Chinese tech giant Huawei is another powerful addition to this pool of technological resources. One of GAC MOTOR's core brand values is technology innovation, that is, finding ways to make cars more intelligent, more efficient, and more enjoyable to drive. A world-class smartphone provider, Huawei regularly produces cutting-edge technology in fields such as voice and facial recognition, IoT connectivity, "smart" appliances, cameras and charging technology, to name just a few. Having cooperative access to Huawei's research and technology gives GAC a strong edge in the production of world-class in-car systems. One exciting project that GAC is working towards in cooperation with Huawei and Didi is "Level 4" autonomous vehicles, which can operate almost entirely without input from humans (current driver-assist mechanisms are classed as Level 2 autonomy).

As demand for intelligent, online digital services continues to surge, governments and businesses are integrating AI throughout transformation. Their applications are migrating to the cloud faster and evolving based on massive amounts of data, apps, AI, and industry know-how. These applications will create more value if they combine new technologies with business dynamics and customer needs. The shift to digital is opening up a plethora of business opportunities for application developers. But many challenges lie ahead, stopping governments and businesses from moving key applications to cloud.

Pepper the robot is taking early retirement. The humanoid's maker, Japan's SoftBank Group, has reportedly stopped producing Pepper due to weak demand. Pepper had been touted as the harbinger of a robotics revolution, but the droid's early demise show it couldn't quite live up to the hype. Attend the tech festival of the year and get your super early bird ticket now! Pepper nonetheless made a mark on the public during the android's six-year run.

Pepper - SoftBank Robotics' humanoid robot - will no longer be produced according to a report. Launched back in 2014, Pepper has seen weak demand which is why the company has decided to move past it.

SoftBank Group Corp. has suspended production of its Pepper robot, shelving for now a project Masayoshi Son once personally championed as a symbol of his conglomerate's ambitions in AI and technology. The Japanese company halted assembly of the ¥198,000 ($1,790) robot in August after inventory piled up, but may decide to resume production in future, a SoftBank spokeswoman said. The firm is now in discussions with its French robotics unit, which employs about 330 people, on potential job reductions, she added. According to an earlier report that cited unidentified sources, SoftBank plans to cut roughly 50% of those positions in France by September. Pepper, SoftBank's first foray into robotics, was marketed from 2014 as a home companion and store assistant.

We may have to say farewell to SoftBank's adorable humanoid robot Pepper. According to Reuters, the Japanese conglomerate has stopped the robot's production last year and is slashing jobs across robotics-related businesses in several countries. Apparently, there wasn't much demand for Pepper, and SoftBank only ever produced 27,000 units manufactured by Foxconn. Nikkei has also reported that Pepper's production was halted due to weak demand, but the SoftBank rep it talked to denied that the company is killing the robot entirely. "We plan to resume production if demand recovers," the spokesperson said.

BARCELONA, June 28 (Reuters) - Verizon (VZ.N) on Monday showcased two robots on the stage of the Mobile World conference, saying that bots use 5G connectivity and mobile edge computing to communicate with each other. Edge computing uses augmented reality and machine learning to analyse bulk data where it was gathered - whether factory floor, oil rig or office space - and requires fast data transfers of the kind that only high-speed 5G signals provide. "When you have more than one robot on the floor, you run into a problem, as these are still just machines, and they can't naturally communicate with one another," Verizon's Chief Strategy Officer Rima Qureshi said at the event in Barcelona. "5G will make it possible for robots to connect with other robots and devices of all kinds in a way that simply wasn't possible before," she said. Connected, smarter robots are considered crucial to making areas such as factory floors more efficient through automation, with remote monitoring cutting costs and the need for plant infrastructure.

It looks like Verizon (Engadget's parent company) is working on an Alexa-powered smart display. However, rather than saying "Alexa" to activate the voice assistant, it appears anyone who buys the device would need to say "Hey, Verizon" instead. Amazon's Alexa Custom Assistant program lets companies build a version of Alexa with custom wake words and device-specific skills. The smart display emerged in Federal Communications Commission filings that were first spotted by Protocol. According to the documents, the Verizon Smart Display has an eight-inch, 1280 800 display, 4GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. The device supports calls, messaging, Alexa announcements and Verizon's BlueJeans video conferencing tool, per the user manual.

SoftBank Ventures Asia has participated in a $27 million Series A funding round in VoyagerX, a South Korea-based artificial intelligence (AI) software developer, according to an announcement. The early-stage venture capital arm of the SoftBank Group joined this round along with other investors including Altos Ventures and Yellowdog with each investing $9 million. VoyagerX will use the funds to develop more user-centric AI services and increase the depth of its talent pool, with the aim to hire 100 people by 2022. Founded in 2017 by Sedong Nam, VoyagerX's teams build AI solutions and tools that leverage deep learning capabilities – an offshoot of machine learning that imitates the human brain when creating patterns and processing data for decision-making. "With the rapid development of AI technology and the increased demand for digital solutions, we are seeing huge opportunities in the market. Artificial intelligence falls firmly in that category and VoyagerX, with their top-tier talent, creative innovation, and rapid time-to-market, have proven that they have the potential to be market leaders in this field," said JP Lee, CEO of SoftBank Ventures Asia.

Fast, reliable, and low-latency data services are essential deliverables from telecom operators today. Realizing them is pushing operators to enhance infrastructure, expand network capacity and mitigate service degradation. Unlike other industries, though, telecom networks are vast monoliths comprising fiber optic cables, proprietary components, and legacy hardware. Because of this, there is less enhancing--and more shoring up the creaking infrastructure. Radio access networks (RAN) are the backbone of the telecommunications industry. However, the industry's propensity to incubate and evolve newer, cost-effective, and energy-efficient technologies has been slow due to monopolization by RAN component manufacturers.