A vibrant culture of web3, metaverse, VR, blockchain and other related technologies has been thriving in Tamil Nadu. Hence, the Tamil Nadu government is trying to develop new policies to support the web3 ecosystem.
The state houses several technological advancements like AI robots in the airport, AI panic buttons for women’s safety in buses, and AI systems on train tracks to prevent animal collisions. Other than these, the government’s new policies will aim to connect emerging tech start-ups with the academic network of over 570+ engineering colleges to fester research and spur innovation.
Mano Thangraraj, Tamil Nadu’s Information Technology Minister, also spoke on the topic at the TechNext 2022 – Future of the Web 3.0 conference and said, “We have initiated interactions with the information technology (IT) sector and academia and could bring change in the sector.”
He released a report titled “Metaverse and Web 3.0 opportunities in India – Nurturing Tamil Nadu’s growth ambitions through next-gen technologies.” The report highlighted all significant IT focusing big on these technologies via design, development, research, and support services alongside XR, 5G, IoT, and AI in the state.
The state now has its artificial intelligence-generated NFT called “Netru, Indru, Nalai” (Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow). It was also launched at the TechNext 2022 Web3 conference.
Stripe, a leading payments service provider, has debuted a project that introduces fiat-to-crypto payments for web3 enterprises around the world. The offering is in the form of a customizable widget embeddable directly into a “decentralized exchange (DEX), NFT platform, or wallet.”
In order for consumers to use their Web3 applications, developers must battle rampant fraud, manage complicated KYC procedures, and somehow still provide a frictionless, high-conversion payments experience. The onramp fiat-to-crypto service will solve this problem.
Over the last few months, Stripe has expanded collaborations with crypto companies to develop projects and offer more services to support crypto payouts in over 67 countries. The company has been working to provide its Global Payments and Treasury Network access to crypto platforms. It partnered with Nifty Gateway to onboard and offer KYC service for creators, enabling them to accept payments.
The fiat-to-crypto offering is not the first attempt to familiarize with crypto payments. The payment firm has already accomplished numerous projects in the domain of blockchain, out of which many are built on Solana. Solana offers convenient and customizable on-premise services and manages know-your-customer (KYC), fraud, and compliance issues.
Audius is one of the first few projects that use Stripe’s fiat-to-crypto widget. It is a decentralized music discovery platform where Stripe’s payment widget will enable users to use their credit cards to purchase AUDIO tokens.
HELLO Labs, a production house founded by the Hollywood producer and director Paul Caslin, has innovated a reality show called “Killer Whales” for web3 innovators. The show will air in 2023 and will combine the most significant elements of shows like America’s Got Talent and Shark Tank.
An ideal episode would feature NFT and crypto projects pitching to a panel of five industry experts referred to as “Whales.” The pitches will aim to convince the whales to mentor the participants and take them to the next level.
The show will broadcast on mainstream platforms and Hello’s own web3 application. Cordell Broadus, aka Champ Medici, executive producer and a celebrity judge in the show, said, “I have been obsessed with looking for the next Steve Jobs or Elon Musk in Web3. Teaming up with Paul and his experienced team, I believe we can deliver a great show to the world.”
The show is a part of HELLO Labs’ efforts to blaze a path through crypto and entertainment and produce TV shows, games, and the company’s own NFT called Hello Token.
In conjunction with the show’s debut, HELLO Labs will also introduce an exclusive “Show Producer” NFT collection that gives owners a chance to participate in the show’s development and have a say in important choices.
In an attempt to combat misinformation, Google and YouTube have announced an investment of US$13.2M in the form of a grant given to the IFCN, the International Fact-Checking Network at the non-profit Poynter Institute. The grant will be used to set up a new Global Fact Check Fund.
Using the largest single grant against misinformation, the Global Fact Check Fund will enable fact-checkers to enhance existing operations and elevate rightful information from credible sources around the world.
The funding, according to Google, can be used by fact-checking organizations to adopt new technologies, build or expand their digital footprints, optimize their verification tools, and improve their capacity to deepen audience engagement through creative storytelling formats like audio, video, or podcasts.
Google offers a fact-check option on the top of the search results to provide users to have an additional context to what they are searching. The feature is available in select countries, and Google is working to roll it out in others.
An “Independent Fact check” box can be seen above.
Binance has been in the spotlight ever since the collapse of its rival platform, FTX, earlier this month. The Chinese-Canadian head of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, pledged to release an audit into his firm last week to defend his claims that he contributed to the collapse of FTX.
The terms of Binance’s purchase of the Japan-based Sakura Exchange BitCoin were not entirely disclosed in the joint statement on Wednesday.
But Binance said that it aims to support a responsible global environment for cryptocurrencies by offering Japanese-regulated services. “The Japanese market will play a vital role in the future of adoption of cryptocurrencies,” the general manager of Binance Japan, Takeshi Chino, said in a statement.
“We will actively work with regulators to set up our combined exchange in a compliant way for local users.” Japan has strived to strengthen its digital currencies regulation following the Tokyo-based MtGox Bitcoin exchange collapse in 2014.
Researchers from Disney have announced a new aging/de-aging tool, Face Re-aging Network (FRAN), a neural network that can make actors look older or younger without needing weeks of complex visual effects work.
The technology will enable TV or film producers to re-age actors using an automated, cost-effective, and less time-consuming process than previous methods.
Disney presented the research in a paper called “Production-Ready Face Re-Aging for Visual Effects” and submitted it to be included at the 2022 ACM SIGGRAPH Asia conference to be held in December.
Traditionally, when special effects staff on a film or video production need to re-age the actor, they usually either use a 3D modeling and 3D scanning process or a 2D frame-by-frame digital retouching of the face using tools like Photoshop. This process can take weeks, depending on the length of the work.
In contrast, Disney’s new AI technique automates the process. Disney calls it the first production-ready, practical, and fully automatic method for re-aging faces in video images.
To build FRAN, Disney researchers randomly created thousands of samples of synthetically aged faces between ages 18-85 using StyleGAN2. With that training data in hand, FRAN learned general principles about how a person’s appearance changes with age. Now that training is complete, it can apply those aging principles to a real actor in motion, frame by frame.
AWS re:Invent is the biggest and the most comprehensive cloud computing event hosted by Amazon Web Services, a leading cloud service provider. The annual event features several announcements, innovations, and training opportunities for the cloud computing community and has been one of the most transformative conferences in the last 10 years. AWS re:Invent 2022 commenced on November 28 in Las Vegas. Adam Selipsky, CEO of AWS, initiated the event with a water sustainability pledge to return more water to communities than its usage in cloud operations by 2030. Others, including Swami Sivasubramanian (VP of AWS Data & ML), Dr. Werner Vogels (VP and CTO at AWS), and other executives, are also speaking on new product and innovation launches.
This article highlights some AWS re:Invent 2022 announcements made during the global conference.
Top AWS re:Invent 2022 Announcements
Have a look at some of the major announcements made at AWS re:Invent 2022.
1. Announcements on Compute and Cloud Management
AWS introduced large-scale spatial simulations with SimSpace Weaver at the AWS re:Invent 2022. SimSpace Weaver is a novel computing service running real-time spatial simulations simultaneously across several Amazon EC2 instances. Using this service, developers can overcome computing and memory constraints while running jobs, as quoted by Selipsky.
AWS has also introduced ENA (Elastic Network Adapters) Express for improved network latency and performance on Amazon EC2 instances. ENAs are built on top of AWS’ Scalable Reliable Datagram (SRD) Protocol and reduce latency by up to 50% while increasing network bandwidth.
The event also witnessed Wipro’s launch of Skill Guild in association with AWS. Skills Guild is a comprehensive cloud-based program that will help enterprises to build cloud skills with AWS learning opportunities.
Informatica, a California-based cloud data management company, also introduced a few new offerings at AWS re:Invent 2022 event. The company introduced Informatica Data Loader (for Amazon Redshift console), Informatica Data Marketplace (for AWS data exchange), and Informatica INFACore (to support AWS SageMaker Studio). These services will help departmental users, developers, and data scientists across all skill levels.
AWS also introduced the preview of Amazon CloudWatch Internet Monitor, a new monitoring service for customers to diagnose internet performance issues and generate performance metrics.
2. Partnerships and Collaborations at AWS re:Invent 2022
AWS and TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) have collaborated and launched the TCS Quantum Computing Lab on AWS to enable faster exploration, development, and testing of business solutions in the adoption of quantum computing.
Compass UOL, a technology service provider, has partnered with AWS to build an AWS-owned and operated business unit to accelerate IT modernization in both private and public sectors.
AWS is also working with Siemens to help provide its industrial software into the AWS cloud to help startups in scalability and performance.
3. Announcements catering to the Healthcare Industry
Several AWS re:Invent 2022 announcements show AWS’ work in the healthcare industry to provide specialized tools for better patient care and treatment.
AWS is also exploring scalable data integration from multiple environments. It has announced AWS Clean Rooms for enhanced data collaboration and analysis, enabling companies to work together on massive datasets.
To help mitigate the risks associated with supply chain management, AWS has introduced a preview of the AWS Supply Chain, a cloud-based application that reduces cost and increases resilience.
The AWS re:Invent 2022 event introduced Amazon Omics, a purpose-built service that stores, queries, and analyzes genomic and biological data. The new service will help bioinformaticians, scientists, and researchers work on medical data and advance scientific discoveries.
4. Some other general announcements
AWS is a founding member of the newly-launched Open Cybersecurity Schema Framework and released a preview of the Amazon Security Lake service to enhance the operationality of the cybersecurity framework.
The AWS re:Invent 2022 event also witnessed the reveal of EKS Protection for Amazon GuardDuty, a service that enables users to detect and respond to security threats online at scale.
In addition, the company announced a preview of the serverless Amazon OpenSearch Service. Giving the existing service an option to go serverless simplifies the process of running jobs at a large scale and minimizes the need to configure, manage, or scale OpenSearch clusters.
AWS also announced Amazon DataZone at AWS re:Invent 2022, a new data management system that will bring employees closer to organizational data while maintaining confidentiality. The system is highly integrable with standard AWS tools like Redshift. Selipsky highlighted that finding the right balance between access and control of enterprise data is crucial but different for each enterprise. Hence, DataZone will be accessible, guided, and customizable.
5. A redesigned user interface for Amazon SageMaker Studio
Amazon’s integrated development environment (IDE) SageMaker Studio received a new, user-friendly interface. The company announced the redesign at AWS re:Invent 2022 to introduce a new navigation menu highlighting clear entry points into SageMaker’s capabilities. The navigation is a collapsible bar backed by an architecture that reflects standard ML workflows. The redesigned interface is available in all AWS regions where SageMaker is available.
6. Amazon Redshift Multi-AZ (preview) support for RA3 clusters announced at AWS re:Invent 2022
Redshift introduced a preview of Multi-AZ deployments to support running data warehouses in multiple AWS availability zones (AZ) simultaneously. The new setup will help clients with business-critical analytical applications achieve the highest availability and resilience to AZ failures. The preview is currently available in the following AWS regions: US East (N. Virginia), US East (Ohio), US West (Oregon), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), Europe (Ireland), and Europe (Stockholm).
7. New-Trusted Language extensions for PostgreSQL on Amazon RDS and Aurora
PostgreSQL is one of the most reliable open-source databases, and numerous enterprises use it because of its convenience and extensive design. Amazon already offers as many as 85 PostgreSQL extensions in the PostgreSQL-compatible edition of Amazon Aurora and Amazon Relational Database Service. However, at the AWS re:Invent 2022 event, the company announced the general availability of Trusted Language Extensions for PostgreSQL. It is an open-source development toolkit for generating PostgreSQL extensions and running them safely. The toolkit will also give developers control over who can use these extensions via permissions models for running them.
8. AWS Glue Data Quality Preview unveiled at AWS re:Invent 2022
AWS Glue has announced a preview version of AWS Glue Data Quality, an automated capability that measures and monitors data lakes and pipelines. It is serverless and allows scalable data integration for more efficient data flows from multiple sources. Extract, transform, and load (ETL) jobs on data pipelines using AWS Glue, which can also set data quality standards and actions. These rules can stop “bad” data from accumulating in data lakes and warehouses. The preview is available for select AWS regions, including US East (Ohio), US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon), Asia Pacific (Tokyo), and Europe (Ireland).
9. AWS AI Service Cards
AWS re:Invent 2022 also witnessed the launch of a new resource that enhances the transparency of artificial intelligence-based AWS services. AWS AI Service Cards are a kind of responsible AI documentation that acts as the point of reference for clients to find information on use cases, limitations, design choices, and deployment methods for AWS’ responsible AI services. The service will include three cards: Amazon Rekognition – Face Matching, Amazon Textract – AnalyzeID, and Amazon Transcribe – Batch.
10. General availability of Amazon DocumentDB Elastic Clusters
AWS announced the general availability of Amazon DocumentDB Elastic Clusters, a new Amazon DocumentDB cluster that enables you to scale document databases elastically. Many of these clusters’ management features, such as Multi-AZ support, AWS CloudWatch integration, automated patching, and snapshot backups, are shared by Amazon DocumentDB instance-based clusters.
11. Preview of AWS Application Composer
The third day of AWS re:Invent 2022 also unveiled a preview of Application Composer, a new service that helps to simplify and accelerate architecting and building serverless applications. It can develop and maintain deployment-ready infrastructure, levering one of the first IaC (infrastructure-as-code) services. The preview is available in the standard select AWS regions.
12. Amazon CodeCatalyst Preview was also announced at AWS re:Invent 2022
AWS introduced a preview of Amazon CodeCatalyst, a unified service streamlining software development and delivery on AWS. The entire project experience offered by CodeCatalyst combines the tools required to plan, code, build, test, and deploy apps. With CodeCatalyst, software development teams can automate many complexities, like setting up tools, CI/CD, integration, etc., and focus on direct applications. The service can also browse a collection of blueprints for standard projects and then choose one to set it up automatically. Users can sign up here and try it on their own.
13. AWS Ambit Scenario Designer
The new AWS Ambit Scenario Designer is a set of tools to accelerate the generation of 3D content for simulations of robots, autonomous vehicles, and other near-real-time 3D applications. Using this new service announced at AWS re:Invent 2022, developers can experiment with simulation scenarios in a fraction of the time taken by traditional methods.
14. Amazon’s Distributed Computing Manifesto
AWS re:Invent 2022 ended with Dr. Werner Vogels talking about quantum computing, the challenges of quantum computing, and how AWS is working on the same. He announced Amazon’s Distributed Computing Manifesto, an age-old canonical document that helped transform Amazon’s e-commerce platform. Dr. Verner published the manifesto in November to re-iterate the challenges that the company is yet to face and where it is headed.
Samsung said it plans to hire about 1,000 engineers from IITs and leading engineering institutes to work on newer technologies at its R&D institutes throughout India at a time when tech giants are laying off thousands of employees across the globe.
The new workforce will work next year at Samsung R&D Institute-Bangalore (SRI-B), Samsung Semiconductor India Research in Bengaluru, Samsung R&D Institute-Noida, and Samsung R&D Institute-Delhi.
The new hires will work on cutting-edge technologies such as the internet of things (IoT), machine learning, image processing, cloud storage solutions, big data, business intelligence, predictive analysis, and system-on-a-chip (SoC), among others.
Samsung will recruit engineers from various streams, such as information technology, electronics, instrumentation, embedded systems, computer science and allied branches, and communication networks.
In addition, the company also plans to hire from fields such as mathematics, computing, and software engineering. This hiring season, Samsung R&D centers will employ around 200 engineers from IITs. They have also offered more than 400 pre-placement offers to students from the IITs and other leading institutions.
OpenAI has introduced a new conversational language model, ChatGPT, for optimizing dialogue. Having trained similarly to InstructGPT, the language model works on the dialogue format to answer questions, challenge premises, and reject derogatory requests.
OpenAI’s GPT (generative pre-trained transformer) language models have been doing well since the GPT-1 and GPT-2 came out. The first two models focused on using accurate datasets and adding parameters to make the model more precise and robust. With GPT-3, the company shook the industry by training it on 570GB of information.
However, with all language models, there is a risk of them generating toxic and inappropriate results.
It has also raised concerns about its potential to spread misinformation and generate harmful language. To mitigate these risks, the ChatGPT Detector can help identify and flag such content, allowing for further review and correction. As OpenAI continues to develop more advanced language models, tools like the ChatGPT Detector will play an increasingly important role in promoting the responsible and ethical use of natural language processing technology.
However, OpenAI is attempting to make language models safer and more ethical. ChatGPT is a fine-tuned version of the GPT 3.5 series and has been trained using Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF). The initial model was trained under supervision, where human AI trainers gave conversational inputs.
OpenAI has provided a free preview for people to try ChatGPT and give feedback. For instance, when given a command to suggest birthday party ideas, ChatGPT outputs:
Try it here after creating an OpenAI account if there is not any existing one.
While ChatGPT is an advancement for conversational AI, it is still bound to have some foundational limitations. The language model sometimes writes “nonsensical answers,” a problem with all language models. Additionally, ChatGPT is sensitive to tweaks to the input and is “excessively verbose.” While OpenAI has undertaken all efforts to prevent model toxicity, it is prone to inappropriate usage as it might respond to harmful instructions too.
OpenAI launched a new model in the GPT-3 family of AI-enabled large language models, called Davinci-003, on Monday. Davinci-003 ensures high quality, more extended output, and better instruction-following.
Soon after the launch of the Davinci-003, people discovered that Davinci-003 could generate rhyming songs, limericks, and poetry, which GPT-3 could not do previously.
I posted about how image-generating AI has gotten exponentially better in the last month.
Well, a new text model was released for GPT-3 today. AI can now write rhyming poems. And acrostics. And limericks. And explain how a candy-powered FTL drive can help me escape from otters. pic.twitter.com/vBAroN2SUv
However, OpenAI has not yet commented anything on the rhyming songs and poetry of Davinci-003.
According to OpenAI, Davinci-003 can perform all the tasks that the other models can and even need fewer instructions. It works well with tasks requiring in-depth knowledge of the subject, like summarizing texts for specific audiences and creative content development. As Davinci-003 produces the best results for tasks that need an in-depth understanding of content, it will require more computing resources. Therefore, Davinci-003 costs more per API call and is also a bit slower than the other models.
Davinci-003 excels at understanding the intent of the text. For example, it is good at providing solutions to various logical problems and explaining the character’s motivation. Davinci-300 has been capable of solving most of the challenging AI problems containing cause and effect.
