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Taiwan’s TTA Takes Record 82 Startups To CES 2020

For the third year in a row, Taiwan had a significant presence at one of the biggest electronics trade fairs in the world, CES 2020. Leading a delegation of 82 startups presenting in Las Vegas, Taiwan Tech Arena (TTA) said it was their largest delegation ever, winning over US$226 million in business opportunities.

Speaking to EE Times Europe at CES, Dr. Yu-Chin Hsu, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Science and Technology, commented, “Taiwan has played an important role in the global high-tech ecosystem in the past 30 years. We have 82 startup teams covering three areas: artificial intelligence (AI), smart technologies, and also in healthcare.” Dr. Hsu emphasized the need for Taiwan and its startups to be connected to the global tech ecosystem in all key markets and applications, which is why presence at a major trade fair like CES is important. “We see that in the future in the AI age, there will be a lot of our startups that become important.”

In addition to promoting its leading startups overseas and connecting them to the global tech ecosystem, Taiwan’s government also works hard to ensure strong collaboration between academia and industry, especially since a lot of leading-edge research is carried out at Taiwan’s research institutes. At CES, we spoke to Dr. Chiou Chyou-Huey, Director General, Department of Academia-Industry Collaboration and Science Park Affairs, Ministry of Science and Technology, who commented, “The Ministry of Science and Technology of government highly encourages industry and academia collaboration. We do so by providing incentives, mentors, mature business models and business plans support.”

He added, “We also provide [academics with] some budget for them to take their scientific research to more mature products or services. Taiwan Tech Arena is a good hub to connect to the international market or international resources. Taiwan is very competitive in terms of talent and technology. That’s the reason why we bring a large delegation to attend CES.

A key focus of the TTA delegation was AI, smart technologies and healthcare. TTA supports startups by providing funding and a platform to grow their businesses. This year it gave the opportunity for startups in the healthcare industry to highlight how AI will improve the quality of lives. The startups which presented at CES 2020 are trying to disrupt current markets and push the boundaries of innovation.

Here we highlight some of the companies that we spoke to on the TTA booth at CES 2020, both in healthcare as well as AI and smart technologies in general.

Hipposcreen Neurotech: objective depression diagnosis

Hipposcreen Neurotech has developed a depression diagnosis system to provide an objective indicator of mental health of a patient, using a system it has developed for brain health assessment. The system combines an electroencephalogram (EEG) recording system and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm to provide doctors with a way of rapidly measuring key indicators to identify the mental health of a patient. Using eight EEG electrodes to capture brain waves as input signals to an EEG amplifier, it uses an AI algorithm in the cloud to perform feature extraction and data analysis. Doctors can then view the data and assessment via a web portal within around two minutes.

At CES, the company told us, “We built this system to help doctors to carry out depression diagnosis, to save time and the doctor can also use this report to explain to the patient more easily and provide more accurate assessment results.” Its stress EEG assessment (SEA) system addresses a growing prevalence of major depressive disorder (MDD) and is expected to be used as an indicator of the level of MDD. The SEA system can achieve accuracy of higher than 80% on the EEG datasets collected as a result of collaboration between the department of psychiatry at National Taiwan University Hospital and Harvard Medical School (McLean Hospital).

Enosim Bio-Tech: an electronic “nose” detects disease

Enosim Bio-Tech has developed a real-time monitoring, breath detection and analysis system to identify ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). The core technology is a low power consumption nose-on-a-chip with software, integrated sensors, interface circuits, processors and memory. The breath analysis system uses data from a patient’s breath using the electronic nose to determine known diseases within its dataset. It overcomes environmental interference using a neuromorphic recognition algorithm.

Compared with traditional gas sensing, the e-nose does not use a single sensor, but instead uses multiple sensors to classify a gas. These sensors are combined into an array for odor recognition, and each of the different combinations represents a different odor. Compared with traditional gas analysis instruments, such as gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, the e-nose system is easier to operate and to miniaturize.

The company said, “We are developing new technology to provide fast screening of diseases, by using your breath. If you have cancer or cancer cells, you have bacteria and these have multiple metabolisms, and there will be components existing in your breath. We are trying to detect these molecules.” The development of e-nose still poses many challenges in commercialization, including size and cost. Enosim’s electronic nose technology has been in development for over ten years and is looking to break through the technology bottlenecks.

Ventilator-associated pneumonia refers to a bacterial lung infection in intensive care units (ICU), where patients have been treated with a respirator for more than 48 hours. VAP is the most common nosocomial infection in ICU, and the rate of infection is about 7 to 14%. The mortality rate can reach from 35 to 90%. In ICU, there is an unmet medical need for rapid VAP identification.

RelaJet Tech: allowing people to hear in noisy environments

RelaJet Tech has developed the R1898 DSP, a complete solution for over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids. The company said it has an AI acoustic fingerprinting engine which carries out edge processing on hearing aids. It said it can extract human voice characteristics within 10 milliseconds and amplify them so that people with hearing difficulties are still able to hear individual people talk in noisy environments. “Our focus of the company is to provide hearing aid solutions. Our key technology is what we call speech separation. We can separate the human voice from environmental noise within a millisecond using our DSP,” said a company spokesperson.

Through just 3-5 seconds of a recording, Relajet said it can label a specific voice, divide it and enhance it in real-time. It can also cancel certain sounds or noises and remove them in real-time. Finally, it can covert 2D sound into 3D – it does so by analyzing sound and environment, and then simulating 3D surround with its engine so that the user can ‘hear the space.’

Taiwan User-Friendly Sensor & Technology: food allergy detection

Existing point of care devices for food allergy detection can only detect gluten over 20 ppm, and hence lack the ability to quantify smaller concentrations. Taiwan User-Friendly Sensor & Technology has developed a point-of-care device based on connected electrochemical sensors, which can quantify targets below 10ppm for multiple proteins simultaneously. With its rapid extraction techniques, the device can readout data in less than two minutes, and costs just a few dollars per test, compared to the thousands of dollars and a few hours to carry out the gold standard ELISA (enzyme linked immunosorbent assay) tests for food allergy detection.

The company’s co-founder and CTO, Dr. Hsing-Yi Lin said, “Our company is providing a food allergy detection device, which provides very quick detection of allergy. Currently in the lab, detection time takes four hours, but using our technology we can quickly detect allergies within two minutes.”

The company’s device consists of a handheld product which can extract allergens from food, and an electronic keychain reader for sensing allergens, connecting wirelessly to a smartphone to communicate the results.

SWR Technology: wireless power for 5G devices

SWR Technology delivers 65W of wireless power through windows, enabling faster deployment of 5G connected smart devices within homes and buildings in the AIoT world.

In one application, its system solution with RF IC provider MaxLinear can deliver more than 1Gbps symmetrical data rate and up to 35W wireless power through triple-silver-coated low-emissivity (low-e) glass windows up to 35mm thick. The design allows 5G fixed wireless broadband (FWB) service providers to deploy gigabit broadband speeds using mmWave spectrum.  With the solution, consumers can self-install small indoor/outdoor devices in the corner of a window, without drilling holes, without running new cables, and without needing a professional installation. The small, low-profile form factor enables aesthetically pleasing designs that will not obstruct views through the window. SWR Technology’s wireless power module uses a proprietary high tolerance resonance transfer technology to transmit 20 Watts of power through standard or triple-silver-coated low-e glass up to 35mm thick.

Shengming Shan, CEO of SWR Technology CEO, told us, “SWR Technology is a mid-distance wireless power technology company. At CES, we are looking to find a lot of great partners that could enlarge and change people’s expectations and user experience with wireless power.”

Mindtronic AI: embedded systems for automotive cockpit DMS

Mindtronic AI is an AI startup with a focus on human machine interaction, designing ultra-light embedded computer vision algorithms serving a wide range of applications. At CES, the company demonstrated its expertise in automotive AI solutions with its cockpit driver monitoring system (DMS) and interaction platform, the DMX.  This utilizes high quality biometric technology for a luxury user interface, plus a DMS to assess a driver’s cognition and connect this to the vehicle’s ADAS systems.

The company offers a standalone DMS module board for direct integration with a vehicle’s dashboard system, as well as a software SDK for integrating into any embedded hardware system. Mindtronic AI’s solution is already validated in a vehicle use case. Its’ adaptive algorithm guarantees high-quality image acquisition in adverse lighting conditions, and the algorithms work in concert with the adaptive NIR array and allow the DMS to deliver constant, noise resistant, quality output to the car system. The acquisition speed and quality are enabled by a high performance ultra-lightweight deep learning framework design for low power embedded systems.

Lixel: 3D images without special headsets

Addressing the opportunities for presenting 3D visual images without the need for any special glasses or headsets, Lixel has developed a technology called 3D floating image with interaction. This is based on a light field and Lixel’s patent-designed flat display which can be viewed with the naked eye and features oblique viewing and interaction.

It is based on the founders’ collective expertise in light field technology, and aims to make images more natural, intelligent and responsive than before. Its technology and product can be integrated into products to provide more natural vision and intuitive interaction experiences.

Potential uses include virtual assistants and communication, infotainment applications within cars (floating buttons to enhance safety and navigation), gaming and entertainment, online advertisement, online shopping. Lixel’s technology can be used in everything from general displays to consumer electronics and professional displays, such as in laptops, smartphones, and games consoles.

A spokesperson for Lixel told EE Times, “We develop new technologies beyond 2D: vision and touch technology. We bring the 3D floating image into action. The main purpose to come to CES is to introduce our 3D technology to the world. Because CES is a very important show in entire world. This year we will push ourselves to develop and release our product. We are still developing this market, and of course we will work very closely with our partners to develop new applications.”

Nestech: smart access control systems

Nestech combines edge computing and AI to develop smart access control systems. At CES, the company was showing its smart building control system and ACM smart hazard detection system to enable both management and safety for the hospitality and property management industries. Nestech provides complete turnkey solutions for various industries, ranging from intelligent city, hotel automation, smart home, intelligent office and other potential uses of smart connected devices. It specializes in system integration for internet of things (IoT) device and system development, as well as artificial intelligence IoT (AIoT) systems.

Startling Views from CES

By David Benjamin

LAS VEGAS — Negotiating the CES show floor, bumping along among throngs of convention-goers, and weaving between display booths large and small is no walk in the park. But it rewards the visitor with sights, sounds, and the occasional human encounter that can be mystifying, gratifying, amusing. For a photographer more interested in startling images than in the minutiae of technology, this hectic stroll can be fun. Here’s a collection of shots derived from an hour or so among several exhibition halls at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Quantum computing comes to CES

IBM chose CES to unveil IBM Q System One. IBM calls its Q System One “the world’s first integrated universal approximate quantum computing system.”

But here’s the thing: How do you explain quantum computing to the CES crowd? After all, the system is designed for scientific and commercial use.

The Big Blue did its best to describe quantum computing in the context of future applications. The potential use cases listed by IBM include: “finding new ways to model financial data and isolating key global risk factors to make better investments, or finding the optimal path across global systems for ultra-efficient logistics and optimizing fleet operations for deliveries.”

Next page: Le Mans comes to CES

Toto Touts Total Toilet

By David Benjamin

LAS VEGAS — If you don’t think there’s serious science in the development of the total toilet, you haven’t talked to Bill Strang, president of operations and e-commerce at Toto USA. Toto’s newest superjohn, the Neorest NX1 dual-flush “smart washlet” partakes of hydrophilic science, lubricity studies, and tribology to counteract the modern porcelain indoor flush toilet’s worst enemy — hydraulic adhesion.

In sum, a lot of thought has gone into Toto’s latest pride and joy, partly because — as Strang notes with a knowing smile — the Japanese, some of whom started Toto, are “fanatical” about bathroom hygiene.

“Everything we’ve learned through all the years of developing washlets has brought us to the ultimate washlet,” said Strang. Toto’s booth at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was large but tastefully uncluttered. In perhaps a gesture of Zen minimalism, rather than display Toto’s vast product line of bathroom fixtures, the company focused on the new Neorest NX1.

“It’s functional, with a great aesthetic, sort of like a river rock,” said Strang, summoning up his own Zen sensibilities, “with a nice organic feel.”

Toto is one of a host of household fixture, plumbing, and appliance companies displaying products that feature advanced material science and vastly improved performance, many of them integrated with artificial intelligence (AI) elements.

In an animated demonstration, Toto shows how the Neorest washlet employs the power of what it calls a “cyclone flush,” which actually makes a U-turn before swirling around the bowl furiously and sending all those colored cubes off to the treatment plant.

Strang rattled off the many virtues of the Neorest washlet, including a keenly engineered ceramic surface to which nothing can stick (all that lubricity), and a post-flush “wand” that thrusts itself into the bowl to do a second cleanup. The new washlet is, of course, heated and intuitive. The seat will lift when it senses anyone approaching. Its “bidet function” is a complicated mix of firm and gentle spray that oscillates, sometimes soothingly and sometimes more aggressively, Strang noted. A remote control manages all the washlet’s functions.

Included in the hardware is a second nozzle, “for girls, in the front,” said Strang. “It’s softer and more comfortable.”

He summed up Toto’s development of a toilet that goes way beyond “minimal” as the result of a “scientific approach for cleaning yourself efficiently, for a more comfortable and delightful experience” in the bathroom.

Strang added to the discussion by describing Toto’s collaboration with good2go, a San Francisco company that is installing safe toilets, accessible only with a QR code provided through a subscription-based smartphone app, in locations like Whole Foods and Peet’s Coffee. Trials of these toilets have been successful, with favorable responses from users and a drastic reduction in “toilet incidents” like drug abuse and assault.

Toto is also partnering with Georgia Pacific, a supplier of toilet tissue and paper towels, to monitor use of restrooms in large venues like stadiums and airports. An AI-based system being tested at Hartsfield/Jackson Airport in Atlanta has yielded new efficiencies in restroom maintenance, better morale among custodial staff, and “actual empirical data for building better public bathrooms.”

In short, Toto’s commitment to good toilets is total.

Toto has devised a shower, composed of a single stream, that doesn’t splash and, according to spokesman Bill Strang, massages the user gently while wreathing his or her body in a gentle flow of water.

Silicon Labs’s CEO on AI and UWB

By Junko Yoshida

LAS VEGAS — “We are still in the early days of market adoption of IoT,” Tyson Tuttle, CEO of Silicon Labs, told EE Times at the company’s booth during CES.

But wait, hasn’t the electronics industry been talking about the internet of things (IoT) for more than two decades? Trace back to the time when RFID tags began to be touted as a must-have in supply chains. (Kevin Ashton, the then-director of the Auto-ID Center, is widely known for having coined the phrase “IoT” back then.)

Besides, the industry supposedly has all the necessary building blocks for IoT: a low-energy microcontroller, wireless connectivity, sensors, and maybe antennas in an IoT module. At this point, isn’t IoT essentially a “bing-bang-boom”?

Not necessarily. Tuttle maintains that IoT is a market that takes decades to unfold. Consider the IoT attach rate for commercial lighting systems, he said. “We are probably at 10% to 15% … It’s still low.”

Selling into the future
In Tuttle’s mind, transitions this big are never done and never enough. Furthermore, the technologies applied to IoT are constantly advancing.

As IoT continues to look for design wins in the industrial market, Tuttle said that the chip supplier’s job is never done at the time of sales. He said, “We are selling our chips into the future.”

In other words, “Our products must be able to support new software, protocol updates, and applications — all that — over the next 10 to 15 years.” That’s a long-haul business.

IoT users in the industrial market are also looking for IoT devices that are contextually aware. Location is one important element.

Silicon Labs’s new Bluetooth SoC, EFR32BG22

Silicon Labs just announced this week the company’s new Bluetooth SoCs, capable of asset tracking. The new low-energy device takes advantage of Bluetooth Angle of Arrival and Angle of Departure capabilities, thus offering sub-1-m location accuracy, according to the company.

Location, however, is just one element that can make IoT aware of its context. Others, such as light, sound, voice, and vision, can make IoT devices “a lot more aware of the environment they are operating in,” Tuttle explained.

The next logical step is to add AI to the IoT module. Tuttle promised that Silicon Labs will deliver in 2020 an IoT solution integrated with AI acceleration. By making IoT devices “trainable, actionable, and capable of extracting information and learning from the environment,” they become a lot more contextually aware, he explained.

Of course, Silicon Labs isn’t alone as it looks to add machine learning on end nodes. But rather than forcing inference jobs to run on current devices, Silicon Labs plans to add an AI acceleration feature to the company’s Wireless Gecko Series 2 platform.

Unlike competing AI edge devices plugged into the wall, Tuttle said, “Our goal is to get this [IoT devices with multiple sensors and AI features] hooked up with wireless network or connected smartphones. The name of the game is to enable machine learning on a very low-power, always-on device with a limited memory budget.”

Armed with its Gecko MCUs known for its low-energy sensor interface and interconnect features such as Peripheral Reflex System, Silicon Labs believes it has an edge in the race to add machine-learning features to IoT solutions.

The low-energy sensor interface, for example, can connect to duty-cycling inductive, capacitive, and resistive sensors while autonomously operating in Deep Sleep mode. With Gecko MCUs, the peripherals also connect directly to one another, allowing them to communicate without waking up a CPU or seeking its intervention.

“These are all great features unique to our Gecko MCUs, and some people even say that this is enough,” said Tuttle. But the company is taking more steps to optimize AI functions on IoT devices.

Tuttle wouldn’t disclose details and timelines for the new AI products. However, he implied that they will be ready when Silicon Labs holds its own “Works With Smart Home Conference” in September. “We will bring Google, Amazon, and others onto the stage,” said Tuttle.

How about UWB?
With the introduction of the Bluetooth 5.1 spec, Bluetooth can now do fine-grained positioning. Accuracy of positioning is accomplished by an Angle of Arrival mechanism. Undoubtedly, this will become essential to context-/location-based IoT applications.

But if positioning is so critical, how about using ultra-wideband (UWB)?

Tuttle said, “Absolutely. We are interested. Things are getting more interesting as UWB becomes a part of iPhones and Samsung’s phones.” But he added, “Just to be clear, that is not to say that Silicon Labs is going to do UWB.”

In the past, when UWB was gunning for wireless streaming, positioning itself to compete with Wi-Fi, Tuttle said, “We — at Silicon Labs — never chased that market then.”

While UWB has its limitations, especially at distance, it offers more accurate location than other technologies. UWB will be great for a set of applications, said Tuttle, such as payments at point of sale. “But we will wait and see.”

For its IoT business, Silicon Labs sees itself focusing on local rather than wide-area networks such as LTE and LoRa. The same could apply to UWB. “In our business, what we decide not to do is just as important,” said Tuttle.

AI Can Map the World for Disaster Preparedness

By Sally Ward-Foxton

LAS VEGAS — Intel has developed AI models to identify geographical features from satellite imagery for the creation of accurate, up-to-date maps. The company has been working closely with the Red Cross on its Missing Maps project, which aims to create maps for areas of the developing world to improve disaster preparedness. Many areas of the developing world do not have up-to-date maps, which means that aid organizations can struggle to work efficiently in the event of natural disasters or epidemics.

“As someone who’s been on the ground with the Red Cross, having access to accurate maps is extremely important in disaster planning and emergency response,” said Dale Kunce, co-founder of Missing Maps and CEO of American Red Cross Cascades Region. “But there are entire parts of the world that are unmapped, which makes planning and responding to disasters much more difficult. This is why we’re collaborating with Intel to use AI to map vulnerable areas and identify roads, bridges, buildings, and cities.”

“If you don’t know where all the roads are before a hurricane hits, after it hits, you have no idea where flooding has occurred or which roads are washed out and which aren’t,” said Alexei Bastidas, deep-learning data scientist at Intel AI Lab, in an Intel podcast on the subject. “If you don’t have an accurate enough map of what was there beforehand, it really prevents you from responding to the disaster as it’s ongoing. The other thing to consider is that a lot of these disasters … are weather events — cyclones, typhoons, hurricanes, even volcanic eruptions. These weather events can occlude the satellite sensor; they create clouds … It makes it extremely challenging for somebody like the Red Cross to respond to an event.”

At present, Missing Maps uses a team of volunteers to go though satellite images and identify roads, towns, bridges, and other infrastructure. The volunteers manually update an open-source map called Open Street Map, which is laborious and time-consuming.

Intel’s AI Lab, in collaboration with Mila and CrowdAI, developed an image-segmentation model and used it to identify unmapped bridges in Uganda from satellite pictures. Object-detection approaches were discounted due to performance in favor of segmentation. Bridges were selected as a trial feature because they are critical infrastructure and are particularly vulnerable to natural disasters such as floods. Seventy previously unmapped bridges were discovered by the system; the Ugandan National Society can use this data to better plan evacuation and aid-delivery routes.

Uganda Map
The system identified 70 bridges across Uganda that were previously unmapped by either Open Street Map or the Ugandan Bureau of Statistics. (Image: Intel)

Satellite imagery can be particularly challenging to work with. The lack of an obvious frame of reference for up and down is challenging, said Bastidas. Also, images are not always taken from directly above, meaning the same feature may be seen from different angles. Differences in the local terrain as well as styles of infrastructure and architecture make it hard to train models on labelled data from other parts of the world. Even in images from the same country, terrain may look very different in summer and winter, and features such as bridges show huge variation in size and style.

Intel’s training dataset therefore had to come exclusively from Uganda. In fact, a section of Northern Uganda was used, which includes multiple views of the same bridges to enable models to learn about seasonal and nadir-angle changes.

The models started by looking for waterways and highway features, and any areas where a highway crossed a waterway was marked as a candidate point for a bridge. Known bridge locations within 30 m of any candidate points were discarded. Bounding boxes were added around these intersections, and then satellite images from areas in the bounding boxes were pulled. The models could then interpret the images to see whether they contained a bridge.

The models ran on second-generation Intel Xeon scalable processors (Cascade Lake) with DL Boost and nGraph. Bastidas said that these processors were chosen for their giant size; satellite images are often 1,024 square pixels, and it was desirable for the chip to process an entire image at once.

According to Bastidas, the next steps for the project may include the generation of models that can aid human mapping volunteers, perhaps predicting bridge locations but leaving the final decision to human eyes.

“We are also interested in trying to come up with ways to leverage existing open-source data to make models that are more robust, more generalizable, and can [work] with more tolerance for this geographically distinct area,” he said.

Toyota Touts AI-Driven Dream City

By David Benjamin

LAS VEGAS — In announcing plans by Toyota Motor Corporation to build a new city in Japan, fueled entirely by renewable resources and operated by an intricate web of artificial intelligence (AI), company chairman Akio Toyoda told a first-day media audience at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), “You must be thinking, ‘Has this guy has lost his mind?’

“Are we looking at a Japanese version of Willy Wonka?”

Standing small against a towering screen that showed artist’s renderings of a futuristic city of 2,000 people, nestled in the shadow of Mount Fuji, Toyoda might have indeed resembled Willy Wonka, cloistered from the world in his shuttered chocolate factory. But what the Toyota chief did not say was that, in the movie, Willy Wonka was always a step ahead of everyone else.

By leapfrogging Toyota’s focus on AI into smart-city concepts, Toyoda was tacitly confirming the widespread consensus that AI in vehicles — the dream of a fully autonomous family sedan in the immediate future — is stuck in neutral.

Indeed, almost completely absent from Toyoda’s presentation was any mention of automobiles. Toyota concept cars and the Toyota Research Institute — the company’s pride and joy at CES in previous years — were off the agenda.

And the Woven City is going to be th-i-s big. (Image: EE Times)

Mounting safety concerns and technology issues have led to an industry-wide retreat from full autonomy. Instead, carmakers and their technology allies are touting refinements in advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and the development of safety standards that might make autonomous vehicles (AVs) acceptable to a dubious public afraid of seeing their kids run over by Robbie the Robot.

Meanwhile, suggested chairman Toyoda on Monday, why not build George Jetson’s condo?

Toyoda introduced Bjarke Ingels, founder of the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), a Copenhagen-based architectural enterprise chosen to partner with Toyota in the creation of a future urban model called a “Woven City” by Toyoda and Ingels. Ingels explained that three forms of mobility would interweave in this city.

Ingels said that the Woven City would have some traditional streets, where pedestrians, bicyclists, cars, and other vehicles share space. But the dominant avenues would be an urban promenade, wide and exclusive to pedestrians, and a “linear park” designed for walking, strolling, picnicking, and — Ingels suggested — a greater level of social interaction than is common in most cities today.

Taking over from Bjarke, Toyoda sketched a vision of high-rise “blocks” surrounded by greenery, each roofed with photovoltaic tiles to convert sunlight to energy. Underground, said Toyoda, there will be a hydrogen power plant to provide additional energy. Toyota, without getting much traction on the idea, has been a leader in promoting hydrogen as a fuel source.

Each unit in the Woven City’s residences, of course, would feature lots of robotics, “with people, buildings, and vehicles all connected. “The key indoor technology would be sensor-based AI that intuits the household’s needs before any human notices, stocking the fridge, adjusting the heat, collecting the trash, monitoring the baby, housebreaking the puppy, and polishing the doorknobs.”

And every unit, he added, “will have a spectacular view of Mount Fuji.”

The streets, said Toyoda, will be filled with automated Toyota vehicles delivering goods; shuttling babies, nannies, and senior citizens; sweeping the streets; and facilitating more human contact — which, said Toyoda, must be the objective of AI in its practical applications.

However, anyone who hears about Akio Toyoda’s “personal field of dreams” and starts hoarding real estate in Kanagawa and Yamanashi prefectures near Mount Fuji will be jumping the gun. All these Woven City plans, cautioned Toyoda, will be worked out first in virtual reality.

He said Toyota is inviting like-minded companies and individuals “and anyone inspired to improve the way we live in the future” to help test the possibilities of the Woven City “in both the virtual and physical worlds.”

The Toyota chairman bowed out without providing a timetable for his dream.

CES Tech Trends: Prepare for the ‘Intelligence of Things’

By Barb Jorgensen

The Internet of Things (IoT) is already passé at CES 2020. There’s a new IoT in town — the Intelligence of Things—that will drive consumer and industrial innovation well into the next decade,  said Steve Koenig, vice president for the Consumer Technology Association.

This is the decade where smart homes, electric vehicles and telemedicine will hit their stride, Koenig said in his CES 2020 preview. “We’ve ticked the device-connectivity boxes,” he explained. The next 10 years will be about intelligent connectivity and devices that anticipate human needs, enable smart city infrastructure and contribute to global sustainability, he said.

Proof-of-concept already exists in agriculture where technology trims costs, labor and waste. Automated harvesters free up manpower. Drones identify dry spots in fields and automated systems water only those areas. Data from harvesters — such as daily yield– can be used by farmers to capitalize on the futures market.

Artificial intelligence and 5G are the underpinnings of the new IoT, Koenig said. 5G capabilities are so far beyond 4G that  enterprises—rather than consumers—will drive its growth. The new IoT can be divided into two categories: massive IoT and critical IoT. Massive IoT connects a lot of endpoints but carries very little data. Critical IoT connects fewer endpoints with lots of data. Applications for the latter include remote surgery, industrial robotics and commercial virtual reality, said Koenig.

“5G will overlay every commercial and industrial sector,” he added.

5G networks will be built parallel to 4G to prepare for a gradual transition. This means devices, networks and base stations that are yet to be designed, built and field tested. Most devices will be 5G-enabled by 2023, according to CTA, but a complete transition will still take a while.

In the meantime, established companies and start-ups are developing products and services that will capitalize on connected intelligence. Trends to watch at CES 2020 include:

AI and everything. Artificial intelligence is being “consumerized.” Machine learning has been around awhile and is well understood in the industrial sector, but devices with embedded AI are already on the market – ovens that can identify and correctly cook food; doorbells with facial recognition and speakers with advanced voice recognition. “AI is permeating every facet of commerce and culture and is focused on enhancing the user experience,” said Koenig.

Intelligence of Things
Source: Anova Smart Oven, courtesy of CES 2020

AR/VR/XR untethered.  AR devices are now wireless and provide near room-scale experiences. For the science fiction fan, Star Trek’s Holodeck is – literally – closer to reality than ever before. Other AR devices have been scaled down to sunglass sizes. “The real use case” said Koenig, “is in the commercial space and B2B.” VR is training doctors on virtual cadavers. XR, a cornerstone of gaming, is catching on in the $1 billion e-sports market.

Transportation. “This is the decade for electronic vehicles,” said Koenig. There are advancements in battery technology and electric motors; charging stations are more plentiful and easier to use. Sensors and processors proliferate in EVs. “Now we are hearing a narrative about commercial EV deployment — which means fleets — and fleets mean partnerships,” he added. “Nobody can do this on their own.”

EVs are also solving the “last mile” problem in cities that are densely populated and highly congested. Electric scooters have become a popular solution to the last-mile challenge, Koenig said.

Digital health. “This becomes a lifestyle this year,” Koenig predicted. Consumer electronics are bringing the ecosystem together.

AI and 5G are moving digital health from symptom-based telemedicine to data-based telemedicine. Applications include remote bedside consultations or second opinions, and AI-assisted diagnostics. “Hospitals are going to become data centers that will need security and encryption,” Koenig added.

Robotics.  Jetson’s-style robotic maids haven’t taken over households yet. Turns out such “social robots” haven’t caught on while “task-based” robots have. “Task-based robots do one thing really well, such as vacuuming, or on automated assembly lines.” If you add mobility to a robot, you add cost, Koenig said.  There are few use-cases for mobile, social robots.

Stationary social robots currently teach languages, monitor health or dispense medication. “There are still humanoid robots in the mix, but people are wondering ‘what am I really going to use these for?’” Koenig concluded. He suggested mobile “droids” that can guide humans to their destination on a planet-sized star ship are much more practical.

 

CES Unveiled: Gadget Fest with a Moment of Zen

By EE Times Editorial Team

LAS VEGAS – CES Unveiled is a tech fest where startups and established companies pitch and showcase their brightest new ideas and shiniest products, with a strange emphasis on self-improvement.

You name it, Unveiled has everything from ultra-stable drones, “bidirectional” EV chargers to smart road systems that let every car know road conditions and a wrist-band that tells you which foods suit your unique DNA.

The products and prototypes unveiled are an eclectic mix. They often surprise us by offering solutions for problems we didn’t know we had.

In the following pages, we share more than a dozen new technologies/applications spotted at the event on Sunday. To see our full slide show, please click here.

Thin Enough and Fast Enough for the City

4D Gravity Comes to Drones
DNA-Based Shopping
Valerann smart roads system
Zen Health with Gardens and Orbs
Plugging EVs into the Grid
Why Is SiFive at CES?
Vital signs monitoring using face detection
Commuter smart safety helmet now has Alexa built in
How well are you brushing your teeth?
Vanity, Thy (Latest) Name is Opté-Skin
Remotely Charged from Milwaukee
Reachy the Legless Robot
Wearables for dogs: find out your dog’s feelings
Non-invasive sensors to monitor aging parents
Thin Enough and Fast Enough for the City
Pokit goes Pro
Smile, you’re on Unveiled Camera
Cool, huh?

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