"Jidoka" is a new one to me. TRI (Toyota Research Institute) CEO Gill Pratt described the concept as "Automation with a Human Touch." The anglicized version of the notion is "Autonomation" -- both are modified forms of " automation," in their respective languages. The word was originally applied to Toyota's Production System, highlighting the need for human participation in the process. Employing Jidoka principles throughout the production process is a vital element of the Toyota Production System, forcing imperfections to be immediately addressed by self-inspecting workers and thereby reducing the amount of work added to a defective product.

Qualcomm Ventures said Thursday that it has invested $8 million in a New York-based Internet of Things startup that helps companies predict when their machines will fail. Augury, founded in 2011, collects data from equipment via advanced sensors and then applies artificial intelligence algorithms to anticipate when they will break down. It saves customers money by flagging the need for maintenance ahead of a problem. Qualcomm Ventures believes the investment will help jumpstart the emergence of wireless connected factories, shipyards and other industrial operations -- all of which are expected to accelerate with the rollout of new 5G networks. In industrial settings, every machine generates data.

While the familiar idiom "you say tomayto, I say tomahto" is meant to showcase the triviality of differences, the irony lies in its illustration of the wide variation in English pronunciation. Such vagaries in pronunciation can make English difficult for many nonnative speakers unused to pronouncing certain sounds. English is a stress-based language, meaning that it requires emphasis on particular syllables, said Sarah Daniels, CEO and co-founder of English-learning startup Blue Canoe. "If someone is not proactively thinking about stress ... we, in our system, can teach them where it is and how to do it." Bellvue-based Blue Canoe's mobile app directs its users to repeat sentence prompts and record them.

While the familiar idiom "you say tomayto, I say tomahto" is meant to showcase the triviality of differences, the irony lies in its illustration of the wide variation in English pronunciation. Such vagaries in pronunciation can make English difficult for many nonnative speakers unused to pronouncing certain sounds. English is a stress-based language, meaning that it requires emphasis on particular syllables, said Sarah Daniels, CEO and co-founder of English-learning startup Blue Canoe. "If someone is not proactively thinking about stress … we, in our system, can teach them where it is and how to do it." Bellvue-based Blue Canoe's mobile app directs its users to repeat sentence prompts and record them.

Qualcomm Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of the chipmaker, has plans to invest up to $100 million in artificial intelligence. Specifically, Qualcomm says it will provide capital to startups building on-device AI, which is AI that runs on the end device, like a smartphone or vehicle, rather than in the cloud. The fund's leader, Qualcomm investment director Albert Wang (pictured), says on-device AI is the future. "Today's AI processing is very computationally intensive," Wang told TechCrunch. "When you're talking to Alexa, nothing is processed on your device, it gets taken to the cloud and gets scrunched there. There are a few problems with that -- performance deteriorates, it consumes a lot of bandwidth and there are privacy issues. Imagine you have an Alexa that is more private and user-friendly, you ask the questions and can get the answers instantly. It doesn't take the round trip all the way to the cloud."

We dug into the private market bets made by major computer chip companies, including GPU makers. Our analysis encompasses the venture arms of NVIDIA, Intel, Samsung, AMD, and more. Recent developments in the semiconductor industry have been sending mixed signals. Stories about Moore's Law slowing have grown common, but analysts affirm that the latest crop of chips (specifically Intel's newest 10-nanometer technology) prove Moore's Law is still alive and well. Meanwhile, the vast application of graphics hardware in AI has propelled GPU (graphics processing unit) maker NVIDIA into tech juggernaut status: the company's shares were the best-performing stock over the past year.

We dug into the private market bets made by major computer chip companies, including GPU makers. Our analysis encompasses the venture arms of NVIDIA, Intel, Samsung, AMD, and more. Recent developments in the semiconductor industry have been sending mixed signals. Stories about Moore's Law slowing have grown common, but analysts affirm that the latest crop of chips (specifically Intel's newest 10-nanometer technology) prove Moore's Law is still alive and well. Meanwhile, the vast application of graphics hardware in AI has propelled GPU (graphics processing unit) maker NVIDIA into tech juggernaut status: the company's shares were the best-performing stock over the past year.

We dug into the private market bets made by major computer chip companies, including GPU makers. Our analysis encompasses the venture arms of NVIDIA, Intel, Samsung, AMD, and more. Recent developments in the semiconductor industry have been sending mixed signals. Stories about Moore's Law slowing have grown common, but analysts affirm that the latest crop of chips (specifically Intel's newest 10-nanometer technology) prove Moore's Law is still alive and well. Meanwhile, the vast application of graphics hardware in AI has propelled GPU (graphics processing unit) maker NVIDIA into tech juggernaut status: the company's shares were the best-performing stock over the past year.

We dug into the private market bets made by major computer chip companies, including GPU makers. Our analysis encompasses the venture arms of NVIDIA, Intel, Samsung, AMD, and more. Recent developments in the semiconductor industry have been sending mixed signals. Stories about Moore's Law slowing have grown common, but analysts affirm that the latest crop of chips (specifically Intel's newest 10-nanometer technology) prove Moore's Law is still alive and well. Meanwhile, the vast application of graphics hardware in AI has propelled GPU (graphics processing unit) maker NVIDIA into tech juggernaut status: the company's shares were the best-performing stock over the past year.

We dug into the private market bets made by major computer chip companies, including GPU makers. Our analysis encompasses the venture arms of NVIDIA, Intel, Samsung, AMD, and more. Recent developments in the semiconductor industry have been sending mixed signals. Stories about Moore's Law slowing have grown common, but analysts affirm that the latest crop of chips (specifically Intel's newest 10-nanometer technology) prove Moore's Law is still alive and well. Meanwhile, the vast application of graphics hardware in AI has propelled GPU (graphics processing unit) maker NVIDIA into tech juggernaut status: the company's shares were the best-performing stock over the past year.