Kozminski Techblog

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Researchers in the emergin field of “neuromorphic computing” at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology have built something that might make a huge impact on the advancement of AI.  A magnetically controlled electronic synpase.

Some of you may wonder what a synampse is. MIT News explains it here better than I ever could:

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“Packed within the squishy, football-sized organ are somewhere around 100 billion neurons. At any given moment, a single neuron can relay instructions to thousands of other neurons via synapses — the spaces between neurons, across which neurotransmitters are exchanged. There are more than 100 trillion synapses that mediate neuron signaling in the brain, strengthening some connections while pruning others, in a process that enables the brain to recognize patterns, remember facts, and carry out other learning tasks, at lightning speeds.”

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Let’s not get too technical. What is interesting about this artificial synapse, is that it can fire millions of times faster, and use 1000 times less energy than the synapses in your brain. That means that this has the potential to allow us to build super-fast computer chips. These chips work like the human brain and are not limited to binary like digital ones today.

Like the human brain, these chips could efficiently process millions of streams of parallel computations. Today we can only to this with massive super-computer banks. This would make the chips perfect for modern AI and would allow us to solve one of the biggest challenges we have had with AI. Building portable, low-power chips for use in pattern recognition and learning tasks. This has been particularly tricky to reproduce in hardware because of the lack of neural synapse technology.

Techopedia

MIT News writes that their engineers have build a small chip using this technology. In simulation, it can be used to recognize samples of handwriting with 95% accuracy, only 2% less accuracte than existing software algorithms.

There are, however, problems. For example, we have not yet managed to create a large device with this technology, so its future is not exactly clear. Another big problem is that they run at temperatures of 5K, which is way too cold for any practical computin device.

Jeehwan Kim, the Class of 1947 Career Development Assistant Professor in the departments of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering, and principal investigator in MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics and Microsystems Technology Laboratories

Jeehwan Kim, principal investigator in MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics, says:

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“Ultimately we want a chip as big as a fingernail to replace one big supercomputer, this opens a stepping stone to produce real artificial hardware.”

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Sources

MIT News

Technology Review

SCIENCE MUSEUM – Who am I?

engadget

A project Virgin Galactic which have been around for 14 years almost hits commercial market.  Sir Richard Branson spent over 1 bn dollars of his own and 300 mln dollars from investors to finally reach an important milestone. Virgin Galactic spaceship 2 reached altitude of over 80 km  which is consider a boarder of space in United States.

Entrepreneur claims he will use his vehicle to get to the space within 3-4 test flights. Over 600 people are already waiting for commercial use of Branson’s project which probably will start in 1 year.

The spaceship (first picture) will take 8 people to the boarder of space 2 pilots and 6 passengers. it will be uplifted thanks to Whiteknight two ( second picture) at the altitude of 15 km and then little spacecraft will start it trusters and get customers to the edge of space.

Despite the fact Virgin galactic haven’t started yet it already have competition thanks to another giant company which is Amazon. Jeff Bezos have the same ambition of taking people to the edge of space but to the international one which is Karman line (around 100 km). On the other hand Branson accepts that and claims that this area of bussines will have enough space for both of them but not anyone else.

This will change change definitly the turistic market forever and will bring it closer to interplanetar travels.

Reference:

https://www.ft.com/content/09ca18e8-ff69-11e8-aebf-99e208d3e521

https://www.ft.com/content/5fab59be-fe99-11e8-aebf-99e208d3e521

https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/13/18138279/virgin-galactic-vss-unity-spaceshiptwo-space-tourism

The 13th Critical Assessment of Structure Prediction (competition) took place on 2nd of December 2018. Deepmind showed their latest project AlphaFold during this event.

How AlphaFold works ?

First of all this program gets a sequence of amino acids which later on are analysed thanks to neural network and data base. Then it predicts angels of connection of amino acids and the distance between them. At last it creates 3D model (like the ones above ).

In the contest the AI competed with human teams and made the most accurate prediction 25 times ( out of 43 tests ).

Thanks to predicting how proteins fold, in future we will understand diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s or  cystic fibrosis and maybe we will figure out how to cure them. We will also gain more knowleage how different proteins could react to one another  or what physical properties they have.

Project AlphaFold is based on previous Alphas (e.g. AlphaGo) which were mainly AI created to beat humans at games and to learn how AI works. Now this AI will help scientists create new ideas, for example how to improve cures, develop new theories or create new materials made of proteins.

AI just a few years ago was something futuristic but now rapidly developes into everyday solution in different fields of our life.

Reference:

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/12/google-s-deepmind-aces-protein-folding

https://deepmind.com/blog/alphafold/

a chance to get in contact with your clients is a significant way for your business to grow. Chat bots help to handle interactions with customers for e-commerce companies and simulate the shopping that buyers get in a retail store. Now a days chat bots are the hottest artificial intelligence and tend to be included more and more in the systems. In the near future we will be using chat-bots all the time for different goals.

The integration of messaging apps and online shopping allows businesses to utilize applications such as Facebook Messenger, We-Chat, Whats-app, or even voice technology like the Amazon Echo. Customers can chat with AI robot and ask questions, receive customer commands and personalized recommendations, or purchase products all within one channel .  Although this form of AI is far from ready to take over eCommerce it is beginning to see more and more, so lets look at some of the areas where it has been experimented.

• Marketing and brand boosting

Making money trough chat-bots is difficult, with some exceptions such as Adidas . Them giving out exclusive offers available only through bot messengers was a unique way to drive more interest. . The Chat bot would then contact them exclusively with dates and times. Their ultimate goal was to boost brand awareness and it certainly worked. Within the first week 2,000 people signed-up and their first week retention was 60%, higher than any app they’ve started.

• Customer Service role

Chat-bots that interact via messaging could revolutionize the customer service sector for eCommerce.One reason is the speed with which they can respond to a customer query. Mgage a telecommunication provider from London through a survey found that Chat-bots can instantly & accurately answer up to 90% of the questions they’re asked. This round-the-clock support is unlikely for most businesses using humans due to the cost, so another benefit of Chat-bots is the money they’d save retailers, up to 30% in customer service.

• Engaging Customers and send location offers

Burger King have begun testing a Chat-bot in the US that allows customers to place an order, choose a restaurant and collect from the location. Sending them message with deals, targeting them around the time of the day they would usually order and even location based offers.

• Reduce steps to a conversion

H&M’s new messenger bot attempts to offer a personalized shopping experience that leads to the checkout. Customers enter a conversation with the bot who will pick-up certain keywords, like colors and garment types, to help guide them to their products. It will recommend clothing, suggest whole outfits and link them to the product page; reducing steps and creating new sales opportunities.

In my opinion Chat-bots can bring up new E-business ideas and encourage customer interaction. it provides the businesses a gateway to understand the customer needs and tailor solutions accordingly Overall it will be a powerful marketing tool in the future.

Sources :

1.  https://chatbotsmagazine.com/how-chatbots-can-enhance-your-social-media-marketing-strategy-a801ae513faa
2. https://www.topbots.com/project/hm-kik-bot-review
3. http://fortune.com/2016/05/18/burger-king-bot/
4. https://chatbotsmagazine.com/chatbots-for-retail-and-e-commerce-part-three-c112a89c0b48

5. https://www.livechatinc.com/blog/use-cases-chatbots-ecommerce/

Drones are tired to fly just to take photos and videos. Lately also want to bring the humans on board and they do so thanks to Volocopter VC200. Electric, steering and autonomous driving. It is the taxi produced by the german startup Volocopter, from which the invention is also named. It is a robot helicopter as a giant drone named AAT, acronym for Autonomous Air Taxi. It wants to “make every man’s dream of flying and helping cities solve their mobility problems”.

Real debut for AAT was not far from Jumeirah Beach Park in Dubai. A new page of mobility history has been written. It is the first test of a non-pilot helicopter designed to transform tomorrow’s movements has been completed. The giant drone-like vehicle has two seats, 18 rotos, and is powered by nine batteries. It has a 30-minutes autonomy and reaches a maximum speed of 100 kilometers per hour. The vertical take-off model will serve as a taxi, and can be booked through a simple app.

It looks like a vision from the future but Volocopter is already a reality. Last September, the first flight test was conducted in Dubai thanks to an agreement with the local transport authority (RTA). The helicopter flew for 5 minutes, about 200 meters high, without passengers, waiting for all safety measures to be completed. The automated electric drone takes off as a standard consumer drone: vertically, like a helicopter would. This allows it to land in tight spaces, as opposed to requiring a runway. In this first phase, the drone is only running low-altitude flights at a maximum speed of 13 knots (25 km / h), but they are already studying how to take it to higher altitudes and up to 54 knots (100 km / h).

The first taxi of the future, according to forecasts, could come on the market already next year. It is not yet known how much a “run” on Volocopter will cost. To date, the company has raised 25 million euros in investment. Investors include Intel and the Daimler automotive company.

The investor Lukasz Gadowski has already successfully founded and financed numerous enterprises. Gadowski has enormous experience in the fast and global scaling of tech start-ups. “I have been interested in flying cars and following their development for a while. When I saw the Volocopter I got it: ‘‘the flying car has no wheels! What is exciting at Volocopter is not just the magnificent vision but also that which has already been tangibly implemented. Huge ambition with both feet on the ground – a unique combination! In the coming years we can expect a revolution in manned aviation. We at Volocopter will significantly contribute to shaping it!”

CEO of Volocopter, Florian Reuter, claims that the current model is capable of flying based on GPS tracks, and that the company aims to “implement full sense capability” moving forward. Basically this would allow for sophisticated obstacle avoidance and anti-collision measures to be in place, further strengthening the argument for safety. However could result from this invention problems such as regulation of air traffic, identification of areas forbidden to such vehicles and mapping of vehicles. It is also important to ensure the safety of the flights. All this will be not a simple work. In addition, the incompatibility with the current transport market has to be noted. These could claim because a large number of customers might prefer the new market to the traditional one. Currently Volocopter is not yet ready for use. This is due to reliability issues, battery autonomy, low speeds that would lead to preferring the traditional taxi. It’s important to note also the high costs of ‘‘taxiplane’’ installations. How many cities will be able to install and take advantage of this service in a short time? It’s hard to say but surely only a few big cities will be ready to adopt this solution in a shortly time.

However already in 2030 in the most famous of the seven emirates that make up the rich gulf state, the authorities aim at 25% autonomous mobility, between road and air. The price of a vehicle is not very low. The Wall Street Journal reported that the initial price of the Volocopter will be €250,000, the price for the 18-Rotor Electric Helicopter is €600,000 in Crowdfunding and the ultimate goal is for the price to go down. The era of personal flight is only at the beginning but the premise is more than good.

Sources:

https://www.volocopter.com/en/

http://www.businessinsider.com/dubai-flying-taxi-drone-volocopter-test-pilot-unmanned-2017-9?IR=T

https://www.wired.com/2015/06/18-rotor-volocopter-like-flying-car-better/

http://www.thedrive.com/aerial/14642/volocopter-passenger-drone-successfully-takes-dubais-crown-prince-on-5-minute-flight

https://www.engadget.com/2017/09/26/dubai-volocopter-passenger-drone-test/