In April 2020, Sony launched Sony AI, an organization with offices in Japan, the U.S., and Europe undertaking AI R&D with a focus on gaming, imaging, sensing, and more in collaboration with Sony’s other business units. Today, Sony AI unveiled its first major research initiative in the Gastronomy Flagship Project, which aims to enhance the […]
New Sonic the Hedgehog animated series coming to Netflix
Sonic the Hedgehog is heading to Netflix with a new 3D animated series. Netflix and Sega announced the new series via Twitter on Thursday, saying that Sonic will make his debut on the streaming service in 2022. Netflix later deleted the tweet, which it had posted to its NXOnNetflix account. “Rings? Check. Sneakers? Check. Speed? […]
Rani raises $69 million to convert injectable drugs into pill form
Rani Therapeutics today raised $69 million to fund development of its platform that converts injectable drugs into pills. The San Jose-based company specifically plans to accelerate clinical development of its internal pipeline treatments and scale up manufacturing, in partnership with pharmaceutical companies including Novartis and Takeda. Fear of or discomfort from needle-based injections are among […]
Few researchers thoroughly test adversarial attacks on surveillance AI in the real world
Advances in machine learning, particularly in computer vision and facial recognition, have enabled systems deployed by governments and private corporations to erode expectations of privacy. Adversarial attacks, or techniques that attempt to fool models with deceptive images, videos, and text, are one way to combat surveillance. But in a new paper, researchers from Microsoft, Harvard, […]
SingleStore raises $80 million to accelerate data analytics with relational databases
Relational database startup SingleStore (previously MemSQL) closed an $80 million funding round today, bringing its total raised to $238 million. The San Francisco-based company plans to use the funds to increase its market presence; expand its engineering team in Portugal, Ukraine, and the U.S.; and grow its customer base internationally. In July, SingleStore partnered with […]
Microsoft’s Nudge service leverages AI to speed up completion of pull requests
Microsoft is using AI to accelerate pull requests — the feature that lets developers tell others about changes they’ve made to code — toward completion by reminding authors to engage with their overdue requests. That’s according to a new whitepaper published this week detailing Nudge, an end-to-end service that leverages models based on effort estimation […]
Facebook’s improved AI isn’t preventing harmful content from spreading
Facebook claims it’s becoming better at detecting — and removing — objectionable content from its platform, despite the fact that misleading, untrue, and otherwise harmful posts continue to make their way into millions of users’ feeds. During a briefing with reporters ahead of Facebook’s latest Community Standards Enforcement Report, which outlines the actions Facebook took […]
K Health raises $42 million to expand its AI-powered telemedicine platform
Tel Aviv-based K Health today closed a $42 million series D round to grow its telemedicine offering, bringing its total raised to date to $139.3 million. Beyond the fundraising, the 250-employee company announced it will collaborate with the Mayo Clinic to integrate the health system’s Clinic Data Analytics Platform, which includes clinical decision support tools for […]
Hover raises $60 million to streamline home inspections with computer vision
Hover, a startup developing AI-powered apps that create 3D models of homes from smartphone photos, today raised $60 million. The 200-employee company says the proceeds will be used to deepen existing relationships with insurance carriers as Hover expands its product offerings. In 2017, 6.26% of insured homes experienced a claim, compared to just 4.87% in 2014. Usually, […]
EdgeQ emerges from stealth to bring AI to the edge with 5G
EdgeQ, a startup developing 5G systems-on-chip, today emerged from stealth with $51 million in funding. The 90-employee company says the fresh capital will accelerate its go-to-market efforts as it moves toward mass production of its chipset products. With a team of semiconductor, 5G, Wi-Fi, and AI industry veterans hailing from Qualcomm, Intel, and Broadcom, EdgeQ […]