Amazon has two new programs that integrate Alexa into hospitals and senior living communities, the company announced today. They're run through Alexa Smart Properties, which allows organizations to control a centralized Alexa system. "Early on in the pandemic, hospitals and senior living communities reached out to us and asked us to help them set up Alexa and voice in their communities," Liron Torres, global leader for Alexa Smart Properties, said in an interview with The Verge. Hospitals wanted ways to interact with patients without using protective equipment, and senior living communities wanted to connect residents with family members and staff, she says. The program lets senior living facilities use Amazon Echo devices to send announcements or other messages to residents' rooms.

Torc Robotics and Daimler Truck kick off their third year of partnership poised to commercialize the first scalable, profitable Level 4 autonomous truck that will help fleets improve their operations while bolstering the backbone of the U.S. economy. Torc is currently testing the Level 4 trucks on public roads in Virginia, New Mexico, and Texas, with continued route expansion in the works. The two companies are pursuing a focused, safety-oriented approach to market that also seeks to build trust among fleets and the drivers of vehicles who will share the road. Introducing a world-changing technology into an existing infrastructure, where human drivers will share the road with automated trucks, requires credibility and responsibility, according to Dr. Peter Vaughan Schmidt, Head of Daimler Truck's Autonomous Technology Group. "As the inventor of the truck, Daimler Truck has many decades of experience in testing and validation of commercial vehicles. Nevertheless, to develop a safe autonomous level 4 truck remains a complex task and resembles a marathon, not a sprint. Two years together with Torc Robotics, we have accomplished a lot, collaboratively pursuing a common goal of leading the logistics sector into the future and making road traffic safer for society. I am convinced that we are optimally positioned as a company and together with Torc we have the right partner at our side to achieve our goals."

WIRE)--BrainChip Holdings Ltd (ASX: BRN), (OTCQX: BRCHF), a leading provider of ultra-low power high performance artificial intelligence technology, today announced BrainChip will be taking orders of two development kits for its Akida advanced neural networking processor, enabling partners, large enterprises, and OEMs to begin internal testing and validation of Akida's high-performance, small, ultra-low power AI chip. Akida NSoC and intellectual property enable a wide array of edge AI capabilities that include continuous learning and inference. BrainChip is offering two development kits, both including the AKD1000 chip on a mini-PCI board: an X86 Shuttle PC development kit, as well as an ARM-based Raspberry Pi development kit. "Offering development kits is not only a major step towards full commercialization, it's also an exciting opportunity to see how our partners and future customers will put Akida to work in environments and scenarios like consumer electronics, industrial applications, aerospace and defense systems, healthcare and medical devices, automotive technology, and more," said Anil Mankar, BrainChip co-founder and chief development officer. "We believe the AKD1000 silicon, or the licensing of Akida in a configurable IP format, will lead to major changes in industries using AI at the edge because of its performance, security, low power requirements, and mainly Akida's ability to perform AI training and learning on the device itself, without dependency on the cloud."

The US Food and Drug Administration has given marketing clearance to CognICA, an artificial intelligence–powered integrated cognitive assessment for the early detection of dementia. Developed by Cognetivity Neurosciences Ltd, CognICA is a 5-minute, computerized cognitive assessment that is completed using an iPad. The test offers several advantages over traditional pen-and-paper-based cognitive tests, the company said in a news release. "These include its high sensitivity to early-stage cognitive impairment, avoidance of cultural or educational bias and absence of learning effect upon repeat testing," the company notes. Because the test runs on a computer, it can support remote, self-administered testing at scale and is geared toward seamless integration with existing electronic health record systems, they add.

Artificial Intelligence Technology Solutions, Inc., ( OTCPK:AITX), a global leader in AI-driven security and productivity solutions for enterprise clients today increased its revenue guidance for its fiscal Q3 ending November 30, 2021. This press release features multimedia. AITX CEO Steve Reinharz introduces RAD's yet unnamed robotic dog, part of the RAD 3.0 product offering, at AITX Investors Open House held October 13, 2021, at the company's REX (RAD Excellence Center) in Detroit, Michigan (Photo: Business Wire) As previously disclosed, AITX through its wholly owned subsidiary Robotic Assistance Devices Inc. (RAD), is expected to close October 2021 with Recurring Monthly Revenue (RMR) of over $80,000. "Sales activity has now accelerated to the pace where we can anticipate topping the $100,000 RMR milestone by the end of November 2021," commented Mark Folmer, RAD COO and President. "This is such exciting progress for AITX. We expect significant revenue events before Q3 closes," said Steve Reinharz, CEO and President of AITX.

A massive disruption now appears imminent in one of the world's largest – and most important – industries. In much the same way that Amazon disrupted the retail business – and how PayPal disrupted the payments industry – one under-the-radar health technology company now seeks to transform the $11.85 trillion global health industry. By moving healthcare away from brick and mortar, traditional medicine into an AI-driven tool that offers unprecedented speed, efficiency, and accuracy... Investors still have a brief window of opportunity to get in on this transformational investment opportunity while it still flies beneath Wall Street's radar. But as you'll soon discover, this company's technology is so powerful that it could become a valuable addition to hundreds of millions of households worldwide. Whether most patients, providers, or large healthcare companies realize it or not, the healthcare industry is already in the early stages of significant change. That's because patients now desire access to more information – and better information – in the blink of an eye. In a recent survey of U.S. health consumers, 71% reported facing major frustrations through their experience with healthcare providers. Concerns ranged from difficulties scheduling appointments to impersonal visits.

Jeffrey Austin White has joined Holmes Murphy as its Chief Analytics Officer (CAO), bringing his nearly three decades of expertise focused on strategic investments in talent and technology to the national insurance brokerage. In this new role for Holmes Murphy, White will work to increase emphasis on innovation and data intelligence, helping to drive the company's potential and performance for clients. He will largely be responsible for defining and driving analytics and business intelligence initiatives, including assessing the current state of data and analytics capabilities, developing an analytics strategy, and leveraging innovations in artificial intelligence to propel Holmes Murphy and its clients forward. White will also be working to provide insight on potential opportunities for BrokerTech Ventures (BTV), the first broker-led convening platform and accelerator program focused on delivering innovation to the insurance broker industry. "Holmes Murphy continues to raise the bar when it comes to developing technology and innovations within the insurance industry. I'm excited to play a role in advancing their data analytics and AI capabilities," said White.

Zoox has been testing its Level-3 (L3) autonomous vehicles in Las Vegas and the Bay Area for four years, way before Amazon acquired the self-driving company in 2020. But to be able to train its technology further, it has to hold trials in other locations with different environmental conditions -- like Seattle. Zoox has announced that it will soon start testing its L3 vehicles in the city to collect data and trial new hardware in the face of frequent rains. "It rains more frequently in Seattle than it does in San Francisco," the company said in its announcement. Zoox built special hardware into its sensors to give its vehicles the capability to automatically remove water and debris when needed.

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--BriefCam, the industry's leading provider of Video Content Analytics and VIDEO SYNOPSIS solutions, today announced availability for BriefCam Video Content Analytics on Axis deep learning cameras in December 2021. Edge video processing on Axis deep learning cameras is a new hybrid deployment option for the BriefCam platform that reduces the total cost of ownership of a real-time video analytics deployment, enables operation in low-bandwidth environments, and makes for faster real-time alerting. Through the Axis Application Development Partner Program, BriefCam is one of the first to leverage the AXIS Camera Application Platform (ACAP) to enable comprehensive analytics directly on Axis Communications' deep learning camera series. BriefCam analytics are enabled on the Axis deep learning cameras AXIS P3255 and AXIS Q1615 Mk III, which feature a dual chipset of ARTPEC-7 and a deep-learning processing unit (DLPU), as well as the ARTPEC 8 camera series. By enabling BriefCam analytics on the edge, along with post processing and management capabilities, users experience up to six times faster real-time alerting, a 5-10x reduction in bandwidth, and up to 55% less real-time GPU processing servers for real-time processing.

Babylon, a world leading digital-first, value-based care company today announced a collaboration to explore opportunities to improve the accessibility, affordability and quality of healthcare for people across the world by using their combined AI, Machine Learning and Cloud technologies. The new collaboration has the aim of exploring opportunities to accelerate and enhance current AI and Machine Learning, utilizing them to shift the focus from sick care to preventative health care. "Babylon and Microsoft working together shows our combined commitment to build on our leading-edge digital health technologies and deliver better access and greater affordability for health systems and patients alike", said Ali Parsa, Chief Executive Officer, Babylon. "We share the same vision of healthcare and believe that by bringing our assets together we can further the digital health revolution, offer immediate access to all-in-one personalized care and we can enhance the consumer experience, improve patient outcomes and reduce overall costs." As part of this relationship, the two organizations will explore opportunities to innovate and deliver across product, cloud and AI research with the view toward increasing the impact of their complementary healthcare technologies and extending the Babylon healthcare platform.