We examined fMRI for possible uses in neuromarketing applications, and also found such variation in analysis results. Standards in the analysis approach are important. Another general caution for the results you achieve, even with very large databases.
Neuroimaging Results Altered by Varying Analysis Pipelines
Nature
A survey of neuroimaging studies found that nearly every study used a different analysis pipeline, and the analytical choices of individual researchers significantly impacted findings gleaned from a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) dataset. The team provided the same dataset to 70 independent research groups and asked them to test nine hypotheses, each of which asserted that activity in a specific brain region correlated with a specific task feature. There were considerable variations between each team's results, even when their underlying maps were highly correlated. The finding highlights the potential consequences of a lack of standardized pipelines for processing complex data. ... "
Sunday, May 24, 2020
Robots and Humor
A long term thread, the value of humor to learn, instruct, collaborate.
Comedy Club Performances Provide Insights on How Robots, Humans Connect via Humor
Oregon State University News
Steve Lundeberg
May 18, 2020
Two studies by Oregon State University (OSU) researchers evaluated a robot comedian's performance at comedy clubs to gather data to enable more effective robot-human interplay through humor. Human comics helped develop material used by John the Robot in 22 performances in Los Angeles and 10 in Oregon. The Los Angeles study concluded that audiences found a robot comic with good timing to be much funnier than one without good timing. The Oregon study found that an "adaptive performance"—delivering post-joke "tags" that acknowledge an audience's response—was not necessarily funnier overall, but nearly always improved audience perception of individual jokes. OSU's Naomi Fitter said the research has implications for artificial intelligence projects to understand group responses to entertaining social robots in the real world. ... "
Comedy Club Performances Provide Insights on How Robots, Humans Connect via Humor
Oregon State University News
Steve Lundeberg
May 18, 2020
Two studies by Oregon State University (OSU) researchers evaluated a robot comedian's performance at comedy clubs to gather data to enable more effective robot-human interplay through humor. Human comics helped develop material used by John the Robot in 22 performances in Los Angeles and 10 in Oregon. The Los Angeles study concluded that audiences found a robot comic with good timing to be much funnier than one without good timing. The Oregon study found that an "adaptive performance"—delivering post-joke "tags" that acknowledge an audience's response—was not necessarily funnier overall, but nearly always improved audience perception of individual jokes. OSU's Naomi Fitter said the research has implications for artificial intelligence projects to understand group responses to entertaining social robots in the real world. ... "
Microsoft Learn TV Announced
Out of their remote Build conference last week, Microsoft has announced free TV programs on technical topics. Including some content from Build. The programs will continue to expand in the coming weeks. Will mention some examples that I find particularly interesting.
Microsoft Learn TV (preview)
Learn how to build solutions and use Microsoft products from the experts that built them! Learn TV is the place to find the latest digital content so you can always keep updated on the latest announcements, features and products from Microsoft. Let us know what you think with the hashtag LearnTV. ... '
Microsoft Learn TV (preview)
Learn how to build solutions and use Microsoft products from the experts that built them! Learn TV is the place to find the latest digital content so you can always keep updated on the latest announcements, features and products from Microsoft. Let us know what you think with the hashtag LearnTV. ... '
Saturday, May 23, 2020
Microsoft Project Cortex
Brought to my attention from this weeks Build meetings as about to be launched. Form of knowledge management. Had been show very early version of this. Notion of a semantic Web has been around for a long time, though not used often enough. Will be following this.
Project Cortex
Today, we’re pleased to introduce Project Cortex, the first new service in Microsoft 365 since the launch of Microsoft Teams. Project Cortex uses advanced AI to deliver insights and expertise in the apps you use every day, to harness collective knowledge and to empower people and teams to learn, upskill and innovate faster.
Project Cortex uses AI to reason over content across teams and systems, recognizing content types, extracting important information, and automatically organizing content into shared topics like projects, products, processes and customers. Cortex then creates a knowledge network based on relationships among topics, content, and people.
New topic pages and knowledge centers—created and updated by AI—enable experts to curate and share knowledge with wiki-like simplicity. And topic cards deliver knowledge just-in-time to people in Outlook, Microsoft Teams, and Office. ... "
Project Cortex
Today, we’re pleased to introduce Project Cortex, the first new service in Microsoft 365 since the launch of Microsoft Teams. Project Cortex uses advanced AI to deliver insights and expertise in the apps you use every day, to harness collective knowledge and to empower people and teams to learn, upskill and innovate faster.
Project Cortex uses AI to reason over content across teams and systems, recognizing content types, extracting important information, and automatically organizing content into shared topics like projects, products, processes and customers. Cortex then creates a knowledge network based on relationships among topics, content, and people.
New topic pages and knowledge centers—created and updated by AI—enable experts to curate and share knowledge with wiki-like simplicity. And topic cards deliver knowledge just-in-time to people in Outlook, Microsoft Teams, and Office. ... "
Cyborg Eye Powered by Sunlight
A plantable sensor? Privacy considerations?
Human-like Cyborg Eye Could Power Itself Using Sunlight
New Scientist
Donna Lu
May 20, 2020
Researchers from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and the University of California, Berkeley, have developed a spherical visual sensor that mimics the structure of the human eye. The sensor contains a lens to focus light and a hemispherical retina filled with densely packed light-sensitive nanowires made from perovskite, which is commonly used in solar cells and could enable the eye to be self-powering, said HKUST's Zhiyong Fan, although the current version of the eye requires an outside power source. When images of letters were projected onto the artificial lens to test how well it worked, a computer hooked up to the eye successfully recognized the letters E, I, and Y. The artificial eye’s low image resolution compared with commercial sensors limits its utility, but existing visual prosthetic devices use a flat object for image sensing, said Fan, limiting the possible field of view compared with a human eye. .... "
Human-like Cyborg Eye Could Power Itself Using Sunlight
New Scientist
Donna Lu
May 20, 2020
Researchers from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and the University of California, Berkeley, have developed a spherical visual sensor that mimics the structure of the human eye. The sensor contains a lens to focus light and a hemispherical retina filled with densely packed light-sensitive nanowires made from perovskite, which is commonly used in solar cells and could enable the eye to be self-powering, said HKUST's Zhiyong Fan, although the current version of the eye requires an outside power source. When images of letters were projected onto the artificial lens to test how well it worked, a computer hooked up to the eye successfully recognized the letters E, I, and Y. The artificial eye’s low image resolution compared with commercial sensors limits its utility, but existing visual prosthetic devices use a flat object for image sensing, said Fan, limiting the possible field of view compared with a human eye. .... "
Supply Chain Priorities with COVID
A look at consumer brands and priorities in the pandemic.
Supply Chain Storytelling: Freeman Previews CBA's New Priorities Moving Through COVID
By Lisa Johnston - 05/19/2020 in Consumergoods
Geoff Freeman, CEO, Consumer Brands Association
Geoff Freeman, CBA president and CEO
The role of federal manufacturing regulations for consumer goods companies received a fresh look this spring when multiple meat processing plants were forced to shut down because of the spread of COVID-19.
In a call with CGT, Consumer Brands Association (CBA) president and CEO Geoff Freeman shared insight into the work the CBA is undertaking to implement such uniform standards, and previewed a set of new priorities the association is preparing to move forward through the health crisis.
An association founded upon a principle of driving uniform standards, the CBA has been working with a broad coalition of consumer goods stakeholders during the pandemic, as well as frequently engaging with the White House Coronavirus Task Force, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Food and Drug Administration. ... '
“I'm pleased to say that in recent discussions there has been more and more acknowledgment from government leaders on the value of clear and specific guidance,” Freeman said. “I think at the outset of this — and let’s face it, this was a new challenge for just about everybody — there was a fear that if we give clear and specific guidance, we're somehow violating states’ rights, and states’ rights is an obvious principle that our country was founded upon.” ... '
Supply Chain Storytelling: Freeman Previews CBA's New Priorities Moving Through COVID
By Lisa Johnston - 05/19/2020 in Consumergoods
Geoff Freeman, CEO, Consumer Brands Association
Geoff Freeman, CBA president and CEO
The role of federal manufacturing regulations for consumer goods companies received a fresh look this spring when multiple meat processing plants were forced to shut down because of the spread of COVID-19.
In a call with CGT, Consumer Brands Association (CBA) president and CEO Geoff Freeman shared insight into the work the CBA is undertaking to implement such uniform standards, and previewed a set of new priorities the association is preparing to move forward through the health crisis.
An association founded upon a principle of driving uniform standards, the CBA has been working with a broad coalition of consumer goods stakeholders during the pandemic, as well as frequently engaging with the White House Coronavirus Task Force, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Food and Drug Administration. ... '
“I'm pleased to say that in recent discussions there has been more and more acknowledgment from government leaders on the value of clear and specific guidance,” Freeman said. “I think at the outset of this — and let’s face it, this was a new challenge for just about everybody — there was a fear that if we give clear and specific guidance, we're somehow violating states’ rights, and states’ rights is an obvious principle that our country was founded upon.” ... '
IFTTT and Brands in the Smart Home
Recording of yesterdays Webinar
... How smart home companies decide which integrations to prioritize and why successful smart home companies optimize their integration strategies for scalability, The different integration strategies of 3 innovative smart home companies
IFTTT needs the contact information you provide to us to contact you about our products and services. You may unsubscribe from these communications at any time. For information on how to unsubscribe, as well as our privacy practices and commitment to protecting your privacy, please review our Privacy Policy.
Successful smart home companies like iRobot, LIFX, and Ring understand the importance of third-party integrations for driving product adoption and engagement. But in order to do so, smart home companies must navigate the overwhelming number of apps and devices to determine which integrations matter most to their customers and their business.
Join IFTTT Founder and CEO, Linden Tibbets, as he reviews the integration strategies of 3 smart home companies to understand how integrations help them scale their products in the smart home and beyond.
Linden_Tibbets, IFTTT Founder and CEO
Linden Tibbets is Founder and CEO of IFTTT, the essential integration and discovery platform for businesses to continuously connect, grow and maximize the value of their customers. ... '
... How smart home companies decide which integrations to prioritize and why successful smart home companies optimize their integration strategies for scalability, The different integration strategies of 3 innovative smart home companies
IFTTT needs the contact information you provide to us to contact you about our products and services. You may unsubscribe from these communications at any time. For information on how to unsubscribe, as well as our privacy practices and commitment to protecting your privacy, please review our Privacy Policy.
Successful smart home companies like iRobot, LIFX, and Ring understand the importance of third-party integrations for driving product adoption and engagement. But in order to do so, smart home companies must navigate the overwhelming number of apps and devices to determine which integrations matter most to their customers and their business.
Join IFTTT Founder and CEO, Linden Tibbets, as he reviews the integration strategies of 3 smart home companies to understand how integrations help them scale their products in the smart home and beyond.
Linden_Tibbets, IFTTT Founder and CEO
Linden Tibbets is Founder and CEO of IFTTT, the essential integration and discovery platform for businesses to continuously connect, grow and maximize the value of their customers. ... '
How to Learn without Supervision
Ultimately technical, but note the similarity to the alternate ways we learn ... by rote memorization, and the continuous repetition in a contextual background. Confirmed or not by the context. Useful for different things. The latter is more common, but also for different kinds of tasks.
Unsupervised Meta-Learning: Learning to Learn without Supervision
By Benjamin Eysenbach and Abhishek Gupta May 1, 2020
This post is cross-listed on the CMU ML blog.
The history of machine learning has largely been a story of increasing abstraction. In the dawn of ML, researchers spent considerable effort engineering features. As deep learning gained popularity, researchers then shifted towards tuning the update rules and learning rates for their optimizers. Recent research in meta-learning has climbed one level of abstraction higher: many researchers now spend their days manually constructing task distributions, from which they can automatically learn good optimizers. What might be the next rung on this ladder? In this post we introduce theory and algorithms for unsupervised meta-learning, where machine learning algorithms themselves propose their own task distributions. Unsupervised meta-learning further reduces the amount of human supervision required to solve tasks, potentially inserting a new rung on this ladder of abstraction.
We start by discussing how machine learning algorithms use human supervision to find patterns and extract knowledge from observed data. The most common machine learning setting is regression, where a human provides labels Y for a set of examples X. The aim is to return a predictor that correctly assigns labels to novel examples. Another common machine learning problem setting is reinforcement learning (RL), where an agent takes actions in an environment. In RL, humans indicate the desired behavior through a reward function that the agent seeks to maximize. To draw a crude analogy to regression, the environment dynamics are the examples X, and the reward function gives the labels Y. Algorithms for regression and RL employ many tools, including tabular methods (e.g., value iteration), linear methods (e.g., linear regression) kernel-methods (e.g., RBF-SVMs), and deep neural networks. Broadly, we call these algorithms learning procedures: processes that take as input a dataset (examples with labels, or transitions with rewards) and output a function that performs well (achieves high accuracy or large reward) on the dataset. ... "
Unsupervised Meta-Learning: Learning to Learn without Supervision
By Benjamin Eysenbach and Abhishek Gupta May 1, 2020
This post is cross-listed on the CMU ML blog.
The history of machine learning has largely been a story of increasing abstraction. In the dawn of ML, researchers spent considerable effort engineering features. As deep learning gained popularity, researchers then shifted towards tuning the update rules and learning rates for their optimizers. Recent research in meta-learning has climbed one level of abstraction higher: many researchers now spend their days manually constructing task distributions, from which they can automatically learn good optimizers. What might be the next rung on this ladder? In this post we introduce theory and algorithms for unsupervised meta-learning, where machine learning algorithms themselves propose their own task distributions. Unsupervised meta-learning further reduces the amount of human supervision required to solve tasks, potentially inserting a new rung on this ladder of abstraction.
We start by discussing how machine learning algorithms use human supervision to find patterns and extract knowledge from observed data. The most common machine learning setting is regression, where a human provides labels Y for a set of examples X. The aim is to return a predictor that correctly assigns labels to novel examples. Another common machine learning problem setting is reinforcement learning (RL), where an agent takes actions in an environment. In RL, humans indicate the desired behavior through a reward function that the agent seeks to maximize. To draw a crude analogy to regression, the environment dynamics are the examples X, and the reward function gives the labels Y. Algorithms for regression and RL employ many tools, including tabular methods (e.g., value iteration), linear methods (e.g., linear regression) kernel-methods (e.g., RBF-SVMs), and deep neural networks. Broadly, we call these algorithms learning procedures: processes that take as input a dataset (examples with labels, or transitions with rewards) and output a function that performs well (achieves high accuracy or large reward) on the dataset. ... "
Friday, May 22, 2020
A Virtual Innovation Challenge
My former employer puts on a challenge:
P&G Ventures Announces Procter & Gamble's First-Ever Virtual Innovation Challenge
CINCINNATI, May 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- P&G Ventures, the early-stage startup studio within P&G (NYSE:PG), is inviting entrepreneurs, inventors, and startups to submit a product pitch for its first-ever Virtual Innovation Challenge. The challenge, now in its third iteration, seeks out budding entrepreneurs who are driving the next generation of technologies that will change consumers' lives, and helps fuel innovation amidst the global pandemic. Three finalists will be selected to pitch online .... "
P&G Ventures Announces Procter & Gamble's First-Ever Virtual Innovation Challenge
CINCINNATI, May 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- P&G Ventures, the early-stage startup studio within P&G (NYSE:PG), is inviting entrepreneurs, inventors, and startups to submit a product pitch for its first-ever Virtual Innovation Challenge. The challenge, now in its third iteration, seeks out budding entrepreneurs who are driving the next generation of technologies that will change consumers' lives, and helps fuel innovation amidst the global pandemic. Three finalists will be selected to pitch online .... "
Another Take on the Search for Quantum Supremacy
This has come up a few times since last year with claims from major Tech. IEEE Spectrum looks at the supremacy claim again, intro below and more at the link. How do we measure real results on real problems of value?
How Many Qubits Are Needed For Quantum Supremacy?
Whether Google achieved quantum supremacy depends on perspective
By Charles Q. Choi in IEEE Spectrum
Quantum computers theoretically can prove more powerful than any supercomputer, and now scientists calculate just what quantum computers need to attain such "quantum supremacy," and whether or not Google achieved it with their claims last year.
Whereas classical computers switch transistors either on or off to symbolize data as ones and zeroes, quantum computers use quantum bits or qubits that, because of the bizarre nature of quantum physics, can be in a state of superposition where they are both 1 and 0 simultaneously.
Superposition lets one qubit perform two calculations at once, and if two qubits are linked through a quantum effect known as entanglement, they can help perform 22 or four calculations simultaneously; three qubits, 23 or eight calculations; and so on. In principle, a quantum computer with 300 qubits could perform more calculations in an instant than there are atoms in the visible universe.
It remains controversial how many qubits are needed to achieve quantum supremacy over standard computers. Last year, Google claimed to achieve quantum supremacy with just 53 qubits, performing a calculation in 200 seconds that the company estimated would take the world's most powerful supercomputer 10,000 years, but IBM researchers argued in a blog post “that an ideal simulation of the same task can be performed on a classical system in 2.5 days and with far greater fidelity.” ... '
How Many Qubits Are Needed For Quantum Supremacy?
Whether Google achieved quantum supremacy depends on perspective
By Charles Q. Choi in IEEE Spectrum
Quantum computers theoretically can prove more powerful than any supercomputer, and now scientists calculate just what quantum computers need to attain such "quantum supremacy," and whether or not Google achieved it with their claims last year.
Whereas classical computers switch transistors either on or off to symbolize data as ones and zeroes, quantum computers use quantum bits or qubits that, because of the bizarre nature of quantum physics, can be in a state of superposition where they are both 1 and 0 simultaneously.
Superposition lets one qubit perform two calculations at once, and if two qubits are linked through a quantum effect known as entanglement, they can help perform 22 or four calculations simultaneously; three qubits, 23 or eight calculations; and so on. In principle, a quantum computer with 300 qubits could perform more calculations in an instant than there are atoms in the visible universe.
It remains controversial how many qubits are needed to achieve quantum supremacy over standard computers. Last year, Google claimed to achieve quantum supremacy with just 53 qubits, performing a calculation in 200 seconds that the company estimated would take the world's most powerful supercomputer 10,000 years, but IBM researchers argued in a blog post “that an ideal simulation of the same task can be performed on a classical system in 2.5 days and with far greater fidelity.” ... '
USAF Looks at Blockchain Database for Data Share
Novel approach with implications for supply chain applications as well as other sensor based input of data.
U.S. Air Force to pilot blockchain-based database for data sharing
The blockchain ledger will enable data ingest from legacy data systems and wikis as well as a native web application build platforms
By Lucas Mearian Senior Reporter, Computerworld
Successful Digital Transformation Requires a Modern Retail Network Infrastructure
The U.S. Air Force (USAF) is planning to test a blockchain-based graph database that will allow it to share documents internally as well as throughout the various branches of the Department of Defense and allied governments.
The permissioned blockchain ledger comes from a small Winston-Salem, N.C. start-up, Fluree PBC, which announced the government contract this week. Fluree is working with Air Force’s Small Business Innovation Research AFWERX technology innovation program to launch a proof of concept of the distributed ledger technology (DLT) later this year.
The ledger could include intelligence gathered during military operations and supply chain parts tracking. ... "
U.S. Air Force to pilot blockchain-based database for data sharing
The blockchain ledger will enable data ingest from legacy data systems and wikis as well as a native web application build platforms
By Lucas Mearian Senior Reporter, Computerworld
Successful Digital Transformation Requires a Modern Retail Network Infrastructure
The U.S. Air Force (USAF) is planning to test a blockchain-based graph database that will allow it to share documents internally as well as throughout the various branches of the Department of Defense and allied governments.
The permissioned blockchain ledger comes from a small Winston-Salem, N.C. start-up, Fluree PBC, which announced the government contract this week. Fluree is working with Air Force’s Small Business Innovation Research AFWERX technology innovation program to launch a proof of concept of the distributed ledger technology (DLT) later this year.
The ledger could include intelligence gathered during military operations and supply chain parts tracking. ... "
Deloitte Resilience Podcast
Overall have liked the Deloitte writings on corporate strategic responses and risk analysis.
Resilient podcast: How businesses can confront the COVID-19 crisis
Actionable insights to help businesses respond and recover
In this special edition Resilient series, we shift our focus to the evolving COVID-19 crisis. From supply chain disruptions and economic scenarios to remote working challenges and crisis response strategies, these episodes feature actionable insights from leaders to help you think through what to do now—and next.
Recovering losses: A business perspective on expediting financial recovery
As the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic continues to grow, many business leaders may be trying to understand the magnitude of their organizations’ financial losses. But attempting to quantify incurred loss during an ongoing and evolving crisis is nearly impossible—only after it’s over can the full business impact be determined. What steps can companies take now to calculate and recover losses sustained from the COVID-19 crisis? This episode of Resilient features Katie Pavlovsky, principal with Deloitte Risk & Financial Advisory, and Vincent Morgan, partner, Insurance Recovery and Advisory at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP. Together they explore what company executives may be able do to better to understand loss exposure and recovery coverage in the near-term, and how they might tap into potential relief. They also discuss the importance of cross-functional collaboration and data-driven analyses when evaluating the impact. And in a world where little is predictable, they share insights on how business leaders may be able to identify and plan for ongoing risk related to the crisis.
Business leaders in this episode:
Vincent Morgan, partner, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
Katie Pavlovsky, principal, Deloitte Risk & Financial Advisory
----
Economic stimulus: Exploring the impact of phase three and beyond
The US government continues to execute on its multi-phased plan for providing economic relief to the many individuals and organizations impacted by COVID-19. Its most recent legislation (phase 3.5), earmarks an additional $484B for the Paycheck Protection Program, hospitals, and COVID-19 testing. In this episode, three Deloitte leaders share insights on the likely collective impact of the government relief packages to date, as well as the business and economic implications of the most recently enacted legislation. They also look ahead to the next wave of stimulus (phase 4.0), exploring how this developing legislation may help spur economic recovery for businesses and consumers. As the US Congress considers potential tax policy changes and funding for infrastructure enhancements to support telehealth, telework, tele-education, rural broadband, and more, we discuss how business leaders might consider the possible opportunities and risks related to these various sources of aid. ... "
Resilient podcast: How businesses can confront the COVID-19 crisis
Actionable insights to help businesses respond and recover
In this special edition Resilient series, we shift our focus to the evolving COVID-19 crisis. From supply chain disruptions and economic scenarios to remote working challenges and crisis response strategies, these episodes feature actionable insights from leaders to help you think through what to do now—and next.
Recovering losses: A business perspective on expediting financial recovery
As the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic continues to grow, many business leaders may be trying to understand the magnitude of their organizations’ financial losses. But attempting to quantify incurred loss during an ongoing and evolving crisis is nearly impossible—only after it’s over can the full business impact be determined. What steps can companies take now to calculate and recover losses sustained from the COVID-19 crisis? This episode of Resilient features Katie Pavlovsky, principal with Deloitte Risk & Financial Advisory, and Vincent Morgan, partner, Insurance Recovery and Advisory at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP. Together they explore what company executives may be able do to better to understand loss exposure and recovery coverage in the near-term, and how they might tap into potential relief. They also discuss the importance of cross-functional collaboration and data-driven analyses when evaluating the impact. And in a world where little is predictable, they share insights on how business leaders may be able to identify and plan for ongoing risk related to the crisis.
Business leaders in this episode:
Vincent Morgan, partner, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
Katie Pavlovsky, principal, Deloitte Risk & Financial Advisory
----
Economic stimulus: Exploring the impact of phase three and beyond
The US government continues to execute on its multi-phased plan for providing economic relief to the many individuals and organizations impacted by COVID-19. Its most recent legislation (phase 3.5), earmarks an additional $484B for the Paycheck Protection Program, hospitals, and COVID-19 testing. In this episode, three Deloitte leaders share insights on the likely collective impact of the government relief packages to date, as well as the business and economic implications of the most recently enacted legislation. They also look ahead to the next wave of stimulus (phase 4.0), exploring how this developing legislation may help spur economic recovery for businesses and consumers. As the US Congress considers potential tax policy changes and funding for infrastructure enhancements to support telehealth, telework, tele-education, rural broadband, and more, we discuss how business leaders might consider the possible opportunities and risks related to these various sources of aid. ... "
Better Bionic Eye
New imaging capabilities to improve eyesight.
New Bionic Eye Might See Better Than We Do
By Joel Hruska in Extremetech
The ability to restore sight to the blind is one of the most profound acts of healing medicine can achieve, in terms of the impact on the affected patient’s life — and one of the most difficult for modern medicine to achieve. We can restore vision in a limited number of scenarios and there are some early bionic eyes on the market that can restore limited vision in very specific scenarios. Researchers may have taken a dramatic step towards changing that in the future, with the results of a new experiment to design a bionic retina.
The research team in question has published a paper in Nature the construction of a hemispherical retina built out of high-density nanowires. The spherical shape of the retina has historically been a major challenge for biomimetic devices.... "
New Bionic Eye Might See Better Than We Do
By Joel Hruska in Extremetech
The ability to restore sight to the blind is one of the most profound acts of healing medicine can achieve, in terms of the impact on the affected patient’s life — and one of the most difficult for modern medicine to achieve. We can restore vision in a limited number of scenarios and there are some early bionic eyes on the market that can restore limited vision in very specific scenarios. Researchers may have taken a dramatic step towards changing that in the future, with the results of a new experiment to design a bionic retina.
The research team in question has published a paper in Nature the construction of a hemispherical retina built out of high-density nanowires. The spherical shape of the retina has historically been a major challenge for biomimetic devices.... "
Thursday, May 21, 2020
IBM Invests in Blockchain Network
More indications of the seriousness of the technology
IBM Takes 7% in Trade-Finance Blockchain Network We.Trade
IBM has become a shareholder in we.trade, the blockchain-based trade-finance platform jointly owned by 12 European banks.
Ciaran McGowan, we.trade’s CEO, said the deepening relationship with Big Blue will help the platform in its next phase of global expansion.
“Now we’ve got a very strong partnership with IBM for scaling globally, and we are working closely together on Asia, Africa and Latin America,” McGowan said.
We.trade has the distinction of being the first enterprise blockchain consortium to go live, which happened back in early 2018. The platform was formed by a group of banks to help European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) get better access to trade finance. IBM has been the project’s technology partner from inception... "
IBM Takes 7% in Trade-Finance Blockchain Network We.Trade
IBM has become a shareholder in we.trade, the blockchain-based trade-finance platform jointly owned by 12 European banks.
Ciaran McGowan, we.trade’s CEO, said the deepening relationship with Big Blue will help the platform in its next phase of global expansion.
“Now we’ve got a very strong partnership with IBM for scaling globally, and we are working closely together on Asia, Africa and Latin America,” McGowan said.
We.trade has the distinction of being the first enterprise blockchain consortium to go live, which happened back in early 2018. The platform was formed by a group of banks to help European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) get better access to trade finance. IBM has been the project’s technology partner from inception... "
How Significant is Climate on Coronavirus Transmission?
Considerable depth in this piece about the topic.
The Trillion-Dollar Question With COVID-19
How significant is climate on coronavirus transmission?
by Luke Shors and Michael Ferrari
Right now, India is completing more than a month of national lockdown and moving toward some loosening of restrictions in less-infected areas. The implications of stopping the movement and activity of 1.3 billion people would be hard to overstate. Ironically, one of the many side effects of the policy has been the migration of millions of poor people who lacked the resources to shelter in place for the duration of the lockdown. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi faced a terrible choice: lock down the country with massive economic and social repercussions, or leave the country open and allow an outbreak of perhaps unparalleled scale in the history of the world.... "
The Trillion-Dollar Question With COVID-19
How significant is climate on coronavirus transmission?
by Luke Shors and Michael Ferrari
Right now, India is completing more than a month of national lockdown and moving toward some loosening of restrictions in less-infected areas. The implications of stopping the movement and activity of 1.3 billion people would be hard to overstate. Ironically, one of the many side effects of the policy has been the migration of millions of poor people who lacked the resources to shelter in place for the duration of the lockdown. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi faced a terrible choice: lock down the country with massive economic and social repercussions, or leave the country open and allow an outbreak of perhaps unparalleled scale in the history of the world.... "
Albertsons to Launch Virtual Assistant
Details of its use and depth will be of interest.
So far, Albertsons has implemented the Nuance virtual assistant and live chat at its Vons supermarkets in Southern California.
Russell Redman
With online grocery sales booming during the coronavirus pandemic, Albertsons Cos. is stepping up customer service with digital assistance technology from Nuance Communications.
Albertsons plans to deploy virtual assistant and live chat solutions from the Nuance Intelligent Engagement Platform to provide real-time support to customers shopping for their groceries online or via the retailer’s mobile apps, Burlington, Mass.-based Nuance said yesterday.
The artificial intelligence (AI)-powered application helps customers through their shopping experience and answers questions on how the delivery service works, item availability, online order tracking status, and store locations and hours, among other inquiries .... "
So far, Albertsons has implemented the Nuance virtual assistant and live chat at its Vons supermarkets in Southern California.
Russell Redman
With online grocery sales booming during the coronavirus pandemic, Albertsons Cos. is stepping up customer service with digital assistance technology from Nuance Communications.
Albertsons plans to deploy virtual assistant and live chat solutions from the Nuance Intelligent Engagement Platform to provide real-time support to customers shopping for their groceries online or via the retailer’s mobile apps, Burlington, Mass.-based Nuance said yesterday.
The artificial intelligence (AI)-powered application helps customers through their shopping experience and answers questions on how the delivery service works, item availability, online order tracking status, and store locations and hours, among other inquiries .... "
Surge of Secondary Brands
Speculation as to how surging demands for new and secondary brands will effect the market and the supply chain. And can be better controlled with digital strategies.
As secondary brands surge, CPG leaders need a digital playbook
Margo Kahnrose in Smartbrief
In the mid ‘80s, Cabbage Patch Kids were all the rage. I wanted one, badly. But to my mother, those dolls symbolized everything detestable about the mega-consumerism rampant in the ‘60s and ‘70s, epitomizing the superficiality her generation had willfully rebelled against. She got me a knock-off -- a cheaper, also-cute, unbranded alternative. I was unimpressed. A fake held no social currency.
Until recently, generics stood for one thing only: price. As a result, a knockoff in any category may have done the job well enough, but there was a reluctance around them. They were a last resort.
Fast-forward to today, and alternatives to name brand goods have been steadily on the rise in all ways: proliferation, quality, adoption, even cool-factor. As of the last three months, when the COVID-19 global health pandemic began driving unprecedented e-commerce demand -- and simultaneous supply chain constraints -- generics have seen an even bigger boost, and not only in fast-moving “essentials” categories like toilet paper, but in a vast array of consumer goods, including beauty products, exercise equipment, consumer electronics and home furnishings. The reason comes down to a perfect storm of counterintuitively intersecting influences -- more impetus than ever to shop, and less money than before to spend.... " ... '
As secondary brands surge, CPG leaders need a digital playbook
Margo Kahnrose in Smartbrief
In the mid ‘80s, Cabbage Patch Kids were all the rage. I wanted one, badly. But to my mother, those dolls symbolized everything detestable about the mega-consumerism rampant in the ‘60s and ‘70s, epitomizing the superficiality her generation had willfully rebelled against. She got me a knock-off -- a cheaper, also-cute, unbranded alternative. I was unimpressed. A fake held no social currency.
Until recently, generics stood for one thing only: price. As a result, a knockoff in any category may have done the job well enough, but there was a reluctance around them. They were a last resort.
Fast-forward to today, and alternatives to name brand goods have been steadily on the rise in all ways: proliferation, quality, adoption, even cool-factor. As of the last three months, when the COVID-19 global health pandemic began driving unprecedented e-commerce demand -- and simultaneous supply chain constraints -- generics have seen an even bigger boost, and not only in fast-moving “essentials” categories like toilet paper, but in a vast array of consumer goods, including beauty products, exercise equipment, consumer electronics and home furnishings. The reason comes down to a perfect storm of counterintuitively intersecting influences -- more impetus than ever to shop, and less money than before to spend.... " ... '
GE Bores Like an Earthworm
Novel kind of robotic task and environment, example of biomimicry.
GE’s soft robot bores holes like a giant earthworm by Brian Heater in TechCrunch
A giant earthworm robot was not on the list of things I expected to see when I logged in this morning. But it’s here, and I’m here for it. Designed by a team at GE Research, the robot in question nabbed a $2.5 million award as part of DARPA’s Underminer. The program was created to foster rapid tunnel digging in military environments.As is all the rage in robotics these days, the GE team turned to biological inspiration to execute the task. What they came up with is a large, segmented and soft ..."
GE’s soft robot bores holes like a giant earthworm by Brian Heater in TechCrunch
A giant earthworm robot was not on the list of things I expected to see when I logged in this morning. But it’s here, and I’m here for it. Designed by a team at GE Research, the robot in question nabbed a $2.5 million award as part of DARPA’s Underminer. The program was created to foster rapid tunnel digging in military environments.As is all the rage in robotics these days, the GE team turned to biological inspiration to execute the task. What they came up with is a large, segmented and soft ..."
Wednesday, May 20, 2020
Geometry Points to Drug Target Candidates
The fact that geomety and math are indicative of targets is intriguing . Points perhaps to similarity to folding problems, with huge combinatorics.
Geometry Points to Coronavirus Drug Target Candidates
Scientific American
Michael Dhar
A study by Robert Penner at France’s Institute of Advanced Scientific Studies incorporates a mathematical model that predicts protein sites on viruses that might be particularly susceptible to disabling treatments, which has been used to identify potential drug and vaccine targets in the fight against the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The technique exploits the fact that certain viral proteins change shape when viruses penetrate cells; Penner mathematically localized exotic sites that mediate this shift. John Yin, who studies viruses at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, said much work remains to verify the study’s predictions through experimentation. Said Arndt Benecke, a biological researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research, “This could go far beyond the viruses.” ... "
Geometry Points to Coronavirus Drug Target Candidates
Scientific American
Michael Dhar
A study by Robert Penner at France’s Institute of Advanced Scientific Studies incorporates a mathematical model that predicts protein sites on viruses that might be particularly susceptible to disabling treatments, which has been used to identify potential drug and vaccine targets in the fight against the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The technique exploits the fact that certain viral proteins change shape when viruses penetrate cells; Penner mathematically localized exotic sites that mediate this shift. John Yin, who studies viruses at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, said much work remains to verify the study’s predictions through experimentation. Said Arndt Benecke, a biological researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research, “This could go far beyond the viruses.” ... "
Can AI tell Moral right from Wrong?
As suggested moral choices have much to do with context, and are hard to extract from just words. I like that changes over time are being considered. Time is often the most important metadata, and infers the trajectories of choices being made. We did something similar when seeking to understand the future of marketing messages in context.
Scientists claim they can teach AI to judge ‘right’ from ‘wrong’
The moral machine shows how moral values change over time
Story By Thomas Macaulay in NextWeb
Scientists claim they can “teach” an AI moral reasoning by training it to extract ideas of right and wrong from texts.
Researchers from Darmstadt University of Technology (DUT) in Germany fed their model books, news, and religious literature so it could learn the associations between different words and sentences. After training the system, they say it adopted the values of the texts.
As the team put it in their research paper:
The resulting model, called the Moral Choice Machine (MCM), calculates the bias score on a sentence level using embeddings of the Universal Sentence Encoder since the moral value of an action to be taken depends on its context.
This allows the system to understand contextual information by analyzing entire sentences rather than specific words. As a result, the AI could work out that it was objectionable to kill living beings, but fine to just kill time. ... "
Scientists claim they can teach AI to judge ‘right’ from ‘wrong’
The moral machine shows how moral values change over time
Story By Thomas Macaulay in NextWeb
Scientists claim they can “teach” an AI moral reasoning by training it to extract ideas of right and wrong from texts.
Researchers from Darmstadt University of Technology (DUT) in Germany fed their model books, news, and religious literature so it could learn the associations between different words and sentences. After training the system, they say it adopted the values of the texts.
As the team put it in their research paper:
The resulting model, called the Moral Choice Machine (MCM), calculates the bias score on a sentence level using embeddings of the Universal Sentence Encoder since the moral value of an action to be taken depends on its context.
This allows the system to understand contextual information by analyzing entire sentences rather than specific words. As a result, the AI could work out that it was objectionable to kill living beings, but fine to just kill time. ... "
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