😢 This wearable’s sole purpose in life is to tell you how drunk you are ⌚🍺

This week we’re talking about alcohol wearables 🍺🛑, wearables taking your blood 💉, AI better than doctors at matching IVF embryos?, and tracking money 💸  in Macau with facial recognition.

WEARABLES . 

Telling you to stop drinking ⌚🍺
A lot of people believe that wearables should monitor how drunk you are. In fact, three different wearable technologies monitor your alcohol levels. And all three wearables rely on the fact that alcohol will be transmitting through your skin. Unfortunately, it takes around 45 minutes for this process to happen naturally. So for wearables like BACtrack, it will track your drinking habits but it can’t do so in real time.
The most interesting wearable is definitely PROOF. It also relies on skin-based testing and is also a wristband device, but it can actually do real-time BAC testing! They use special enzyme sensors, that have the drawback of needing a change from time to time to maintain the wearable’s accuracy. Though PROOF seems to be way ahead of the competition in other ways as well. It shares with you an estimated time for you to get sober. It also has given off blinking lights and vibrations when you’ve hit your preferred drinking limit. Before you start thinking that you can delegate being responsible to your wristwatch, both BACtrack and PROOF won’t be coming out with their products until later this year.

(More) WEARABLES .

Let your wearable take your blood? 💉
Inventors and technologists are once again finding inspiration from nature. While you may not like mosquitos, a team of scientists from the University of Calgary thinks you may want a bite from their “e-Mosquito”. The e-Mosquito is a device for diabetics that periodically samples your blood to monitor your blood glucose levels. The automatic nature of the device is much less tedious and painful than the most common method today, simple fingerpicking. While earlier versions of the e-Mosquito were nearly the size of a deck of cards, their latest prototype has been reduced to the size of a standard watch.
The device can be preprogrammed to take samples at various times of the day, and even sends the results wirelessly to a doctor’s office or smartphone. Unfortunately, they are still in the midst of further developing the prototype, not to mention getting regulatory approval from the FDA, so don’t expect to be using these devices in the next year. ⌚💉

A.I. .

Now better at matching successful IVF embryos ⚕️
In a recent newsletter, we discussed a study where the application of artificial intelligence to brain scans has led to very successful early diagnoses of autism in children. Now just this past week, a recent study revealed the impressive success of applying AI to the in vitro fertilization (IVF) process. In the study, embryologists faced off against an artificial intelligence to see which group was more successful at selecting viable embryos. You know where this is going…
For those wondering, the study didn’t experiment with human embryos but bovine ones. Though that doesn’t mean that our future children won’t have their own embryos selected by a computer. Returning to the study, the AI first trained on embryos to see which embryos were viable or defective. Next, the embryologists and AI were given 48 examples of bovine embryos. The study revealed that the AI ‘won’. But disappointingly, the study didn’t reveal by how much. The team is now moving on to testing the AI on human embryos… 👶

LAW & ORDER .

ATMs 💸 in Macau requiring facial recognition 😲
Facial recognition technology is now being used to address issues of money laundering and ‘capital flight’ (massive outflows of money from a country which can push down the value of its currency). The Macau government has been implementing a variety of solutions to tackle these problems, such as limiting ATM withdrawal amounts and banning gambling via telephone. But what is notable about the adoption of facial recognition software is both its scale and privacy implications.
All ATMs in Macau that have been outfitted with facial recognition technology require cardholders to use the software. Cardholders stand for six seconds as their face is analyzed to verify their identity. Where in the U.S. or Europe this may be considered a major privacy debate, the Macau program has rolled out with little protest. And, yes, if this feels straight out of the Minority Report, that’s because the future really is here.
As always, check out our blog for more. That’s it for this week.✌️

🇨🇦 A.I. just beat your Ms. Pac-man score 🤷

This week we’re talking about Switzerland with a top 3 global supercomputer ranking, blockchain for refugees, A.I. that can beat Ms. Pac-man, and A.I., again, in competition between Airbnb and hotels.  

COMPUTING . 

U.S. no longer in top 3, welcome Switzerland 🇨🇭
The Swiss have some impressive new supercomputing technology, specifically the Piz Daint supercomputer. It’s now kicked the U.S. out of the world’s top 3 supercomputers. 😟 There’s an official list that tracks global supercomputer ranking, called the TOP500, that came out with a new report this June.
You probably guessed the other top 2 supercomputers are Chinese. The United States’ best supercomputer is the Titan, based at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. While the Titan is capable of 17.6 petaflops, the Swiss supercomputer is able to do 19.6. To put that in perspective, the Chinese computing speed is far, far ahead at 34 petaflops and 93 petaflops for their Tianhe-2 and Taihulight supercomputers. Silver lining? The U.S. still holds five of the 10 ‘best’ supercomputers in the world.

BLOCKCHAIN .

For a smart refugee registration system?
Accenture and Microsoft have developed a prototype for providing legal IDs to more than 1.1 billion people around the world by 2020. Of those 1.1 billion, the 7 million global refugees may be those that benefit most. Legal IDs help refugees cross borders, qualify for aid, and get access to many other basic services. The technology involves combining a person’s biometric information, such as fingerprint or retina scan, with blockchain to create a legal identity.
The goal is to cover 1.1 billion people, because, shockingly, that is the number of people that “cannot participate in cultural, political, economic, and social life because they lack the most basic information: Documented proof of their existence.” That is roughly one-sixth of the world’s population. The prototype is part of promoting the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goal to provide legal IDs to everyone.

A.I. .

Canadian A.I. unbeatable by Ms. Pac-Man 🕹️
Maluuba is a Canadian A.I. firm that was acquired by Microsoft earlier this year. So this is partially a 🇨🇦/🇺🇸 A.I. that recently attained a max score on Ms. Pac-Man. The human record at 266,330, kind of pales in comparison to the max score possible, at 999,990.
Maluuba wasn’t the only AI firm attempting to create an unbeatable player at Ms. Pac-Man. It might be surprising that many, many other firms and teams have attempted this same Ms. Pac-Man challenge and failed. This leaves the AI community recognizing Microsoft & Maluuba’s unbeatable AI system as a real achievement. Applying AI to beat games has been an ongoing proxy for measuring the development of the technology. Games ranging from Jeopardy, Chess, and even Go are no longer out of reach.

A.I. .

How Airbnb uses A.I. to compete with hotels 🛏️
Airbnb has invested a lot of money in data science and machine learning. And it’s paying off. Why and how? They want to improve the conversion rates on their site, from people looking at listings to actually making a booking. Their VP of engineering shared that their application of a deep neural net to their search-ranking system has led to better search results.
Their goal is to provide personalization at scale. These search results can now better reflect your personal preferences, outdoorsy vs. urban, downtown bar scene or a quiet family neighborhood. The types of words you put into those search results directly tied to hundreds (!) of factors related to the listing shown to you. The impact? Their conversion rate increased by 1 percent. 😲  Powerful stuff.
As always, check out our blog for more. That’s it for this week.✌️