Monthly Archives: June 2017

UK Robotics Week highlights expertise and potential for mechanical assistants – The Engineer

Posted: June 26, 2017 at 5:21 pm

Jason Ford News editor

There doesnt appear to be much middle ground when it comes to discussions about robotics and automated systems.

The automotive industry has had robotic operatives on shop floors for decades but technological advances mean that the robot is becoming more capable and will inevitably become more ubiquitous in a variety of industries.

A broader look at automated and autonomous technology sees the potential for such systems to be truly disruptive, giving companies the opportunity to rethink how they deliver products or services.

In the maritime arena, for example, container ship operators might look at automated systems in terms of the savings theyll make when purchasing vessels that dont require crew facilities and the wider capabilities their vessels will give them. Merchant seamen might not be looking at this prospect with the same level of enthusiasm, a view that is applicable wherever the robot or automated system is introduced into the workplace.

Companies will argue with some justification that robots will step in to carry out laborious or dangerous jobs, freeing the human employee to do something more suited to their talents.

Whilst co-bots have gradually made their way onto the shop floor, the humanoid equivalent has been slow to evolve, although that could all be about to change.

Multi-contact robots will be able to make contact with their environment using their entire bodies, giving them the sort of agility that has previously been seen in sci-fi movies but not in industry.

To this end, Airbus has been working with the Franco-Japanese Joint Robotics Laboratory in Tsukuba to develop robot capable of for example undertaking work in the confines of an aircrafts fuselage.

From the USA, two and four-legged robots have regularly emerged from the labs of Boston Dynamics to enthrall and disturb the imagination in equal measure. As things stand, though, the robot remains a tool and it is up to humans to decide whether they are put to work for good or nefarious purposes. Things might change, of course, if the robot becomes sentient.

This potentially dystopian and so far unproven outlook shouldnt overlook the fact that Britain sees its robotics research as world-leading and this years UK Robotics Week will be showcasing how such systems can be applied in areas including surgery, social care, and disaster relief.

EPSRC is supporting the series of robot-related events that culminate in the International Robotics Showcase on June 30, 2017 at IETs HQ in London.

According to EPSRC, this years programme of events includes five competitions in the areas of surgery, extreme environments, resilient infrastructure and social care robotics, and the premiere of an Autonomous Systems film by Southampton University on emergency resilience and disaster response. Schoolchildren from across the UK are also participating in the School Robot Challenge, where they will learn how to design a virtual robot bug and teach it to move.

The International Robotics Showcase includes talks, panel discussions, exhibitions, robot demonstrations and an award ceremony for competition winners demonstrating cutting-edge robotics innovation. The UK-RAS Network will also launch four new White Papers, providing an overview of the current research landscapes in resilient infrastructure robotics; AI and robotics; robotics for emergency response, disaster relief and resilience; and robotics in social care. Doors open at 9-00am at the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), Savoy Place in central London.

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South Auckland students to represent NZ at US robotics competition – Stuff.co.nz

Posted: at 5:21 pm

KYMBERLEE FERNANDES

Last updated22:06, June 26 2017

Kymberlee Fernandes/ Stuff.co.nz

Four south Auckland students will represent New Zealand in the United States in a robotics competition. Using science to help humanity, they will present a robot that can help clean contaminated water.

Four students from South Auckland are aiming to solve the world's problems using robotics.

Kacey Roberts, Daniel Gallahar-Ikitule, Esther Asi and Vanshika Ram will represent New Zealand at an Olympics-style robotics competition in the United States in July.

The theme for the First Global competition this year is providing access to clean water.Team NZ will go up against teams from Syria, Venezuela, Sri Lanka, Chile and Pakistan among 160 other countries.

KYMBERLEE FERNANDES/FAIRFAX NZ

Vanshika Ram says although engineering is thought as a career for boys, 'if girls have an interest in it, they should really go for it'.

They're calling their robot the NZ Karebots, which translates to "friendly bots".

READ MORE: *Robots could threaten up to half New Zealand's jobs in next 20 years *South Auckland teens selected for science conference in London *Robots closer to getting go-ahead to give financial advice to humans

It is being built to separate contaminants out of the water in a game using plastic balls, Daniel from Manurewa High School explains.

KYMBERLEE FERNANDES/FAIRFAX NZ

Students work on the NZ Karebot robot to help solve world problems.

Robotics allows him to be "hands on and build things". He will most likely study mechanics or engineering, he says.

Year 8 student atTe Matauranga School,Vanshika has been interested in robotics for a couple of years.

She wanted to try something new and robotics, she says, became "one of my hobbies".

KYMBERLEE FERNANDES/FAIRFAX NZ

Daniel Gallahar-Ikitule and Esther Asi.

"Screwdrivers, chains, extrusions, wires and gears," keep her interest locked in she says.

Esther who studies at Auckland Girls Grammar is keen to help humanity and says if it wasn't for robotics, she most probably would have studied law.

"I chose robotics because it can help solve problems."

KYMBERLEE FERNANDES/FAIRFAX NZ

Vanshika Ram, left, and Kacey Roberts.

Kacey from James Cook High is excited to be part of the team and is "looking forward to meeting new people".

"It has also been good working alongside the other three and getting to know them."

Theyare being guided by Te Matauranga teacher Debbie Woolliams and are supported by teacher Marama Timoko.

KYMBERLEE FERNANDES/FAIRFAX NZ

Vanshika Ram, Kacey Roberts, Daniel Gallahar-Ikitule and Esther Asi with their NZ Karebot robot.

Providing technical advice is Stephen Moran, director at IT firm Entity Hub.

Woolliams says the whole project is an "amazing opportunity".

She was contacted by First Global to put a team together of students that might not be exposed to such a platform.

"They're all my past pupils. Here at Te Matauranga were already run STEM [science, technology, engineering, and maths]. We believe the future is about solving problems," she says.

The trip for the students and Woolliamsis funded by First Global. Henderson Demolition has funded the robot and the uniforms.

-Stuff

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Anki Delivers Powerful Robotics Programming Platform for Kids With Cozmo Code Lab – Marketwired (press release)

Posted: at 5:21 pm

Based on Scratch Blocks, a Visual Programming Language, Code Lab Makes it Easy for Kids to Create Fun Content for Cozmo

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - June 26, 2017) - In a technology-fueled world learning to code has quickly become a cherished skill, empowering kids to become creators of the technology that they use and enjoy. However, the current tools that are meant to inspire robotics programming offer a lackluster and disjointed experience, often lacking access to high-level functionalities that can help transform an aspiring child into a full-fledged programmer. Anki, the consumer robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) company, today announced Cozmo Code Lab. It's a simple and intuitive visual programming language that allows Cozmo owners to easily tap into his advanced robotics technology to program the physical robot. Dragging and dropping blocks into a sequence in Code Lab will trigger related actions from Cozmo in the physical world. Code Lab is available now to all Cozmo owners as a free software update to the Cozmo app.

"Everything we do at Anki is in an effort to advance the state of robotics, whether that is kids learning coding for the first time, or Ph.D. students solving complex computer vision challenges in a lab with Cozmo," said Boris Sofman, CEO and co-founder at Anki. "With the launch of Code Lab, Cozmo now helps kids develop the logic and reasoning skills that programming requires. Based on the Scratch Blocks project, a collaboration between MIT Media Lab and Google, we now have a powerful tool that gives anyone interested in learning to code a robot the opportunity to unleash their creativity. There's simply no consumer robotics platform available like Cozmo."

Delightfully Intuitive. Easy to Execute.

Cozmo Code Lab provides opportunities for thoughtful and logic-based play as kids are challenged to approach programming much like a real programmer. Writing sophisticated programs requires a programmer to define a set of rules to solve an issue. Code Lab challenges kids to find a solution to prescribed prompts by moving the blocks into an appropriate sequence. It also allows them to experiment with Cozmo to create whatever content they can imagine. Each block represents a specific action, movement, or animation including:

Code Lab for Cozmo is based on Scratch Blocks, a project of the MIT Media Lab, used by millions of people around the world. With Code Lab, Cozmo owners can start out with very simple programs, but then move into extremely sophisticated coding projects like creating entirely new games for the robot.

Check out Cozmo Code Lab Videos Here and Here

About Cozmo

Cozmo refuses to sit tight and wait for the fun to begin. He's ready to play. The more Cozmo gets to know his human friend, the more skilled he becomes as new abilities and upgrades are unlocked. The free-to-download Cozmo app, which runs on compatible iOS, Android, and Kindle Fire devices, comes packed with gameplay content and constantly introduces new ways to play. Cozmo even brings his own toys to the game -- three interactive Power Cubes that he's willing to share. So whether he's playing with his Cubes or challenging his human friend to one of the many games he ships with, he's always ready for action. New Cozmo abilities and game modes are introduced via free software updates, which ensures that the relationship between Cozmo and his human friend stays fresh year-round.

Supporting Resources

About Anki

Anki is harnessing robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver magical experiences that push the boundaries of the human experience. Founded in 2010 by three Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute graduates, Anki creates consumer experiences using cutting-edge technology that was once confined to robotics labs and research institutes. For three years in a row, Fast Company has named Anki one of the top 10 most innovative companies in robotics. Sales of Anki OVERDRIVE and Cozmo have catapulted the company's products into the category of top four best-selling premium toys ($75+) of the 2016 holiday season, according to The NPD Group. For more information, visit http://www.anki.com.

Anki and Cozmo are trademarks of Anki, Inc.

Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2017/6/26/11G141791/Images/Code_Lab_lifestyle_2-30232bdcd1779cf78fa27cdecc300c3d.jpeg Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2017/6/26/11G141791/Images/Code_Lab_screen_Cozmo-46256a3835699f0ba2ff87de57fab76f.jpeg

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Assistive robots compete in Bristol – Robohub

Posted: at 5:21 pm

The Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL) will host the first European- Commission funded European Robotics League (ERL) tournament for service robots to be held in the UK.

Two teams from the BRL and Birmingham will pitch their robots against each other in a series of events from 26 and 30 June.

Robots designed to support people with care-related tasks in the home will be put to the test in a simulated home test bed.

The assisted living robots of the two teams will face various challenges, including understanding natural speech and finding and retrieving objects for the user.

The robots will also have to greet visitors at the door appropriately, such as welcoming a doctor on their visit, or turning away unwanted visitors.

Associate Professor Praminda Caleb-Solly, Theme Leader for Assistive Robotics at the BRL said, The lessons learned during the competition will contribute to how robots in the future help people, such as those with ageing-related impairments and those with other disabilities, live independently in their own homes for as long as possible.

This is particularly significant with the growing shortage of carers available to provide support for an ageing populations.

The BRL, the host of the UKs first ERL Service Robots tournament, is a joint initiative of the University of the West of England and the University of Bristol. The many research areas include swarm robotics, unmanned aerial vehicles, driverless cars, medical robotics and robotic sensing for touch and vision. BRLs assisted living research group is developing interactive assistive robots as part of an ambient smart home ecosystem to support independent living.

The ERL Service Robots tournament will be held in the BRLs Anchor Robotics Personalised Assisted Living Studio, which was set up to develop, test and evaluate assistive robotic and other technologies in a realistic home environment.

The studio was recently certified as a test bed by the ERL, which runs alongside similar competitions for industrial robots and for emergency robots, which includes vehicles that can search for and rescue people in disaster-response scenarios.

The two teams in the Bristol event will be Birmingham Autonomous Robotics Club (BARC) led by Sean Bastable from the School of Computer Science at the University of Birmingham, and the Healthcare Engineering and Assistive Robotics Technology and Services (HEARTS) team from the BRL led by PhD Student Zeke Steer.

BARC has developed its own robotics platform, Dora, and HEARTS will use a TIAGo Steel robot from PAL Robotics with a mix of bespoke and proprietary software.

The Bristol event will be open for public viewing in the BRL on the afternoon of the 29th of June 2017 (Bookable via EventBrite), and include short tours of the assisted living studio for the attendees. It will be held during UK Robotics Week, on 24-30 June 2017, when there will be a nationwide programme of robotics and automation events.

The BRL will also be organising focus groups on 28 and 29 June 2017 (Bookable via EventBriteand here) as part of theUK Robotics Week, to demonstrate assistive robots and their functionality, and seek the views of carers and older adults on these assistive technologies, exploring further applications and integration of such robots into care scenarios.

The European Commission-funded European Robotics League (ERL) is the successor to the RoCKIn, euRathlon and EuRoC robotics competitions, all funded by the EU and designed to foster scientific progress and innovation in cognitive systems and robotics. The ERL is funded by the European Unions Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. See: https://www.eu-robotics.net/robotics_league/

The ERL is part of the SPARC public-private partnership set up by the European Commission and the euRobotics association to extend Europes leadership in civilian robotics. SPARCs 700 million of funding from the Commission in 201420 is being combined with 1.4 billion of funding from European industry. See: http://www.eu-robotics.net/sparc

euRobotics is a European Commission-funded non-profit organisation which promotes robotics research and innovation for the benefit of Europes economy and society. It is based in Brussels and has more than 250 member organisations. See: http://www.eu-robotics.net

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Action and Emotion – lareviewofbooks

Posted: at 5:20 pm

JUNE 26, 2017

MEG GARDINER is an American whose suspense novels were first published in the United Kingdom. She came to the attention of many American readers when Stephen King, writing for Entertainment Weekly, called her the next suspense superstar. Gardiners latest novel, UNSUB, is a cinematic thriller revolving around the return of a serial killer, nicknamed The Prophet, to the Bay Area two decades after his last killing and Caitlin Hendrix, the daughter of the cop who never caught him, vowing to bring him to justice.Caitlin takes on a cunning killer who not only terrorized her childhood but also shifted the very course of her life. Shes a narcotics detective pulled into the task force investigation and finds herself racing to decipher his insane ritual of communications and killing. I spoke to Meg Gardiner over email about UNSUB, how she conceived and researched it, and how she wrote such a vivid, high-concept novel.

JEFF ABBOTT: UNSUB asks the dramatic question: What if a killer like the Zodiac returned? How did you come up with this premise?

MEG GARDINER: The premise found me. I grew up in California, where the Zodiac wasnt a theoretical threat. He was a nightmare: a killer who wore an executioners hood, attacked young couples, then bragged about it to the police and media. He taunted the public, wrote still-unsolved cryptograms, and threatened to shoot kids on school buses. He sowed terror.

Then he disappeared. Hes never been identified.

I was haunted by that. And I wondered: If the Zodiac left the stage on his terms somebody so violent, so vicious, so eager to play mind games and hungry for publicity whats to stop him from returning?

That was the genesis of UNSUB.

Its the start of a series featuring investigator Caitlin Hendrix. Did you plan for this to be a series, or did Caitlin seem like she had more story to tell once you started writing?

Both! Caitlin has a will to seek justice shes a cops daughter and has a bone-deep conviction that wrongs need to be put right. She also loves the thrill of the hunt. Theres a world of stories for her to tackle.

Technology how we can use it to both track and evade notice plays a huge role in this book. How did you research these topics?

I could talk about our era of always-on communication, and our thirst to drink from the firehose of social media, and how the human desire to only connect leaves us vulnerable to online attacks. But thats not what you want to know.

Yes, malware exists that allows bad actors to access the camera on your phone and computer, and thankfully I didnt find that out while singing My Heart Will Go On in front of my laptop. If anybody says I did, theyre a liar.

No, I didnt research niche online dating sites by signing up forMime-Mates.com.

Maybe I spent time in online discussion forums, learning whether its possible to mask the signal from an electronic ankle monitor to avoid setting off the alarm if you violate the terms of your probation.Yourprobation. Not mine. I was nowhere near that Waffle House the night of the robbery.

And also for a serial killer who craves attention technology now gives him a platform to bypass the press and the police and directly terrorize the populace. Do you think well see that happen in real-life cases eventually?

If you can imagine it, so can a psychopath.

Picture bot armies swarming the Twitter feeds of people who mention a killer, to threaten them in shocking terms. Or a killer anonymously uploading a video of a murder to YouTube.

Its only a matter of time.

UNSUB has sold to CBS as a TV series. Its a very cinematic book, and I mean that in a good way. How did you approach the action sequences to make the story so visually compelling?

Before I write, I mentally place myself in a scene. I paint a visual canvas for readers, so they can picture the narrative playing field. When we read, the action hits the mind, not the eye. To create a visceral impact like the one we get from watching movies, I concentrate on motion, color, light, and action and reaction. And of course, I throw obstacles in the path of the characters. Thats Plotting 101.

Above all, I remember: What counts most is a scenes emotional impact. Action must reveal character, tighten tension, move the story forward, and raise or resolve vital questions. Thrillers can give readers a roller-coaster ride. That ride must be emotional.

A theme throughout UNSUB is Caitlins damaged relationship with her father, who hunted The Prophet during his first ritualized killings. How did the character of Mack Hendrix come about, and what does he say about those left behind after a serial killer has destroyed so many lives?

Police officers who work serial killings can suffer devastating PTSD. Mack Hendrix saw too much, cared too much, and took the case home with him. It broke him emotionally and tore his family apart. The effects of violence ripple and never entirely die out. Decades after a real case is closed, the cops who worked it may still visit victims graves. We owe these investigators our gratitude for facing the worst of humanity on our behalf.

One compelling character in the story is a crime blogger who is obsessed with The Prophet killings; do you think blogs, podcasts, et cetera, have changed the way we learn about famous crimes?

Inevitably. Weve always been fascinated by true crime. These days, instead of reading pulp magazines likeTrue Detective,we listen to Serial and post on the discussion boards onZodiackiller.com.

Humans are curious. Give us an unanswered question, and we hunger for the solution. Give us an unanswered, salacious, or creepy question, and we getFindTheProphet.com, the website Deralynn Hobbs runs in the novel.

On sites like these, amateurs dip their toes into investigative waters. They can build virtual libraries of case information or can defame and endanger people with wild accusations. A crowd-sourced amateur manhunt can veer wildly off track, as happened after the Boston Marathon bombing, when online sleuths wrongly accused an innocent man.

Dont get me started on keyboard cowboys who call out serial killers online, posting their own phone numbers and daring a murderer to meet them in person if hes man enough.

Was it a research challenge to write about a crime case that covers so many jurisdictions? Did it give you thoughts on how jurisdictions should work better together in real-life cases?

The Zodiac killed in Benicia, Vallejo, Napa, and San Francisco. That greatly complicated the investigation. In the novel, I could shape the geography to thwart the investigation as much or little as I pleased. These days, law enforcement agencies often form task forces to combine their investigative power. But city limits, county lines, andWelcome to Arkansasremaina prime reason that some serial killers choose interstate highways as their hunting grounds.

There have been so many serial killer novels, but UNSUB felt fresh and compelling. How did you avoid some of the overused tropes of this kind of story?

I watched every movie and reread every novel I could, telling myself: Been done. Done. Done. Dont do that. Ax? No. Chainsaw? Oh, come on. Killer dresses in a onesie and sucks a pacifier? Maybe next time.

Serial killers fascinate us. We want to understand what drives them sadism, rage, twisted fantasies? We want to believe that if we can decipher their minds and motives, we would be the target who survives an attack.

The antagonist in any story must be powerful, motivated, andindividual.In UNSUB, I created the killers secret world. The Prophet plays mind games and marks his victims bodies with the astrological sign for Mercury. I delved into codes, poetry, and ancient symbolism, as well as modern hacking.

I wanted to create a killer whose goal is powerful, but veiled. Caitlin can only stop him by uncovering that goal. Her relentless pursuit pulls readers along for the ride.

The way the plot unfurls in UNSUB is particularly clever; do you outline in detail before you start, or do you just jump in and work out the interlocking pieces in rewrite?

I brainstorm and outline before I ever write one word of fiction. I never jump in. Ive tried that, and end up floundering. If you ever come upon me trapped in a paper bag, flailing to get out, youll know I threw myself unprepared into drafting a novel.

What is next for Caitlin Hendrix?

The sequel to UNSUB Into the Black Nowhere. Caitlin hunts a slick, charming killer across the western United States, from Austin to Oregon.

Jeff Abbott is the New York Times best-selling author of Panic, Adrenaline, and many other novels.

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How AI Is Transforming Drug Creation – Wall Street Journal (subscription)

Posted: at 5:17 pm


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How AI Is Transforming Drug Creation
Wall Street Journal (subscription)
In the past, drug companies have used artificial intelligence to examine chemistrywhether a drug might bind to a particular protein, for instance. But now the trend is to use AI to probe biological systems to get clues about how a drug might affect a ...

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The Man Behind Marcel, Publicis Groupe’s New AI Platform, Expected the Skeptics – AdAge.com (blog)

Posted: at 5:17 pm

Chip Register. Credit: Publicis.Sapient

Two names were uttered more than others at Cannes last week. One is Arthur Sadoun, the new Publicis Groupe CEO who unexpectedly announced that his agency holding company will skip Cannes en masse next year. The other is Marcel, an AI system whose development Publicis will fund with the savings.

But there's another player in the drama, Chip Register, co-CEO of Publicis.Sapient and the architect of Marcel.

Register is nonplussed by the reaction to the announcement, which has included trolling by rival agencies on Twitter and sneering that Marcel is nothing more than an amped-up Alexa or publicity stunt executed by a newbie CEO trying to improve the bottom line.

"I expect and expected the skeptics," said Register, who works out of Arlington, Va., but lives in New Orleans. "That is always the case whenever you've got the idea and nerve to step out like this. My only comment to them is, 'See you at VivaTech.'"

VivaTech is Publicis' annual technology conference in Paris and where the company plans to debut Marcel next year.

Here's how Register describes what Marcel, named after Publicis founder Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet, will be able to ferret out. "In a group of 80,000 people that have 200 capabilities across 130 countries, where is the best talent to work on a project once you've received an RFP or a brief?" he said. "Where is the absolute best talent in the group to work on that and how can we assemble that team and allow that team to work and collaborate virtually to bring the best ideas and values we can to a client at a moment's notice?"

Marcel is "a transformation to go from a group to a platform," he said. "A bunch of organizations to a flat leveling of capability that can be compiled in new creative ways that can solve new and creative problems for our clients. What Marcel does is create the mechanism for that happen."

Register said Marcel will not be an enemy of creativity, but will facilitate it.

"There's been all sorts of speculators and commentators out there saying there's a trade-off between creativity and technology," Register said. "That is an absurd notion."

"The use of technology enables great creative work. It enables the connectivity of people," he added. "It enables teams to work and it enables ideas to generate, be shared globally and virtually, through the use of better insight in culture and the journey of human beings."

Publicis turned to Register due in large part to his role with Sapient before it became part of the holding company in a $3.7 billion acquisition in 2015. His expertise is building tech using Sapient's Global Distributive Delivery system, to which Publicis attributes Sapient's 32% growth rate from 2004 through 2007. Publicis.Sapient has nearly 23,000 employees, more than half of whom run that system from India and will play a large part in the development of Marcel. That's one secret of Marcel's deployment.

"We work in a very virtual way," Register said of Global Distributive Delivery. "It takes a project and it divides the requirements into the places across the whole world where the greatest talent exists to solve those problems."

Sadoun himself was in India a few weeks ago touring tech facilities operated by Register's team. It was there, insiders claim, that Sadoun's idea to ditch Cannes for Marcel was born.

Register and Publicis vigorously refute that.

"I'm not sure I can pin down a moment or an event that led to the idea," Register said. "We've been talking about how to do this for a while."

Register said he and key leaders met after Sadoun made his announcement in Cannes, adding that they "ideated 15 to 20 core competencies for the platform."

Marcel is being built internally because no one can understand the unique customization required to get the most out of its talent base other than Publicis, Register said. The company will likely work with a third-party platform in some capacity, though, to aid in the rollout.

"We buy lots of software from lots of companies that could play a role in the ultimate architecture of the products," Register said. "That's a foregone conclusion."

"But there is no off-the-shelf solution that is going to explode the value of Publicis Groupe," he added. "Fortunately, we are able to do that ourselves because we have a huge technology based enterprise that exists on a wide, global scale. There's a difference between being able to do Einstein's math and being able to split an atom; one is the ability to understand a problem and the other is ability to execute. And that is where I think we have a great shot at leading the transformation of our company."

FIVE THINGS YOU'LL BE ABLE TO ASK MARCEL

1. "Marcel, who is the CMO of Tesla and is anyone in the network connected to him or her? Please also check LinkedIn relationships."

2. "Marcel, do we have any Mumbai-based full-time, temporary, or contract employees with 5 to 7 years Java angular development experience?"

3. "Marcel, can you show me examples of great creative work we have done for luxury apparel clients?"

4. "Marcel, who won awards for creativity from our LA office?"

5. "Marcel, can you help me find a creative director in Chicago with healthcare experience?"

~ ~ ~ CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article misidentified the Publicis.Sapient system that will help develop Marcel. It is Global Distributive Delivery, not Global Distribution Delivery. The article also said Publicis.Sapient has 12,000 employees; the correct figure is 23,000.

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The Man Behind Marcel, Publicis Groupe's New AI Platform, Expected the Skeptics - AdAge.com (blog)

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AI: The Future Of Digital Marketing (And Everything Else) – MediaPost Communications

Posted: at 5:17 pm

The idea of artificial intelligence (AI) has been around for decades, and from movies to games, has now found a home in the mainstream. We are not yet at the point where computers are starting to plot the overthrow of humanity, but through AI, computers are beginning to understand our fellow human beings better than we may understand ourselves.

At least, advertising and marketing platforms that integrate AI into their processes are crunching numbers much faster than we ever could, and deriving insights that marketers use to better target and understand the end user and consumer.

Starting simple with AI technologies, there are recommendation engines: "Early low-hanging fruit for brands to harness the power of AI is in content discovery, Glenn Hower, senior analyst at Parks Associates, told attendees at the "A.I. Meets Media: Innovation Summit" presented by Ooyala.

Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube have all been tweaking their recommendation engines for years. Ingesting user data and predicting what each consumer is most likely to want to watch sounds relatively simple -- but getting it right is a different story.

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Moving further into AI capabilities, marketers can learn to connect disparate video ads based on themes, personalities and tone. This is where AI can really impress.

Microsoft Azures cloud computing product, which has been integrated into Ooyalas Flex platform, takes video content and boils it down to natural language -- covering people, colors, actions, logos, even the type of event on screen -- using the data to inform what paid media would be appropriate to serve against the content.

With near-immediate access to words spoken in any broadcast setting, marketers and advertisers can develop a deep understanding of themes present in a newscast, TV show or other video event, explained Martin Wahl, the principal product manager for Microsoft Azure. For example, Sinclair pays employees up to $85 an hour to transcribe all shows on its properties, said Wahl. AI can do the same job [and] link related words, making everything immediately searchable for a tenth or hundredth of the price it costs to have a human do it.

Even translations can be done in next to real time, opening up a completely new opportunity for international distribution of live content. Importantly, it can open up opportunities for national advertisers to expand into the international space more seamlessly.

These capabilities will save both time and money, providing marketers with immediate insights on what kinds of ad creatives are most appropriate to serve after a particular segment. With robust metadata, the AI can even suggest which ads to buy.

As Wahl put it, these capabilities are a strong start, but the real difference-maker will be how marketers decide to use the collected insights in novel ways that are yet to be discovered. That is when we will begin to see the true value of AI in marketing. Beyond artificial intelligence, human intelligence will continue to play a central role in harnessing AI.

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Sorting Lego sucks, so here’s an AI that does it for you – Engadget

Posted: at 5:17 pm

You see, Mattheij decided he wanted in on the profitable cottage industry of online Lego reselling, and after placing a bunch of bids for the colorful little blocks on eBay, he came into possession of 2 tons (4,400 pounds) of Lego -- enough to fill his entire garage.

As Mattheij explains in his blog post, resellers can make up to 40 ($45) per kilogram for Lego sets, and rare parts and Lego Technic can fetch up to 100 ($112) per kg. If you really want to rake in the cash, however, you have to go through the exhaustive process of manually sorting through your bulk Lego before selling it in smaller groupings online. Instead of spending an eternity sifting through his own, intimidatingly large collection, Mattheij set to work on building an automated Lego sorter powered by a neural network that could classify the little building blocks. In case you were wondering, Lego comes in more than 38,000 shapes and over 100 shades of color, which amounts to a lot of sorting even with the aid of AI.

Starting with a proof of concept (built using Lego, naturally), Mattheij spent the following six months improving upon his prototype with a lot of DIY handiwork. In his own words, he describes his present setup as a "hodge-podge of re-purposed industrial gear" stuck together using "copious quantities of crazy glue" and a "heavily modified" home treadmill.

The current incarnation uses conveyor belts to carry the Lego past a web camera that is set up to take images of the blocks. These are then fed to the neural network as part of its classification training, and all Mattheij has to do is spot the errors in its judgement.

"As the neural net learns, there are fewer mistakes, and the labeling workload decreases," he states. "By the end of two weeks I had a training data set of 20,000 correctly labeled images."

With his prototype up and running, Mattheij claims he is just waiting for the machine learning software to reliably class all of the images itself, and then he can start selling off the lucrative toy. If Matthiej manages to get the system working, he could then rechannel those profits into new expensive Lego projects.

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How Social Media Is Using AI to Fight Terrorism – Motley Fool

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Once upon a time, terrorists used bombs, machetes, and bullets to get their message across. While that's still the case, modern day terror has a new tool at its disposal, one that it has become particularly adept and successful at deploying: social media. This stark reality has come to light in the wake of terror campaigns that ended with participants pledging their support to their chosen causes and posting them on social media platforms.

Other insidious forms of communication and objectionable material have flourished in the internet era as well. Hate speech and violent threats have found homes there. Governments and advertisers worldwide are aware of the phenomenon and are increasingly pressuring social-media companies like Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ:FB), Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG), Twitter, Inc. (NYSE:TWTR), and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) to police undesirable content on their sites.

The sheer volume of content and the differences and complexity of local laws and regulations conspired to create a near-insurmountable task for these sites. However, recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are being brought to bear, and producing surprisingly effective results.

Facebook is deploying AI to fight terror. Image source: Facebook.

Facebook revealed that new AI algorithms based on image recognition have been deployed to assist with the Herculean chore. One tool has been developed to scan the site for images and live videos containing terrorist propaganda, including beheadings, and to remove them without the intercession of a human moderator.

Another system has been trained to identify accounts that have been set up by terrorists, and prevent them from setting up additional accounts. Another algorithm is being trained in the language of propaganda to help identify posts related to terror. Once the content has been identified and removed, the system catalogs the data, then consistently scans the site and identifies attempts to repost it.

Twitter has been deploying similar tools based on AI for rooting out terrorist content. The company says that these methods flagged 74% of the nearly 377,000 accounts it removed between July and December of 2016.

This follows an alliance by some of the biggest names in tech circles late last year to create a database of the worst content, to prevent it from being reposted on any of the sites. YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook joined Microsoft in the venture to create unique digital identifiers, or "fingerprints," to use for automatically detecting and removing content that had previously been tagged as terrorist propaganda.

Microsoft developed and deployed similar technology to battle child pornography on the internet. The system was used to detect, report, and remove the images contained in a database.

Big tech is bringing AI to the fight on terror. Image source: Getty Images.

Google, the Alphabet subsidiary and owner of YouTube, is a pioneer in AI and recently found another way to use the nascent technology. YouTube faced a massive boycott from some of its biggest advertisers after it was revealed that brand advertising had appeared on YouTube videos containing racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, and terrorist content. The company applied new AI techniques to the task, and within weeks achieved a 500% improvement in identifying objectionable content. YouTube revealed that more than half the content it removed over the previous six months for containing terrorist-related material had been identified using AI.

The world is a complicated place, and new technology brings new challenges. The advent of social media brought the world closer together, for better or for worse. Artificial intelligence is still a nascent technology, and while it isn't a panacea, it is being used in a variety of ways that make the world a better place.

Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Teresa Kersten is an employee of LinkedIn and is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors; LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft. Danny Vena owns shares of Alphabet (A shares) and Facebook. Danny Vena has the following options: long January 2018 $640 calls on Alphabet (C shares) and short January 2018 $650 calls on Alphabet (C shares). The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), Facebook, and Twitter. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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How Social Media Is Using AI to Fight Terrorism - Motley Fool

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