Important Innovations

  MIT's New AI System Mirai Transforming Mammograms             Source: Stock AI, Mammograms & MIT's Regina Barzilay From a Cancer Diagnosis to a Potentially Breakthrough, New AI  This is the story of an MIT artificial intelligence expert who turned her personal challenge with breast cancer into a new AI system that can predict the dreaded disease up to 5 years before it occurs.  Forecasting the disease so far in advance enables possible early intervention, treatment and prevention.  The new AI could benefit millions of people.  About 8 years ago, MIT's Regina Barzilay endured the brutal side effects of chemotherapy, radiation and 2 lumpectomies to overcome her cancer. When she returned to work at MIT, she decided to use her AI expertise to battle breast cancer and save lives. Brand New AI System Barzilay has designed and developed an AI system called Mirai that predicts breast cancer up to five years before there is any sign of it.  Using hundreds of thousands of mammo

  New Machine Learning Algorithms Spot Lightning Days Before Other WX Systems Do                                       Source:  Stock Lightning Images New AI System to Forecast Lightning and More There are few things more difficult to track and predict than the dynamic forces of nature that result in real-time weather.  Now, researchers at the University of Washington have invented an artificial intelligence, machine learning system that results in earlier and more precise weather forecasting.  The team started their artificial intelligence system with weather reports and data on lightning which is one of the most destructive and unpredictable forces of nature.  An example of the destructive force of unpredictable lightning is the massive 2020 California Lightning Complex fire that resulted in nearly 470,000 acres of total fire devastation and 23 deaths.  Early forecasting of that severe lightning event could have facilitated earlier fire preparation and possibly earlier containment.  

  Shape Shifting Robotic Hoop to Help Improve Your Game                                                  Source:  MIT CSAIL Smart Basketball Hoop MIT researchers have invented a robotic basketball hoop that changes size and raises and lowers the hoop to help people improve their game.  The robotic basketball training machine was invented by researchers at MIT's world famous CSAIL - the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab.  The shape-shifting hoop is designed to help people improve various aspects of their game as they shoot balls. Highly Advanced Robotic Technology The hoop works autonomously and in conjunction with the player's improving basketball shots.  It has a special pieze sensor on the backboard and a switch sensor on the rim to detect when the ball goes into the hoop.  An algorithm shrinks the hoop and raises it as the player improves their shots.  The hoop makes the shooting more difficult as the player consistently gets better at shooting the ball. Comme

  Roboats Loaded with Tech to Communicate and Connect                                             Source:  MIT C-SAIL In Service, Self-Navigating Amsterdam Canals From the world famous MIT C-SAIL a team of engineers and roboticists created the Roboat, a robotic boat that uses the same autonomous self-driving technology for cars but adapted for the water. That adaptation was extremely innovative.  Roboat II has been under development for five years.  It is now large enough to carry passengers through the tricky canals in Amsterdam. It does so autonomously.  Importantly, the Roboats are capable of communicating and connecting with each other because of greatly advanced control algorithms and navigation systems.  That capability opens up new forms of transportation possibilities on water. Tremendous Tech Layered In The Roboat has four propellers that enable it to move in any direction.  It contains GPS, Lidar and inertial sensors.  At the moment, it is six feet long and can carry two pass

AI Algorithm Monitors Your Pet Source:  Comcast "Pet Filter" from Comcast Comcast has just unveiled advanced AI technology for pet lovers to remotely monitor their pets.  Comcast has created its own AI algorithm to zero in on pet activity.  They call it the Pet Filter.  The company says it something different from other solutions commercially available.  It detects anything from a dog sitting still to one running outside in your yard 30 feet away and distinguishes that activity from cars and people. Spot On Xfinity Pet Camera The new system "Pet Filter" is for Comcast Xfinity Home security cameras. The filter enables the system to detect pets in video clips and allows customers to check their pet's movements. The system's cameras and continuous video recording service zoom in on pet activity.  When pet motion is detected, it creates a smart thumbnail image, allowing the customer to find it quickly and easily.  It lets you see what your

Smart International Pedestrian Traffic Lights Source:  Vienna's UT  Innovation from Vienna These may be the world's most intelligent traffic lights.  Created by a research team at TU Graz, they incorporate cameras, computers and algorithms to predict the intention of a pedestrian moving toward a road.  This is not just a smart traffic light.  It's very advanced technology to make roads safer for pedestrians and drivers.  Just invented in Vienna, Austria. For a great news blog, go to Important Innovations Collection: Vienna's Intelligent Traffic Lights : Making Streets Smarter and Safer for Pedestrians and Drivers Source:  TU Graz, Vienna Lots of Technology and Research Involved A tea...

Nike Fit Source:  Nike Fit AI App for Perfect Fitting Running Shoes Nike Fit is a new AI innovation app from Nike.  The artificial intelligence powered system relies on a smartphone to ensure you're getting a perfect fit.  The Nike Fit is a scanning system loaded with a proprietary combination of computer vision, machine learning, AI, data science and recommendation algorithms. Big Size Problem This system is designed particularly to help  with buying shoes online.  Sizes aren't consistent across brands.  Nike says three out of five people are wearing the wrong sized shoes.  It's a big size problem that can get in the way of optimum running. The Perfect Fit Here's how the system works.  The Nike Fit system app works with the smartphone camera to take a picture of your feet and make a 13 point map of both feet in a few seconds.  The map is then analyzed by AI algorithms to suggest the best size for the user across various shoe models.  You can use the digita

New Biomedical Innovation - Smart Wrist Band for Heart Early Warning Device on A-Fib and Stroke  This breakthrough medical device, that looks like a watch, is from an international team of biomedical engineers and scientists based in Lithuania and Sweden.  Their smart wrist band detects early warning signs of A-fib and stroke that can save the wearer time to get medical attention. This is a continuous, easy to use monitoring system.  Up to now, people at risk went to periodic clinic checkups.  Potentially big medical innovation.   For a great news blog on this, go to Important Innovations Collection: Smart Wrist Band : Wrist Device: Stroke Early Warning System Source:  Kaunas University of Technology International Biomedical Engineering Breakthrough ...

Erica Makes Robotic News Erica - The Robot TV News Anchor First Robot TV News Anchor The world has its first robot news anchor.  Nippon Television, the Japanese TV network, has hired Erica to deliver the nightly news.  Erica is a highly advanced robot.  It was developed by the Director of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory at Osaka University, Hiroshi Ishiguro.  He says Erica has one of the most advanced artificial speech systems in the world. Likes to Chat The news robot is loaded with the latest tech.  It's capable of holding conversations with humans thanks to speech generation algorithms, facial recognition technology and infrared sensors that track faces across a room. Even Tells Jokes - Robot News Network This robot is no joke.  Erica actually likes to tell jokes.  For now, she'll serve as a news reader. No on-the-road reporting assignments yet but that can't be too far behind on a potential channel called Robot News Network (RNN).

Soaring Like a Bird AI Glider Nature Inspired Breakthrough Innovation Scientists at the University of California, San Diego have built an artificial intelligence powered glider - an autonomous, fixed wing drone - that learns to fly with the dexterity and maneuverability of birds.  This is another fascinating example of highly advanced technology imitating nature.  It also has ramifications for future drones. By riding air currents, they'd be able to fly longer and more efficiently. Advanced Algorithm They've equipped the drone with an advanced algorithm and control system.  That enables it to navigate wind currents like birds do.  The glider is totally dependent on the wind. It has learned to seek updrafts which enable it to stay aloft indefinitely. Very Smart Glider Bottom-line:  this is a very smart glider.  It can tell when it's approaching an updraft and then use the wind to maximize its time in the air.  The scientists' research and results were j

Added Layer of Safety Stanford University scientists have just developed an artificial intelligence camera that could be used to help robot cars avoid obstacles and better navigate the roads. Image Recognition System The image recognition technology underlying this breakthrough relies on artificial intelligence.  The computers teach themselves to recognize objects like a pedestrian crossing the street, a dog running across a road and stopped cars. Stanford System "Lightning Fast" The problem has been the computers currently running AI algorithms are too big and slow for applications like the rapid decision making needed for autonomous cars or hand-held medical devices.  The Stanford team combined 2 types of computers to create a faster and less energy intensive image process.  They say it works lightning fast and circumvents millions of calculations. Next Steps The system has been successfully tested by simulation and in the real world.  It accurately identifies

Quadcopter Drones with Wheels MIT roboticists have created what may be the world's most versatile robots.  They can fly and drive.  They are also autonomous.  And, according to the scientists, they can find their own safe paths. No Collisions The MIT team took 8, 4-rotor quadcopter drones and equipped them with 2 small motors and wheels. They developed algorithms to make sure they don't collide.  In test simulations, they fly and drive perfectly. Combo Vehicles that Work The robots can fly for 295 feet and drive 826 feet until their batteries run out.  The scientists say the most important implication of their research is that vehicles which combine flying and driving have the potential to be more efficient and useful than vehicles that just fly or drive.  They believe their experiments are helping to explore and forward ideas for flying cars.

Google Eyes the Heart Brain and Heart AI Google's Brain Team has developed a new AI system that accurately predicts heart disease by scanning images of people's retina.  The researchers believe this may lead to the discovery of more ways to diagnose health issues from retinal images. Deep Learning Algorithms They used deep learning algorithms trained on data from more than 284,000 patients.  The AI system is able to predict cardiovascular disease risk factors from retinal images with very high accuracy.  The accuracy rate to actually pick out patients in danger of a heart attack or stroke is 70%. Eye and Heart Connections According to lead researcher Lily Peng, their approach is to use deep learning to draw connections between changes in human anatomy and disease.  In this case, using the eyes to reflect what's going on with the heart.

On Duty in Your Kitchen and On the Factory Floor You might call it the Ivy League Robot.  Scientists at Princeton University and MIT have developed a highly advanced robot that can select an object in a bin, pick it up and recognize it.  It's a multi-tasking robot that can be put to work in your kitchen or on a factory floor. Pick and Place Robotics The pick and place system consists of a standard industrial robotic arm, custom fitted with a gripper and suction cup.  What's breakthrough is that 2, separate algorithms tied into a deep neural network (class of learning algorithms) are at work.  There's an "object agnostic" grasping algorithm and a new image matching algorithm. Ivy Leaguer Here's how it works.  The robot looks into a cluttered bin, selects an object, determines how to grasp it and pulls it out.  Cameras take pictures of the object.  And with the help of the image matching algorithm the robot can compare the object against a library

AI System Designs New Drug Medications from Scratch Accelerates Drug Development Process A new artificial intelligence system called ReLeASE has been developed by scientists at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.  It greatly lessens the time to design new drug molecules from scratch.  It could potentially release the floodgates for the development of new medicines.  A blockbuster drug typically takes $3 billion and 10 years to create. Big Breakthrough What's different about ReLeASE, according to the scientists, is its unique ability to create new molecules.  The algorithm can design new, "immediately patentable" medicine with optimal safety profiles and specific biological activity.  This should significantly shorten the time to bring new drug candidates into clinical trials. Two Neural Networks Working Together ReLeASE stands for Reinforcement Learning for Structural Evolution.  It's comprised of two neural networks.  The researchers think of

Facial Recognition Tech IDing Your Face Face Recognition  ID: Spotting and Defining Your Face  Sherlock Holmes Real-Time First off, facial recognition technology is awesome and the speed and breadth of its takeoff are breathtaking.  It's 2018's exponential high tech version of 19th century fingerprinting and it's  redefining global crimefighting. Sherlock Holmes would have loved it.  But it has some big privacy issues along with steroid-like growth that can be disruptive. Breakthrough Innovation Ahead of Regulatory Curves It's come on so fast that it's outpacing national and global regulations and leaves open the question of protecting personal privacy.  A Russia based company FindFace claims to be able to identify one person in a billion photos in under 1 second. The company behind it, NTechLab, has developed a proprietary algorithm.  They're selling FindFace globally. Global Face Recognition Players Beyond Russia Tech FaceFind isn't alone.  Big