New DOD Chief Digital and AI Office to start work by 1st February

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January 27, 2022

The United States Department of Defense ‘s new artificial intelligence office will commence its operations by the 1st of February 2022. The latest development was announced by the US Navy’s Chief Data Scientist.

However, officials say that the office will function at its full potential by June. According to Navy CDO Sasala, the new office will aid the Department of Defense in moving forward with data initiatives, as well as his team’s efforts to bring data-driven decision-making to the Navy.

The new chief digital and AI officer will be in charge of the Department of Defense’s top data officer, the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, and the Defense Digital Service, and also act as an integrator for their activities.

A DOD official said, “We are looking both internally and externally to the Department and actively reviewing potential candidates to ensure we have the right person to drive the kind of progress we need.”

Given the broad portfolio of the department’s chief operating officer, the new post is being tasked to ensure AI and data efforts receive more attention. The memo which created the new positions mentioned, “The CDAO will serve as the Department’s senior official responsible for strengthening and integrating data, artificial intelligence, and digital solutions in the Department.”

Due to their different activities, the three offices have faced overlaps and inefficiencies to date. The new unified reporting system will allow them to work together to build a tech stack that integrates data, software, and artificial intelligence.

DHL Supply Chain Collaborates with Boston Dynamics to Automate Warehousing

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Dipayan Mitra

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January 27, 2022

International express mail service provider DHL Supply Chain collaborates with dynamic robots and software developing company Boston Dynamics to further automate warehousing in the United States.

As a part of this collaboration, DHL Supply Chain will invest $15 million in Boston Dynamics for equipping its warehouses with Boston Dynamics’ developed robot named Stretch. This investment makes DHL the first-ever customer of Boston Dynamics’ Stretch that is capable of automating the unloading process in distribution centers.

Stretch developed by Boston Dynamics can address complex industry challenges through flexible automation. The companies signed a multi-year contract to accelerate the rate of warehouse automation across North America. According to DHL and Boston Dynamics, the deployment of the first batch of Stretch will begin in the spring of 2022.

CIO of DHL Supply Chain North America, Sally Miller, said, “At DHL Supply Chain, we are committed to continuous innovation and digital transformation to optimize the end-to-end supply chain. Investing in warehouse automation plays an important role in increasing operational efficiency and improving service for our customers.”

Miller further added that they are excited to partner with Boston Dynamics to deploy the best available robots in their warehouses. Both the companies have been jointly working to develop and test Stretch over the last year.

Stretch will work in the warehouse on various box-moving activities, starting with truck unloading at chosen DHL locations. After the initial deployment of Stretch, DHL will also use the robot for additional duties to support other aspects of the warehouse workflow.

CEO of Boston Dynamics, Robert Playter, said, “We are thrilled to be working with DHL Supply Chain to deliver a fleet of robots that will further automate warehousing and improve safety for its associates. We believe Stretch can make a measurable impact on DHL’s business operations, and we’re excited to see the robot in action at scale.”

He also mentioned that Stretch is Boston Dynamics’ newest robot, and it was specifically created to solve problems in the warehouse.

Google Cloud to open New Office in Pune by 2022

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Dipayan Mitra

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January 27, 2022

Technology giant Google announces that it is all set to open its new office in Pune, India, by 2022. The announcement was made by the Vice President of cloud engineering India at Google, Anil Bhansali.

According to the company, it has already started hiring for the new office and will begin its operations by the first half of this year.

Google understands that India has been a center for technology and creativity, and the country’s large talent pool makes it a strategic place for Google Cloud to invest in its cloud infrastructure. Google Cloud’s new Pune office will drastically help the company to cater to its growing customer base in this region.

Anil Bhansali said, “I’m pleased to share that Google is opening an office in Pune, and the first Googlers in the space will be in our Cloud Product Engineering, Technical Support, and Global Delivery Center organizations.”

He also mentioned that These teams would work with global engineering teams to develop sophisticated enterprise cloud technologies and provide real-time technical guidance. Additionally, the Google Cloud Pune team will also supply product and implementation expertise that clients expect from Google Cloud for their digital transformation.

Google has started hiring for its Pune office, and interested candidates can check the open positions on Google Careers.

“Over the last 12 months, we’ve hired top engineering talent to join our Development Center in India to support and help build advanced cloud technologies in collaboration with our global engineering teams,” added Bhansali.

Last year, Google had launched its Delhi NCR cloud region office, making India one of the countries in Asia to operate two Google Cloud Regions. Currently, Google operates two offices in India located in Delhi and Mumbai. The addition of Google’s Pune office will further help the company to expand its capability and services in India.

Dental care Startup Smiles.ai raises $23 million in Series A Funding Round

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Dipayan Mitra

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January 26, 2022

Smile.ai $23 million Series A Funding Round

Healthcare service providing company Smiles.ai raises $23 million in its series A funding round led by Alpha Wave Incubation, managed by Falcon Edge Capital, and with strong participation from existing investors Sequoia Capital India and Chiratae Ventures.

MBX Capital, Wami Capital, angel investors Peyush Bansal, and Amit Chaudhary of Lenskart, Aakrit Vaish of Haptik, Revant Bhate of Mosaic Wellness, Miten Sampat of CRED, and Sambhav Rakhyan of WTW are among the other investors who participated in Smiles.ai’s latest funding round.

This investment comes less than a year after the company raised $1 million in its seed round led by Sequoia Capital India and Chiratae Ventures with the participation of some angels and family offices.

Co-founder of Smiles.ai, Hitesh Kakrani, said, “India’s dental care market has remained highly fragmented and without any significant technological disruption for decades. However, now with increasing awareness, increasing disposable incomes, and rising millennial aspirations, the industry is going through a transition, and we are leading this change in India by combining dental care operations and technology expertise.”

According to the company, it plans to use the newly raised funds to expand its footprints in the country, enhance its leadership team, and develop novel tech-driven dental care solutions. He also mentioned that Smiles is positioned to disrupt the market and establish itself as a market leader while preserving its capital efficiency, thanks to its use of technology as a key driver and differentiator.

Bengaluru-based dental care startup Smiles.ai was founded in 2019. The company specializes in using proprietary technology and expert healthcare professionals to provide access to high-quality and cost-effective dental care products and services.

“Given the massive opportunity in the dental care space in India and abroad, we were very impressed with Smiles.ai’s approach in establishing a comprehensive offline base of dentists and building an aligners business on top of that,” said Managing Director of Alpha Wave Incubation, Anirudh Singh.

Meta is building the World’s Fastest Supercomputer

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Dipayan Mitra

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January 25, 2022

Technology giant Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg announced his intentions to create a virtual metaverse. He stated that his social media company is creating what he claims is the world’s fastest artificial intelligence supercomputer.

He said that the metaverse, which combines the physical and digital worlds through virtual and augmented reality, will necessitate colossal processing power. According to Zuckerberg’s Meta business, the AI supercomputer, dubbed AI Research SuperCluster (RSC), is already the fifth fastest in the world.

Artificial intelligence is a computer programme that mimics the brain’s fundamental architecture and is capable of digesting and finding patterns in massive volumes of data. Meta, the company behind Facebook, Instagram, and the WhatsApp messaging service, collects a lot of data from its 2.8 billion daily users.

Mark Zuckerberg said, “The experiences we’re building for the metaverse require enormous compute power (quintillions of operations/second!) and RSC will enable new AI models that can learn from trillions of examples, understand hundreds of languages, and more.” The RSC, according to Meta researchers, will be the fastest computer of its kind when it is finished in the summer.

Following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, it was fined $5 billion for privacy violations, and Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee and whistleblower, has cautioned that the firm is focusing on development into new sectors when it should be focusing on very basic safety mechanisms.

“We hope RSC will help us build entirely new AI systems that can, for example, power real-time voice translations to large groups of people, each speaking a different language, so they can seamlessly collaborate on a research project or play an AR game together,” said researchers from Meta.

The company added that in the end, the collaboration with RSC will pave the way for the development of technologies for the next major computing platform, the metaverse, in which AI-driven apps and products will play a key role.

iCAD’s Breast AI Platform Earns U.S. Department of Defense Authorization to Operate

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Dipayan Mitra

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January 25, 2022

The U.S. Department of Defense has granted Authorization to Operate (ATO) to the Company’s breast artificial intelligence (AI) platform (DoD). ProFound AI®, part of iCAD’s breast AI platform, was the first artificial intelligence software for digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) to be FDA cleared in 2018.

Stacey Stevens, President and incoming CEO of iCAD, Inc., said, “It is a significant accomplishment for our technology to achieve this authorization. This distinction is a testament to the security of our technology and reinforces our steadfast commitment to providing safe and reliable health solutions to our customers and their patients. We look forward to capitalizing on this new market opportunity and continuing to expand access to ProFound AI and enhancing patient care for those in the military and their families.”

To be permitted for usage in a DoD healthcare institution, technology must be given an ATO, according to the DoD’s Risk Management Framework (RMF). To get an ATO designation, technology must meet the Department of Defense’s strict cybersecurity prevention requirements, which are designed to reduce the danger of a cyber-attack.

ProFound AI is a cancer detection tool that analyses each tomosynthesis image quickly and reliably, finding both malignant soft-tissue densities and calcifications. The program is scientifically proven to assist radiologists by boosting cancer diagnosis and cutting reading times while lowering false-positive rates and unnecessary recalls.

It is built with the latest in deep-learning AI technology. Profound AI’s algorithm generates Certainty of Finding lesions and Case Scores when reviewing mammography exams, which show the machine’s confidence that detection or case is malignant.

According to extensive reader research, Profound AI for DBT improved average reader sensitivity and specificity by 8% and 7%, respectively. Additionally, the technology lowered radiologists’ reading time by 52.7 percent.

Silicon Labs Brings AI and ML to the Edge with Matter-Ready Platform

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Dipayan Mitra

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January 25, 2022

Silicon Labs AI and ML Edge with Matter-Ready Platform

Intelligence wireless technology providing company Silicon labs unveils wireless SoCs for Bluetooth and Multiple-protocol operations and a new software toolkit. The newly developed SoCs named BG24 and MG24 will allow the company to bring artificial intelligence and machine learning to the edge with a matter-ready platform.

This new co-optimized hardware and software platform will aid in the delivery of artificial intelligence applications as well as high-performance wireless connectivity to battery-powered edge devices.

Silicon Lab’s newly released processors support a variety of wireless protocols and have PSA Level 3 Secure Vault protection, making them perfect for smart home, medical, and industrial applications.

CEO of Silicon Labs, Matt Johnson, said, “The BG24 and MG24 wireless SoCs represent an awesome combination of industry capabilities including broad wireless multiprotocol support, battery life, machine learning, and security for IoT Edge applications.”

The announced SoCs include the following features –

Two new 2.4 GHz wireless SoC families are available, with support for Matter, Zigbee, Bluetooth mesh, proprietary and multiprotocol operation, OpenThread, Bluetooth Low Energy, and many more such capabilities. The technology also comes with the largest memory and flash capacity in the company’s product portfolio.
A latest software toolkit that enables developers to quickly build and deploy artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms utilizing popular suits such as TensorFlow.

United States-based silicon and software solutions provider Silicon Labs was founded by Bill Bock in 1996. To date, the organization has successfully acquired more than 20 companies, including Redpine Signals, Sigma Designs, Touchstone Semiconductor, Energy Micro, and many more.

Silicon Labs’ new technology will be commercially available from April 2022. However, the product has already been shipped to Silicon Lab’s alpha customers. In a private Alpha program, more than 40 organizations from various industries and applications have already begun developing and testing this innovative platform solution.

Intel to build $20 billion Chip Manufacturing Facility

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Dipayan Mitra

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January 24, 2022

intel $20 billion Chip Manufacturing Facility

Semiconductors manufacturing giant Intel announces its plans to build a $20 billion microchip manufacturing facility in Ohio. This development is a step towards countering the global chip shortage.

The ship shortage has not only affected the smartphone industry but several other electronics and automobile sectors. According to Intel, this new manufacturing facility will considerably help meet the current global demand for semiconductors.

The massive production facility will be built on nearly 1,000 acres and create over 3,000 job opportunities in the initial stage. This new move by Intel also strengthens its motive of manufacturing essential electronics products within the United States.

Experts believe that Intel’s semiconductors manufacturing center in Ohio might make the city a new technology hub as several more related companies would start to open their centers in the region.

CEO of Intel, Patrick Gelsinger, said, “A semiconductor factory is not like other factories. It’s more like a small city supporting a vibrant community of services, suppliers, and ancillary businesses. You can think about this as a magnet for the entire tech industry.”

Intel hinted that the investment for its new production facilities in Ohio could shoot up to $100 billion in the coming decade. The US President Joe Biden used Intel’s announcement in Ohio to promote a $52 billion plan currently awaiting House approval that would invest in the chip industry and ensure that more manufacturing takes place in the United States.

Intel announced that two planned factories, or fabs, will support both its own processor line. Additionally, the Intel factories will also serve as a manufacturer for microchips designed by other companies.

“We are going to invest in America. We’re investing in American workers. We’re going to stamp everything we can, ‘Made in America,’ especially these computer chips,” said Joe Biden.

The current chip foundry business is dominated by Taiwanese company TSMC on a global scale. Intel’s new factories will help them challenge this dominance and make the United States the global leader in semiconductor manufacturing.
Recently, the government of India also approved a Rs 76,000 Cr scheme for Semiconductor Manufacturing to counter the international chip shortage.

Pixis Raises $100 million in its Series C Funding Round

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Dipayan Mitra

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January 24, 2022

Codeless artificial intelligence infrastructure provider Pixis raises $100 million in its series C funding round led by SoftBank Vision Funds 2. Other investors like General Atlantic, Celesta, Premji Invest, and Chiratae Ventures also participated in Pixis’ series C funding round.

According to the company, it plans to use the newly raised funds to scale its AI platforms and plugins. Additionally, Pixis also intends to use its finances to expand into various global markets, including the United States, Europe, and APAC. Exfinity Venture Partners, a Pixis early investor, made a partial exit with 37 times profit because of this Series C funding round.

Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers, Priya Saiprasad, said, ”Pixis has developed an end-to-end codeless AI infrastructure that equips teams with cutting-edge data science to automate and improve core processes, from budget allocation to real-time campaign optimization and reporting.”

She also mentioned that they are incredibly excited to partner with Pixis to support the mission to make marketing data-backed, intelligent, agile, and effortlessly scalable in the new cookie-less world.

United States-based technology company Pixis, formerly known as Pysis One, was founded by Harikrishna Valiyath, Shubham A Mishra, and Vrushali Prasad in 2018. The firm specializes in providing codeless artificial intelligence-powered infrastructure to scale accurate data-driven marketing. To date, the company has raised total funding of $128 million over three funding rounds. Last year, Pixis raised nearly $17 million during its Series B funding round.

“The web going cookieless, in conjunction with decreasing access to the depth of data that was previously available, is a worrisome situation for marketers. In this environment, it is self-evolving neural networks that are proving to be invaluable assets in countering the disruptions to the marketing landscape,” said Shubham Mishra.

He further said that they are looking forward to partnering with SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and General Atlantic to make codeless artificial intelligence infrastructures more accessible in different parts of the world.

Researchers develop an AI light-field Camera that reads 3D Facial Expressions

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Dipayan Mitra

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January 24, 2022

AI light-field Camera 3D Facial Expressions

Researchers from Korea’s one of the best science and technology universities, KAIST’s Department of Bio and Brain Engineering, have developed a new artificial intelligence-powered light field camera that can read 3D facial expressions.

The highly capable camera uses a technique that uses infrared light to read facial expressions. Professors Ki-Hun Jeong and Doheon Lee led the research team which developed this artificial intelligence-enabled technology.

The newly developed light-field camera comes with micro-lens arrays in front of the image sensor, allowing it to capture the spatial and directional information of light in a single shot, making it tiny enough to fit into a smartphone.

The research named ‘Machine-Learned Light-field Camera that Reads Facial Expression from High-Contrast and Illumination Invariant 3D Facial Images’ was published in Advanced Intelligent Systems.

Prof Ki-Hun Jeong said, “The sub-miniature light-field camera developed by the research team has the potential to become the new platform to quantitatively analyze the facial expressions and emotions of humans.”

He further added that the technology could be used in various fields like mobile healthcare, field diagnosis, social cognition, and human-machine interactions. According to the researchers, facial expressions captured through 3D images had more than 80% accuracy, making it a reliable technology.

The camera uses a near-IR-range vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) to stabilize the precision of 3D picture reconstruction, which was previously dependent on ambient light. Researchers say that the light-field camera eliminates 54 percent of image reconstruction errors when an external light source is placed on a face at 0-, 30-, and 60-degree angles.

Researchers were also able to reduce optical crosstalk while boosting picture contrast by 2.1 times. This was made possible by introducing a light-absorbing layer for visible and near-IR wavelengths between the micro-lens arrays.