Continual brings together second time founders Tristan Zajonc and Tyler Kohn who previously built and sold machine learning infrastructure startups.

A pilot project being conducted at Audi's Neckarsulm site is using artificial intelligence to control the quality of spot welds in high-volume production. The solution is being advanced together with Siemens and Amazon Web Services as part of the Volkswagen Group's Industrial Cloud, and is set to be rolled out at other locations. Around 5,300 spot welds are required to join the parts that make up the body of an Audi A6. Up until now, production staff use ultrasound to manually monitor the quality of resistance spot welding (abbreviated WPS in German) processes on the basis of random analyses. However, experts from the fields of manufacturing, innovation management, digitalization planning, and IT are currently testing a much smarter way of determining the quality of spot welds at the Neckarsulm site.

After forming a partnership with Walmart in July to reoutfit the retailer's distribution network with a fleet of fully autonomous robots, Symbotic has announced plans to become a publicly traded company early next year. Yesterday, the robotics and automation firm announced it will go public via a special acquisition company (SPAC), courtesy of a merger with SoftBank Investment Advisers' SVF Investment Corp 3 (SVFC). Once the merger is finalised in the first half of 2022, the combined company will operate under the name Symbotic and trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol SYM. Both Walmart and Symbotic declined comment following a series of phone calls and emails from Capital.com. In the company release issued on Tuesday, Symbotic chair and CEO Rick Cohen said, "Now is the time to take Symbotic to the next level."

In the article the authors describe a new field of study converging AI, basic research, and medicine referred to as Longevity Medicine. Another definition for Longevity Medicine is the preventative and restorative medicine enabled by the deep aging clocks and artificial intelligence. The article was authored by Alex Zhavoronkov, the founder and chief longevity officer of Deep Longevity, a computer scientist with a PhD in biophysics, Evelyne Yehudit Bischof, a practicing medical doctor trained in the top European and the US medical schools actively engaged in aging research and gerooncology at the University Hospital Basel in Switzerland, and at Shanghai University of Medicine and Health Sciences, and one of the most prolific scientists and entrepreneurs in artificial intelligence, Kai-Fu Lee. The traditional approach to medicine is to treat diseases. However, scientists estimate (Cutler and Mattson, 2006) that complete elimination of cancer would result in only 2.3 year increase in life expectancy in the US at birth and 1.3 year gain at age 65.

Microsoft announced today that 12 new languages and dialects have been added to Translator. These additions mean that the service can now translate between more than 100 languages and dialects, making information in text and documents accessible to 5.66 billion people worldwide. "One hundred languages is a good milestone for us to achieve our ambition for everyone to be able to communicate regardless of the language they speak," said Xuedong Huang, Microsoft technical fellow and Azure AI chief technology officer. Translator today covers the world's most spoken languages including English, Chinese, Hindi, Arabic and Spanish. In recent years, advances in AI technology have allowed the company to grow its language library with low-resource and endangered languages, such as Inuktitut, a dialect of Inuktut that is spoken by about 40,000 Inuit in Canada.

Lightning is one of the most destructive forces of nature, as in 2020 when it sparked the massive California Lightning Complex fires, but it remains hard to predict. A new study led by the University of Washington shows that machine learning -- computer algorithms that improve themselves without direct programming by humans -- can be used to improve lightning forecasts. Better lightning forecasts could help to prepare for potential wildfires, improve safety warnings for lightning and create more accurate long-range climate models. "The best subjects for machine learning are things that we don't fully understand. And what is something in the atmospheric sciences field that remains poorly understood? Lightning," said Daehyun Kim, a UW associate professor of atmospheric sciences.

SAN ANTONIO, Dec. 7, 2021 /CNW/ -- The benefits of artificial intelligence (AI) technology have been validated in many domains, where AI has helped reduce costs, improve efficiency and productivity, and solve real-life problems. However, international communities are challenged by adverse factors such as US-China competition, changes in the supply chain, and the impact of COVID-19--and Taiwan's enterprises and their development are no exception. In such circumstances, the role of the government is even more important. In response, the Taiwanese government has adopted various measures to support industrial AI research and development (R&D) and encourage companies to introduce AI technology by executing subsidy and public-private partnership (PPP) programs. "The use cases for AI are growing rapidly, but enterprises may still be reluctant to risk adoption. Government programs that support AI companies and startups, as well as the adopting enterprises, are an important way to increase the development of the industry," said Georgia Edell, Consulting Analyst at Frost & Sullivan.

SAN ANTONIO, Dec. 7, 2021 /CNW/ -- The benefits of artificial intelligence (AI) technology have been validated in many domains, where AI has helped reduce costs, improve efficiency and productivity, and solve real-life problems. However, international communities are challenged by adverse factors such as US-China competition, changes in the supply chain, and the impact of COVID-19--and Taiwan's enterprises and their development are no exception. In such circumstances, the role of the government is even more important. In response, the Taiwanese government has adopted various measures to support industrial AI research and development (R&D) and encourage companies to introduce AI technology by executing subsidy and public-private partnership (PPP) programs. "The use cases for AI are growing rapidly, but enterprises may still be reluctant to risk adoption. Government programs that support AI companies and startups, as well as the adopting enterprises, are an important way to increase the development of the industry," said Georgia Edell, Consulting Analyst at Frost & Sullivan.

Coco, the robot based delivery service, announced the official launch of COCO 1, a larger, more advanced version of its signature pink bot. The COCO 1 is a first of its kind delivery robot designed and manufactured in partnership with the largest micro mobility hardware manufacturer, Segway. Coco is currently deploying 1,000s of COCO 1 robots to serve local merchants in multiple cities, over the next few months. With its increased carrying capacity, the COCO 1 will deliver larger orders for a wider range of merchants, further eliminating the need for car-based delivery. Compared to the current model, the COCO 1 offers a number of added features including a more efficient drivetrain and a larger battery capacity that allows for an increased delivery radius of up to three miles, nearly double the radius of the original model.

Social bots - machines that interact as social partners for us humans - are increasingly encountered in everyday life. So far, they mainly appear as software robots in social media, where they like, retweet, but also text and comment. Therefore, they have natural language capabilities and can even communicate synchronously with users as chatbots. However, what happens when they leave the cyber world and suddenly appear face to face with us? How does this affect us as interaction partners and how will our interactions with the machines develop?