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Daily Archives: July 4, 2017
Please ignore the robots – The Verge
Posted: July 4, 2017 at 8:19 am
Welcome to First Click, a daily essay written by The Verge staff in which we opine on lives lived in the near future.
Its just a ruin in a field now, but in 15th-century England, Boxley Abbey was a hotspot for the faithful. Pilgrims would travel from across the land to see a statue of Christ on the cross that was housed in the monastery and known as the Rood of Grace. On holy days, the Christ would come alive, with a contemporary account describing how the figure hypnotized crowds with its ability to:
shake and stirre the hands and feete, to nod the head, to rolle the eies, to wag the chaps, to bende the browes [] shewing a most milde, amiable, and smyling cheere and countenance. 1
During Henry VIIIs Dissolution of the Monasteries, when the riches of the Church were being confiscated in the name of religious conformity, the Rood was removed and its secrets laid bare. Inspectors discovered that protruding from Christs back was a mess of wire [and] old rotten sticks, which the monks had used to operate it from afar. The statue was taken to London and, during a sermon outside St Pauls Cathedral, broken into pieces by an angry crowd, to put an end its great idolatrie once and for all.
Stories like this are strange and familiar. They show that robots have been shocking society for far longer than we usually think. To us they seem a modern phenomenon, but for centuries, the rich and powerful have been building automata to amuse themselves and awe the masses. Sometimes, though, we forget about the strings that are being pulled.
Look at the news from last month that the police force of Dubai has hired its first robotic cop. The bot in question is about the size and shape of a human, but with wheels for legs, cameras for eyes, and a tablet embedded in the middle of its chest. During press events, the robot was pictured shaking hands and saluting dutifully. One officer commented: These kinds of robots can work 24/7. They won't ask you for leave, sick leave or maternity leave. It can work around the clock.
Its all rubbish of course. Dubais robot an off-the-shelf model built by Spains Pal Robotics wont be doing any real work. Its a tablet on wheels, designed to trundle around tourist centers and dole out directions. The same can be said of many other high-profile bots like Pepper, or various home hub robots. The work they do is usually just that of a mobile phone or a security camera. Occasionally, if theyre big enough, theyll knock over a child, just to break up the routine.
But as in 15th-century England, these particular robots are serving another, more important purpose. Historical accounts of the Rood of Grace are divided over whether or not pilgrims were actually fooled by the mechanical Christ. Did they believe they were witnessing a miracle, or were they just impressed by the technology and what it represented: the power and wealth of the Church.
the robots that will actually take our jobs are far less exciting
Similarly, although the practical uses of Dubais new robot are limited, as a symbol its potent. The government of the United Arab Emirates is currently pursuing its Vision 2021 strategy a plan to shift the countrys economy away from oil-dependence to a diverse mix of technologically advanced industries. Part of this involves embracing automation, from artificial intelligence to driverless cars and drones. And, yes, that will include robots working for the police, but they wont be humanoid because thats not practical. Theyll be like this CCTV-equipped self-driving car; one that Dubais police force is also testing just with less fanfare.
Many robots we see today are simply avatars of larger economic and technological forces. It is absolutely certain that in the years to come, the tools of automation (including the robots we dont see; hidden away in factories and warehouses) will destroy some jobs, create others, and dramatically reshape societies around the world. Whether or not governments can stop these changes harming workers is another question. Although lots of news coverage of robots and AI veers between wild apocalyptic predictions and a sort of bemused wonderment, we need to split the difference and consider the real, unexciting challenges ahead most of which will have political, not technological, solutions.
Just like the congregants in Boxley Abbey, the questions we should be asking when we see these marvels are: who is pulling the strings here, and what is it they want from us?
1The Restless Clock: A History of the Centuries-Long Argument Over What Makes Living Things Tick, Jessica Riskin
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Robotics and the click-to-ship revolution – The Engineer
Posted: at 8:19 am
Viewpoint
Robots have always been considered as futuristic. The reality is, they are entering the here-and-now in a significant and transformative way and nowhere more so than in the modern warehouse, as Simon Cooper of Dematic explains
Across all walks of life, robots, in the form of autonomous cars, drones and voice-activated artificial intelligence, are gaining public attention. Trials of autonomous cars have taken place in several major cities already, including London, and drones have been famously used by Amazon to deliver online orders. But robots are set to have a far wider influence on industry, logistics and retail enterprises.
Of course, articulated robots have been a common sight in automotive assembly plants for years, and to some extent, they are often seen within warehouses assembling pallet loads. But, the use of robotics for ecommerce order fulfilment is something new and is fast becoming a major focus of attention for the large retailers.
Robotics will soon become the key differentiator for retail businesses competing on cost-to-serve and speed of delivery for online orders. Many retailers are aiming for 15 minutes from click to ship an ambitious target that can only be achieved through the use of robots. Major retailers across the globe are actively engaged in seeking solutions to these challenges.
The interest in robotics is strong. A recent report published by Research and Markets found that worldwide sales of warehousing and logistics robots hit $1.9 billion in 2016 and predicts that the market will reach $22.4 billion by the end of 2021. In a separate study by analysts Tractica, worldwide shipments made by warehousing and logistics robots are set to rise from 40,000 units in 2016 to 620,000 units annually by 2021.
This growing interest in warehouse robotics is being fuelled, in the main, by the consumers continued preference to shop online, with the rising expectation for next day delivery. According to figures released in March 2017 by the UKs Office for National Statistics (ONS), shoppers spent an estimated 1bn a week online with UK retailers during February, 20.7% up on the same month last year accounting for 15.3% of all retail spending.
But, how will omnichannel retailers cope with this significant and continuing shift to online sales? Where will the labour force come from to match the rising demand for single order picking? In large ecommerce fulfilment centres many hundreds of people are already employed as pickers and packers and, in key areas, finding staff is becoming increasingly difficult, but many more will be needed if the trend to online continues as predicted.
Perennial fears over the loss of some manual warehouse tasks to robots could possibly stand in the way of a sensible solution to the problems of scale of demand and cost. A draft report to the European parliament, prepared by MEP Mady Delvaux in 2016, even raised the idea of a tax on robots. However, robots can increase the productivity of the existing labour force and would be invaluable in the boost to activity leading up to Christmas, when finding extra staff can be difficult.
Importantly, robotics and automation radically improve productivity and through these gains, businesses grow and develop, requiring more people to maintain systems and run the newly developed channels of growth. Thus, the overall prospect for jobs remains positive going forward, although some roles may change.
In the UK, there are some that believe finding labour for picking processes may become more difficult following the decision to leave the EU, making investment in robotic picking an even more compelling option. It seems likely that many retailers will choose to amortise the cost of automation over a longer time period, and so ensure operational efficiency and customer service, rather than be exposed to the possibility of being dependent upon a dwindling pool of labour, with the linked prospect of rising labour costs.
There is already evidence of a growing number of retail businesses with large manual operations looking to the viability of automated DCs that incorporate robotic systems. Even organisations that presently use paper pick lists are exploring automation.
Mixed case palletising and roll-cage building is becoming increasingly important for retailers, particularly grocers, as they look to store friendly sequencing to achieve greater efficiency with shelf replenishment at their retail outlets. Dematic have developed shuttle-based systems to deliver full cases of product in sequence to specially created robot handlers and these dedicated machines pick-and-place product in mixed case fashion to a pallet or roll-cage. In this type of operation it is critical that the storage and retrieval system supplying the robot is fast enough to handle the cases and intelligent enough to deliver the cases in the exact sequence.
Similarly, many retailers are asking for retail totes to be built up on pallets or dollies automatically by robot in a store friendly sequence. This is relatively straight forward, removing manual labour and using intelligent software to sequence and build the load in accordance to the planned layout of the retail store building the load in reverse drop sequence. When the dolly is wheeled down the aisle in the store, items are available in order, ready to be placed on the shelves.
However, the Holy Grail in warehouse automation, and undoubtedly the most difficult challenge to date, is the use of robots for single item picking from a stock tote to an order tote. This is cutting edge technology and Dematic is actively engaged in developing robots for picking individual items, such as a bottle of shampoo or a tee shirt, from a stock tote and placing it to an order tote. Dematics RapidPick XT robotic picking system is leading this field and can consistently pick up to 1,200 items per hour with an uptime approaching 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The robot is fully articulated and equipped with a 2D/3D vision system.
It is the vision system and the gripper that are the two most highly complex aspects of this challenge. Dematic are trialing both gripper and vacuum technology to effect the pick and creating machines that are able to swap these hand pieces accordingly, depending on the characteristics of the items being picked.
Another robot that has just been developed by Dematics research unit in Grand Rapids is the Multishuttle ARM. This is a completely automated piece picking system that combines the Multishuttle donor tote buffer storage and conveyance system, a robotic arm, vision equipment, and warehouse control and order management systems to enable picking of individual items to batch or order totes. Multishuttle ARM replaces manual goods-to-person processes for order fulfilment operations.
There are many more exciting developments taking place regarding AGVs and robotics.
Robotic solutions have become viable only through recent advances in artificial intelligence. They are now far more cost-effective and are able to quickly identify, verify, pick-up and place single items at speed. These are complex problems that are being solved, here and now. Robots are no longer science fiction; they are fast becoming a very real part of the contemporary warehouse.
Simon Cooper is business solutions sales director for Dematic Northern Europe
About Dematic Dematic employs over 6,000 skilled logistics professionals to serve its customers globally, with engineering centers and manufacturing facilities located across the globe. Dematic has implemented more than 4,500 integrated systems for a customer base that includes small, medium and large companies doing business in a variety of market sectors. Headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Dematic is a member of KION Group, a global leader in industrial trucks, related services, and supply chain solutions.
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Summer of Coding and Robotics – GeekDad (blog)
Posted: at 8:19 am
Another summer, another round of summer camps. For the last three years, Ive been enjoying teaching a variety of tech camps here in Atlanta. My students are typically 2nd to 7th graders, and Ive enjoyed teaching week-long camps such as Build Your Own Robot, 3D Design and Printing, and the big favorite, Minecraft Engineering. Just behind the Minecraft camp, however, is the Beginning Game Programming Camp. Ive now taught it three summers in a row, and it remains popular. Kids love games, and kids like the idea of learning to create their own games. Theyve got to start somewhere, and Scratch programming has consistently proven to be a great tool for introducing programming concepts and thought patterns.
Ive written previously about the DK workbooks that I use (you can read more about those workbooks here and here and here), and I always make a bunch of other books available as resources. I let the kids take the workbooks home when the camp is finished so they can share it with their parents and siblings. Each summer, Ive tried to improve on the curriculum, and this past week I got to take some camp upgrades for a test spin.
Last summer was the first time I introduced gamification to the game programming class. Each camper was provided a badge and a small checklist. As they worked through two workbooks and completed games/projects, they would level up. These checklists were taped to the whiteboard and provided a bit of incentive and competition to the students as they worked hard to reach Level 10. The problem I encountered was that many students didnt like the competition part some older students just moved more quickly through the levels, and the younger students tended to feel a bit overwhelmed. This time around, I instead provided each student with a small booklet and badge and allowed them to move around the nine games/projects and do the ones that interested them instead of a set list of consecutive projects. We took frequent breaks and I introduced them to other subjects related to programming (more on that in a moment).
Below you can see some photos of the badges and booklets. The students enjoyed taking the booklets home and showing their parents the progress they were making. My initials and a big checkmark brought a lot of smiles and I could see the sense of accomplishment each student received as they leveled up. I also awarded up to eight Achievement stickers to students when I saw them doing something useful or impressive; these included TEACH badges for explaining a concept to another student, DEBUG for successfully finding a bug on their own, and, the favorite, TEAMWORK for working together to solve a problem or find a unique way to do something.
With five days to level up, there was no pressure and I allowed students to take their workbooks home to continue their progress. Level 10 could only be achieved by creating their own unique game, and all the students were successful in finishing a game by Friday. I awarded a lot of TEAMWORK and DEBUG achievements but also quite a few RESEARCH and UPGRADE badges.
I mentioned earlier that, during the Scratch Game Programming camp, I introduced the students to program-related topics. One of those topics was robot programming. Kids are fascinated by robots (adults, too), and its an easy thing to hand a student who might be hesitant to learn programming a small robot like the Edison and ask him to drag some blocks on the screen to program the little robot to drive a loop around his chair.
I was fortunate this week to have an Edison to show the kids. This little robot has studs on it so LEGO blocks can be attached, but I was much more impressed with the new tool thats being released shortly called EdBlocks. EdBlocks is a browser-based tool that lets the user drop pre-coded blocks on the screen and string them together to create more complex instruction sets. I was able to use EdBlocks to get a few of the younger campers a bit more confident with the drag-and-drop Scratch block programming. Whats interesting is that EdBlocks is based on the Scratch tool, and some of the blocks (especially the looping-style blocks) shared a color scheme with their Scratch counterparts. The visual similarities, in my opinion, made it much easier for my younger programmers to feel at home once they dove into Scratch.
The only problem I had was that they didnt want to leave the Edison and start learning Scratch. They had the robot doing zig-zag patterns out in the hallway and beeping away at obstructions. The kids were so engaged that Im seriously consider creating an entire camp that revolves around the inexpensive Edison robot. I was provided with eight sample lessons, but the final (and FREE) resource pack will include 23 lessons and a teacher compendium!
And speaking of new camps, my next camp (a new one titled More Game Programming) will be up and running in a few weeks, and Ive got another absolutely incredible resource from DK. Each camper will be given a copy (to take home when the camp is done) of the brand new Coding Projects in Python. Ive read through the book, done most of the projects, and Im blown away by what a great resource this is for a younger audience.
This is a much lengthier book, coming in at 224 pages. Just as with the workbooks, this book is filled with colorful graphics, useful sidebars, Expert Tips, and much more. The book offers up over 15 different games and projects to code in Python, and its the layout of this book and the unique way it teaches the reader to code with Python that convinced me to offer the camp. With well-defined step numbers, the layout makes it easy for students to not accidentally jump ahead and skip over something important. This is a big dealmany coding books are just paragraph after paragraph after paragraph with code snippets tossed in, and Ive found that kids can often get lost easily in the maze. These projects are spread out and not rushedstudents have plenty of graphics to explore that explain key concepts and the sidebars are engaging. My oldest son has enjoyed the book (going into 5th grader) and I have no doubt the 3rd to 5th graders who will be taking the camp will find the projects fun. Even better, however, is the fact that they will get some solid experience with coding using a text-based language instead of a visual tool like Scratch.
Coding Projects in Python just came out, so I am fortunate to be able to have copies for each student. If youve got a student at home during the summer who is bored or needing a challenge, this is the book for him or her. And because Python is free to download and install, theres nothing else to buy. (It will run on both Mac and PC.)
All in all, Im keeping some kids busy this summer with lots of fun and interesting tools. From the Edison robot to Scratch programming to coding in Python, Im enjoy seeing the look of satisfaction on these kids faces as they learn new skills and have many Ah-hah! moments. Whether youre teaching your own camps or just have a kid or two at home during the summer and are looking for some ideas, these books and programming tools and robots are a sure-fire way to keep reading skills and brains sharp.
Note: Id like to thank DK and Team Edison/Microbric for providing review copies of the Python book and the Edison robot and EdBlocks tutorials.
James Floyd Kelly is a full-time writer. His latest three books are Digital Engineering with Minecraft, Tinkercad for Beginners and The Ultimate iPad. Learn more by visiting his website http://jamesfloydkelly.com
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Sony Could Be The Best Virtual Reality Growth Play – Seeking Alpha
Posted: at 8:19 am
After being under the spotlight at Electronic Entertainment Expo(E3) 2016, VR was largely downplayed at E3 2017. Many of the major VR players settled for low-key presentations, unlike last year's overwhelming scale. The slower than anticipated VR headset sales have not helped their cause either. However, at E3, Sony (NYSE:SNE) made a big push on VR. On the other hand, one of Sony's main rivals, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), at its Xbox One X launch, snubbed VR. The likes of Facebook-owned Oculus avoided the show while HTC, the maker of Vive headsets, settled for a low-key event.
The lack of a strong show by major VR players at E3 2017 could be a hint that the VR hype has not lived up to the early buzz it received and could be heading towards a dead end. But that's not the case if you go by recent reports from some research firms. In spite of a tepid response to VR till now, some research firms are extremely optimistic about the long-term prospects of VR. IDC predicts that VR headsets will grow at a very strong pace, with a CAGR of 48.7% through 2021. AR and VR headsets collectively are expected to increase from "under 10 million units in 2016 to just shy of 100 million units in 2021, with a 5-year CAGR of 57.7%." Another firm, CCS Insight expects "sales of dedicated VR headsets to grow to 22 million units by 2021 - an 800 percent increase over 2017. Market to be worth $7.7 billion by 2021." PWC's study finds that Chinas demand for VR headsets will reach 85.9 million by 2021, overtaking the United States' demand for 68 million units. All these reports raise the expectations from this industry, which is still in an early stage and yet to become mainstream.
Sony's VR push at E3 2017
At the E3 presentation, Sony announced diverse new VR game titles targeting all sorts of users. The horror thriller Inpatient, shooter game Bravo Team and lighter side game Starchild were among the few titles which were revealed. Popular game title Skyrim also is coming to the PSVR. This sort of focus on VR content suggests the company is more serious about VR than other platforms like Vita portable or Move motion controllers.
The focus could be justified in the sense that with only two full quarters of sales, it has managed to sell over a million VR headsets till date. In the first quarter of 2017, Sony sold more than three times the number of tethered VR headsets sold by its more powerful counterparts like Facebook's (NASDAQ:FB) Oculus and HTC's Vive. Sony, having shipped 429,000 PlayStation VR headsets in the first quarter, is second on IDC's list after Samsung, which shipped over 489,000 VR units. Samsung has sold the most number of VR headsets but those are screenless viewers. Sony is the market leader in tethered VR headset market. Further, Sony has stated it has been struggling to keep up with the demand. If this is the case then Q3 and Q4 numbers could be much stronger. IDC expects Sony to remain the market leader for some time at least in the VR gaming market.
IHS' head of games research, director Piers Harding-Rolls, has spoken highly of Sony's VR strategy and thinks that PS VR could also be a runaway success like the PS4. Commenting on the company's VR strategy, he states "Microsofts reticence to embark on a console based VR strategy until at least 2018 means that Sony has an opportunity to build a comprehensive VR lead during the rest of 2017. While the VR market is still embryonic, Sonys VR strategy offers it a key differentiator beyond the multi-platform timed exclusive games which represent the traditional battleground between Microsoft and Sony. Sony is bringing its first-party studios to bear here, with a number of titles coming to the platform in 2017." IHS projects the PS4 installed base would hit 69 million units worldwide by the end of 2017. This is a huge target user base for the company's VR strategy. Even a 5% conversion of its projected PS4 user base will mean sales of more than 3 million VR headsets. This would, on an average, bring in $1.2 billion revenue for the company.
The advantage Sony has here is that its VR opportunity doesn't end with just VR headset sales. It controls its complete VR ecosystem including headset, game console, and content. So, as VR becomes mainstream it has multiple avenues for generating revenue from the VR opportunity. With Microsoft not coming up with any specific console based VR offering till late 2018, Sony has the edge to create a strong VR ecosystem base and then work on it to take it forward. The company is in pole position to build a massive lead over its main rival Microsoft in the VR space as it has done in gaming console space with PS4. If analyst projections were to hold true and Sony maintains its market dominance in VR headsets, it could be one of the best ways to play the VR opportunity. The larger PS4 user base and expanding support of AAA games for VR make Sony a strong contender to succeed in the growing VR market.
Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.
I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Additional disclosure: This article was written by Sreekanth Anasa, an equity analyst at Amigobulls. Neither Amigobulls, nor any members of its staff hold positions in any of the stocks discussed in this post. The author may not be a certified/registered investment advisor, and the opinions expressed should not be treated as investment advice. Buying and selling of securities carries the risk of monetary losses. Readers/Viewers are advised to carry out their own due diligence and consult their investment advisors before making any investment decisions. Neither Amigobulls, nor the author have any business relationship with any of the companies covered in this post.
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Sony Could Be The Best Virtual Reality Growth Play - Seeking Alpha
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VR is good for something other than video games and porn – New York Post
Posted: at 8:19 am
Alex Woods blood and needle phobia went from being a source of anxiety to life-threatening after he contracted pre-diabetes in college.
With skyrocketing blood sugar and hypoglycemia levels, Wood was forced to confront his bloodcurdling phobia, sitting through what he describes as constant blood tests.
[Blood and needles] are definitely something that I find extremely uncomfortable. Its exacerbated by when I had really serious problems with my blood sugar and hypoglycemia levels as a university student. They used to say look around the corner, look whos here and Id turn around and theyd jab the needle in quickly. They tried every trick possible to try and get me through it, Wood says.
For those afraid of blood and needles, fainting, dizziness and avoiding doctor appointments are all too common. Wood says that while the blood tests saved his life, helping him beat his pre-diabetes, they also exacerbated his phobia.
As a London-based tech journalist, Wood was drawn to virtual reality as a quick and easy means to overcome his phobia. Like exposure therapy, virtual reality therapy means gradually exposing a patient to what they fear.
But instead of having to confront your fears face-to-face, you can do it with just a psychologist and a VR headset.
In Woods virtual reality therapy session he watched 360-degree videos of scenarios that would normally induce anxiety. The psychologist taught him relaxation techniques to deal with his phobia and measured his pulse and heart rate. Increasing with intensity with each session, the videos first showed Wood sitting in a doctors waiting room something that he finds extremely stressful. Later he was shown videos of himself getting injections and blood tests.
Before virtual reality therapy, Wood couldnt stand watching gory horror films and hospital dramas. But after just one session he describes the therapy as game-changing, making an astounding difference to his phobia.
Blood and needle phobias arent the only phobia capable of being treated by virtual reality. The possibilities are endless, with VR treatments ranging from fears of flying to medical and animal phobias and even treating fears of cotton balls and garden gnomes. Currently, in Australia, about one in 10 people have a phobia. In the United States, around 23 million people have a phobia roughly the size of Australias population.
A phobia differs from a regular fear as it encompasses a change in behavior, including avoiding the phobic situation, says Brenda Wiederhold, a psychologist at the Virtual Reality Medical Center in California. Virtual reality in recent years has become an increasingly popular alternative to hypnosis and traditional therapy. Wiederhold says that in her clinic VR therapy has a 92 percent success rate and on average patients take 10 sessions to cure their fears.
Wiederhold emphasizes that these phobias can be extremely debilitating for patients, intruding upon the normalcy of their everyday lives. This includes costing them jobs and sometimes even forcing them to move home.
Instead of having to confront your fears face-to-face, you can do it with just a psychologist and a VR headset.
Virtual reality therapy has slowly but surely made its way to Australian shores. Currently, Sydney Phobia Clinic is the only clinic in Australia offering virtual reality therapy. This city-based clinic is where Kevin McAuley conquered his needle phobia.
Like Wood, the 32-year-old entrepreneur had suffered an intense fear of needles from a young age, but with a vague idea of how his fear had come about. Through therapy sessions and using virtual reality, McAuley is now able to get injections and blood tests, something that he had once avoided at all costs.
Before therapy, even people talking about injections or blood tests, I would literally have to say stop. Anytime I would go to the doctor and get an injection Id faint. I would feel sick, dizzy and hot and then next thing Id be lying on the floor and people would be waking me up, McAuley says.
McAuleys phobia came to a head when he started a new job and one of his first clients was Red Cross Blood Donations a nightmarish situation for someone with a needle phobia.
As soon as they said it I just knew I couldnt handle it. My mind ran away with itself and just the thought of it, I ended up fainting on the first day of the job, McAuley says.
Needle and blood phobias have this element that other phobias dont have, where you faint, like a fight-or-flight response. All the blood is leaving your head so that you can run away but were not on African plains, theres not a lion and your body recalibrates, he says.
One benefit of VR is that it enables patients to practice the relaxation techniques theyve learned in therapy before facing a real-world phobic scenario. In real-life exposure therapy, McAuley and Wood may have canceled dozens of doctors appointments due to intense fear. But with virtual reality, they were able to gain confidence through practicing with a psychologist and a VR headset.
And with the advent of VR, psychologists are curing phobias that were previously impossible to treat with exposure therapy. This is because, as Wiederhold explains, some phobic situations are difficult for psychologists to recreate, such as a fear of heights, storms, or flying. But even so, a hefty price tag stands in the way of VR therapy becoming common use for medical professionals and consumers.
Currently, researchers around the country are working hard to reverse the high expenses of VR technology. One researcher at the University of New South Wales Jill Newby is developing technology to make VR more affordable, at the cost of just a $15 headset.
One of the things Im working on is using virtual reality but in a really cheap, accessible way. I have taken 360 degree photos, where I can go into a free app on my phone and view the photo using a virtual headset. This headset only costs $15, so its really cheap. Anyone could use this in their own homes to help them overcome their fears, Newby says.
And in the end, helping people with life-threatening phobias overcome their fears is what makes the job worthwhile for psychologists like Newby and Wiederhold.
I get postcards from people who are going on a flight, or going to a graduation they didnt think they could attend. One gentleman had a fear of driving around cliffs and he went on a holiday in Italy with his wife after he did the treatment. Its very rewarding to have peoples lives changed by these things, Wiederhold says.
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Rve execs take product development into virtual reality – Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal
Posted: at 8:19 am
Rve execs take product development into virtual reality Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal ... from left, Kristin Pardue, Thong Nguyen and Brad von Bank. Provided by Roomera. A startup launched by the consulting firm's leaders is betting that the stores, bank branches and hotel rooms of the future will first be seen through a virtual reality ... |
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Rve execs take product development into virtual reality - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal
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Why, Robot? Understanding AI ethics – The Register
Posted: at 8:18 am
Not many people know that Isaac Asimov didnt originally write his three laws of robotics for I, Robot. They actually first appeared in "Runaround", the 1942 short story*. Robots mustnt do harm, he said, or allow others to come to harm through inaction. They must obey orders given by humans unless they violate the first law. And the robot must protect itself, so long as it doesnt contravene laws one and two.
75 years on, were still mulling that future. Asimovs rules seem more focused on strong AI the kind of AI youd find in HAL, but not in an Amazon Echo. Strong AI mimics the human brain, much like an evolving child, until it becomes sentient and can handle any problem you throw at it, as a human would. Thats still a long way off, if it ever comes to pass.
Instead, today were dealing with narrow AI, in which algorithms cope with constrained tasks. It recognises faces, understands that you just asked what the weather will be like tomorrow, or tries to predict whether you should give someone a loan or not.
Making rules for this kind of AI is quite difficult enough to be getting on with for now, though, says Jonathan M. Smith. Hes a member of the Association for Computing Machinery, and a professor of computer science at the University of Pennsylvania, says theres still plenty of ethics to unpack at this level.
The shorter-term issues are very important because theyre at the boundary of technology and policy, he says. You dont want the fact that someone has an AI making decisions to escape, avoid or divert past decisions that we made in the social or political space about how we run our society.
There are some thorny problems already emerging, whether real or imagined. One of them is a variation on the trolley problem, a kind of Sophies Choice scenario in which a train is bearing down on two sets of people. If you do nothing, it kills five people. If you actively pull a lever, the signals switch and it kills one person. Youd have to choose.
Critics of AI often adapt this to self-driving cars. A child runs into the road and theres no time to stop, but the software could choose to swerve and hit an elderly person, say. What should the car do, and who gets to make that decision? There are many variations on this theme, and MIT even collected some of them into an online game.
There are classic counter arguments: the self-driving car wouldnt be speeding in a school zone, so its less likely to occur. Utilitarians might argue that the number of deaths eliminated worldwide by eliminating distracted, drunk or tired drivers would shrink overall, which means society wins, even if one person loses.
You might point out that a human would have killed one of the people in the scenario too, so why are we even having this conversation? Yasemin Erden, a senior lecturer in philosophy at Queen Marys University, has an answer for that. She spends a lot of time considering ethics and computing on the committee of the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour.
Decisions in advance suggest ethical intent and incur others judgement, whereas acting on the spot doesnt, she points out.
The programming of a car with ethical intentions knowing what the risk could be means that the public could be less willing to view things as accidents, she says. Or in other words, as long as you were driving responsibly its considered ok for you to say that person just jumped out at me and be excused for whomever you hit, but AI algorithms dont have that luxury.
If computers are supposed to be faster and more intentional than us in some situations, then how theyre programmed matters. Experts are calling for accountability.
Id need to cross-examine my algorithm, or at least know how to find out what was happening at the time of the accident, says Kay Firth-Butterfield. She is a lawyer specialising in AI issues and executive director at AI Austin. Its a non-profit AI thinktank set up this March that evolved from the Ethics Advisory Panel, an ethics board set up by AI firm Lucid.
We need a way to understand what AI algorithms are "thinking" when they do things, she says. How can you say to a patient's family if they died because of an intervention we don't know how this happened? So accountability and transparency are important.
Puzzling over why your car swerved around the dog but backed over the cat isnt the only AI problem that calls for transparency. Biased AI algorithms can cause all kinds of problems. Facial recognition systems may ignore people of colour because their training data didnt have enough faces fitting that description, for example.
Or maybe AI is self-reinforcing to the detriment of society. If social media AI learns that you like to see material supporting one kind of politics and only ever shows you that, then over time we could lose the capacity for critical debate.
J.S Mill made the argument that if ideas arent challenged then they are at risk of becoming dogma, Erden recalls, nicely summarising what she calls the filter bubble problem. (Mill was a 19th century utilitarian philosopher who was a strong proponent of logic and reasoning based on empirical evidence, so he probably wouldnt have enjoyed arguing with people on Facebook much.)
So if AI creates billions of people unwilling or even unable to recognise and civilly debate each others ideas, isnt that an ethical issue that needs addressing?
Another issue concerns the forming of emotional relationships with robots. Firth-Butterfield is interested in two ends of the spectrum children and the elderly. Kids love to suspend disbelief, which makes robotic companions with their AI conversational capabilities all that easier to embrace. She frets about AI robots that may train children to be ideal customers for their products.
Similarly, at the other end of the spectrum, she muses about AI robots used to provide care and companionship to the elderly.
Is it against their human rights not to interact with human beings but just to be looked after by robots? I think thats going to be one of the biggest decisions of our time, she says.
That highlights a distinction in AI ethics, between how an algorithm does something and what were trying to achieve with it. Alex London, professor of philosophy and director at Carnegie Mellon Universitys Center for Ethics and Policy, says that the driving question is what the machine is trying to do.
The ethics of that is probably one of the most fundamental questions. If the machine is out to serve a goal thats problematic, then ethical programming the question of how it can more ethically advance that goal - sounds misguided, he warns.
Thats tricky, because much comes down to intent. A robot could be great if it improves the quality of life for an elderly person as a supplement for frequent visits and calls with family. Using the same robot as an excuse to neglect elderly relatives would be the inverse. Like any enabling technology from the kitchen knife to nuclear fusion, the tool itself isnt good or bad its the intent of the person using it. Even then, points out Erden, what if someone thinks theyre doing good with a tool but someone else doesnt?
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Peering inside an AI’s brain will help us trust its decisions – New Scientist
Posted: at 8:18 am
Is it a horse?
Weegee(Arthur Fellig)/International Center of Photography/Getty
By Matt Reynolds
Oi, AI what do you think youre looking at? Understanding why machine learning algorithms can be tricked into seeing things that arent there is becoming more important with the advent of things like driverless cars. Now we can glimpse inside the mind of a machine thanks to a test that reveals which parts of an image an AI is looking at.
Artificial intelligences dont make decisions in the same way that humans do. Even the best image recognition algorithms can betricked into seeing a robin or cheetahin images that are just white noise, for example.
Its a big problem, says Chris Grimm atBrown Universityin Providence, Rhode Island. If we dont understand why these systems make silly mistakes, we should think twice abouttrusting them with our livesin things like driverless cars, he says.
So Grimm and his colleagues created a systemthat analyses an AI to show which part of an image it is focusing onwhen it decides what the image is depicting. Similarly, for a document-sorting algorithm, the system highlights which words the algorithm used to decide which category a particular document should belong to.
Its really useful to be able to look at an AI and find out how its learning, says Dumitru Erhan, a researcher at Google. Grimms tool provides a handy way for a human to double-check that an algorithm is coming up with the right answer for the right reasons, he says.
To create his attention-mapping tool, Grimm wrapped a second AI around the one he wanted to test. This wrapper AI replaced part of an image with white noise to see if that made a difference to the original softwares decision.
If replacing part of an image changed the decision, then that area of the image was likely to be an important area for decision-making. The same applied to words. If changing a word in a document makes an AI classify a document differently, it suggests that word was key to the AIs decision.
Grimm tested his technique on an AI trained to sort images into one of 10 categories, including planes, birds, deer and horses. His system mapped where the AI was looking when it made its categorisation. The results suggested that the AI had taught itself to break down objects into different elements and then search for each of those elements in an image to confirm its decision.
For example, when looking at images of horses, Grimms analysis showed that the AI first paid close attention to the legs and then searched the image for where it thought a head might be anticipating that the horse may be facing in different directions. The AI took a similar approach with images containing deer, but in those cases it specifically searched for antlers. The AI almost completely ignored parts of an image that it decided didnt contain information that would help with categorisation.
Grimm and his colleagues also analysed an AItrained to play the video game Pong. They found that it ignored almost all of the screen and instead paid close attention to the two narrow columns along which the paddles moved. The AI paid so little attention to some areas that moving the paddle away from its expected location fooled it into thinking it was looking at the ball and not the paddle.
Grimm thinks that his tool could help people work out how AIs make their decisions. For example, it could be used to look atalgorithms that detect cancer cells in lung scans,making sure that they dont accidentally come up with the right answers by looking at the wrong bit of the image. You could see if its not paying attention to the right things, he says.
But first Grimm wants to use his tool to help AIs learn. By telling when an AI is not paying attention, it would let AI trainers direct their software towards relevant bits of information.
Reference: arXiv, arxiv.org/abs/1706.00536
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AI Project Produces New Styles of Art – Smithsonian
Posted: at 8:18 am
smithsonian.com July 3, 2017 3:30PM
Artificial intelligence is getting pretty good at besting humans in things like chess and Go and dominating at trivia. Now, AI is moving into the arts, aping van Goghs style and creating a truly trippy art form called Inceptionism. Anew AI project is continuing to push the envelope with an algorithm that only produces original styles of art, andChris Baraniuk at New Scientist reports that the product gets equal or higher ratings than human-generated artwork.
Researchers from Rutgers University, the College of Charleston and Facebooks AI Lab collaborated on the system, which is a type of generative adversarial network or GAN, which usestwo independent neural networks to critique each other. In this case, one of the systems is a generator network, which createspieces of art. The other network is the discriminator network, which is trained on 81,500 images from the WikiArt database, spanningcenturies of painting. The algorithm learned how to tell the difference between a piece of art versus a photograph or diagram, and it also learned how to identifydifferent styles of art, for instance impressionism versus pop art.
The MIT Technology Review reports that the first network created random images, then received analysis from the discriminator network. Over time,it learned to reproduce different art styles from history. But the researchers wanted to see if the system could do more than just mimic humans, so theyasked the generator to produce images that would be recognized as art, but did not fit any particular school of art. In other words, they asked it to do what human artists douse the past as a foundation, but interpret that to create its own style.
At the same time, researchersdidnt want the AIto just create something random. They worked to train the AI to find the sweet spot between low-arousal images (read: boring) and high-arousal images (read:too busy, ugly or jarring). You want to have something really creative and striking but at the same time not go too far and make something that isnt aesthetically pleasing, Rutgerscomputer science professor and project lead, Ahmed Elgammal, tells Baraniuk. The research appears on arXiv.
The team wanted to find out how convincing its AI artist was, so they displayed some of the AI artwork on the crowd-sourcing site Mechanical Turk along with historical Abstract Expressionism andimages from Art Basel's 2016 show in Basel, Switzerland, reports MIT Technology Review.
The researchers had usersrate the art, asking how much they liked it, how novel it was,and whether they believed it was made by a human or a machine. It turns out, the AI art rated higher in aesthetics thanthan the art from Basel, and found"more inspiring." The viewersalso had difficulty telling the difference between the computer-generated art and the Basel offerings, though they were able to differentiate between the historical Abstract Expressionism and the AI work. We leave open how to interpret the human subjects responses that ranked the CAN [Creative Adversarial Network] art better than the Art Basel samples in different aspects, the researcherswrite in the study.
As such networks improve, the definition of art and creativity will also change. MIT Technology Review asks, for instance,whether the project is simply an algorithm that has learned to exploit human emotions and not truly creative.
One thing is certain: itwill never cut off an ear for love.
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IBM’s AI Will Make Your Hospital Stay More Comfortable – Futurism
Posted: at 8:18 am
In Brief IBM's Watson, probably the most famous AI system in the world today, is making its way into hospitals to assist with menial tasks, thereby freeing up medical personnel. Watson has already made a big impact on the medical industry, as well as many others, and the AI shows no signs of slowing down. Dr. Watson, Coming Soon
IBMs Watsonhas done everything from beat human champions at the game of Go to diagnose undetected leukemia in a patient, saving her life. Now, the artificial intelligence (AI) system is poised to make life in a hospital a lot easier for patients and staff alike.
Right now, some medical staff spend almost 10 percent of their working hours answering basic patient questions about physician credentials, lunch, and visiting hours, Bret Greenstein, the vice president of Watsons Internet of Things (IoT) platform, tells CNET.
These staff members also have to tend to very basic needs that dont require medical expertise, such as changing the temperature in rooms or pulling the blinds. If assisted by some kind of AI-powered device, these workers could spend their time more effectively and focus on patient care.
Thats where Watson comes in. Philadelphias Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals have teamed up with IBM and audio company Harman to develop smart speakers for a hospital setting. Once activated by the voice command Watson, these speakers can respond to a dozen commands, including requests to adjust theblinds, thermostat, and lightsor to play calming sounds.
Watson is no stranger to thehealthcare industry. In addition to providing a correct diagnosis for the woman mentioned above, Watson was able to recommend treatment plans at least as well as human oncologists in 99 percent of the cases it analyzed, and it even provided options missed by doctors in 30 percent of those cases.
Watson will soon be working in many dermatologists offices, too, and while its integration into the medial field hasnt been free of problems, it is still the AI with the broadest access to patient data the key to better diagnoses and greater predictive power.
Watson has had a notable impact on various other industries, as well.
OnStar Gouses Watson, and it will be making driving simpler in more than 2 million 4G LTE-connected GM vehicles by the end of this year. Watson is also no stranger to retail, having been incorporated into operations at Macys, Lowes, Best Buy, and Nestle Cafesin Japan, and the AI is even helping to bring a real-life Robocop to the streets of Dubai.
Watson is branching out into creative work, too, which was previously assumed to be off-limits to AIs. The system successfullyedited an entire magazine on its own and has also created a movie trailer.
What the AI will do next is anyones guess, but its safe to say that Watson probably has a more exciting and ambitious five-year plan than most humans.
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IBM's AI Will Make Your Hospital Stay More Comfortable - Futurism
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