Sense of hearing is crucial for autonomous vehicles (AVs) to better perceive its surrounding environment. Although visual sensors of an AV, such as camera, lidar, and radar, help to see its surrounding environment, an AV cannot see beyond those sensors line of sight. On the other hand, an AV s sense of hearing cannot be obstructed by line of sight. For example, an AV can identify an emergency vehicle s siren through audio classification even though the emergency vehicle is not within the line of sight of the AV. Thus, auditory perception is complementary to the camera, lidar, and radar-based perception systems. This paper presents a deep learning-based robust audio classification framework aiming to achieve improved environmental perception for AVs. The presented framework leverages a deep Convolution Neural Network (CNN) to classify different audio classes. UrbanSound8k, an urban environment dataset, is used to train and test the developed framework. Seven audio classes i.e., air conditioner, car horn, children playing, dog bark, engine idling, gunshot, and siren, are identified from the UrbanSound8k dataset because of their relevancy related to AVs. Our framework can classify different audio classes with 97.82% accuracy. Moreover, the audio classification accuracies with all ten classes are presented, which proves that our framework performed better in the case of AV-related sounds compared to the existing audio classification frameworks.

Innovation in compliance can come in many forms. One such form was described by Vincent M. Walden, Managing Director at Alvarez and Marsal Holdings, LLC (A&M), in his article entitled "Profit & Loss-of-One"(P&L-of-One). In it, Walden detailed how he and his then colleagues at Ernest & Young (EY) worked in conjunction with the General Electric (GE) compliance function to "improve compliance by using forensic data analytics to provide behavioral insights to their compliance program." They did this through the innovative use of "digital twins" which Walden described as "digital replicas of physical assets that organizations can use for multiple purposes such as the maintenance of power generation equipment, jet engines and heavy machinery." In a more expansive definition, the consulting firm Gartner, Inc. described "digital twins" as dynamic software models of physical things or systems.

The objective is to find the right balance between survival -- players can't die, but they can faint -- and fulfillment. As players seek more inspiration from nature, interacting with animals and trees, the actual game world becomes more colorful and more physically beautiful, Fullerton said.

Drone shows can be fun to watch, much like fireworks displays. Intel has been flying an army of hundreds of drones that move in a coordinated fashion, creating an effect that looks like a mid-air ballet. The company has created one-off drone shows but is now taking that showcase to the next level. Intel is putting 300 drones in the sky for months, and they will be part of the Starbright Holidays aerial light show that will run during the holiday season at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida. The drones will have LEDs that can create more than 4 billion color combinations, and the show will create animations in the night sky.

With the push of a button, 300 drones ascend from a ground station and float over a nearby lake. You can't see them at first--it's well after sundown--but you can hear them falling into formation. The music starts, the drones light up, and the choreography begins. That's the hope for both Disney and Intel, anyway, as they prepare to launch previews of their "Starbright Holidays" extravaganza in Orlando. The drones are Intel's new Shooting Star quadcopters, and while this isn't Intel's biggest air show--the company synced up 500 of them earlier this year in Sydney--it will be the first implementation in which Disney's imagineers helped guide the production.

Intel has introduced a company-branded commercial drone, the Falcon 8, for North American markets, with the aim to lead in the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) market, particularly in the commercial segment. The chip maker has been looking at new opportunities for its silicon and other technologies outside its traditional markets like PCs, more so after its lackluster performance in the smartphone market. It has already dabbled in the consumer drone market through Yuneec's Typhoon H, which uses Intel's RealSense computer vision platform for intelligent obstacle navigation. Intel has also introduced the Intel Aero Platform for developers to build their own drones. The opportunity for Intel is that many countries including the U.S. are slowly liberalizing rules for the use of commercial and consumer drones.

Former Israeli President Shimon Peres' condition was showing slight improvements after he suffered a major stroke, with his physicians saying Wednesday that he had regained consciousness and squeezed his doctor's hand, while the nation rallied in prayer and support for the 93-year-old elder statesman and Nobel Peace laureate. Dr. Yitzhak Kreiss, director of the Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv, said Peres' condition remained serious Wednesday afternoon, 24 hours after the stroke. But he said Peres' neurological signs were improving. He said that Peres, who had been placed in and out of a medically induced coma, was regaining consciousness from time to time and reacting to stimulation. Peres remained on mild sedatives and a respirator, Kreiss said.

In February Amigobulls reported that Alphabet (NSDQ:GOOGL) was using chips from startup Movidius for the development of next-generation Virtual Reality (VR) headsets. Movidius, a company specialized in low-power machine vision for connected devices, has been working with Alphabet to accelerate the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) within mobile devices. Now, the machine vision startup is being acquired by Intel (NSDQ:INTC). "I'm excited to announce the planned acquisition of Movidius by Intel," said Movidius CEO Remi El-Ouazzane. "Movidius' mission is to give the power of sight to machines. As part of Intel, we'll remain focused on this mission, but with the technology and resources to innovate faster and execute at scale."

Intel is not just content to build the silicon brains that will power the Rise of the Machines – it is bidding to own their eyes too, with the acquisition of computer vision developer Movidius. Movidius is 11 years old, having been founded in Dublin and transplanted to San Mateo. No price was disclosed, but the 140-strong firm has raised around 90m in funding in the past, and according to the Irish Times was valued at around 250m last year. As for its technology, it was previously used in Google's Project Tango computer vision platform, and according to its website, works with the likes of Lenovo, and DJI to "give sight to smart devices including drones, security cameras, AR/VR headsets and more". Intel's new technology group boss Josh Walden describes the deal in a blog post, saying it gives Intel "low-power, high-performance SoC platforms for accelerating computer vision applications" as well as "algorithms tuned for deep learning, depth processing, navigation and mapping, and natural interactions, as well as broad expertise in embedded computer vision and machine intelligence."

Intel has announced the intent to acquire Movidius– a startup that designs mobile based vision processor chips and software and development tools--for an undisclosed amount. In a bet to bolster its hold in computer vision and machine learning, Intel is increasingly determined to invest in Artificial Intelligence (AI) business and move beyond the PC-strategy. Combined with Intel's existing assets, Movidius could potentially aid Intel with low-power, high-performance System on a Chip (SoC) platforms for accelerating computer vision applications. The deal pans out well in line with Intel's RealSense vision and strategy and will possibly see growth after the integration of VPU (Vision Processing Unit) platform for on-device vision processing by Movidius. Josh Walden, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Technology Group, Intel believes, that RealSense depth-sensing cameras allowed devices to "see" the world in three dimensions.