🇨🇦 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.✌️

We’re all (inter)connected, even your house plants 🤖🌱

This week we’re talking about Walmart blockchain drone technology 😲, the FDA playing catch up with artificial intelligence, new IoT for watering your plants, and a twist on robot delivery ⚡.

DRONES + BLOCKCHAIN . 

Like PB+J? Walmart looking to mix and match
In past newsletters we’ve discussed how blockchain technology can be applied to more than just cryptocurrency. It has implications in areas ranging from land ownership to the supply chain of sustainably sourced food. Walmart has added to this blockchain-eating-the-world phenomenon, by filing a patent this past week that mixes blockchain with drone delivery.
The patent application, generically titled “Unmanned Aerial Delivery to Secure Location,” involves drones delivering items to lockers. The drones would communicate with these lockers, remotely unlocking and opening them, for drop-off inside. Walmart would incorporate blockchain within this communication, both in the tracking the physical items, and adding an additional level of security. Amazon surpassed Walmart’s market cap in mid-2015, so it looks like these big moves are all about staying relevant.

HEALTH .

FDA preparing for A.I.’s impact on health software 🏥
There’s been a wave of health apps and wearables entering the market. There are apps that use image-recognition to suggest whether we have a type of skin cancer, and apps that help you self-diagnose mental illness. Surprisingly, the FDA doesn’t regulate most of these apps, only if they are deemed to pose a ‘high risk’ to the public. The thing is, nothing looks to shake up the software world more than the application of AI.
In this light, innovation is great and all, but the FDA wants safe innovation. This week’s development is that the FDA is building out a team of computer scientists to specifically address how Artificial Intelligence will impact medical software. While many health apps and devices may be deemed ‘low risk’ by the FDA, adding an AI component may be a whole other ball game. This may be great timing by the FDA, as the rumor mill says the upcoming iPhone 8 could have its own AI chip.

IoT .

Now you can link up your potted plants 🤖🌱
We already have acres and acres of interconnected agricultural infrastructure, ‘smart farming’, that is feeding millions of people. What’s next? A new kickstarter wants us to think smaller. Launched last week, Grovio is an IoT solution for your potted plants. Grovio is a smart watering device app paired with a mobile app. The cool part is you can water your plant remotely via the mobile app for up to 45 days.
There have been mixed responses so far. The point of having house plants is to improve the ambiance of your home, and now we have another device sitting around, this one with tubes stretching into your plants? It also is nearly identical to the Amazon Echo in shape and size. How many of these smart assistance robots can you fit on your table, doing things for you, before someone thinks you can’t do simple tasks for yourself?

DELIVERY .

Zoom, zoom, European robot deliveries getting competitive
Where Walmart wants to do autonomous drone delivery, several European startups are looking at autonomous vehicle delivery. Startups Teleretail (🇨🇭) and Starship (🇬🇧 +🇪🇪) have vehicles the size of baby carriages, to ferry your precious cargo from point A to B. Teleretail recently debuted their latest version, and it is ready to be used in suburban and rural deliveries. Not only would it be used for dropping off packages to customers, but also pick up items as well.
Other autonomous delivery startups have designed their robots to travel on city sidewalks and crosswalks, Teleretail and Starship are different in that their robots can go longer distances and operate on the road. Teleretail will be launching its pilot in the U.S. and Switzerland soon and their target customer is small business owners. They want to help brick and mortar stores stay competitive with ecommerce by offering cheaper delivery options. It also would have a better ecological footprint.

 
More SWARM blog bits: