Deep Science AI made its debut on stage at Disrupt NY 2017, showing in a live demo how its computer vision system could spot a gun or mask in CCTV footage, potentially alerting a store or security provider to an imminent crime. The company has now been acquired in a friendly merger with Defendry, which is looking to deploy the tech more widely.
It’s a great example of a tech-focused company looking to get into the market, and a market-focused company looking for the right tech.
The idea was that if you have a chain of 20 stores, and 3 cameras at each store, and people can only reliably keep an eye on 8–10 feeds at a time, you’re looking at a significant personnel investment just to make sure those cameras aren’t pointless. If instead you used Deep Science AI’s middle layer that highlighted shady situations like guns drawn, one person could conceivably keep an eye on hundreds of feeds. It was a good pitch, though they didn’t take the cup that year.
A new method allows the quantum state of atomic “qubits”—the basic unit of information in quantum computers—to be measured with twenty times less error than was previously possible, without losing any atoms. Accurately measuring qubit states, which are analogous to the one or zero states of bits in traditional computing, is a vital step in the development of quantum computers. A paper describing the method by researchers at Penn State appears March 25, 2019 in the journal Nature Physics.
“We are working to develop a quantum computer that uses a three-dimensional array of laser-cooled and trapped cesium atoms as qubits,” said David Weiss, professor of physics at Penn State and the leader of the research team. “Because of how quantum mechanics works, the atomic qubits can exist in a ‘superposition’ of two states, which means they can be, in a sense, in both states simultaneously. To read out the result of a quantum computation, it is necessary to perform a measurement on each atom. Each measurement finds each atom in only one of its two possible states. The relative probability of the two results depends on the superposition state before the measurement.”
To measure qubit states, the team first uses lasers to cool and trap about 160 atoms in a three-dimensional lattice with X, Y, and Z axes. Initially, the lasers trap all of the atoms identically, regardless of their quantum state. The researchers then rotate the polarization of one of the laser beams that creates the X lattice, which spatially shifts atoms in one qubit state to the left and atoms in the other qubit state to the right. If an atom starts in a superposition of the two qubit states, it ends up in a superposition of having moved to the left and having moved to the right. They then switch to an X lattice with a smaller lattice spacing, which tightly traps the atoms in their new superposition of shifted positions. When light is then scattered from each atom to observe where it is, each atom is either found shifted left or shifted right, with a probability that depends on its initial state.
Canada’s billionaire power couple, Gerald Schwartz and Heather Reisman, have donated C$100 million ($75 million) to the University of Toronto for an artificial intelligence complex.
The gift, from the duo behind private-equity firm Onex Corp. and Indigo Books & Music Inc., is the largest in the university’s history and biggest for Canada’s technology sector, said the academic institution. It will be used to build the Schwartz Reisman Innovation Centre starting this year.
“You’ve seen companies like Uber and Google and so many others starting to make real commitments to Toronto, and this is drawing people from around the world to come to Toronto to be part of this,” Schwartz, Onex’s founder and chief executive officer, said in an interview at Indigo’s headquarters in the city. “That legacy is going to last for a long time.”
Aside from harvesting solar, wind, and hydrogen energy to produce electricity, many energy experts believe that developing compact fusion facilities can give humankind a stable and sustainable source of power that can last forever.
Jon Menard, a physicist from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), has reportedly examined the possibility of expediting the development of compact fusion facilities to generate safe, clean, and limitless energy.
In his study, Menard looked into the concept of creating a compact tokamak powered by high-temperature superconducting magnets.
It appears that this kind of magnet can generate the higher magnetic fields needed to produce and sustain fusion reactions.
Maybe one of our observatory domes can be painted to look like this? :-D.
In a galaxy far far away (Germany) Hubert Zitt, professor at the Zweibrücken University of Applied Sciences and known for Star Trek and Star Wars lectures, along with a small team, transformed the Zweibrück Observatory of the Natural Science Association into a giant R2-D2 – and it is out of this world.
The sci-fi professor completed the project in September 2018, aided by his father-in-law Horst Helle, the master painter Klaus Ruffing and several helping students and it has caught the eyes of Star Wars fans everywhere. The most notable fan of the re-design was Star Wars actor Mark Hamill who tweeted about it, “R2-D2 Observatory Transformed Germans Into Giant Nerds.”
While spectacular, Zitt and his team aren’t the first fans to complete a Star Wars design challenge. Goodsell Observatory at Carleton College in Minnesota was also transformed into an R2-D2 back in 2010.
Researchers at Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, have developed an approach to regenerate heart muscle using stem cells. Their method for priming stem cells to become heart tissues could potentially enable heart regeneration stem cell therapies, according to their study published in the journal Cell Reports.
The self-regeneration of human heart muscle following injury is extremely limited. Scientists have been studying techniques to prompt different kinds of stem cells to differentiate into heart cell precursors, which could then help rebuild heart muscle fibres. However, their approaches have not yet met regulations set forth by the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency for regenerative therapies.
Dr. Lynn Yap, a Senior Research Fellow at Duke-NUS’ Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disorders (CVMD) Programme and the study’s first author, explained, “Regulatory authorities specifically require these stem-cell-derived precursors be prepared from human-only cells and in cultures that use clearly defined chemicals and no animal components. The method must be reproducible, and the cells must have clear characteristics while not leading to adverse side effects when injected.”
By Rohit Talwar, Steve Wells, April Koury, and Alexandra Whittington
Image https://pixabay.com/images/id-4045661/ by geralt is licensed under CC0
Can human roles in retail survive the relentless march of the robots? Much of the current debate on automation focuses on the possible demise of existing jobs and the spread of automation into service and white-collar sectors – and retail is certainly one industry poised to follow this automation path in pursuit of the next driver of profits. From the advent of the steam engine and mechanisation of farming, through to the introduction of personal computing — jobs have always been automated through the use of technology. However, as new technologies have come to market, human ingenuity and the ability to create new products and services have increased the scope for employment and fulfilment. Retail has enjoyed enormous benefits from technology tools, but has the time come when automation poses a threat to jobs? Here we present two possible scenarios for retail 2020–2025: one where automation eliminates the majority of retail jobs and a second which sees the emergence of new paid roles in retail.
Scenario One: Robo-Retail Rules
By 2020, in-store robots walk the aisles to guide customers, help order from another branch, and bring goods to the checkout, or your car. Artificial intelligence (AI) personal assistants like Siri and Alexa have become personal shoppers, with perfect knowledge of customers’ tastes and preferences. This allows for development of retail algorithms to recommend the perfect item before shoppers even know they want it. The algorithms offer recommendations drawing on databases of consumer preferences (i.e. Amazon recommendations), social media, friends’ recent purchases, and analysis of emerging trends – with our AI assistants providing our profiles to help filter and select the appropriate offers.
By 2022, many stores try to retain humans in key service roles for customers who want the personal touch, but most customers prefer to shop online – even if they still browse in-store. Mobile and pop-up digital stores and malls – where customers view products digitally – display selected items as touchable and sniffable holograms personalised to you. Wealthier customers can book a personal visit by an autonomous vehicle, robot or drone which can then perform the holographic display in the comfort of your own home or garden – giving birth to the next wave of home shopping parties. TV and retail are fully integrated — the majority of films and TV shows offer the ability to click on an item in the show, view it in more detail, see how we would look wearing it or how it might look in our home and then make an instant purchase. In all these formats, shoppers ‘click to buy’ virtual items, which are shipped instantly by autonomous vehicle or drone.
By 2025 The physical stores that continue to attract customers do so with high-tech in-store experiential services. In-store 3D/4D printing and spray-on manufacture of items to your design are commonplace. Experiences include multi-sensory immersive fashion displays, mirrors showing customers wearing an item of clothing under different lighting, in different colours and sizes and robot tailors customising clothing to our requirements while we wait. The sharing economy is well advanced by now so that, at the point of purchase for many items, we already have a community who will share the ownership and cost of purchase with us.
Scenario Two: Humanity at a Price
By 2020, retailers use AI to determine who typically shops and when, and change displays so that eye-catching items are offered to relevant customers walking through at the time of day they typically visit. This would work particularly well in train stations and airports when you have a sense of which high spending passenger groups are coming through. In-store robots and drones could continuously change displays, alleviating the repetitive, physically exhausting work of retail jobs. Employees would therefore be more relaxed, thus placing more attention on the customer. Local stores might use AI apps to track the preferences of their customers, make recommendations, and deliver items at the perfect time – so shopping is completely seamless and tailored to specific customer needs. This is the edge by which small brick-and-mortar shops are able to compete with online retailers and bigger chains.
By 2022, people are willing to pay a premium to access a live purchasing advisor, someone who is an expert in a certain line of retail. This exclusivity leads to super elite retail boutiques. Part of what these shops offer would be a service where shoppers connect with fashion bloggers, Instagram idols, or YouTube artists whose fashion sense they admire. Customer service is anything but free, but well worth the cost to these shoppers. Creativity, self-expression and individuality are major retail offerings in this future. For example, 3D print stores could help shoppers design an item, print it while they lunch, for them to collect on departure. The value-add of retail work would be the personal touch and connection in creating and selecting personalised products. In this future, services and guides become increasingly important in shopping experiences especially in destination shopping centres and malls, keeping retail jobs in demand.
By 2025 automation’s impact may support retail growth: products could become so cheap, thanks to extremely low-cost, highly-productive robotic labour, that the value comes in the form of an evolved ‘Personal Shopper’. Automation and robotics would support the actual purchase and delivery, but a Personal Shopper provides emotional support and companionship on the shopping experience: “That suits you so well” … “Why not cook prawns as a starter if chicken is your main course?” In a future where the majority of people are involved in online schooling and remote working, this Personal Shopper service could meet cravings for personal contact.
Two Retail Futures
There is little debate that robots will take jobs — hence both scenarios assume that the future leads to the automation of current retail roles. Companies must avoid the temptation to plug in technology fixes where human solutions are needed, and this is especially true for retail. The value of a good, authentic conversational style or a sense of humour is something that even today puts certain retail workers at an advantage. Public-facing jobs are a test of social skills, which seem to be safely in the domain of people, not robots, for now.
About the authors:
The authors are futurists with Fast Future who specialise in studying and advising on the impacts of emerging change. Fast Future also publishes books from future thinkers around the world exploring how developments such as AI, robotics and disruptive thinking could impact individuals, society and business and create new trillion-dollar sectors. Fast Future has a particular focus on ensuring these advances are harnessed to unleash individual potential and enable a very human future. See: www.fastfuture.com
Rohit Talwar is a global futurist, keynote speaker, author, and CEO of Fast Future where he helps clients develop and deliver transformative visions of the future. He is the editor and contributing author for The Future of Business, editor of Technology vs. Humanity, and co-editor of a forthcoming book on Unleashing Human Potential–The Future of AI in Business.
Steve Wells is the COO of Fast Future and an experienced Strategist, Futures Analyst, and Partnership Working Practitioner. He is a co-editor of The Future of Business, Technology vs. Humanity, and a forthcoming book on Unleashing Human Potential–The Future of AI in Business.
April Koury is a foresight researcher, writer, and publishing director at Fast Future. She is a contributor to The Future of Business, and a co-editor of Technology vs. Humanity, and a forthcoming book on 50:50–Scenarios for the Next 50 Years.
Alexandra Whittington is the foresight director at Fast Future. She is a futurist, writer, and faculty member on the Futures programme at the University of Houston. She is a contributor to The Future of Business and a co-editor for forthcoming books on Unleashing Human Potential–The Future of AI in Business and 50:50–Scenarios for the Next 50 Years.
The presence of senescent cells has been implicated in a wide range of age-related diseases and even conditions such as T1 diabetes. Today, we want to draw your attention to a new publication that explores the relationship between senescent cells and intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD).
It was already known that senescent cells increase during the progression of IDD, but it was not known if they were a driver or a consequence of IDD.
Most advanced-stage cancers mutate, resisting drugs meant to kill them. Now doctors are harnessing the principles of evolution to thwart that lethal adaptation.
