examples of the G Suite usage data it collects during the testing period will include, but is “not limited to”: when a user accepts or rejects a Smart Compose suggestion; character length of the context; character length since the last suggestion; and the character length of Smart Compose suggestions. Businesses that are interested in applying for early access to the Smart Compose beta program for Google Docs can read the full T&Cs and apply here. **Updated 14:20 (20/11/19) to clarify that the aggregate textual data processing only applies to the testing stage, and is not a core part of the Smart Compose feature. 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. All rights reserved. "

"SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket explodes during test firing in Florida | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2016/09/01/explosion-at-spacex-launch-site-at-cape-canaveral"

"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 SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket explodes during test firing in Florida Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Courtesy: NASA TV 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) — An explosion destroyed a Falcon 9 rocket belonging to Elon Musk’s SpaceX during routine test firing at Cape Canaveral in Florida on Thursday, shaking buildings miles away and sending a thick plume of black smoke pouring into the air. SpaceX said in a statement there were no injuries, but that an “anomaly” during the static fire test resulted in the loss of the rocket and the Israeli communications satellite it had been due to carry into space at the weekend. A spokesman for Cape Canaveral Air Force Station said there was a “significant” explosion just after 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) at Launch Complex 40, which is leased by SpaceX. “Our emergency management teams are responding right now,” said the spokesman, Bryan Purtell. The explosion tore through the launch site during a test firing of the Falcon 9 rocket ahead of the launch of the communications satellite owned by Spacecom which had been scheduled for before dawn on Saturday. People in buildings several miles from the facility wrote on social media that they felt the blast, and live television images showed thick black smoke coming from the site. Local authorities said residents were not at risk. “There is NO threat to general public from catastrophic abort during static test fire at SpaceX launch pad,” the Brevard County Emergency Management Office said in a tweet. Robin Seemangal, a space reporter with the Observer newspaper, quoted a source at the facility who told him it felt like the building they were in had been hit by lightning. “We actually thought the building was collapsing, it shook us so bad,” Seemangal wrote in a tweet, quoting his source. It was not immediately known if SpaceX’s launch pad was damaged or what the impact would be on the dozens of NASA and commercial satellite missions on its launch schedule. SpaceX had recovered from a June 2015 launch accident that destroyed a load of cargo headed for the International Space Station. The pad where SpaceX’s rocket was being prepared for launch is one of two operated by the company. Its other launch site is at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 with the goal of slashing launch costs to make travel to Mars affordable. The company plans to fly its first unmanned spacecraft to Mars in 2018 and send humans to Mars as early as 2024. (By Irene Klotz. Additional reporting by Laila Kearney in New York; Writing by Daniel Wallis; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli) 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. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Facebook is an arbiter of truth, whether Mark Zuckerberg likes it or not | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/28/facebook-is-an-arbiter-of-truth-whether-mark-zuckerberg-likes-it-or-not"

"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 Facebook is an arbiter of truth, whether Mark Zuckerberg likes it or not Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Mark Zuckerberg testifies in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on April 11, 2018. 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. Mark Zuckerberg rarely offers an on-the-record opinion about anything to do with Twitter, though it’s not entirely without precedent. Yesterday, however, he walked right into the flames that have engulfed his company’s social media rival since it appended fact-checking labels to tweets issued by U.S. President Donald Trump. According to Fox News , Zuckerberg responded to the incident in an interview by saying that private companies such as Facebook “shouldn’t be the arbiter of truth” for everything people say online, echoing similar comments he has made in the past. But Facebook has a long history of removing, labeling, and “downgrading” content, and Zuckerberg’s latest comments come in the very month that his company unveiled an “independent” content oversight board — dubbed its “Supreme Court” — that will be able to overturn the company’s decisions on whether individual pieces of content should be allowed to remain on Facebook and Instagram. The Twitter episode kicked off on Tuesday, when Trump tweeted about California’s vote-by-mail plan for the upcoming presidential elections. The president opined that the state’s mail-in ballots would be “substantially fraudulent” and asserted that “mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out and fraudulently signed.” In response, Twitter — for the first time ever — affixed a fact-checking label to the president’s tweets, enabling users to click through to additional information from third parties. Twitter explained that it added the label as “part of our efforts to enforce our civic integrity policy” and said the company believed the tweets could “confuse voters about what they need to do to receive a ballot and participate in the election process.” Above: Trump’s labeled tweets Twitter’s civic integrity policy clearly states: You may not use Twitter’s services for the purpose of manipulating or interfering in elections or other civic processes. This includes posting or sharing content that may suppress participation or mislead people about when, where, or how to participate in a civic process. The fallout in the days since has been fierce, with Trump threatening to shut down platforms he has accused of stifling conservative voices, while also promising an executive order that could make social platforms liable for content posted by their users. “Arbiter of truth” Zuckerberg spoke to Fox News yesterday, in an interview that will be aired in full later today, where he is quoted as saying: We have a different policy than, I think, Twitter on this. I just believe strongly that Facebook shouldn’t be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online. Private companies probably shouldn’t be, especially these platform companies, shouldn’t be in the position of doing that. However, Facebook has very clear policies for combating voter suppression, similar to Twitter’s, and expressly bans “misrepresentations about how to vote.” Like Twitter, the platform also has clear policies designed to reduce the spread of misinformation with fact-checking labels. Facebook also routinely downgrades spurious posts that promote miracle cures, removes hate speech and deepfake videos , and implements initiatives to curb the spread of misinformation. A few months back, Facebook itself was forced to remove a series of “misleading” ads from Trump’s re-election campaign. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey responded to Zuckerberg’s comments by denying that its actions make it an “arbiter of truth,” adding that his company will “continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally.” This does not make us an “arbiter of truth.” Our intention is to connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people can judge for themselves. More transparency from us is critical so folks can clearly see the why behind our actions. — jack (@jack) May 28, 2020 As Trump ramps up his attacks on social platforms in the coming days, weeks, and months, Facebook evidently wants to stay out of the firing line and distance itself from Twitter. But while the two have distinct moderation policies , it’s clear both are active “arbiters of truth” on their platforms — whether Mark Zuckerberg likes it or not. 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. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Trump signs executive order attacking Section 230 legal protections for Facebook and Twitter | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/28/trump-signs-executive-order-attacking-section-230-legal-protections-for-facebook-and-twitter"

"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 Trump signs executive order attacking Section 230 legal protections for Facebook and Twitter Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Donald Trump meeting Jack Dorsey at the White House 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 ) — President Donald Trump said he will introduce legislation that may scrap or weaken a law that has long protected internet companies, including Twitter and Facebook, an extraordinary attempt to intervene in the media that experts said was unlikely to survive legal scrutiny. Trump signed an executive order on Thursday afternoon after attacking Twitter for tagging his tweets about unsubstantiated claims of fraud in mail-in voting with a warning prompting readers to fact-check the posts. Trump said we may “remove or change” Section 230 of a law known as the Communications Decency Act through legislation so social media companies will not enjoy this legal immunity, which protects such platforms from liability for content posted by their users. The President also said U.S. Attorney General William Barr will pursue said legislation to regulate social media companies. On Wednesday, Reuters reported the White House’s plan to modify Section 230 based on a copy of a draft order. Facebook and Twitter did not immediately comment on the executive order. The President’s remarks and the draft order, as written, attempts to circumvent Congress and the courts in directing changes to long-established interpretations of Section 230. It represents the latest attempt by Trump to use the tools of the Presidency to force private companies to change policies that he believes are not favorable to him. “In terms of presidential efforts to limit critical commentary about themselves, I think one would have to go back to the Sedition Act of 1798 — which made it illegal to say false things about the president and certain other public officials — to find an attack supposedly rooted in law by a president on any entity which comments or prints comments about public issues and public people,” said First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams. Others like Jack Balkin, a Yale University constitutional law professor, said “The president is trying to frighten, coerce, scare, cajole social media companies to leave him alone and not do what Twitter has just done to him.” Still, Twitter’s shares were down 4.4% on Thursday. Facebook was down 1.7 percent and Google parent Alphabet Inc were up slightly. Trump, who uses Twitter heavily to promote his policies and insult his opponents, has long claimed without evidence that the service is biased in favor of Democrats. He and his supporters have leveled the same unsubstantiated charges against Facebook, which Trump’s presidential campaign uses heavily as an advertising vehicle. 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. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Voatz raises $2.2 million to make elections tamper-proof | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2018/01/08/voatz-raises-2-2-million-to-make-elections-tamper-proof"

"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 Voatz raises $2.2 million to make elections tamper-proof 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. Mobile-focused voting company Voatz today announced a $2.2 million seed round to roll out blockchain-based voting in the U.S. One of blockchain technology’s big promises is that it will be a democratizing force, and the blockchain community has long talked about making voting more secure, reliable, and unhackable. In fact, a number of countries and company boards are already testing out various blockchain-based voting solutions. Voatz (pronounced “votes”) combines biometrics and blockchain tech to enable secure, auditable elections. The platform is currently in beta release. It runs on a public permissioned blockchain built on the HyperLedger framework and doesn’t use any form of cryptocurrency, so the company has no plans for an ICO. While $2.2 million may sound like small change in an era when blockchain companies are pulling in significant sums of money in token presales and ICOs, Voatz considers itself an elections company first and foremost — one that uses blockchain to fix what’s broken with the electoral infrastructure. “So in that respect, it is somewhat different from a ‘typical’ blockchain startup,” Voatz cofounder and CEO Nimit Sawhney told VentureBeat. A number of universities, labor unions, state political parties, church groups, and nonprofits are already using Voatz for voting, totaling some 70,000+ voters, the company said in a statement. While the platform is currently available by invitation only, it will have a broader rollout “in the coming weeks.” In addition to bringing more transparency to the voting process, by letting people vote via their mobile devices “Voatz tackles two of the core challenges in voting — low participation in local elections and the need for better citizen engagement,” said Julie Lein, managing partner of the Urban Innovation Fund, which participated in the funding announced today. So what does the solution cost to roll out? “Depending on the type of election/voting involved, the starting costs are at least 50 percent cheaper on an annual basis than the costs of the current/traditional infrastructure,” said Sawhney. “Early movers can avail themselves of special discounts, such as one year free while signing up for a minimum three-year contract.” Voatz is based in Boston and has an eight-person team. The startup is a graduate of the Techstars Boston 2017 and MassChallenge Boston 2017 programs. Voatz will use the new funding to expand its business development team in the U.S. and internationally and to accelerate development of new product features “such as integrating with traditional/current electoral infrastructure [and adding] support for additional mobile devices,” Sawhney told VentureBeat. “The company also plans to formally enter the EAC [Election Assistance Commission] certification process later in 2018.” Once it has that certification, it will likely target larger deployments, he said. Medici Ventures, launched by Overstock.com in 2014 to invest in blockchain technologies, led the round. (Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne was an early blockchain convert and recently announced plans to offload the home goods ecommerce part of Overstock.com to focus exclusively on blockchain technology.) Oakhouse Partners also participated in the round, as did angel investors Walt Winshall, Michael Dornbrook, Ty Danco, Tom Williams, Joe Caruso, and members of the Walnut Ventures angels group. The Voatz team previously raised nearly $600,000 in pre-seed funding. It also won $100,000+ in non-equity cash awards through startup competitions and hackathons, according to Sawhney. Other Medici Ventures investments include TZero, PeerNova, Bitt, SettleMint, Factom, IdentityMind, Spera, and Symbiont. 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. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Meet the new twist on data encryption that promises better privacy and security for AI | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/01/16/meet-the-new-twist-on-data-encryption-that-promises-better-privacy-and-security-for-ai"

"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 Meet the new twist on data encryption that promises better privacy and security for AI Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Presented by Intel AI and privacy needn’t be mutually exclusive. After a decade in the labs, homomorphic encryption (HE) is emerging as a top way to help protect data privacy in machine learning (ML) and cloud computing. It’s a timely breakthrough: Data from ML is doubling yearly. At the same time, concern about related data privacy and security is growing among industry , professionals and the public. “It doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game,” says Casimir Wierzynski , senior director, office of the CTO, AI Products Group at Intel. HE allows AI computation on encrypted data, enabling data scientists and researchers to gain valuable insights without decrypting the underlying data or models. This is particularly important for sensitive medical, financial, and customer data. Above: Casimir Wierzynski, Senior Director, Office of the CTO, AI Products Group at Intel Wierzynski leads Intel’s privacy preserving machine learning efforts, including HE work and in developing industry standards for the technology’s use. In this interview, he talks about why HE is needed, its place as a building block of improved privacy, and how the breakthrough technology helps create new business opportunities and data bridges to previously “untrusted partners.” What and why Q: What does “homomorphic” mean ? In Greek, homo is the same, morphic is the shape. It captures the idea that if you do encryption in the right way, you can transform ordinary numbers into encrypted numbers, then do the same computations you would do with regular numbers. Whatever you do in this encrypted domain has the same shape as in the regular domain. When you bring your results back, you decrypt back to ordinary numbers, and you get the answer you wanted. Q: What big problem is the technology is solving? We live in amazing times, when we have all these new AI products and services, like being able to unlock your phone with your face, or systems that enable radiologists to detect diseases at earlier stages. These products rely on machine learning systems, which are fed and shaped by data that are very sensitive and personal. It’s important for us as an industry — and I would argue as a society — to figure out how we can keep unlocking all the power of AI while still helping protect the privacy of the underlying data. That’s the overarching problem. Q: Why is HE creating buzz now? The technique itself has been around for more than 20 years as a theoretical construct. The criticism has been, okay, you can operate on encrypted data, but it takes you a million times longer than using regular data. It was an academic curiosity. But in the last five years, and especially the last two years, there have been huge advances in the performance of these techniques. We’re not talking about a factor of a million anymore. It’s more like a factor of 10 to 100. Q: Certainly, there’s no shortage of data privacy and protection technologies… We’ve all gotten good about encrypting data at rest, when it’s on our hard drives, or sending data back and forth over encrypted channels. But when you’re dealing with ML and AI, at some point those data have to be operated on. You need to do some math on those data. And to do that you need to decrypt them. While you’re using the data, the data are decrypted, and that creates a potential issue. We work to provide better protection on both these fronts, anonymization and encryption. Above: Simple model of secure inference with HE. Q: In ML with multiple partners, trust is a big issue. How does HE help here? Whenever you’re dealing with digital assets, you have this phenomenon: When you share a digital asset with another party, it’s completely equivalent to giving it to them, then trusting they’re not going to do something unintended with it. Now add the fact that ML is fundamentally an operation that involves multiple stakeholders. For example, one entity owns the training data. Another entity owns data they want to do some inference on. They want to use ML service provided by a third entity. Further, they to use an ML model owned by another party. And they want to run all this on infrastructure from some supply chain. With all these different parties, and because of the nature of digital data, all must trust each other in a complex way. This is becoming harder and harder to manage. HE in action Q: Can you give an example of homomorphic encryption at work? Say you have a hospital doing a scan on a patient, working with a remote radiology service. The hospital encrypts the scan and sends it over to the radiologist. The radiologist does all the processing in the encrypted domain, so they never see the underlying data. The answer comes back, which is also encrypted, and finally the hospital decrypts it to learn the diagnosis. Q: In the example above, where does HE actually happen? At the scanner? It could live in multiple places. There are two major components: encryption and decryption. But then there’s also the actual processing of the encrypted data. Encryption typically happens where the sensitive data are first captured, for example, in a camera or edge device. Processing encrypted data happens wherever the AI system needs to operate on sensitive data, typically in a data center. And finally, decryption happens only at the point where you need to reveal the results to a trusted party. Powerful with other emerging techs Q: When you speak and write on HE, you also talk about adjacent technologies. Please explain briefly the roles these other building blocks play in preserving privacy. There are several very promising and rapidly developing technologies that use tricks from cryptography and statistics to do operations on data that seem magical. All these technologies can be further accelerated and enhanced by hardware security measures called trusted execution environments, such as Intel SGX. New bridges to partners in AI and ML Q: So what opportunities are created when these technologies are combined? One of the questions we’ve been asking at Intel is, what would happen if you could enable ML in these multi-stakeholder operations between parties that don’t necessarily trust each other, like we described earlier? What would that enable? You could have banks that normally are rivals. But they may decide it’s in their interest to cooperate around certain risks that they all face in common, like fraud and money laundering. They could pool their data to jointly build anti-money laundering models while keeping their sensitive customer data private. Another example is in the retai l sector. Retailers want to make the most out of the data that they’ve collected on shoppers, so they can personalize certain experiences. What if there were a way to enable that and still provide quantifiable protections around the privacy of that data? New business opportunities Q: Are there new revenue models and opportunities being created? One thing that’s exciting about this area is that you start to enable new business models around data that would have previously been impossible. For example, (HE) can be a way to monetize data while helping maintain security. At the same time, it addresses one of the biggest problems in ML, namely, access to large, diverse data sets for building models. So you can imagine a whole ecosystem that brings together people who hold data with people who need data. And very importantly, it’s all done in a way that preserves security and privacy of the data. That’s an exciting possibility. Q: How advanced is that concept in implementation? Any other or many real-life instances like that? I would say it’s beyond theory, and in early stages of commercial deployment. Data is becoming a much bigger asset class than ever before, sometimes in surprising ways. For example, in corporate bankruptcy cases, creditors can end up owning large data sets unrelated to banking in any way. They’re just leftovers of a loan that went sour. So they’re looking for a way to monetize these assets and provide them to data scientists who seek additional training data to make their AI systems more reliable, all while keeping the underlying data private and secure. Or imagine a bunch of hospitals that have patient data. For various reasons, they can’t share it. But they know if they could, and could get lawyers in the room to hammer out an agreement, they would potentially be able to jointly build a model with much more statistical power than one any could build individually. Using privacy-preserving ML techniques, they can essentially form a consortium and say: “In exchange for all of us owning this improved model that will improve our patients’ outcomes, we’ll be a part of this consortium, and we can still keep all of our patient data private and secure.” Key role of developers Q: Where do developers fit in? As it is now, if you’re an AI data scientist and you want to build a machine learning model that operates on encrypted data, you have to be some magical person, simultaneously an expert in software engineering and data science and post-quantum cryptography. One of the major efforts that my team has been working on is making these technologies much more accessible and performant for the data science and developer communities so that they can scale up. This is a priority for Intel. Today we’re offering tools like The Intel HE transformer for nGraph , which is a Homomorphic Encryption (HE) backend to Intel’s graph compiler for Artificial Neural Networks. Above: The nGraph-HE software stack supports the SEAL encryption library and underlying cryptosystems. Intel and standards Q: Some people will ask: Why is Intel active here? The answer is… For starters, homomorphic encryption is very compute-intensive. This is an area where Intel can really shine in terms of building optimized silicon to handle this fundamentally new way of computing. But more broadly, those examples from health care, retail, and finance — sectors representing about a quarter of GDP in the United States. These are very economically important problems. At Intel, we are obsessed with helping customers solve their problems around data. And privacy is at the heart of any data-centric business. We are in a unique position, because Intel works closely with hyperscale, data-centric users of hardware who are building all kinds of exciting AI applications. At the same time, we are a neutral party with respect to data. To make these technologies perform at scale is going to require the kinds of complex software and hardware co-design that Intel is uniquely positioned to provide. We get to collaborate actively with a fascinating range of players across industry. Above: The 2019 HomomorphicEncryption.org group gathered top private and public sector participants from around the globe in Santa Clara, CA. Q: Intel has taken a leadership role in developing HE standards. Why are they important? Status? As with any crypto scheme, people will use it when there’s interoperability and trust in the underlying math and technology. We recognize that to really scale up, to bring all the homomorphic encryption goodness to the world, we need to have standards around it. As interest in privacy preserving methods for machine learning grows, it’s essential for standards to be debated and agreed upon by the community, spanning business, government, and academia. So in August, Intel co-hosted an industry gathering of individuals from Microsoft, IBM, Google, and 15 other companies interested in this space. We’ve identified many points of broad agreement. Now we’re trying to figure out the right approach to bring it to standards bodies, like ISO, IEEE, ITU, and others. They all have different structures and timelines. We’re strategizing on how best to move that forward. Final word Q: Any thoughts you’d like to leave ringing in people’s ears? Privacy and security technologies for machine learning like homomorphic encryption are ready for prime time. These are not academic exercises anymore. These are real market-ready ideas. The day is coming when the idea of doing machine learning on someone else’s raw data will seem quite strange. We’re at the start of a new and exciting era where machine learning will enable us to explore new opportunities unlike anything before. 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 sales@venturebeat.com. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Mysterious startup Shadow under scrutiny after Iowa caucus meltdown | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/02/04/mysterious-startup-shadow-under-scrutiny-after-iowa-caucus-meltdown"

"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 Mysterious startup Shadow under scrutiny after Iowa caucus meltdown Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Attendees sit in a gymnasium during a caucus in Des Moines, Iowa . 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. A mobile app that was created to manage voter data so Democrats could close the digital gap with President Trump has instead sown chaos during the Iowa caucuses. Organizers of the local meetings were supposed to use the app created by startup Shadow to report results from Iowa’s unusual voting system. In the caucuses, people wishing to support a candidate must be physically present at a meeting, where they stand in groups and wait to be counted. Update on February 5 : Shadow tweets apology. To make that process more efficient, the Iowa Democratic Party gave local managers the Shadow app to input results. But results were delayed and backup measures — such as calling a hotline — also failed, according to the New York Times. Update from @iowademocrats on #iacaucus results: “This is simply a reporting issue, the app did not go down and this is not a hack or an intrusion. The underlying data and paper trail is sound and will simply take time to further report the results." pic.twitter.com/1kDcZ4HRPu — Clay Masters (@Clay_Masters) February 4, 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! While the results were still being tabulated, nearly everyone reportedly involved with the creation of Shadow was rapidly distancing themselves from the debacle. The company’s website provides scant information on the people involved, other than to note that they formerly worked with campaigns for President Obama and Hillary Clinton: So who is behind Shadow? The answer remains murky. In the wake of Donald Trump’s shocking 2016 victory, a number of Democratic Party leaders recognized that the party had fallen far behind in terms of digital operations. To fill the gap, a wave of progressive startups launched to offer services and tools to Left-leaning candidates. One of those is Groundbase, which was founded in 2017 by Gerard Niemira. His Twitter account is currently set to private. According to his LinkedIn profile , Niemira worked for Clinton’s campaign in 2015 and 2016 and was eventually promoted “to lead the small but mighty team in charge of all of the campaign’s tools for field organizers and volunteers.” The company raised money from Higher Ground Labs , which says it acts as “investors, partners, collaborators, and trainers to ensure the progressive community uses technology to run the best campaigns possible.” As of today, Higher Ground Labs no longer lists Groundbase among its portfolio companies. But a cached version on Google search can be found from as recently as January 18. In January 2019, a nonprofit called Acronym announced that it had acquired Groundbase for an undisclosed sum: I’m so excited to announce @anotheracronym has acquired Groundbase, the best CRM + SMS tool on the political market, along with their incredible team led by @gjniemira + are launching Shadow, a new tech company to build smarter infrastructure for campaigns https://t.co/rGQQCORzvt — Tara McGowan (@taraemcg) January 17, 2019 Acronym describes itself as a “nonprofit organization committed to building power and digital infrastructure for the progressive movement.” It was founded by Tara McGowan, who served as a digital producer on Obama’s 2012 compaign, according to her LinkedIn profile. According to LinkedIn Niemira also served as CTO of Acronym while also running Groundbase. On its About page, Acronym says: “In 2018, Acronym and its affiliated political action committee, Pacronym , helped elect 65 progressive candidates across the country with new tech and digital-first strategies to register and turn out voters. In January 2019 we launched Shadow , a tech company focused on enabling organizers to run smarter campaigns. Acronym is also an investor in Courier Newsroom , a digital-first local media company, and Lockwood Strategy , a digital strategy firm.” But in the wake of the Iowa voting mess, Acronym issued a statement claiming it was merely an investor in Shadow and had little knowledge of it: pic.twitter.com/dkWBvMvNzW — Kyle Tharp (@kylewilsontharp) February 4, 2020 On MSNBC, former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, now an Acronym board member, also insisted he knew little about Shadow: MSNBC’s @chrislhayes finally asked @davidplouffe – board member of the centrist PAC behind Shadow Inc – about the app that wrecked #IowaCaucuses. Plouffe offered a few seconds of spin and Hayes moved on. pic.twitter.com/STruSKQh5E — Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) February 4, 2020 In a blog post introducing Shadow in January 2019, now only visible via the Internet Achive, Niemira wrote: “Acronym is thrilled to announce the launch of Shadow, a new technology company that will exist under the Acronym umbrella and build accessible technological infrastructure and tools to enable campaigns to better harness, integrate, and manage data across the platforms and technologies they all use. As part of the launch of Shadow, Acronym has acquired Groundbase, a peer-to-peer SMS and CRM tool that helped 75 progressive organizations and campaigns win elections during the 2018 cycle.” The problem facing many Democratic campaigns, according to Niemira, was that they were manually pulling voter data from different organizing services and apps, creating a risk that data is lost or muddled or that campaigns lack a single complete view of each voter. “Our goal is to develop a data syncing platform that automatically solves ecosystem problems like this one: getting data where it needs to go when it needs to go there, saving organizers hours of work and reducing the risk of mistakes and lost data,” he wrote. “And imagine how much more effective campaigns and organizations would be if they knew not only whether a voter’s door was knocked [on], but whether they [had] received a text message about a local event from their state party or local candidate — or whether they had received a digital ad about that event on their Facebook feed or YouTube channel. Shadow’s goal will be to do just that — and it will aim to give campaigns, state parties, advocacy groups, PACs, and others a way to manage all of this data in one place in a way that users of all levels can act like experts.” During this election cycle, Niemira described the company’s mission like this: “As part of Shadow’s technology suite, Acronym will continue to license Groundbase technologies to campaigns and organizations across the progressive movement. But by marrying Groundbase with Acronym’s digital communications and advertising expertise, Shadow will also focus on creating the infrastructure that will enable Groundbase technology — as well as all the other technology offerings in the political market — to better integrate across platforms and organizations. And it will be able to layer on top of any data warehouse used by Democratic parties and campaigns.” From filings with the Federal Elections Commission , Democratic presidential candidates using Shadow include Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Vice President Joe Biden, and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand ( who dropped out last fall ). The Texas Democratic Party is also a customer, as is Super PAC For Our Future, which plans to spend $90 million targeting swing states for Democratic candidates. The hours and days to come will certainly feature forensic attempts to understand just what went wrong, and what role Shadow played. But in the initial aftermath, the Democratic Party’s effort to demonstrate its digital house is in order seems the first big casualty of Monday’s voting misfire. 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. All rights reserved. "

"ARM announces its beefy 64-bit processor core for servers | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2012/10/30/arm-announces-its-beefy-64-bit-processor-core-for-servers"

"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 ARM announces its beefy 64-bit processor core for servers 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. The firm behind the revolution in tablets and smartphones is ready to take on a new market, as ARM announced today a chip design that will take it into the server market for the first time. The new 64-bit processor core from ARM is going into low-power servers for Internet data centers. That’s a far cry from ARM’s usual focus on chip designs for tablets and smartphones. ARM made the announcement at its TechCon in Santa Clara, Calif. today. The announcement wasn’t a surprise in one respect. Hoping to disrupt the market for data center chips, Advanced Micro Devices announced yesterday that it will offer ARM-based server chips in the future. This strategic combination is an attempt to “change the industry landscape” by combining AMD’s expertise in server chips with ARM’s low-power technology to create power-efficient chips that Intel won’t likely duplicate. ARM announced the new ARM Cortex-A50 processor series based upon the ARMv8 architecture. The processors include the Cortex-A53 and Cortex-A57 processors. They can handle both 32-bit and 64-bit processing. Besides AMD, licensees include Broadcom, Calxeda, HiSilicon, Samsung, and STMicroelectronics. ARM will design the cores, and partners will likely ship finished chips in 2014. AMD’s mainstay is designing x86 chips for PCs and data center computers known as servers. Thanks to the Internet, data center chips are growing in sales at a rate of 33 percent a year. But the problem is power consumption. Electricity is becoming the biggest cost in data centers, and chips that are too hot are in danger of melting down. ARM chief executive Warren East was supposed to fly out for AMD’s announcement, but weather problems from Hurricane Sandy on the East Coast stopped him from coming out to the AMD event in San Francisco. “ARM has a long heritage in power-efficient systems in the mobile space,” he said. “Internet-connected devices are putting huge demands on data centers. These take huge amounts of energy and a new methodology is required.” East said he looked forward to a “transformational effect” that AMD’s presence in the market will produce. This move by ARM into server chips is kind of a counterattack against Intel’s dominance in the PC space. Intel has been moving into the tablet and smartphone market with its smaller and power-efficient Atom chips. But historically, neither ARM nor Intel has made much headway invading each other’s turf. 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. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Qualcomm and LG make patent license deal, but 5G market impact is unclear | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/08/20/qualcomm-and-lg-make-patent-license-deal-but-5g-market-impact-is-unclear"

"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 Qualcomm and LG make patent license deal, but 5G market impact is unclear Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn The LG V50 ThinQ with the Dual Screen attachment. 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. After extended negotiations and a lawsuit that threatened to “impact the entire 5G market,” Qualcomm and LG today reached an agreement that will continue the South Korean company’s access to the U.S. chipmaker’s 3G, 4G, and 5G cellular modem technologies, apparently preventing a disruption of its smartphone business. But the long-term impact for Qualcomm and other 5G device makers is unclear. LG terminated its master licensing deal with Qualcomm in 2018 in hopes that it could reach better terms with its key smartphone chip supplier. Yet their negotiations dragged on past the June end of an interim supply agreement, continuing as LG globally released its Qualcomm Snapdragon-powered V50 ThinQ 5G smartphone , and throughout its work on a superior sequel, the V60, which is expected to launch next month. The deal notably comes after Qualcomm reached a similar modem supply and patent licensing deal with Apple , one of LG’s key customers, which had instigated lawsuits and antitrust investigations regarding Qualcomm’s chip supply terms. Shortly after Qualcomm and Apple settled their dispute, a U.S. federal court ruled that Qualcomm had been illegally suppressing smartphone chip competition, and ordered the company to renegotiate licensing agreements with customers at reasonable prices without threatening to cut off their supplies. But Qualcomm asked for the court’s order to be postponed pending an appeal. Qualcomm is saying little about the agreement beyond the fact that it is granting LG a patent license to make “3G, 4G and 5G single-mode and multimode complete devices,” under an arrangement that’s “consistent with Qualcomm’s established global licensing terms” and “reaffirms the value of Qualcomm’s world-class patent portfolio.” That language suggests that there hasn’t yet been a dramatic change in the companies’ licensing agreements, but doesn’t rule out the possibility that the terms might subsequently be modified. As the companies’ negotiations proceeded, analysts suggested that a failure to reach a deal with Qualcomm could have “catastrophic” consequences for LG’s smartphone business, while LG pointed to potential impacts on the entire 5G market. In essence, LG suggested, reducing chip or licensing payments to more “reasonable” levels would benefit everyone making 5G devices — except, of course, Qualcomm. Without Qualcomm chips, LG would almost certainly be unable to continue producing global 5G devices for the immediate future, an issue that almost all of its competitors are facing as well. Rivals including Samsung and Huawei have already developed and shipped regionally usable 5G modems, while smaller chipmaker MediaTek is promising an alternative of its own in the coming months. Intel, a onetime competitor in the 5G modem business, sold off its smartphone modem division to Apple after failing to quickly bring Qualcomm-rivaling alternatives to market. 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. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Xiaomi plans to launch more than 10 5G phones in 2020 | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/10/21/xiaomi-plans-to-launch-more-than-10-5g-phones-in-2020"

"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 Xiaomi plans to launch more than 10 5G phones in 2020 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn The logo of Xiaomi is seen inside the company's office in Bengaluru, India, January 18, 2018. 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. ( Reuters ) — Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi plans to launch more than 10 5G phones in 2020, CEO Lei Jun said on Sunday, speaking at the World Internet conference in the eastern Chinese town of Wuzhen. Lei’s remarks come as the company faces intense competition in its home market from rival Huawei. Last month, Xiaomi launched the Xiaomi Mi 9 Pro, the company’s first 5G-enabled phone for the domestic market. According to Lei, demand for the phone exceeded the company’s expectations and led to supply chain issues. The device’s reception has prompted Xiaomi to launch 5G models for the high, middle, and low-end price tiers next year. “People in the industry fear that next year 4G models won’t sell; this is a step you have no choice but to take,” Lei said. “So we hope that operators can speed up their expansion of 5G base stations.” Xiaomi’s share price has fallen steadily this past year as China’s smartphone market grows more competitive. In September, the company announced it would plan a $1.5 billion share buyback. In the second quarter of 2019, Xiaomi occupied 11.8% of China’s smartphone market, down from 13.9% one year prior, according to research firm Canalys. All other top Chinese brands suffered declining sales volumes as consumers flocked to Huawei, driven in part by patriotism. The Shenzhen-based handset maker became the center of U.S.-China tensions in May, when Washington effectively called for U.S. companies to cease supplying parts to the company. However, Xiaomi has enjoyed success in Europe , where it remains a relatively new player in the continent. The company’s market share in the region during the second quarter of 2019 hit 9.6%, up from 6.5% the year prior, making it one of the fastest-growing phone brands in the region. ( Reporting by Josh Horwitz and Yingzhi Yang in Wuzhen; writing by Tom Daly in Beijing; editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan. ) 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. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Bluetooth LE Audio promises superior sound quality and battery life | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/01/06/bluetooth-le-audio-promises-superior-sound-quality-and-battery-life"

"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 Bluetooth LE Audio promises superior sound quality and battery life 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. When the Bluetooth SIG announced the power-efficient Bluetooth LE/Bluetooth Smart standard nearly a decade ago, users expected that long-lasting wireless headphones and speakers would quickly follow — but that didn’t happen, as LE’s dramatic power reductions were actually designed for lower-bandwidth accessories such as intermittently used digital scales and in-home sensors. Today, the Bluetooth group announced LE Audio , which will finally leverage the standard’s energy efficiency improvements to improve the performance of wireless listening accessories. It’s worth mentioning up front that LE Audio will coexist with “Classic Audio,” the regular and enhanced data rate Bluetooth radio mode that is currently used in billions of devices worldwide. Developers will be able to choose between modes as appropriate to support their devices, including ones that rely upon the new standard to achieve smaller form factors than before. Perhaps the most significant component of LE Audio is LC3, a new low-complexity communication codec that promises to outperform classic Bluetooth audio at lower bitrates. Whereas the older sub-band codec (SBC) compressed a 1.5MBps, 48KHz stream to 345Kbps, the Bluetooth SIG says, LC3 can compress the same 1.5Mbps data into perceptibly better-sounding audio at only 192Kbps. “Extensive listening tests have shown that LC3 will provide improvements in audio quality over the SBC codec included with Classic Audio, even at a 50% lower bit rate,” said Fraunhofer communications audio head Manfred Lutzky. As a result, the same-sized accessory battery will be able to last longer, or a reduced-size battery will work at today’s longevity levels, assuming a developer supports the new standard. This is expected to improve the viability of Bluetooth hearing aids. 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 Bluetooth SIG is also catching up with the independent engineering efforts of some of its member companies by adding support for multi-stream audio, enabling the synchronized broadcast of multiple independent audio streams from one source device to one or more receivers, including separate left and right earbuds. Multi-stream audio, it says, will improve the quality of stereo imaging, which depends on ultra low latency to sound correct but may have previously suffered from lag when separate left and right earbuds or speakers had to communicate with each other. On a related but separate note, a feature called Broadcast Audio will allow a single source device to share its audio streams to an unlimited number of receivers. This will enable Bluetooth-based audio sharing that can be “closed” and kept personal with a passcode — one smartphone to several friends — or “open” and location-based, with a theater or gym sending audio to multiple listeners. A new pairing experience will be included to support Broadcast Audio. “Location-based Audio Sharing holds the potential to change the way we experience the world around us,” Bluetooth SIG director Peter Liu said. “People will be able to select the audio being broadcast by silent TVs in public venues, and places like theaters and lecture halls will be able to share audio to assist visitors with hearing loss as well as provide audio in multiple languages.” As is always the case with new Bluetooth standards, these changes won’t immediately become available to existing device users, and based on past history, it’s unlikely that existing Bluetooth 5 or 5.1 accessories will receive firmware updates — but it’s possible, the SIG says. The organization isn’t saying what the minimum core Bluetooth standard number will be for LE Audio, so it’s not yet clear whether users will need to look for Bluetooth 5.2, 6.0, or just “LE Audio” badged devices. LE Audio’s rollout process will begin with the release of updated specifications throughout the first half of this year and continue with shipment of new LE Audio-capable products thereafter. Since nearly 4 billion Bluetooth products ship each year, roughly one-quarter of which are audio accessories, it’s likely that the new standard will see at least some support by the end of 2020; venues supporting the Broadcast Audio feature are expected to debut over the next several years. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Broadcom's first Wi-Fi 6E mobile chip doubles speeds, cuts energy use | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/02/13/broadcoms-first-wi-fi-6e-mobile-chip-doubles-speeds-cuts-energy-use"

"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 Broadcom’s first Wi-Fi 6E mobile chip doubles speeds, cuts energy use Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Each generation of WiFi has added something new. 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. Just ahead of CES 2020 in early January, the Wi-Fi Alliance announced “Wi-Fi 6E” as the official name for 6GHz Wi-Fi — an enhanced version of Wi-Fi 6 that promises to further increase data rates and cut power consumption. Today, Broadcom is announcing the world’s first Wi-Fi 6E mobile chip, BCM4389, a combined Bluetooth and Wi-Fi solution that promises to double Wi-Fi speeds and cut latency in half compared with Wi-Fi 5, as well as slashing energy use compared with prior-generation solutions. One of the keys to Wi-Fi 6E’s performance gains is the addition of 6GHz spectrum to the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands that were used in prior-generation Wi-Fi standards. Multiple countries are currently in the process of opening 6GHz frequencies up for Wi-Fi, which will soon enable home and business networks to use wider 160MHz channels — think of them as additional, thicker wireless data pipes. Thanks to these improvements, the BCM4389 promises over 2Gbps real-world speeds and up to 5 times better battery efficiency, at least under certain conditions. Broadcom notes that the new chip includes support for two simultaneous streams of Wi-Fi 6E, a multi-radio Bluetooth 5 system, and an ultra low-power radio that’s dedicated to background scanning for ideal Wi-Fi and Bluetooth frequencies. The dedicated radio promises to enable faster Bluetooth pairing, improved location accuracy , and higher Wi-Fi quality of service, allowing the phone to keep delivering stable Wi-Fi while it constantly hunts for better, interference-free channels. Even in congested subway stations with lots of people using wireless earphones, Broadcom says the chip’s Bluetooth audio experience will be “glitch-free.” While the chip’s peak physical layer rate is 2.63Gbps, the practical number will be closer to 2Gbps, aided by ultra-dense 1024-QAM encoding , OFDMA, and a MU-MIMO antenna system. The company says the chip’s tri-band simultaneous connectivity architecture is responsible for the up to 5 times improvement in battery utilization, which presumably comes from making more efficient use of available channels and won’t be seen under all scenarios. 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! Broadcom expects the BCM4389 to be usable with a “wide range of 6GHZ-enabled devices,” such as home and business routers that will be available “at launch” of the 6GHz spectrum band later in 2020. Beyond the chip’s obvious applications for smartphones and computers, the company also expects that virtual and augmented reality devices will use Wi-Fi 6E to pave “the way for our wirelessly connected AR/VR future,” leveraging the bandwidth for high-bandwidth and low latency video links to nearby devices. 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. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Wi-Fi 6E and 5G will share 6GHz spectrum to supercharge wireless data | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/04/02/wi-fi-6e-and-5g-will-share-6ghz-spectrum-to-supercharge-wireless-data"

"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 Wi-Fi 6E and 5G will share 6GHz spectrum to supercharge wireless data 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. At one point, some observers believed that cellular and Wi-Fi technologies were locked in a zero-sum game, such that higher-speed 4G or 5G networks would eventually eliminate the need for Wi-Fi in transmitting data wirelessly. But as 5G transitioned from concept to reality, a more nuanced relationship became apparent: Wi-Fi would continue to have an important role , evolving alongside 5G, and possibly even intertwining with it. This week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) set an important date for the future of Wi-Fi , announcing that its five commissioners will vote on April 23 to permit or disallow “unlicensed” use of the 6GHz radio band. It’s important to understand what that actually means, so let’s break it down. When we talk about 6GHz spectrum, think about a radio that can tune from 87.7 to 107.9FM, except the numbers here are much higher — 5,925 to 7,125. That’s a huge 1.2GHz-wide block of wireless spectrum covering the entire 6GHz range (6,000 to 6,999), plus bits of adjacent 5GHz and 7GHz frequencies. In the context of 20-year-old Wi-Fi, you can visualize this as an old highway roughly doubling in width. The FCC is letting companies add more and wider lanes that simultaneously decrease congestion and increase the variety of vehicles that can use the road. 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 other key detail is “licensed” versus “unlicensed” spectrum. Unlike licensed spectrum, which is restricted to one company for a specific geography (say, a 2.5GHz block licensed by T-Mobile in Philadelphia), unlicensed spectrum is effectively open to multiple users and multiple uses across the entire country, assuming they follow FCC certification and broadcasting rules. Think of the licensed-unlicensed difference as a narrow private road reserved for magenta Volkswagens versus an open highway accessible by any safety-certified vehicle. Wi-Fi is expected to be the primary beneficiary of the FCC’s vote, as an industry group called the Wi-Fi Alliance is already champing at the bit to use 6GHz frequencies. After debuting the sixth generation of Wi-Fi (“Wi-Fi 6”) in devices that hit shelves last year, the Alliance had to find a way to differentially label a Wi-Fi 6 variant that added 6GHz support to previously included 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies. It came up with “Wi-Fi 6E” as a name , and the first Wi-Fi 6E devices should be ready to go soon after the FCC vote, which is all but certain to approve the new 6GHz allocation. But it turns out there’s a role for 5G in the new 6GHz spectrum, as well. Starting with the next release of the 5G standard, a currently obscure feature called 5G-U (“5G-unlicensed”) will enable 5G devices to make use of unlicensed spectrum. Currently, 5G networks use frequencies below 2.6GHz, around 3.5GHz, and above 24GHz in various parts of the world, but 5G-U will eventually let devices opportunistically access 5G using 5GHz, 6GHz, and/or some higher frequencies when they’re needed and available. Picture the magenta Volkswagen merging from the clogged private road onto the open highway as appropriate, or in some cases, simultaneously using both roads at once to deliver an especially big load. Once 5G and Wi-Fi 6E both use the same 6GHz spectrum, you might ask again why this isn’t the zero-sum game discussed at the beginning of this article — in other words, why 5G’s gain won’t necessarily be Wi-Fi’s loss. There are multiple answers, but the most straightforward ones are about money, infrastructure, and connectivity. For the time being, 5G devices are individually subscribed to cellular networks and generally use metered data to individually connect to the outside world, while Wi-Fi connects multiple devices to an internal network, relying on a single point of connection (typically fiber, but potentially cellular) to reach the outside world. Think of this as the difference between 200 straw-sized device pipes connecting to the ocean versus two huge pipes supporting 100 connected devices. There are reasons each type of system could appeal to different users. Equipping a massive outdoor stretch of farmland with Wi-Fi might make less sense than scattering 5G cellular sensors where they’re needed and monitoring them from afar. On the other hand, a smaller automated manufacturing facility may have network security or time sensitivity concerns that 5G — such as a private 5G network, owned by the enterprise rather than a cellular carrier — can handle better than Wi-Fi. One-size-fits-all isn’t the right approach here. Some consumers will continue to be best served by a fiber-to-Wi-Fi router system at home with 5G cellular service outdoors, while others will leverage their phones’ mobile 5G service to provide hotspot service when they’re inside. Businesses will make the choice between equipping their offices with Wi-Fi 6E routers or paying for individual users’ 5G subscriptions, in some cases doing both, and in others, neither. Meanwhile, 5G devices with Wi-Fi 6E chips will become more common, enabling phone, tablet, and traditional computer users to take advantage of whatever spectrum and networks are available, typically without even realizing that it’s happening. Regardless of the connectivity standard, the end result of adding 6GHz spectrum to the mix will be the same: superfast data transfers with lower latency and likely better security than ever before. Promoters of 6GHz 5G and Wi-Fi may think of this “coexisting,” but for most users, it will lead to a sea change in the quality and quantity of wireless applications, eventually enabling holographic communications, untethered photorealistic mixed reality hardware, and wearable/IoT devices with phone-class performance. We’ll be covering the April 23 FCC vote on 6GHz spectrum as it happens. Stay tuned for the latest developments, because they’re going to be important to the future of wireless communications. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Qualcomm expects all-in-one 5G XR viewers in 1-4 years, glasses in 5-10 | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/26/qualcomm-expects-all-in-one-5g-xr-viewers-in-1-4-years-glasses-in-5-10"

"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 Qualcomm expects all-in-one 5G XR viewers in 1-4 years, glasses in 5-10 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. Since Qualcomm provides chips and software for most of the world’s best known virtual and augmented reality headsets, it’s uniquely able to forecast the future of mixed reality hardware. Just ahead of this week’s Augmented World Expo, Qualcomm XR chief Hugo Swart used a Spatial holographic conference to brief media on how that future will likely play out. And though some of the major innovations are years rather than months away, the company is laying the groundwork today. Over the next decade, mixed reality is widely expected to become a key transformative technology for both businesses and average customers, as VR and AR wearables enable users to work and play in hybrid digital/real-world spaces. While prior-generation accessories have been tethered to computers or used smartphones as displays, standalone XR devices and smartphone-tethered “XR viewers” are rapidly gathering steam, a process that’s expected to continue until lightweight standalone 5G XR glasses are available, potentially replacing phones. Today, Qualcomm is publicly unveiling the XR Optimized certification program for Snapdragon smartphones, offering device makers XR viewer specs, supporting software, and a branding badge so customers will be able to easily identify phones compatible with the headsets. As of today, nine companies — ranging from Nreal to Pico — are making compatible viewers, while seven smartphone OEMs and 15 major cellular operators are backing the initiative. 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! Using USB cables for connectivity, these XR viewers will initially rely on smartphones for data, a practical necessity that could help move the entire category forward. Businesses and consumers will be able to make headset purchases from local stores, potentially with subsidized hardware and service bundle pricing. Qualcomm’s XR initiative is already being backed by Verizon in the U.S. , five prominent European networks, and the top carriers in China, Japan, and South Korea. The next step forward will be wirelessly tethered XR viewers, and Swart said Wi-Fi 6E will be used to let cable-free VR and AR viewers connect to smartphones and computers, relying on 6GHz spectrum as an alternative to 60GHz millimeter wave Wi-Fi. Over the next one to four years, cabled XR viewers will transition to fully wireless connections while still using host devices for processing and network (5G) connectivity. Standalone XR devices will become lighter and sleeker during the same period but won’t achieve true glasses-like form factors for a while. Perhaps not surprisingly, Qualcomm expects that the next big step — standalone XR glasses that look like today’s spectacles but have their own processing and 5G capabilities — are five to 10 years off. While Swart didn’t get into the finer details of that timeline, it’s clear the underlying display, processing, and battery technologies that will enable lightweight XR glasses aren’t ready to converge in a consumer product yet, but annual advances in chip miniaturization and cellular power consumption are continuing to bring the dream closer to reality. Hardware will only be part of the story, of course. Over the next few years, Qualcomm partners are working on complete XR ecosystems. Niantic is developing its own AR platform for world-scale gaming. And former HTC head Peter Chou has launched XRSpace , a company with XR hardware and Manova — a metaverse-like gathering place akin to Facebook Horizon — to connect users for various XR experiences. Consumer adoption of solutions on the road to completely standalone XR glasses remains a question mark. But interest in early standalone VR headsets like the Oculus Quest has been encouragingly strong over the past year. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Oculus Studios and Sanzaru unveil Asgard's Wrath VR game | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/02/05/oculus-studios-and-sanzaru-unveil-asgards-wrath-vr-game"

"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 Oculus Studios and Sanzaru unveil Asgard’s Wrath VR game Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Asgard's Wrath is coming to the Oculus Rift. 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. Facebook’s Oculus Studios division announced a new virtual reality game, Asgard’s Wrath, which is coming for the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset from Sanzaru Games. This shows that Oculus remains committed to publishing games on its VR platform in hopes of distinguishing it from the competition in the growing VR market. Mike Doran, an executive producer at Oculus Studios, said in a blog post that Asgard’s Wrath that players will battle as a mortal and rise as a god in this Norse-inspired action-adventure with a heavy role-playing game (RPG) elements. It‘s coming to Rift this year. Above: Asgard’s Wrath comes out in 2019 on the Oculus Rift. In the story, the gods are in their twilight, with Asgard’s inhabitants consumed by bickering and selfish exploits. You, a fledgling god, are birthed in an explosion of light—a clash of primordial forces of nature. Your story begins in the middle of the action with a dramatic, action-packed encounter with Loki. He takes great interest in your potential. Before he can make you a god, Loki has several requests to test your worthiness. Each revolves around a standalone scenario, or Saga, where you must use your powers to help preordained Heroes of the Realms fulfill their destinies. 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! Sanzaru has been working on this title for years. With four movement-heavy VR titles under its belt, Sanzaru is exploring physicality and translating full-body movement into an immersive VR experience with realistic physics. Above: Asgard’s Wrath features realistic physic in combat. “I’ve had the honor of collaborating with them on Asgard’s Wrath through many different experiments and genre shifts that got us to what you see today, and that’s only a brief glimpse of what’s in store,” Doran said. He said, “Sanzaru has cracked the code on bringing visceral melee combat to VR. The fighting mechanics in Asgard’s Wrath anchor the title, require skill, and encourage physical movement. It’s visceral, satisfying, and just fun.” Asgard’s Wrath’s melee fighting system leverages physics and is supported by game rules that demand—and reward—playing with skill. In this game, you can’t just swing wildly and be successful. That might work against some lesser enemies, but eventually you’re going to get your butt handed to you that way, Doran said. “We’ve also incorporated some brutally satisfying dismemberment,” he said. “One of my favorite things to do in-game is to use a shield to ‘catch’ thrown enemy weapons like daggers, yank them out, and throw them right back. Another great moment is swinging your weapon to knock decapitated monster heads through the air.” The game brings together physics, time dilation, dismemberment, and ragdoll body movements to complete the core foundation of combat. When Sanzaru first started prototyping this game, the player was always at god-scale. Eventually, the developers added a mortal hero to mix things up and give the player something to protect and support. Sanzaru then had the idea to let players swap back and forth between god and hero. 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. All rights reserved. "

"How ILMxLab built the Vader Immortal: Episode II virtual reality experience | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/09/28/how-ilmxlab-built-the-vader-immortal-episode-ii-virtual-reality-experience"

"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 ILMxLab built the Vader Immortal: Episode II virtual reality experience 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. I can never get the folks at ILMxLAB to acknowledge that their Vader Immortal virtual reality experience is actually a game. They call it an “experience.” I call it a game. I suspect it has something to do with the legal deal between Disney and Electronic Arts. The latter gets to make Star Wars games, while Disney’s divisions like ILMxLAB have to make, uh, experiences. Whatever you call it, Vader Immortal is one of the more interesting creations for Facebook’s Oculus Quest and Oculus Rift VR headsets. ILMxLab and Oculus released the surprise Episode II of Vader Immortal on the Oculus Store during a keynote speech on Wednesday at the Oculus Connect 6 event in San Jose, California. Above: Vader Immortal: Episode II unveiled at OC6. You play a kind of padawan, or trainee, for Darth Vader. I stepped into the role and did some training in the Lightsaber Dojo II. It was better than the first episode because I could use Force Push powers to get rid of the enemies flying around me. And I got to hear the hissing breath of Lord Vader himself, who seems to take an interest in my ability to manipulate some rocks. It’s a tantalizing addition to Star Wars. And while the experience is on rails, where you teleport from spot to spot on a predefined path, it really makes you feel like you’re in the presence of Darth Vader himself. 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 talked with the folks at ILMxLAB and Facebook about this: Jose Perez III (supervisor, creative development and experience design) and senior producer Alyssa Finley, as well as Colin Slevin, Facebook’s head of media, AR/VR experiences. They have one more part to go in their VR trilogy. Episode II is available now on the Oculus Store for $10. Here’s an edited transcript of our interview. Above: Left to right: Jose Perez III, Alyssa Finley, and Colin Slevin GamesBeat: You have Vader Immortal: Episode II is out. How long have you been doing that now? Alyssa Finley: They planned out the story as a story that had chapters built into it. That’s really helped us, because it’s been a foundation to lay the whole thing on. We’ve been able to do a bit of getting some people started on one episode while the previous one is finishing up. We’ve been able to intertwine the development in a way that’s been helpful for the team. We learned a lot from finishing the first episode, and we were able to bring those lessons into Episode II. Jose Perez III: Episodic development is like a relay race. The people at the start of the second episode are picking up the baton from the people at the tail end of the first one. GamesBeat: Can you explain more about the storyline and where it’s going in Episode II? Finley: You start out in episode one and you learn that you have some importance to Darth Vader, which is a pretty special feeling from the start. Then, at the end, he says, “You’re going to need the Force in order to survive the path ahead.” Episode II picks up from that moment exactly, picking up with him teaching you to use the Force. What a teacher Darth Vader is. [ Laughs ] From there you get set loose in the area underneath his castle, and you have to use the tools you’ve picked up in order to make it through the story. Perez III: Plus giant monsters, which is obviously an important part of this. GamesBeat: Giant monsters on your side, or on somebody else’s? Perez III: I don’t think she’s very friendly to you in this thing. I’d like to think in maybe a different setting you could be friends, but here she’s definitely hungry and upset. GamesBeat: I’m still figuring out who’s my friend here. Darth Vader asks me if I can do something with this rock thing, and I think, “Why should I help out Darth Vader?” Perez III: It says a lot about the power of the character. When you’re in there, you’re already questioning the motivations, which is fantastic. Above: Vader Immortal: Episode II GamesBeat: So you want me to think about that? Perez III: I want you to have fun and think about whatever it is that you’re doing. [ Laughs ] GamesBeat: As the player, do you develop some kind of agency at some point, to make your own decision here as opposed to just doing what Darth says you do? Perez III: The Vader Immortal series is definitely a narrative-first experience. It’s about telling a story and pulling you through that. The combat does open up a bit, so there’s definitely some agency in the choices there throughout the story. The dojo is all about agency. Do I want to use the Force? Do I want to hold the lightsaber? Do I want to throw the lightsaber? Am I using traps around the world to squish things? We get the best of both worlds, I think. GamesBeat: My thought about the dojo before — could you develop that more into something that people could spend a long time with? The episode itself is only about 45 minutes or so. Perez III: The first episode was about 45 minutes, yeah. If you spent enough time in the dojo, it really does ramp up. We’ve seen people spend hours in that. The new dojo is a lot more accessible, I think. It’s easier to jump into, especially because you can attack from a distance now. The first one was a lot about waiting there and feeling it out. It could get really intense. This one, we made it a bit easier, just because you’re so much more powerful. We’re hoping that people enjoy it and that does extend their time with the series. Finley: You can also really pick your style in the new dojo. Dojo one was all lightsaber, and beautifully so, but now you can really–you can bring a lot more of yourself to the gameplay. For me, that made me want to try harder and get better, get to those end levels that were super hard. Perez III: It’s fun to see the different styles come out. Some people will light up the lightsaber and then just put it away and use the Force as much as they can. Other people will hold it old-school. I throw it like crazy. Above: The Darkghast Bomb Battle in Vader Immortal: Episode II. Colin MacKie: All I do is throw it. Perez III: I’m just, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh! It’s too fun. GamesBeat: Does it have an ending to it, the dojo? Perez III: The dojo is really just about having that experience, having fun with the toys of Star Wars. This one has 50 rounds in it, and the 50th round is definitely not easy to complete, but we have a reward structure throughout. You unlock new lightsaber hilts, a bunch of the iconic ones, from Mace Windu to Darth Vader. Now we have gloves as well that you can unlock. As you progress through it, you’ll unlock a bunch of fun rewards, and with Oculus Home on Rift you get some fun things that show up there as well. Finley: And all the rewards from the first dojo. I can get my purple kyber crystal, which I quite enjoy. GamesBeat: Are you still calling this an “experience” rather than a game? Finley: Yeah. MacKie: It’s a fine line. GamesBeat: Have you settled on how many episodes you want to do? Finley: We’ve announced three episodes. That’s the way we built the story from the get-go, to be a three-episode arc — a beginning, a middle that you’ve just seen, and a pretty awesome ending. Perez III: Star Wars loves trilogies. Above: Working out in the Lightsaber Dojo II in Vader Immortal: Episode II. GamesBeat: Does the third one have a date yet? Finley: We’re here to talk about Episode II. [ Laughs ] Episode I was in May, day and date with Quest. GamesBeat: Does the story pull anything into itself from other Star Wars storylines, or is this all completely original? Perez III: It’s definitely an original story within Star Wars. The nature of working in Star Wars is that it’s this huge mosaic where you’re constantly building things off of it. We’re respecting all of that. Anywhere we have cool story hooks we’ll bring it in, but this is really an original story for this platform. For us, that’s super exciting. We’re not just retreading other stuff. We’re crafting a new story here. GamesBeat: One of the criticisms of the first episode was that you’re mostly doing two movements. It got to be fairly predictable. Are you trying to get away from that, expand on that? Perez III: I think you’ll find the combat in this one is a lot more active than the last one. And it definitely is more organic, the way that you’re dealing with that. MacKie: You literally have more dimensions. You’re dealing with the Force and you’re able to throw the lightsaber. Perez III: You can push, pull, pick up things, throw things. You can grab rocks and chuck them at the little robot faces. You can smash them into each other. And in the dojo you can do all of that with the lightsaber. You can pick up a droid, throw the lightsaber to stab it there, pull it back, and then throw it at another droid. It’s madness. Finley: There are a lot more types of enemies this time around, too. With the Force it opened it up to lava nymphs, to the dargast, to a bunch of new characters that would have been–with the lightsaber things had to come to you, like you were saying. Now you can go to them. It gives you more opportunities to be super powerful. Above: ZO-E3 and Vylip in Vader Immortal: Episode II. GamesBeat: They were getting behind me, too. Do you get a bit more exercise in this one? Perez III: I feel like I’m getting really fit working on this project. [ Laughs ] My right arm, for sure. This is just all muscle at this point. GamesBeat: Is this one about the same length as the last one? Perez III: It’s a pretty similar length for the story experience, yeah. I think the dojo in this one might go a little bit longer, though. It’s just more waves. GamesBeat: Does that have to do with the comfort level people have in VR? Perez III: I think it’s more that that we felt that was about the length that was comfortable for the story. I definitely think there’s a world where you could expand it over hours and hours, but for what we’re making now, we felt like this was a nice, clean drop for each one. MacKie: I think so, too. We’ve found–we have a lot of these sorts of biases. “Oh, people like 15-to-20-minute thresholds for the time they spend.” But what we’ve found is that when it comes to something like Vader Immortal or other experiences we’ve helped people with, 45 to 50 minutes, an hour, people will stay in there that long if the experience is good. If it’s comfortable and exciting and interesting, they’ll stay in. Perez III: We had a friend go through the other day. They came out thinking it was only 15 or 20 minutes, because they were so into it. “You were in there for an hour, dude.” MacKie: One of the anecdotal metrics we use a lot is when someone takes off the headset and says, “How long was I in there?” They literally don’t know. When time dilates for people, that’s a good sign. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Vader Immortal proved VR 'experiences' are just underdeveloped games | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2019/11/25/vader-immortal-proved-vr-experiences-are-just-underdeveloped-games"

"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 Vader Immortal proved VR ‘experiences’ are just underdeveloped games Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Episode II is out now. 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. Vader Immortal was supposed to be a big deal. Developed by Lucasfilm’s ILMxLAB, the three-episode Star Wars VR series was described by famed writer and executive producer David S. Goyer as his “dream come true” — an immersive narrative about legendary villain Darth Vader “conceived and executed specifically for the VR medium,” launching on Oculus Quest. But when an article described Vader Immortal as a game , Oculus reached out for a correction. This was neither a game nor a series of games ; rather, it was an experience. Wait, what? “Experience” suggested that I might conclude the three episodes with a greater depth of knowledge about my character than a game, or have a stronger sense of involvement in the story than a movie. Or perhaps it implied less of a sense of play and more of a sense of being there. Maybe, some suggested, Vader Immortal could not be a “game” because only Electronic Arts had the rights to make Star Wars games. Without a clear answer from Oculus, I spent months wrestling with this dichotomy, playing through — err, experiencing — each of the three episodes of Vader Immortal as they were released. By the end, I hoped that I would reach some bigger revelation about VR “experiences” relative to games. That didn’t happen. After giving Oculus and ILMxLAB the benefit of many months (and $30 of my own cash) to prove that there was anything special about their VR experience, my conclusion is that the word is basically an excuse for not developing a concept fully into a game or movie. In other words, a VR experience is a movie without fixed cinematography, or a game minus deep gameplay or branching storylines — you’re a participant whose participation barely matters. Going forward, it’s a term that will make me view the developer with deep skepticism, and I would prefer to see it go away. 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! Vader Immortal’s story is pretty simple, and certainly wouldn’t be enough to fill a Star Wars novel. You’re the captain of a small ship whose ancestry attracts the attention of Darth Vader, conveniently located in a castle on the volcanic planet Mustafar. Vader needs your help until he doesn’t, so you’ll get a tiny bit of face time and Jedi/Sith training from the dark lord before being forced to confront him. Above: Darkghast Bomb Battle in Vader Immortal: Episode II. Because this is a Star Wars experience, you’ll interact with a wisecracking droid, humanoid aliens, stormtroopers, and a few different environments with all the dust, rusted metal, and sparks one might have expected from A New Hope. The graphics and audio are better than you’d expect from a standalone VR headset, though not PC- or console-caliber. Unfortunately, if you’re hoping for deep immersion, you won’t find it here. Your character doesn’t have a name beyond “Captain,” or any personality to speak of. There isn’t any creature cantina or Jabba’s skiff moment where you feel like you’re inside a weird or dangerous scenario. Contrary to the title, you won’t learn anything new about Vader’s own mortality, either. Instead, Vader Immortal feels largely like you’re pulling on a string that’s been set up to take you through a predestined path through some caves and starship hangers. A lot of the action is the VR equivalent of book page-flipping: keep tapping a button to move, move behind a character who’s talking, or traverse a corridor without assistance. Because the developers couldn’t just make it that boring, you learn how to grab and throw things with the Force and how to (briefly) wield a lightsaber — a feature that’s only lightly explored in the story, then left for a mobile game-quality training dojo. Underdevelopment means that Vader Immortal’s key moments are interrupted by technical glitches — problems I saw in both episodes 2 and 3 — and otherwise have little resonance. One gets the feeling that the releases, particularly the brief and generally bland episode 2 , were somewhat rushed out rather than polished, though there are bigger overarching issues than that. Above: Vader Immortal ads played up Vader’s size, but he’s not so imposing in VR. For instance, during brief encounters with Darth Vader, I couldn’t believe that he wasn’t as imposing, tough, or as good with a lightsaber as anyone might imagine. Canonically, the character is supposed to be 6 feet, 8 inches tall, but he looked shorter than me when I went one-on-one with him, even though I’m 8 inches shorter than him in real life — something Quest is capable of knowing from its 3D mapping system. Immersive goggles typically make everything seem huge, but Vader Immortal is the rare example of a VR experience where a key element felt smaller than expected. More intimidating than Lord Vader were groups of stormtroopers armed with blasters, but even then, there were no life bars or risk of having the story end — because this wasn’t a “game.” Episode 3’s gun-versus-lightsaber battles play out like Sega’s Virtua Cop , but with greater repetition and zero sense of peril or excitement. The only moments during the entire three-part story that raised my heart rate were scenes that required big arm gestures to climb on ladders, and even then, failure just meant trying again. Oculus even enables the bigger interactive moments to be turned off for a comfort-focused mode that is even less intense. Therein lies the biggest issue with a “VR experience.” Market something as a “game” and there are certain expectations for the physical effort and 8-20 hours of time that will be required of the “player.” Similarly, call something a “movie” and someone will expect to sit back and watch for roughly two hours without having to move around. Use an amorphous phrase like “experience” and users won’t know what to expect, but will expect it to fall somewhere in the middle. Instead, what I got out of each $10 episode of Vader Immortal was less than an hour of story/experience with relatively light interactivity, and zero need to revisit the main content a second time. My initial instinct was to feel ripped off, because I could have enjoyed three legitimately good theatrical movies for $10 each, or used the aggregated $30 toward a complete game such as Star Wars: Fallen Order. Above: Lightsaber Dojo II in Vader Immortal: Episode II. On the other hand, Vader Immortal’s $30 total asking price is about the same as what The Void was charging for its comparatively brief Secrets of the Empire location-based VR experience. And unlike The Void, which charges by the person, there wouldn’t be any additional cost for my kids or wife to try Vader Immortal — if they had any interest in doing so. As of now, they don’t, but that might change. I have no idea how many copies of the Vader Immortal episodes Oculus has sold, but after 3,330 Quest ratings of the first part, there were less than 1,500 for the second, and fewer than 350 for the third. While each of the parts has a 4-star or higher rating, that suggests to me that most of the people who weren’t satisfied dropped off after the first part, leaving only the hardest-core Star Wars fans to keep buying episodes. If I hadn’t been interested in writing about Vader Immortal, I sure wouldn’t have spent the cash. New Oculus Quest users might not have to. Oculus announced that it will be giving away all three episodes for free to Quest buyers over this holiday season, and my guess is that people who don’t have to pay for the three apps (or wait months between episodes) might enjoy them more, boosting up the ratings. Even if that happens, I hope that Oculus and ILMxLAB won’t be revisiting the Star Wars universe with further “experiences.” It’s time for a proper Star Wars VR game, and given the rapid success of Disney+ , VR could be a great opportunity to expand the world of The Mandalorian. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Uber Eats for businesses launches globally amid remote working surge | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/04/08/uber-eats-for-businesses-launches-globally-amid-remote-working-surge"

"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 Eats for businesses launches globally amid remote working surge Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Uber Eats 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. Uber is officially launching Uber Eats food delivery for businesses today, 17 months after first launching a pilot version of the service in the U.S. The company said it is now “fast-tracking” the global launch after the number of businesses customers using Uber Eats surged in March, due in part to enforced home-working policies during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is an important launch for Uber, as demand for ride-hailing services plummeted in the wake of shelter-at-home policies that started in the U.S. in the middle of March. In recent days, Uber has encouraged its drivers to look for work in other areas of its business, including Uber Freight , on-demand recruitment platform Uber Works , and Uber Eats. Although online food delivery services have reportedly been adversely impacted by the pandemic , Uber said it saw a 28% increase in Uber for Business customers using Uber Eats between February and March. And while many employees are working from home during the COVID-19 crisis, essential frontline workers are still working on-site in banks, hospitals, and elsewhere. These individuals may now have limited access to food sources, another reason Uber Eats has seen a rise in demand over the past month. Diversify Uber has long sought to diversify its business beyond its core consumer ride-hailing service. Back in 2014, the company launched Uber for Business , making it easier for employees to bill work-related trips to their company, and it also launched UberFresh — later rebranded as UberEats — which leverages its transport network to deliver restaurant-cooked meals to people’s homes. Thus, a dedicated Uber Eats for businesses product made complete sense when it launched back in November 2018. Starting today, Uber Eats is shedding its “pilot program” tag for businesses in the U.S. and will be made available in the U.K., Canada, France, and Brazil. The company plans to expand the service to more than 20 markets throughout 2020. Uber Eats for businesses differs slightly from the consumer-focused incarnation. It’s aimed at travelers who want to order food to their hotel or Airbnb while on a work trip, people staying late at the office, or staff at that big lunchtime meeting. Through a dedicated dashboard, company admins can set parameters for things like per-meal allowances, location, and what time of day meals can be ordered. They can, for example, stipulate that meals only be ordered after 6 p.m. on weekdays, and they can geofence orders so they’re only made while a worker is in the office. Employees can use the standard Uber Eats app and simply switch to their work profile when placing an order. Above: Uber Eats: Personal and Business accounts The global launch also ushers in a handful of new features, including the ability to pay using an individual corporate credit card, rather than charging everything directly back to the main corporate account. Before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, Uber was struggling to cut its losses in the quest for profitability. Uber Eats has represented the company’s fastest-growing business even as the unit loses money, with sales increasing 73% in the past year. It’s clear Uber sees the current home-working surge as an opportunity to not only keep its drivers earning money but also gain traction in the corporate lunch realm. “We’ve made this move to respond to a surge of interest from companies looking to support employees who are working from home or who have limited food options on the road or in the field,” noted Ronnie Gurion, global head of Uber for Business. “In addition to supporting employee productivity and social distancing, this expansion is seeking to help broaden the delivery marketplace for restaurants partnered with Uber Eats and ensure that they have access to higher volume, repeat orders.” 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. All rights reserved. "

"Uber Connect lets you deliver things to friends and family | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/04/20/uber-connect-lets-you-deliver-things-to-friends-and-family"

"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 Connect lets you deliver things to friends and family Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Uber Connect 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. Uber has announced a duo of new services as the company chases fresh revenue streams to offset the impact of COVID-19. With billions of people around the world forced into lockdown during the coronavirus crisis, tech firms across the spectrum have been adapting to this “new normal.” For platforms that enable remote working , this has meant catering to a surge in demand. But for Uber, which relies significantly on physical interactions, it has had to get creative. Shelter-at-home policies enforced by the COVID-19 pandemic has decimated Uber’s core ride-hailing business , leading the company to fast-track the global launch of Uber Eats for business , accept phone orders for food deliveries , and even expand into grocery deliveries. Now, Uber is looking to deliver pretty much anything, from pet food and medical supplies — and it even wants to deliver goods between friends and family living at different addresses. Direct deliveries Uber Direct builds on a service that Uber launched initially back in 2015 called UberRush, which was designed to enable local businesses to get all manner of goods to consumers in minutes. Uber eventually shuttered UberRush in 2018 , noting that it was applying its lessons learned to its burgeoning Uber Eats business. As part of its new offering, the company is working with retail partners looking to embrace on-demand delivery. The initial roster of partners include online pharmacy Cabinet to deliver over-the-counter medication in New York. Elsewhere, Uber has signed up partners in Portugal, South Africa, and Australia to courier parcels, medication, and pet supplies. But arguably the most interesting new service is Uber Connect, which is essentially a peer-to-peer delivery service that allows anyone to send anything they want to anybody else. Inside the main Uber app, riders will now see an option that enlists the services of a driver to transport goods. Above: Uber Connect This makes perfect sense for Uber, as it instantly opens its vast transport network to millions of people who may want to send some spare toilet paper or hand-wash over to their grandparents’ house. In reality, though, it could be used for just about anything, including someone who wants to swap a guitar for their buddy’s exercise bike which is located on the other side of town. Crucially, this new service promotes social distancing, so anyone who would otherwise have been tempted to jump in their car and drive over to someone’s house to borrow or lend an item can pay an Uber driver to do so instead. And of course, the millions of Uber drivers who have been pretty much out of work for the past month will now have an additional way to earn money. For now, Uber Connect is available in more than two dozen cities in the U.S., Australia, and Mexico, though it’s safe to assume that this will expand into new markets and could even be made permanently available, if demand for the service is sufficient. 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. All rights reserved. "

"Uber leads $170 million round in Lime and offloads Jump | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/07/uber-leads-170-million-round-in-lime-and-offloads-jump"

"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 leads $170 million round in Lime and offloads Jump Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Lime scooters: Paris, February (2019) 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. Electric scooter company Lime has raised $170 million in a round of funding led by Uber, with participation from Alphabet, Alphabet’s VC arm GV, and Bain Capital, among others. As part of the deal, Uber is transferring its electric bike service Jump over to Lime, which will “further expand” its integration with Uber’s mobile app. The announcement comes after a turbulent couple of months for urban transportation. The pandemic-driven global lockdown has meant that demand for scooters and ride-hailing services has plummeted, with Lime pulling its platform from major markets back in March and Uber suspending its carpool offering. In the two months since, Uber has tried to adapt by putting its vast transport network to other uses , while both Uber and Lime have laid off significant portions of their workforce. Reports emerged earlier this week that Uber was looking to invest in Lime at a $510 million valuation — 79% lower than its previous valuation — with an option to buy the company outright for a set price sometime in the next few years. Neither company has confirmed Lime’s valuation at this round, but it has almost certainly lost its unicorn status. Scale Combining Jump and Lime gives both micromobility platforms greater reach and breadth, while Uber’s sheer scale will help promote the services more prominently inside its app. Many cities around the world are planning to turn streets over to pedestrians, bikes, and other cleaner forms of transport once lockdowns lift after many feared people would use their cars more frequently to avoid public transportation, thereby increasing pollution. Today’s news not only gives Uber a greater stake in Lime — which it had invested in previously — it also allows the transportation behemoth to double down on cleaner options that help people adhere to social distancing measures. Earlier this week, news emerged that Intel was planning to pay $900 million to purchase transit platform Moovit, which has also been impacted by the decline in urban traffic. It later emerged that Moovit had been looking to raise more capital, but when the pandemic hit selling to Intel evidently made sense. These two deals in the space of just a few days are early indicators that we can likely expect to see quite a bit more M&A activity in the months ahead. 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. All rights reserved. "

"VanMoof raises $13.5 million for electric bikes as cities reclaim roads from cars | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2020/05/12/vanmoof-raises-13-5-million-for-electric-bikes-as-cities-reclaim-roads-from-cars"

"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 VanMoof raises $13.5 million for electric bikes as cities reclaim roads from cars Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn VanMoof 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. VanMoof , a Dutch company that builds and sells a range of electric bikes, has raised €12.5 million ($13.5 million) in a round of funding from Balderton Capital and Sinbon Electronics. The COVID-19 crisis served as a “catalyst” for the investment, according to Balderton, as cities around the world ease lockdown restrictions and consider safer commuting options for people returning to work. The long-tail impact of the pandemic is far from clear, but recent announcements from local authorities around the world suggest that the urban mobility landscape will look very different in the months and years ahead. New York last month revealed it would open up 100 miles of streets to pedestrians, including expanding sidewalks and creating new bike lanes. Other major conurbations across the world have announced similar plans , designed to keep people away from crowded public transport and ensure roads don’t become congested with private vehicles. While some of these measures may be temporary, many cities — such as Milan — have indicated that their push to reclaim roads for foot traffic and bikes will be a permanent fixture in a post-COVID world. Founded in 2009, VanMoof touts itself as a “fully integrated end-to-end” business, which means that it controls every part of the e-bike process — from design through production, and on to sales and customer service. The company sells electric bikes through its own online store and in its own branded brick-and-mortar outlets in New York, Seattle, San Francisco, London, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Paris, and elsewhere. Above: VanMoof Tokyo store Cofounder and designer Taco Carlier said that VanMoof saw a year-on-year sales increase of 48% for February and March 2020, and its sales this year so far have remained at more than 20% over its target. The company is currently on course to pass its annual revenue goal of €100 million ($108 million), having raked in €40 million ($43 million) last year. While it’s difficult to pin these gains entirely on the global pandemic, there is likely at least some correlation, and bike sales across the board are generally up. “With social distancing the new reality, demand for high quality e-bikes is on the rise,” Carlier told VentureBeat. Just a few weeks back, VanMoof launched its cheapest e-bikes to date, but at nearly $2,000 they are not what would normally be construed as mass-market machines. However, in a climate where bikes and other forms of personal transport are being encouraged, consumers could be more inclined to invest in a premium bike that helps get them to work without breaking a sweat. “The recent launch of our new electric VanMoof [e-bike] has seen sales develop at over twice the speed of any previous launch in the company’s history,” Carlier said. Urban sprawl A quick peek across the urban mobility landscape reveals significant headwinds for many of the major technology players. With demand for ride-hail services at an all-time low , Uber has tried to adapt by putting its vast transport network to other uses , while last week it announced it was upping its investment in e-scooter company Lime and merging its own Jump electric bike service into Lime. This move effectively allows Uber to double down on cleaner transport options while helping people adhere to social distancing measures. Elsewhere, urban transit app Moovit elected to sell itself to Intel for $900 million , after setting out to raise more VC cash before the pandemic curtailed things. It’s clear that investors are hungry for companies that will flourish in a post-pandemic world, and VanMoof is well-aligned to benefit. “While we believe VanMoof has built an enduring brand that will be successful whatever shape the future takes, our current moment in time was a catalyst for our investment,” Balderton principal Colin Hanna told VentureBeat. “Firstly, VanMoof is helping cities become greener and commuters to lighten their carbon footprint at a time when consumer momentum to battle climate change has never been stronger. Secondly, we’ve seen a surge in cycling infrastructure investment by cities and huge consumer willingness to move towards electric bikes as a safe commuting choice that can save money over the long run.” According to Hanna, Balderton had met with VanMoof several times over the past year “getting to know each other,” but most of the discussions and due diligence for its investment began and closed after the COVID-19 crisis hit. Prior to now, VanMoof had raised around $7 million, and with its fresh cash injection it will push its brand into new international markets. 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! 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