Intel announces AI breakthroughs at CES

As reported by IoT M2M Council: Intel CEO Bob Swann (pictured) kicked off this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas by announcing breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI) that pave the way for autonomous driving, a new era of mobile computing innovation, and the future of immersive sports and entertainment.

Intel demonstrated all these and more at CES by showing how the company is infusing intelligence across the cloud, network, edge and PC, and driving positive impact for people, business and society.
 
Swan shared updates from its Mobileye business, including a demonstration of its self-driving robo-car navigating traffic in a natural manner. The drive demonstrated Mobileye's approach to deliver safer mobility for all with a combination of artificial intelligence, computer vision, the regulatory science model of RSS (responsibility-sensitive safety) and redundancy through independent sensing systems.
 
Swan also highlighted Intel's work with the American Red Cross and its Missing Maps project to improve disaster preparedness. Using integrated AI acceleration on second-generation Xeon scalable processors, Intel is helping the American Red Cross and its Missing Maps project to build highly accurate maps with bridges and roads for remote regions of the world, which helps emergency responders in the event of a disaster.
 
"At Intel, our ambition is to help customers make the most of technology inflections like AI, 5G and the intelligent edge so that together we can enrich lives and shape the world for decades to come,” said Swan. “As we highlighted today, our drive to infuse intelligence into every aspect of computing can have positive impact at unprecedented scale."
 
Mobile computing was an area of emphasis, as Intel made announcements spanning products, partnerships and platform-level innovations to transform the way people focus, create and engage.
 


Intel executive vice president Gregory Bryant (pictured above) gave a first look and demonstration of the latest Intel Core mobile processors, code-named Tiger Lake. Tiger Lake is designed to bring Intel's people-led vision for mobile computing to lif.
 
With optimizations spanning the CPU, AI accelerators and discrete-level integrated graphics based on the Intel Xe graphics architecture, Tiger Lake should deliver double-digit performance gains, AI performance improvements, a leap in graphics performance and four times the throughput of USB 3 with the integrated Thunderbolt 4. Built on Intel's 10nm+ process, the first Tiger Lake systems are expected to ship this year.
 
 
 
Intel vice president of architecture for graphics and software Lisa Pearce (pictured above) provided insight into the progress on the Intel Xe graphics architecture, which will provide performance gains in Tiger Lake, and previewed Intel's first Xe-based discrete GPU, code-named DG1.

Updates were announced on Intel's Project Athena innovation program, including the first Project Athena-verified Chromebooks. Project Athena-verified designs have been tuned, tested and verified to deliver system-level innovation and benefits spanning battery life, consistent responsiveness, instant wake, application compatibility and more.
 
Intel has verified 25 Project Athena designs to date, and Bryant announced an expanded partnership with Google that has already resulted in the first two Project Athena-verified Chromebooks, the Asus Chromebook Flip (C436) and the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook. Intel expects to verify approximately 50 more designs across Windows and Chrome this year and deliver a target specification for dual-screen PCs.
 
Through deepened co-engineering efforts with OEM partners, Intel helps deliver category-defining devices based on Intel Core processors. This includes dual-screen and fold-able designs such as the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold, which leverages the Intel Core processor with Intel Hybrid Technology (code-named Lakefield) expected to ship midyear, and the Dell Concept Duet. Bryant also previewed the company's latest concept device, a fold-able OLED display form factor, code-named Horseshoe Bend.
 
 
 
The data center is the force that delivers intelligence to businesses around the world and Xeon scalable processors continue to be the foundation of the data center. Intel executive vice president Navin Shenoy (pictured above) announced that third-generation Xeon scalable processors, coming in the first half of 2020, will include DL boost extensions for built-in AI training acceleration, providing up to a 60% increase in training performance over the previous family.

Shenoy highlighted several ways Intel is threading intelligence into data platforms across cloud, network and edge and how this is transforming sports and entertainment. For example, Netflix has used the latest video compression technology, AV1, to enhance its media streaming services and bring content to life across the globe, with up to 60% compression efficiency over the previous compression technology.
 
Intel and Netflix's joint efforts continue with the development of an open-source high-performance encoder (SVT-AV1), optimized on second-generation Xeon scalable processors, that delivers quality and performance gains making it viable for commercial deployment.
 
A claimed first-of-its-kind in computer vision, 3D Athlete Tracking (3Dat) uses AI to enhance the viewing experience with near real-time insights and visualizations. 3Dat uses highly mobile cameras to capture the form and motion of athletes, then applies algorithms optimized with DL boost and powered by Xeon scalable processors to analyse the bio-mechanics of athletes' movements.
 
Shenoy announced that this technology would enhance replays of the 100m and other sprinting events at the Olympic Games in Tokyo later this year.
 
Intel and the sports industry are transforming the sports viewing experience with volumetric video, a progression towards enabling sports viewing without limitations. Intel True View synthesizes the entire volume of a stadium’s field to provide endless angles that allow fans to choose any vantage point and player perspective and stream from their devices.
 
Intel and the NFL showcased the power of streaming volumetric video with a play from the Cleveland Browns versus Arizona Cardinals game. The data produced from the first quarter of an NFL game alone reach beyond 3Tbyte per minute.

CES: Under the Mighty Propellers of Hyundai's Flying Taxi

As reported by Engadget: By law, an automaker must mention "mobility" during any press event. Hyundai knows this but instead of just talking about how their cars can be configured to drive us around in the future, they went full-on flying machine. In a partnership with Uber, they announced the SA-1 air taxi at a press event. Sadly, at said press gathering what we saw was a tiny model. Fortunately, the full-size model was in the booth and we checked it out.

The SA-1 is far larger than anticipated. The four-passenger mock-up vehicle is impressive in its size and thanks to redundant propellers, it seems like a viable air transportation system. While Hyundai is known primarily for its automotive manufacturing, the company seems keen to branch out into aircraft.

The issue is that the company is honing in on Bell and Airbus' turf. Both aircraft companies have air taxis in development. It's going to be tough to beat established players in the market but Hyundai looks like it's going to at least try.

Verizon CEO emphasizes C-band for 5G

As reported by FierceWireless: For its 5G strategy, Verizon has all the spectrum it needs to accomplish its stated near-term goals, but for the nation as a whole, C-band spectrum—3.7-4.2 GHz—will be vitally important to achieve the kinds of economies of scale the industry needs.

That’s according to Verizon CEO and Chairman Hans Vestberg. “When it comes to CBRS, we are already working on that,” he said during UBS’ Global TMT Conference in New York on Tuesday. “We think that’s a good addition,” in the area of capacity.

Vestberg could not comment on the current millimeter wave auction that’s underway at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) due to the quiet period that all participants much adhere to, but he stressed the importance for the U.S. to have access to mid-band spectrum.

With C-band, what’s important is it’s going to be global spectrum, which means all handsets, equipment and applications will be developed to work on it, so it offers enormous economies of scale. For the U.S., it’s very important to be on that mid-band bandwagon, he said.

It affects the cost of handsets and chips, and it’s one of the few spectrum bands that are available on a global scale. “I would say from that point of view, it’s important,” and as a leader in the market, Verizon is supportive of the C-band coming to market.

Vestberg met with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai last month where they discussed the importance of mid-band spectrum as the U.S. seeks to win the global race to 5G. They also discussed the need for speed and certainty concerning the mid-band spectrum that will be made available, according to an ex parte filing (PDF).

Fixed wireless as 5G use case

For its 5G Home service, Verizon wants to get to a point where the majority of consumers are ordering the equipment online and provisioning the service at home themselves, i.e., through self-installment, so that will cut down on the expense of sending installers to customers’ homes and improve the experience for customers rather than requiring them to be home, say from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., for a an installer to visit. “It’s a totally new way of thinking from an experience point of view,” Vestberg said.

What it’s waiting for is the next generation of chipset, due in the second half of 2020, that will be the basis for its next CPE because it offers better power output. The target for 5G Home is still to reach 30 million households; there’s no date associated with that but Vestberg reiterated that’s still the goal.

In the markets where it has 5G Home, it’s competing well and its “win share” is good. It’s guaranteeing 300 Mbps, and the usage is “enormous,” according to the CEO. It still has some work to be done on the self-setup; it probably takes a couple of hours and he wants it to be shorter than that. “I want it to be a totally unique experience,” he said.   

Last week, Verizon announced it’s teaming with Amazon Web Services (AWS) on mobile edge compute (MEC), and using Amazon’s new Wavelength cloud platform. The first site in that deal was in Chicago and Bethesda Softworks, a video game publisher, was one of the first customers. It can’t have its games on 4G because there’s too much latency and throughput is too low, but it can publish its games using 5G with MEC.

In 2020, Verizon will open more MEC centers, with Amazon and in Verizon’s own facilities. AWS will be putting infrastructure in Verizon premises, and “it’s going to be many,” Vestberg said.

Verizon has worked to build a virtualized 5G network, and it doesn’t intend to try to be the cloud company. “We have the network, we have the distribution and we have the brand,” and Amazon doesn’t have these in the 5G space, but it has the cloud and developers, so “it’s a win-win for both,” he said. 

Satellite Operators lose battle for private C-Band Auction worth Billions

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai informed Congress Nov. 18 that the agency will run a public auction of C-band spectrum instead of allowing a consortium of satellite operators to sell it directly to 5G wireless operators. 

Satellite operators Intelsat, SES and Telesat, acting as the C-Band Alliance, had been lobbying the Federal Communications Commission for more than a year to approve a private auction of C-band spectrum expected to fetch upwards of $60 billion in proceeds. 

The C-Band Alliance’s proposal received a positive reception at the FCC, where Pai and Commissioner Michael O’Rielly had voiced support for a market-based approach to clearing the spectrum.

But in the past several months, several House members and Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), chairman of the Senate subcommittee that oversees the FCC, pressed the FCC to run the auction instead. 

In an effort to appease lawmakers opposed to a private auction, the C-band Alliance said its members would contribute billions of dollars to the U.S. treasury and help create a program for rural 5G networks if the FCC allowed its plan to proceed.

The C-Band Alliance’s efforts to placate congressional critics of a private C-Band auction appear to have fallen short. 

In a Nov. 18 letter sent to more than a dozen members of Congress, Pai said that the FCC will publicly auction 280 megahertz of C-band that satellite operators use mainly for television and radio programming so that it can be re-purposed for cellular 5G networks. 

“After much deliberation and a thorough review of the extensive record, I have concluded that the best way to advance these principles is through an auction of 280 megahertz of the C-band conducted by the Federal Communications Commission’s excellent staff,” Pai wrote. “With a quarter century track record of transparent and successful auctions, I am confident that they will conduct a public auction that will afford all parties a fair opportunity to compete for this 5G spectrum, while preserving the availability of the upper 200 megahertz of this band for the continued delivery of programming.

The C-Band Alliance did not outline what recourse it intends to pursue in light of the FCC’s decision, but said “the full cooperation of the satellite operators will be required” to facilitate a spectrum transition.  

This could mean a significant delay in the marketplace (due to court action and logistical transfer and testing of spectrum) preventing Verizon and other 5G wireless carriers from using the critical C-Band spectrum in the near future.

First Commercial Electric Airplane Completes Test Flight

As reported by Engadget: An aircraft designed in 1946 might become the first commercial electric plane, following a short but successful test flight. Vancouver-based Harbour Air's took its "eBeaver" on a ten-minute hop on the Fraser River in Richmond, BC, with CEO and pilot Greg McDougall at the controls. "Today, we made history," he said in a statement. Harbour Air expects the eBeaver to go into commercial service in 2022.

The eBeaver is a highly modified version of de Havilland's legendary DCH-2 Beaver, equipped with a 750 horsepower electric motor from Redmond, Washington-based Magnix. Harbour Air announced its partnership with Magnix earlier this year and said it planned to build the world's first "completely electric commercial seaplane fleet."

So far, electric planes have failed to make much of a dent. Quite a number have been built, tested and even sold, but none are close to being ready to take paying passengers. "This is real," Magnix CEO Roei Ganzarski told Fortune. "This is an airline flying their own aircraft."

Harbour currently has 14 six-passenger DHC-2 Beaver aircraft, many of which are equipped with Pratt & Whitney PT-6A turbine engines that burn about $300 worth of jet A fuel per hour. By contrast, the eBeaver packs enough battery life to fly about 100 miles at a cost of around $10 to $20 worth of electricity.

E-planes have a very limited range compared to ICE-powered models because lithium-ion batteries have less than 5 percent the energy density of gasoline or jet fuel. However, 100 miles is enough for many of the short seaplane hops around Vancouver's lower mainland. The distance between Vancouver and British Columbia capital Victoria (downtown to downtown) is 58 miles and takes about 30 minutes by plane, while the same trip on a ferry can run over four hours including driving time and waiting. (Also, as your author can attest from brutal experience, the flight is a lot less boring.)

Despite the range challenges, electric planes have big advantages over ICE-powered models. That includes lower maintenance and operating costs, no need for fueling infrastructure (other than chargers) and easier boarding on local routes. "We are proving that low-cost, environmentally friendly, commercial electric air travel can be a reality in the very near future," said Ganzarski.

Elon Musk tells Ford VP 'bring it on' in F-150 vs. Cybertruck battle

As reported by Engadget: At the unveiling of Tesla's Cybertruck, Elon Musk showed off a video of the low-polygon-count pickup defeating an F-150 in a tug of war. Since then, many have complained it wasn't a good comparison, since the presumable AWD Cybertruck appeared to face off against a RWD Ford with nothing in the bed to help its tires get grip, and took off first.

Elon Musk

✔@elonmusk

Cybertruck pulls F-150 uphill

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Ford X vice president Sunny Madra responded by trying to jump the pre-order line and asking for a Cybertruck so his company could do its own comparison, which Musk has responded to by saying "bring it on." This could be more interesting than Tesla's battle vs. Porsche on the Nurburgring, if it actually takes place anytime soon, and could depend on whether Ford brings one of its gas-powered production trucks, or that electric prototype it recently showed towing a million pounds. The Cybertruck (along with the Cyberquad ATV) isn't scheduled to start production until the end of 2021.

Elon Musk

✔@elonmusk

Bring it on https://twitter.com/sundeep/status/1198988235252199424 …

sunny madra

✔@sundeep

hey @elonmusk send us a cybertruck and we will do the apples to apples test for you https://www.motor1.com/news/384206/tesla-cybertruck-f150-tug-war/amp/ …

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SpaceX Builds a Starship

As reported by Space.com: Elon Musk has a Starship, and one day he expects it will help SpaceX reach other worlds.

  

Standing beneath a towering Starship Mk1, a prototype for SpaceX's massive reusable launch system, Musk laid out his plan for interplanetary travel at the company's South Texas test site here on Saturday (Sept. 28) — the 11th anniversary of the first successful orbital launch of SpaceX's first rocket, the Falcon 1.

The new version of Starship (and its Super Heavy booster) will be able to carry up to 100 people to the moon, Mars or other destinations in space or around Earth, he said. It will stand 387 feet (118 meters) tall and be completely reusable, with quick turnarounds. 

This is the rocket that will launch the billionaire Japanese entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa and a handful of artists on a trip around the moon in the 2020s. SpaceX unveiled that planned space tourist trip last year (but did not disclose how much Maezawa paid).

"This is, I think, the most inspiring thing I have ever seen," Musk told a crowd of about 200 SpaceX employees, guests and reporters at the company's site near Boca Chica Village, just outside of Brownsville. "Wow, what an incredible job by such a great team to build this incredible vehicle. I'm so proud to work with such a great team."

Musk later thanked Maezawa for his support. The billionaire has contributed an unspecified amount to SpaceX to aid Starship's development. 

Musk has long said that the main goal of SpaceX, since its founding in 2002, has been to help make humanity a multiplanet species. The company has developed reusable Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, as well as reusable Dragon cargo capsules and a new Crew Dragon ship for astronauts. It has launchpads in Florida, California and now Boca Chica, where the company broke ground on its test site in 2014.

But Mars, Musk has said, has remained the true objective. 

"This is the fastest path to a self-sustaining city on Mars," he said Saturday night, referring to the Starship-Super Heavy architecture.

A Starship evolution

SpaceX's Starship concept has undergone a kind of rocket evolution in the three years since Musk first unveiled it to the world in September 2016 at the International Astronautical Union meeting in Mexico. 

At that meeting, Musk unveiled what he called the the Interplanetary Transport System, or ITS, for Mars colonization. The ITS called for a fully reusable spacecraft (with two fins) and booster that would stand 400 feet (122 m) high when assembled. Its first stage would have 42 next-generation Raptor engines, and the booster would be 40 feet (12 m) wide. The spacecraft would have nine Raptors. (SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets have nine Merlin engines on their first stage. Falcon Heavy first stages have 27 Merlins.)

Musk updated the design in 2017, calling it the Big Falcon Rocket, or BFR for short. That plan called for a launch system that would stand 348 feet (106 meters) tall and 30 feet (9 m) wide. Its booster would have 31 Raptor engines, while the spacecraft atop it would have six.

Then, in 2018, Musk unveiled yet another design (and the Starship name): a sleek, stainless-steel spacecraft with three tail fins that would stand taller than its 2017 precursor, with a height of 387 feet (118 m). The spacecraft would still be powered by six Raptor engines, with up to 37 Raptors powering the booster (now called Super Heavy).

The switch to 301 stainless steel from a lightweight, but expensive, carbon fiber composite material, was a turning point, Musk said. The steel gets stronger the colder it gets, making it perfect for flights in the cold depths of space. It also has a higher melting point, making it more resilient during the fiery reentry through Earth's atmosphere.

It's also way cheaper, about 2% the cost of carbon fiber, he added.

"Steel was the best design decision on this whole thing," Musk said.

This latest design has held to the present day; SpaceX is still shooting for a 387-foot-tall Starship-Super Heavy stack, with six Raptors on the spacecraft. The number of engines on Super Heavy could vary from flight to flight; Musk said the rocket has space for up to 37 Raptors, and each mission will probably require at least 24. 

"Starship will allow us to inhabit other worlds," Musk wrote on Twitter Friday (Sept. 27). "To make life as we know it interplanetary."

With the design nailed down, SpaceX plans to move fast.

"This is going to sound totally nuts but I think we want to try to reach orbit in less than six months," Musk said. "Provided the rate of design improvement and manufacturing improvement continues to be exponential, I think that is accurate to within a few months."

.And people could start flying aboard the vehicle in the next year or so if the test program continues to go well, he added. That appears to be an extremely accelerated program, given that SpaceX has not yet launched astronauts on its Crew Dragon spacecraft for NASA.