Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is one of the hottest pillars of digital transformation in the enterprise. RPA promises to unleash the productivity of humans, reduce labor costs, reduce human error, and improve cycle times. Who doesn’t want these benefits? The current entry cost (tech & talent) to pilot an RPA solution starts at $100,000 and can hit millions of dollars at scale. By 2021, some of the capabilities offered by RPA platforms may well be…
Of all the areas of life where artificial intelligence will have an impact, the biggest might well be education. This is because learning is so important, and also because current provision often leaves a lot to be desired. This is not generally the fault of teachers. They are the active ingredient in today’s education system, but they are expensive, and not scalable. In most countries they are under-valued, and burdened by absurd paperwork. They are…
TinyML is the latest from the world of deep learning and artificial intelligence. It brings the capability to run machine learning models in a ubiquitous microcontroller – the smallest electronic chip present almost everywhere. Microcontrollers are the brain for many devices that we use almost every day. From a TV remote controller to the elevator to the smart speaker, they are everywhere. Multiple sensors that can emit telemetry data are connected to a microcontroller. Actuators,…
As a former sales engineer and product marketer, I’ve seen both the sales and marketing sides of the sales cycle. Even further back, as one of the people who built early SFA and CRM systems, I’ve always seen the importance of a closed loop system. We’re still looking for such systems. The amount of data collected in both sales and marketing has had developers focused on each subject with only a little thought given to…
Of all the areas of life where artificial intelligence will have an impact, the biggest might well be education. This is because learning is so important, and also because current provision often leaves a lot to be desired. This is not generally the fault of teachers. They are the active ingredient in today’s education system, but they are expensive, and not scalable. In most countries they are under-valued, and burdened by absurd paperwork. They are…
The future of transportation will be less congested if Xtelligent has its way. The startup was among those to pitch its ideas at a recent Demo Day put on by URBAN-X, the MINI-backed urban tech startup accelerator in Brooklyn, New York. Xtelligent is described as an algorithm and artificial intelligence (AI) company that brings the latest innovations to roadways. It’s headquartered in Los Angeles and Scotland, and has projects underway in Colorado and California. Michael Lim, Xtelligent’s co-founder,…
The nasal test for Covid-19 requires a nurse to insert a 6-inch long swab deep into your nasal passages. The nurse inserts this long-handled swab into both of your nostrils and moves it around for 15 seconds. Now, imagine that your nurse is a robot. A few months ago, a nasal swab robot was developed by Brain Navi, a Taiwanese startup. The company’s intent was to minimize the spread of infection by reducing staff-patient contact.…
In supervised learning, the desired output which is often called the target value of the network is known to the neural network. It optimizes its performance to reduce the error between the actual output and target. On the other hand, an unsupervised type of learning does not have any information about the target value. It tries to optimize its performance on its own by identifying the hidden pattern trends in inputs by forming clusters. Machine…
Unfortunately, these days I don’t take quite as many photos as I used to because I’m spending a lot more of my time writing. However, in my previous incarnation as a professional photographer, I mostly used a software package by Apple called Aperture. Apple’s pro photography software was a great way of organizing my photos and tweaking images, so they were sparkling and ready for a client. Aperture was also a great way of applying edits and renaming…
As artificial intelligence (AI) breaks into the mainstream, there is a great deal of misinformation and confusion about what it’s capable of and the potential risks it poses. Our culture is rich with dystopian visions of human ruin at the feet of all-knowing machines. But many people also appreciate the potential good AI might do for us through the improvements and insights it could bring. Computer systems that can learn, reason and act are still…
