How a Japanese cucumber farmer is using deep learning and TensorFlow Google Cloud Big Data and Machine Learning Blog Google Cloud Platform

It's not hyperbole to say that use cases for machine learning and deep learning are only limited by our imaginations. About one year ago, a former embedded systems designer from the Japanese automobile industry named Makoto Koike started helping out at his parents' cucumber farm, and was amazed by the amount of work it takes to sort cucumbers by size, shape, color and other attributes. Makoto's father is very proud of his thorny cucumber, for instance, having dedicated his life to delivering fresh and crispy cucumbers, with many prickles still on them. Straight and thick cucumbers with a vivid color and lots of prickles are considered premium grade and command much higher prices on the market. But Makoto learned very quickly that sorting cucumbers is as hard and tricky as actually growing them.