Look what AI made!
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| Look what AI made! | |
| Number | 3771 |
| Broadcast Date | APRIL 29, 2020 |
| Episode Length | 30:38 |
| Hosts | Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Roger Chang |
| Guests | Scott Johnson |
Autonomous vehicles promise an exciting future but how do you develop the technology during a pandemic? And will priorities shift when the emergency passes?
Guest
Quick Hits
- Apple and Google are delivering the first version of their exposure notification API to selected developers working on apps for public health organizations. After this test round, the API is expected to be released broadly in mid-May. The updates come in the beta of Apple's Xcode 11.5 and iOS 13.5 and Google's Play Services and Android Developer Studio. Apple and Google will release sample code on Friday.
- Google made its enterprise video conferencing service Google Meet available for free to anyone with a Google account. Meetings can have up to 100 participants. After September 30, Google may limit free meetings to 60 minutes. The free version does not offer phone-in options. Google Meet will also be integrated into Gmail.
- Apple added COVID-19 test sites to its Apple Maps in the US. Apple also updated its Mobility Trends site which offers data on how people are moving around in order to assist local governments with lockdown policy. The update includes improved regionalization like state or province-level search and more cities available to review.
- Google launched Shoelace in 2019 as a way for people to find group activities with people in the area who shared interests. It was available on iOS in New York City. Google has decided to shut down Shoelace as of May 12.
- Samsung declined to give an annual forecast due to uncertainty over the economic climate. It believes its memory chip sales will be strong due to PC and server sales, but smartphones and TVs might not sell well due to a possible dip in consumer spending. Samsung's operating profit rose 3% in Q1 on strong chip sales.
- Spotify reported a positive net income of $1 million with a rise of 31% paid users and 32% ad-supported users. Listening patterns changed so that every day now looks like the weekend according to Spotify.
- LG reported a 21.1% operating profit increase over last year and its highest Q1 profit margin ever at 7.4 percent. LG saw strong sales of home appliances and TVs. Smartphone sales fell 34%. LG plans to control production and marketing costs to guard against decreased demand the rest of the year.
Top Stories
- Alphabet reported Q1 revenue up 13% and net income up 1.5%. Profit was affected by a slowdown in ad revenue in March. YouTube revenue rose 33% to $4 billion and Cloud revenue rose 55% to $2.8 billion. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said video conferencing service Google Meet has been growing at 3 million new users a day, up from 2 million last month. Alphabet's "other bets", all its non-Google companies, lost $1.1 billion. Alphabet expects Q2 to be difficult for its advertising business.
- Microsoft reported revenue up 15% year over year and $1.40 earnings per share, beating analyst expectations. Azure grew 59% year over year, Office 365 commercial income grew 25%, LinkedIn grew 21% and Xbox, Surface and search were flat. Microsoft noted that COVID-19 had minimal impact on its Q1 results.
- Facebook announced that in its Q1 it brought in $17.74 billion, up almost 18% from $15.08 billion over the same quarter in 2019. Facebook now claims 2.99 billion monthly users across its family of apps, up from 2.89 billion in the previous quarter. The company claims it's stabilizing after seeing an initial steep decrease in advertising revenue in March due to COVID-19.
- Facebook has open-sourced a chatbot called Blender it claims can talk about nearly anything. Blender was trained on 1.5 billion publicly available Reddit conversations. It was then refined with additional data sets for conversations that contain emotion, information-dense conversations like with an expert, and conversations between people with distinct personas for personality. The model is so big it needs two chips to run. Facebook claims Blender is more engaging and human than Google's Meena bot launched in January. Blender fooled human evaluators 49% of the time into thinking its conversations were more human than human ones if the conversations are kept short. Blender also occasionally makes up facts since it uses correlations rather than a knowledge base.
- The US Patent and Trademark Office has rejected two patents where the AI system Dabus was listed as the inventor. Dabus's creator Stephen Thale said the system came up with designs for interlocking food containers and a rhythm for a hard to ignore warning light on its own, so he felt it would be inaccurate to list himself as the inventor. US patent law says an inventor has to be an individual not a corporation, and an AI is neither. In this ruling, the USPTO said the inventor must be a "natural person." The ruling may be appealed.
- Uber's longest-serving executive, CTO Thuan Pham, is leaving the company according to an SEC filing. The Information's sources say Uber is considering layoffs that could affect up to 20% of its 27,000 employees. Uber has said its ride-hailing business has fallen by 70%, and The Information reports food delivery has not made up the difference. Uber rival Lyft said in an SEC filing that it will lay off 982 employees, about 17% of its workforce. Lyft will also furlough 288 employees and reduce salaries by 10% for other employees for a 12-week period. Executives at Lyft will take a 20-30% pay cut. UK food delivery service Deliveroo says it will cut more than 350 of its staff, around 15% of its global workforce in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Deliveroo blamed the impacts of the virus which have caused many restaurants to close down altogether, and customers to cook more rather than order delivery.
Discussion
- The challenges of developing autonomous vehicles during a pandemic
- Ford postpones autonomous vehicle service until 2022
Mailbag
- I am ecstatic to announce that the GDI Folding Team has cracked into the top 1% of teams worldwide! We are now more than 80 volunteers strong and have run nearly 4,000 simulations, placing us just outside the top 2,000 (out of a quarter-million) teams.
- Sent by Amos
Creator Shoutout of the Day
- Anne Frost wanted you to know about a thing she's doing to help knitters!
Yarn and fiber festivals around the world have been cancelled for the foreseeable future. This is a major source of income for many makers, and a source of learning and socializing for knitters, crocheters, spinners, and weavers. The Online International Fiber Festival will run from May 1-8. Each day, participants will visit a different country known for their wool production or knitting traditions all from the comfort of their home wifi. There will be fiber-craft classes in the morning; history and culture experiences in the afternoon; a menu for a regional dinner that can be made from ingredients in grocery stores worldwide; and a 1-2 hour evening event. This has all been organized from what is available online. You'll need a membership to MyBluprint.com to attend, which does offer free trials.
- Anne Frost wanted you to know about a thing she's doing to help knitters!
YouTube
Links
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Look what AI made! |
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