Tag: Artificial Intelligence

Huawei brings AI-driven nova smartphones to India

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Huawei Consumer Business Group (CBG) on Thursday brought to India two smartphones in its nova series, nova 3 and nova 3i, with advanced Artificial Technology (AI) capabilities.

The Huawei nova 3 & 3i are equipped with the power, connectivity and speed that today’s high-end smartphone user expects from Huawei. The dual-SIM (Nano) Huawei nova 3 and nova 3i run EMUI 8.2 based on the Android 8.1 Oreo.

Huawei nova 3, with 6GB RAM and 128GB ROM and powered by Kirin 970 with 3750mAh battery, will cost Rs 34,999, while nova 3i with 4GB RAM and 128GB ROM and powered by Kirin 710 (Huawei’s first 12nm chip) sporting a 3340mAh battery is priced at Rs 20,990.

“Having operated in India successfully for over 18 years and with a key focus on enhancing our R&D capabilities, we are uniquely positioned to enrich the lives of our customers in India,” said Allen Wang, Director, Product Centre, HUAWEI India Consumer Business Group.

For gaming enthusiasts, the devices have advanced GPU turbo technology.

“Globally, Huawei is a leader in cutting-edge technology and continues to work towards the best in class AI technologies as the next step in the smartphone evolution,” he added.

Housing a powerful AI quad-camera system, nova 3 and nova 3i support dual front facing cameras with 24MP primary and 2MP secondary shooter.

The two sensors work together to focus on the subject and captures images with a field of vision that is similar to the human eye, the company claimed.

“With the promising response received for the Huawei P20 Series in India, we are set for a great start and are very optimistic about the nova series in India,” said Wang.

Both the nova devices are embedded with a chip with AI capabilities.

HUAWEI nova 3i features 16MP primary sensor and a 2MP secondary sensor for rear camera.

The rear camera on Huawei nova 3 comprises a 24MP monochrome and 16MP RGB senor with dual f/1.8 wide aperture 6p lenses.

The nova series comes with 6.3-inch FHD+ Full View Display and 19.5:9 aspect ratio. The dual-SIM (Nano) Huawei nova 3 and nova 3i run EMUI 8.2 based on the Android 8.1 Oreo.

Huawei also has Honor as a sub-brand in India which is currently at the fifth place in the Indian smartphone market.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Google to place AI-powered virtual agents in call centres

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Google has announced it is working with several partners like Cisco and Genesys to build Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology that will replace some of the work in call centres.

The software is called “Contact Center AI” which will install “virtual agents” that will be the first to pick up the phone when a customer connects to a call centre.

“When the customer asks something that the AI cannot do, it will automatically forward the call to a human,” said Fei-Fei Li, Chief Scientist at Google, during the Cloud Next conference on Tuesday.

“Our true goal is to empower a contact centre’s human agents, as well as the customers that rely on them.

“To do this, we built a complete solution with our partners that includes Dialogflow Enterprise Edition, as well as additional capabilities that are particularly useful for contact centres,” Li added.

In this AI technology, when a call is placed, the caller is immediately greeted by a Virtual Agent that answers questions and fulfills tasks all on its own.

When a caller’s needs surpass the Virtual Agent, it transitions to a human representative.

“From there, the system shifts to a supporting role whereby Contact Centre AI’s Agent Assist system supports the conversation and provides the agent with relevant information,” Google said.

The result is a flexible solution that adapts to the needs of each and every call, and provides a seamless experience between live and virtual agents, playing as big or as small a role as the situation demands.

“It’s compliant with our data privacy and governance policies, and it does it all without infrastructure, on a platform that scales as much or as little as you need,” Li noted.

“AI is empowerment, and we want to democratise that power for everyone and every business — from retail to agriculture, education to health care,” she added.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

US retailer Target to support six Indian startups

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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US-based retailer Target Corporation on Tuesday selected six Indian startups as part of its “Accelerator Programme” that gives companies the opportunity to implement their solutions in real-world scenarios and measure the results in real time.

The selected startups will be part of a four-month intensive programme focused on transformative and technology-driven ideas to create solutions for today’s rapidly changing retail environment, the company said in a statement.

The startups selected will work on developing customised retail solutions using emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), computer vision, natural language processing and analytics, it added.

These startups will have access to Target mentors, tools, resources and operational support, as well as workspace at Target’s Bengaluru offices.

“Over the last couple of years, India has become a superpower driving innovation in the retail sector across the globe,” said Rakesh Mishra, Vice President of Marketing at Target India.

The Target Accelerator Programme was launched in December 2013.

The selected startups for the sixth batch of the programme are Kenome, Point105-AR, Quilt.ai, Moodboard, Eder.ai and StyleDod.

Kenome uses AI to help enterprises make sense of dark data using deep learning, natural language processing and knowledge graphs.

Point105-AR provides a holistic 3D asset management solution for augmented reality experiences.

Quilt.ai uses AI tools to build a large research and action platform.

Moodboard provides a tool that leverages AI to provide insights on product performance trends that aid in future product design.

Eder.ai offers a distributed computing platform with Blockchain-grade encryption which enables secure AI to help scale research and unearth new intelligence.

StyleDod provides a tool that automatically converts floorplans into 3D designed rooms, fully furnished with merchandisable products.

To date, 30 startups have graduated from the programme and worked with Target teams, the company said.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

AI-first approach will transform our lives, says Satya Nadella

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) have been “pretty stunning” but what the humanity is going to see soon will be even more profound, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has stressed.

Addressing thousands of partners at the ‘Microsoft Inspire’ event on Wednesday, Nadella said that the potential is for us to be able to turn every industry into an AI-first industry, be it healthcare or agriculture.

“We want to be able to make sure that they can take their data, in a secure, privacy-preserving way, and can work that into AI capabilities,” he told the gathering.

“As we look forward, the opportunity for us to serve our customers in this new era of the Intelligent Cloud and the Intelligent Edge is far greater,” Nadella said.

According to him, Microsoft is going to infuse everything with AI.

“It’s going to have perception capability, language capability and autonomy that’s going to be built into the applications going forward.

“Autonomy is not just about a few self-driving projects. This is about autonomy everywhere,” the Microsoft CEO added.

On its Azure Cloud offerings, Nadella said the computing needs will go far beyond the data centre.

“We are going to take Azure to Azure Stack, to Azure IoT Edge and to Azure Sphere. This is a ubiquitous, distributed computing fabric,” he noted.

Nadella said that Microsoft 365 will help customers have people-centred experiences rather than device-centred experiences.

The tech giant which has touched $800 billion valuation for the first time, was scheduled to release its quarterly results late on Thursday.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Why is Facebook keen on robots? It’s just the future of AI

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Facebook announced several new hires of top academics in the field of artificial intelligence Tuesday, among them a roboticist known for her work at Disney making animated figures move in more human-like ways.

The hires raise a big question — why is Facebook interested in robots, anyway?

It’s not as though the social media giant is suddenly interested in developing mechanical friends, although it does use robotic arms in some of its data centers. The answer is even more central to the problem of how AI systems work today.

Today, most successful AI systems have to be exposed to millions of data points labeled by humans — like, say, photos of cats — before they can learn to recognize patterns that people take for granted. Similarly, game-playing bots like Google’s computerized Go master AlphaGo Zero require tens of thousands of trials to learn the best moves from their failures.

Creating systems that require less data and have more common sense is a key goal for making AI smarter in the future.

“Clearly we’re missing something in terms of how humans can learn so fast,” Yann LeCun, Facebook’s chief AI scientist, said in a call with reporters last week. “So far the best ideas have come out of robotics.”

Among the people Facebook is hiring are Jessica Hodgins , the former Disney researcher; and Abhinav Gupta, her colleague at Carnegie Mellon University who is known for using robot arms to learn how to grasp things.

Pieter Abbeel, a roboticist at University of California, Berkeley and co-founder of the robot-training company Covariant.ai, says the robotics field has benefits and constraints that push progress in AI. For one, the real world is naturally complex, so robotic AI systems have to deal with unexpected, rare events. And real-world constraints like a lack of time and the cost of keeping machinery moving push researchers to solve difficult problems.

“Robotics forces you into many reality checks,” Abbeel said. “How good are these algorithms, really?”

There are other more abstract applications of learnings from robotics, says Berkeley AI professor Ken Goldberg. Just like teaching a robot to escape from a computerized maze, other robots change their behavior depending on whether actions they took got them closer to a goal. Such systems could even be adapted to serve ads, he said — which just happens to be the mainstay of Facebook’s business.

“It’s not a static decision, it’s a dynamic one,” Goldberg said.

In an interview, Hodgins expressed an interest in a wide range of robotics research, everything from building a “compelling humanoid robot” to creating a mechanical servant to “load and unload my dishwasher.”

While she acknowledged the need to imbue robots with more common sense and have them learn with fewer examples, she also said her work in animation could lead to a new form of sharing — one in which AI-powered tools could help one show off a work of pottery in 3-D, for example.

“One thing I hope we’ll be able to do is explore AI support for creativity,” she said.

For Facebook, planting a flag in the hot field also allows it to be competitive for AI talent emerging from universities, Facebook’s LeCun said.

Bart Selman, a Cornell computer science professor AI expert, said it’s a good idea for Facebook to broaden its reach in AI and take on projects that might not be directly related to the company’s business — something that’s a little more “exciting” — the way Google did with self-driving cars, for example.

This attracts not just attention, but students, too. The broader the research agenda, the better the labs become, he said.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Walmart expands Microsoft partnership to boost digital footprint

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Aiming to make shopping faster and easier for millions of customers, cash-and-carry major Walmart on Tuesday announced a five-year strategic partnership with Microsoft.

Already using Microsoft services for critical applications and workloads, Walmart will now embark on a broad set of Cloud innovation projects that leverage Machine Learning (ML), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data platform solutions for a wide range of external customer-facing services and internal business applications.

“Walmart’s commitment to technology is centred around creating incredibly convenient ways for customers to shop and empowering associates to do their best work,” Doug McMillon, CEO, Walmart, said in a statement.

“Whether it’s combined with our agile cloud platform or leveraging machine learning and artificial intelligence to work smarter, we believe Microsoft will be a strong partner in driving our ability to innovate further,” McMillon added.

Walmart has selected full range of Microsoft Cloud solutions, including Azure and Microsoft 365, for enterprise-wide use to help standardise across the company’s family of brands.

“The world’s leading companies run on our Cloud, and I’m thrilled to partner with Walmart to accelerate their digital transformation with Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

Under the partnership, Walmart and Microsoft engineers will collaborate on the assessment, development and support phase of moving hundreds of existing applications to Cloud native architectures.

To grow and enhance the online experience, the company will migrate a significant portion of walmart.com and samsclub.com to Azure, including its Cloud-powered check-out, thus, enabling Walmart to grow and reach more global markets than before.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Microsoft calls to regulate face recognition technology

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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At a time when facial recognition technology is fast becoming a part of our lives, Microsoft has become the first tech giant to initiate a call for regulations to limit the technology that can be used for mass surveillance affecting civil liberties.

In a blog post on Friday, Microsoft President Brad Smith said a government initiative to regulate the proper use of facial recognition technology is the need of the hour.

“We believe US Congress should create a bipartisan expert commission to assess the best way to regulate the use of facial recognition technology in the US,” Smith said.

The purpose of such a commission “should include advice to Congress on what types of new laws and regulations are needed, as well as stronger practices to ensure proper congressional oversight of this technology across the executive branch”, the Microsoft President noted.

Several tech companies, including Microsoft, have utilised face-recognition technology in the past several years to turn time-consuming work to catalog photos into something both instantaneous and useful.

However, Microsoft has already rejected requests to deploy the technology in situations involving “human rights risks”, Smith informed.

Smith earlier called for a new digital Geneva Convention that commits governments to defend and protecting civilians from state-sponsored cyber-attacks.

“We live in a nation of laws, and the government needs to play an important role in regulating facial recognition technology.

“A world with vigorous regulation of products that are useful but potentially troubling is better than a world devoid of legal standards,” Smith suggested.

The computer-assisted facial recognition can recognise people’s faces from a photo or through a camera.

This technology can catalog your photos, help reunite families or potentially be misused and abused by private companies and public authorities alike.

“Facial recognition technology raises issues that go to the heart of fundamental human rights protections like privacy and freedom of expression,” Smith wrote.

In recent weeks, a group of Amazon employees objected to its contract with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), while reiterating concerns raised by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) about law enforcement’s use of facial recognition technology.

IT company Salesforce’s employees have raised the same issues related to immigration authorities and these agencies’ use of their products.

“Demands increasingly are surfacing for tech companies to limit the way government agencies use facial recognition and other technology,” Smith said.

The only effective way to manage the use of technology by a government is for the government proactively to manage this use itself, the Microsoft President added.

Issues relating to facial recognition go well beyond the borders of the US and “it requires active engagement by governments, academics, tech companies and civil society internationally”.

“As we move forward, we’re committed to establishing a transparent set of principles for facial recognition technology that we will share with the public,” Smith informed.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Nasscom hosts summit on big data analytics in Bengaluru

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Indian IT industry’s apex body Nasscom on Wednesday unveiled the 6th edition of its Big Data and Analytics here to highlight their disruptive role in development of AI (artificial intelligence) worldwide.

“The two-day event hosted leaders conferring to the paradigm shift from being an industry-wide disruptor to business-as-usual witnessed by India Inc,” said the National Association of Indian Software and Services (Nasscom).

With “Democratising AI” as the theme, the summit had experts brainstorm on the integration of newer technologies like AI, machine learning and design thinking into business models.

“Data science and AI technologies allows harnessing complex, high volume, high speed data into insights for decision making, emerging as the one of biggest growth opportunities for India to capitalise on,” said Nasscom vice chairman Keshav Murugesh at the summit.

As new digital economies straddle across industries, there is demand for AI-based servers and computing capabilities. The capacity of workers to master these new skills and availability of talent will be key driver of competitiveness in the big data and analytics industry.

The participants also focused on embedding AI into business processes (back office), supply chain application, data protection in the age of AI and man-machine interface.

The industry body identified six areas of specialization, spanning business analysts, solution architects, data architects, analysts and scientists, in the big data analytics domain which are expected to be key to sectors growth.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Google ‘Launchpad Accelerator’ India chapter to nurture Indian startups

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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In a bid to nurture Indian startups working in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), Google on Tuesday announced to open the India chapter of its global “Launchpad Accelerator” mentorship programme.

The three-month “Launchpad Accelerator” India programme has been designed to grow the AI/ML ecosystem by helping Indian startups build scalable solutions for the country’s unique problems.

The programme, based out of Bengaluru, will provide a cohort of 8-10 Indian startups mentorship and support from the best of Google in AI/ML, Cloud, UX, Android, web, product strategy and marketing, along with up to $100K of Google Cloud credits, the company said in a statement.

“India has the appetite to build entrepreneurs of the future and we are proud to announce a focused programme for the next wave of Indian entrepreneurs, who are using new technologies to solve the country’s needs,” said Roy Glasberg, Global Launchpad Founder.

Over the years, Google has worked with some incredible startups across India who are using advanced technologies such as AI/ML to tackle everything from agri-tech to language web, healthcare and transportation.

“With the dedicated India-only Launchpad Accelerator programme, we will be able to build a bridge between startups and the industry ecosystem and support them to drive innovation in the India market,” Glasberg added.

Applications for the first class is open till July 31 and the first class will start in September 2018.

In an effort to mentor emerging start-ups, Google India hosted a four-day boot camp for the first 10 Indian startups as part of its ‘Solve for India’ programme.

The India-focused accelerator programme is building on Google’s “Solve for India” roadshow from last year.

Ten Indian startups were shortlisted from across India which underwent four days in one-on-one consults with experts from Google and mentors from the industry to solve critical product and growth challenges.

“We shortlisted 10 startups from 160 home-grown start-ups by travelling across 15 cities in India, and are now ready to scale this pilot as a dedicated programme for India,” Karthik Padmanabhan, developer relations lead, Google India, said at that time.

The participants were the founders of startups including Nebulaa, Slang Labs, PregBuddy, LegalDesk, PaySack, Vokal, FarMart, Meesho, Pratilipi and M-Indicator.

“Launchpad” regional accelerators are tailored specifically to their local markets, helping startups build great products, Google said.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow