Sumitomo Riko Co., a Nagoya-based auto parts maker, has developed a system that can determine whether a driver is holding the steering wheel, a piece of technology that could prove to be indispensable for semi-automated cars. The firm aims to start commercial production of the system -- designed to enable drivers to switch from autonomous driving to manual control safely in case of emergencies -- in the 2020 business year. The so-called Smart Rubber sensor, made of anti-vibration electrically conductive rubber material, can determine which part of the steering wheel a driver is holding by detecting a change of pressure. The auto industry is currently engaged in fierce competition to develop technology to achieve conditional automation -- Level 3 on the Society of Automotive Engineers International's scale to 5. In Level 3, cars are self-driving but a human driver must take over the wheel in emergency situations or if the system requests that the driver intervene. But self-driving mode will not be turned off unless the system determines that the driver is ready to take the wheel to avoid an accident.

FightCamp offers an interactive library of workouts available via subscription. And the Bowflex Max Trainer cardio machine incorporates artificial intelligence to help you step your home workout game up - literally. With summer on the horizon (and Instagram stories calling), I begrudgingly pulled myself out of bed early one morning in May to get some exercise before work. I stood before a stark white, freestanding boxing bag weighed down by hundreds of pounds of sand as Andre Huseman, a high-spirited personal trainer, greeted me. "Welcome back to FightCamp," the jacked fitness professional said, and within seconds he was counting down, "3…2…1."

Contrary to popular belief, videogames aren't dominated by 12-year-old boys. In fact, according to the Entertainment Software Association and its just-released report, 2019 Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry, the median age of a U.S. gamer today is 33 years old and almost evenly split between male and female players (54% compared to 46%, respectively). Conducted by Ipsos for the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), and with additional data provided by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) and the NPD Group, this annual study is billed as the most in-depth and targeted look at the evolving interactive entertainment space. The PDF report is free to download at theesa.com. "Today, there are 164 million adults who play video games in the United States, and three-quarters of all American households have at least one gamer in them," states Stan Pierre-Louis, Chief Executive Officer of the ESA, which serves as the voice and advocate for the dollar video game industry.

Crafting conversational UI for your chatbot is an important step. Having understood the basics about Conversational UI in our previous post, let us now move on to understanding the steps to be considered while crafting Conversational UIs. With the speed at which our current technology is developing, it won't be long before we start conversing with our computers to get things done. In developed nations, this technology might be already existing today. The kind of technology they have access to and because they are at the forefront of the development of any related technology, they have gained an upper-hand.

Amazon Personalize, first announced during AWS re:Invent last November, is now available to all Amazon Web Services customers. The API enables developers to add custom machine learning models to their apps, including ones for personalized product recommendations, search results and direct marketing, even if they don't have machine learning experience. The API processes data using algorithms originally created for Amazon's own retail business, but the company says all data will be "kept completely private, owned entirely by the customer." The service is now available to AWS users in three U.S. regions, East (Ohio), East (North Virginia) and West (Oregon), two Asia Pacific regions (Tokyo and Singapore) and Ireland in the European Union, with more regions to launch soon. AWS customers who have already added Amazon Personalize to their apps include Yamaha Corporation of America, Subway, Zola and Segment.

The news that the Home Office is sorting applications for visas with secret algorithms applied to online applications is a reminder of one of Theresa May's more toxic and long-lasting legacies: her immigration policies as home secretary. Yet even if the government's aims in immigration policy were fair and balanced, there would still be serious issues of principle involved in digitising the process. Handing over life-changing decisions to machine-learning algorithms is always risky. Small biases in the data become large biases in the outcome, but these are difficult to challenge because the use of software shrouds them in clouds of obfuscation and supposed objectivity, especially when its workings are described as "artificial intelligence". This is not to say they are always harmful, or never any use: with careful training and well-understood, clearly defined problems, and when they are operating on good data, software systems can perform much better than humans ever could.

We welcome written submissions from individuals and organisations who are developing policy, systems or safeguards on the use of AI as we gather evidence for this review. Please contact the Committee at public@public-standards.gov.uk to express your interest. Please see the review's Terms of Reference here. Read the Committee's blog post'why CSPL are reviewing artificial intelligence in the public sector' here.

Safe Fleet, a global provider of safety solutions for fleet vehicles, announces the launch of its Intelligent Perimeter Safety Solutions that include its patents-pending Predictive Stop Arm and its Right-Hand Danger Zone protection system -- two innovative solutions that use predictive analytics, advanced sensors and radar technology to increase safety where students are most at risk, outside the bus. To date, the transportation industry has focused only on limited, reactive solutions that address recording oncoming driver behaviour, instead of proactive measures which directly reduce risk to students, helping them avoid accidents before they happen. Safe Fleet's proprietary Predictive Stop Arm uses radar technology to monitor oncoming vehicle traffic for probable stop arm violations and through the use of AI and predictive analytics, proactively notifies both the bus driver and students of potential danger through audible and visual warnings. If risk is detected, students are alerted not to cross the street. It displays visual warnings to alert the operator when risk is present, helping to reduce injury to students at the bus door and wheel well.

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Reproducibility puts the science in the computer science of AI. It's how researchers can prove their AI systems are robust and reliable. To support reproducibility for AI models, Facebook today released PyTorch Hub in beta, an API and workflow for research reproducibility and support. PyTorch Hub can quickly publish pretrained models to a GitHub repository by adding a hubconf.py PyTorch Hub comes with support for models in Google Colab and PapersWithCode.