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Apple Acquires AI Startup Knor.ai; The $10,000 Connected Toilet Tells Us About Ourselves
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Good day. Apple has extended its acquisition of AI startups with a deal for Knor.ai. The company's image-recognition tool is based on an iPhone, not in the cloud. Also: Kohler has developed a $10,000 toilet that is equipped with Alexa. Is it a case of too much information? WSJ Pro's John McCormick reports on the world of the connected, AI-enabled bathroom.
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Apple AI chief John Giannandrea, from a 2017 file phone when he was senior vice president of enginering at Google. He is seen here speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco. CREDIT: DAVID PAUL MORRIS/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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Apple acquires startup Knor.ai. The startup emerged from the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, which was created by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. The news was first reported Wednesday by Geekwire, which said the deal was worth about $200 million. "Xnor.ai's computer vision tool can recognize objects using software that resides on an Apple iPhone rather than in the cloud," Geekwire said. "Xnor’s AI-enabled image recognition tools could well become standard features in future iPhones and webcams."
The start-up’s website previously displayed information about applications in the retail and automotive industries, CNBC said. Apple told CNBC that it buys smaller technology companies from time to time and generally does not discuss its purposes or plans. In 2018, Apple hired Google veteran John Giannandrea as its first senior vice president of artificial intelligence. Apple's AI acquisitions include machine-learning startup Turi in 2016, for about $200 million.
Exit, Madrona. "The deal is a big win as well for the startup’s early investors, including Seattle’s Madrona Venture Group; and for the University of Washington, which serves as a major source of Xnor.ai’s talent pool," Geekwire said.
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A sales clerk adjusts used liquid crystal displays for computers in Tokyo. Global spending on information technology is expected to reach $3.9 trillion in the year ahead, up 3.4% from 2019. PHOTO: ISSEI KATO/REUTERS
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IT spending is on the rise. Global spending on information technology is expected to reach $3.9 trillion in the year ahead, up 3.4% from 2019, as companies ward off political and economic uncertainties by investing in cloud software aimed at cutting costs, Angus Loten reports for WSJ Pro. Research firm Gartner Inc. also says it expects world-wide IT spending to exceed $4 trillion by 2021. Companies are expected to steer the bulk of that spending into cloud software and services, which are accessed online from cloud providers on a pay-as-you-go basis, rather than purchased outright. That enables companies to minimize the need for costly in-house servers, storage, networking
and other hardware components.
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Kohler's $10,000 Numi 2.0 Intelligent Toilet.CREDIT: KOHLER
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The $10,00 question: Are consumers ready for a toilet equipped with Alexa? The idea that everything in the home one day will be connected to the internet apparently means just that. Everything. Even the toilet. In fact, starting this spring, consumers will be able to acquire Kohler's $10,000 Numi 2.0 Intelligent Toilet, which is equipped with Amazon's Alexa smart speaker. This latest effort to reinvent the venerable throne, displayed at CES, reflects development of the connected bathroom, which in turn is part of the connected home, and a vital one at that, WSJ Pro reports.
Is it a case of too much information? Market researcher IDC, has found that security and privacy concerns are among the leading reasons holding back adopting smart-home technology. Yet Adam Wright, a senior analyst covering smart home research at International Data Corp., said consumers are more willing to accept products for the so-called connected home if their developers emphasize user privacy and explain how data is collected and used.
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From reporter John McCormick
Bathroom product companies are betting that at least some consumers are ready for the connected home, bathroom and all, and see opportunities for selling premium products and collecting data and insights valuable to consumers and vendors alike
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Mateo displayed its prototype Smart Bathroom Mat, which captures health data when a person steps on it. The mat has 7,000 pressure sensors that enable it to identify individuals by their footprints. It analyzes posture as well as weight. The mat sends information to an app and the data can be uploaded to the cloud. Mateo’s AI can establish patterns and alert someone if their weight increases or decreases unexpectedly. The data can be shared with other apps. Data collected from such connected devices could have value for marketers, providing a basis for health and wellness insights that people are willing to pay for, according to IDC.
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822 million
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That's the number of smart-home devices that IDC projected in December would ship in 2019. It expects 1.4 billion units will move in 2023.
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Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind. CREDIT: MARLENE AWAAD/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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This is your brain on rewards. Researchers at Google's DeepMind in London have used their own experience with AI to develop a new explanation of how the human brain understands rewards, according to New Scientist. DeepMind used a process called distributional reinforcement learning to master games including Go and Starcraft II. It since used this work to develop a theory of how the brain releases dopamine when things turn out better than expected, according to New Scientist. Scientists have thought that all of these neurons function the same way. "But the team found that individual dopamine neurons actually seem to vary–each is tuned to a different level of
optimism or pessimism," New Scientist said.
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