Google Acquires MicroLED Startup Raxium for Future AR and MR Tech
... "They claim to have been able to achieve every good performance for R, G and B MicroLEDs at very small sizes without significant efficiency loss," said Ross Young, co-founder and CEO of Display Supply Chain Consultants in an email with CNET. "Achieving good R, G and B performance on a single wafer without color conversion is impressive enough, but to do it at <5um is even more impressive." ...
"MicroLED can be much brighter than OLED. This is particularly important for AR smart glasses that will be used outdoor," said Guillaume Chansin, director of display research at DSCC. "MicroLED has the potential to deliver high resolution, high contrast and high brightness. This is why it has become such a strategic investment for tech companies working on smart glasses." ...
See the full story here: https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/google-acquires-microled-startup-raxium-for-future-ar-and-mr-tech/
AI suggested 40,000 new possible chemical weapons in just six hours
It took less than six hours for drug-developing AI to invent 40,000 potentially lethal molecules. Researchers put AI normally used to search for helpful drugs into a kind of “bad actor” mode to show how easily it could be abused at a biological arms control conference.
All the researchers had to do was tweak their methodology to seek out, rather than weed out toxicity. The AI came up with tens of thousands of new substances, some of which are similar to VX, the most potent nerve agent ever developed. Shaken, they published their findings this month in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence.
See the full story here: https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/17/22983197/ai-new-possible-chemical-weapons-generative-models-vx
A new Stanford study suggests AI still has a bias problem
...
“The AI Index 2022 Annual Report” measures and evaluates the yearly progress of AI by tracking it from numerous angles including R&D, ethics, and policy and government. Here are the biggest takeaways.
NLP LEAPS FORWARD
Some of the most significant developments in AI over the past few years have occurred in the performance of natural language models–that is, neural networks trained to read, generate, and reason about language. ...
EYES ON ETHICS
There are also signs that AI companies are not ignoring the bias and ethics challenges of the technology. Researchers with industry affiliations contributed 71% more publications year-over-year in 2021 at fairness-focused industry conferences, the report says.
“Algorithmic fairness and bias have shifted from being primarily an academic pursuit to becoming firmly entrenched as a mainstream research topic with wide-ranging implications,” the researchers write. ...
The U.S. and China had the by far the highest number of cross-country collaborations in AI publications of any other two countries from 2010 to 2021. And the pace is accelerating: American and Chinese collaborations increased five times within that same time window. ...
See the full story here: https://www.fastcompany.com/90731527/a-new-stanford-study-suggests-ai-still-has-a-bias-problem
The rise of free shipping: 8 moments that transformed e-commerce
The “pain of paying” is a behavioral economics theory that refers to the negative emotions humans feel when making a purchase. Humans are a loss-averse species and we react more strongly to losses than we do to equal wins or gains. So, while some purchases hurt more than others, spending money will, on some level, always inflict a bit of psychological pain.
This is the reason so many consumers abandon their shopping carts at checkout—online, anyway. Extra fees like taxes and shipping costs added to online purchases make an already painful transaction that much tougher to swallow. Many companies, starting with Amazon, have figured out that offering free shipping is an effective way to offset the pain of paying and usher consumers down the last levels of the e-commerce conversion funnel.
Consumers have come to expect perks like free or fast shipping—both, ideally. Without the guarantee of either, people are unlikely to complete a purchase. And with free shipping came the advent of free returns, and then refunds without returns. These expectations and efforts to mitigate the pain of paying have made us, on the whole, more irrational and wasteful consumers. When we are more inclined to buy because of a perceived no-cost service, we are wasteful at every step along the supply chain. ...
See the full story here: https://www.wfmz.com/entertainment/coffee-break/the-rise-of-free-shipping-8-moments-that-transformed-e-commerce/collection_f1e094f4-3ae5-52ca-85a2-b70000b8c606.html#2
Startup MyndVR inks partnership to expand virtual reality solutions for seniors
... "We are providing digital health and happiness to this booming audience of older adults using VR," Chris Brickler, CEO and co-founder of MyndVR, told Fierce Healthcare. While VR companies to date have focused on younger audiences, there is an opportunity to leverage the tech to engage a dynamic aging population, he said. ...
Through MyndVR's immersive programs, older adults can attend a Broadway show, go skydiving or scuba diving and travel to cities around the world.
MyndVR's catalog is a blend of licensed content and originally produced content, Brickler said. As one example of homemade content, the company developed a travel series based on Route 66 that features iconic stops along the famed highway.
"For an 85-year-old person with mild cognitive impairment who has done the trip, the experience can unlock memories," Brickler said. "The beauty of VR is that it teleports older adults out of their four walls to a different time, place and experience. For someone who hasn't done the trip, they get a chance to have this as a bucket list experience." ...
See the full story here: https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/health-tech/startup-myndvr-inks-partnership-expand-virtual-reality-solutions-seniors
Holoride’s in-car VR tech is coming to Audi this summer
... The Holoride system intertwines backseat passengers’ physical world with augmented reality for a motion-synchronized journey as the car moves along. The system is brand-agnostic, which means other automakers can support it, too. ...
For now, the only additional cost to use the VR system is a headset, but there is limitless potential for carmakers and developers to generate revenue from car owners by selling subscription services or charging for certain features. The global automotive AR and VR market is projected to reach $674 million by 2025, according to an Allied Market Research report. ...
Holoride and Audi, which owns part of the Munich-based VR company, hope to stake an early claim in the tech stack of autonomous cars — and the nearer-term prospect of capturing more revenue from its human-driven vehicles. ...
Being first also allows them an opportunity to establish a new media category Holoride calls “Elastic Content.” Whether you’re operating a flying saucer or a submarine from behind the headset, the VR system adapts to the car’s movements so that your VR journey mimics the acceleration, turns and stops of the car. ...
A new computational method for faster development of AI systems
...To reduce this learning time, the team of scientists sought to combine these two steps into one, using what they called a “forward gradient.” The idea is to pass the data only once through the neural network and calculate a direct approximation of the gradient from that path. Inevitably, since the entire network is not tracked, this reduces computation time.
The first calculations made in this way seem rather encouraging to them: “ From the point of view of automatic differentiation applied to machine learning, the ‘holy grail’ is whether the practical benefit of gradient descent can be achieved using only the forward gradient, thus eliminating the need for backpropagation. This could change the computational complexity of typical machine learning training pipelines, reduce training time and energy costs, influence the design of devices for machine learning, and even have implications with respect to the biological plausibility of backpropagation. “. ...
See the full story here: https://theinformant.co.nz/a-new-computational-method-for-faster-development-of-ai-systems/
