GenAI - CybAI news

27 May

Startup Datavolo raises over $21M to transform how generative AI models access unstructured data – SiliconANGLE

stp2y0 CommentsGenAIMike Wheatley, SiliconANGLE, Startup Datavolo raises over $21M to transform how generative AI models access unstructured data

Multimodal data pipeline startup Datavolo Inc. today revealed its ambitious plans to transform the way data is fed into artificial intelligence systems, after closing on more than $21 million in funding. The round was led by General Catalyst and saw participation from Citi Ventures, Human Capital, MVP Ventures and Rob Bearden, the former chief executive officer at Cloudera Inc. It brings its total amount raised to more than $25 million. Datavolo is led by its co-founders, CEO Joe Witt (pictured, left) and Chief Operating Officer Luke Roquet (right). It has built what they says is a revolutionary new data pipeline system based…

27 May

Robots invited to help make wind turbine blades

stp2y0 CommentsGenAIEnergy and the Environment; Renewable Energy; Environmental Science; Sustainability; Robotics; Artificial Intelligence; Computer Science; Mathematics

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have successfully leveraged robotic assistance in the manufacture of wind turbine blades, allowing for the elimination of difficult working conditions for humans and the potential to improve the consistency of the product. Although robots have been used by the wind energy industry to paint and polish blades, automation has not been widely adopted. Research at the laboratory demonstrates the ability of a robot to trim, grind, and sand blades. Those necessary steps occur after the two sides of the blade are made using a mold and then bonded…

27 May

Hasura debuts supergraph features to simplify complex API data integrations – SiliconANGLE

stp2y0 CommentsGenAIHasura debuts supergraph features to simplify complex API data integrations, Mike Wheatley, SiliconANGLE

Hasura Inc., a startup that sells a commercial version of the popular open-source GraphQL data management language, today announced a key update to that platform, integrating “supergraph” technology that makes it easier for applications to access data from multiple sources. The company said Hasura V3 is available now in beta, touting a new “domain-centric supergraph modeling framework” that sets a new standard for application programming interface composability. In addition, it comes with a new, distributed supergraph execution engine and various open-source data connectors to help address some of the challenges of data and API integration. San Francisco-based Hasura’s flagship Data API…

27 May

Stretchable e-skin could give robots human-level touch sensitivity

stp2y0 CommentsGenAIEngineering; Civil Engineering; Engineering and Construction; Technology; Artificial Intelligence; Robotics; Neural Interfaces; Computer Science

A first-ever stretchy electronic skin could equip robots and other devices with the same softness and touch sensitivity as human skin, opening up new possibilities to perform tasks that require a great deal of precision and control of force. The new stretchable e-skin, developed by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin, solves a major bottleneck in the emerging technology. Existing e-skin technology loses sensing accuracy as the material stretches, but that is not the case with this new version. "Much like human skin has to stretch and bend to accommodate our movements, so too does e-skin," said Nanshu…

27 May

Aerospike reels in $109M to accelerate its high-speed database – SiliconANGLE

stp2y0 CommentsGenAIAerospike reels in $109M to accelerate its high-speed database, Paul Gillin, SiliconANGLE

Aerospike Inc., which sells a highly scalable, real-time NoSQL database management system, said today it closed a $109 million investment round led by Sumeru Equity Partners LP with participation from Alsop Louie Partners LLC. That brings its total funding to $241 million. Aerospike’s flash-optimized in-memory model scales from gigabytes to petabytes with high consistency and low latency. Its core markets are advertising technology, financial services, telecommunications, retail and healthcare. The model is available in an open-source community edition and as a commercial product with enterprise features. “Our value is that we can linearly scale with our customer and still deliver…

27 May

Caterbot? Robatapillar? It crawls with ease through loops and bends

stp2y0 CommentsGenAIRobotics Research; Engineering; Engineering and Construction; Civil Engineering; Robotics; Artificial Intelligence; Computer Science; Information Technology

Engineers at Princeton and North Carolina State University have combined ancient paperfolding and modern materials science to create a soft robot that bends and twists through mazes with ease. Soft robots can be challenging to guide because steering equipment often increases the robot's rigidity and cuts its flexibility. The new design overcomes those problems by building the steering system directly into the robot's body, said Tuo Zhao, a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton. In an article published May 6 in the journal PNAS, the researchers describe how they created the robot out of modular, cylindrical segments. The segments, which can operate…

27 May

Automated data transformation startup Coalesce closes on $50M funding round – SiliconANGLE

stp2y0 CommentsGenAIAutomated data transformation startup Coalesce closes on $50M funding round, Mike Wheatley, SiliconANGLE

Data transformation startup Coalesce Automation Inc. has revealed how it is planning to scale its business, unveiling an ambitious roadmap to coincide with its biggest funding round yet. The company said today it has raised $50 million via a Series B funding round, bringing its total amount raised to more than $81 million. The round was led by Industry Ventures and existing backer Emergence Capital, and saw the participation of 11.2 Capital, DNX Ventures, GreatPoint Ventures, Hyperlink Ventures, Next Legacy Partners, Snowflake Ventures and Telestra Ventures. Coalesce has been around for just over two years, having launched in January 2022…

27 May

New study finds AI-generated empathy has its limits

stp2y0 CommentsGenAISocial Psychology; Language Acquisition; Child Development; Computers and Internet; Information Technology; Computer Science; STEM Education; Funding Policy; Education and Employment

Conversational agents (CAs) such as Alexa and Siri are designed to answer questions, offer suggestions -- and even display empathy. However, new research finds they do poorly compared to humans when interpreting and exploring a user's experience. CAs are powered by large language models (LLMs) that ingest massive amounts of human-produced data, and thus can be prone to the same biases as the humans from which the information comes. Researchers from Cornell University, Olin College and Stanford University tested this theory by prompting CAs to display empathy while conversing with or about 65 distinct human identities. The team found that…

27 May

How Capital One leverages data products to drive value – SiliconANGLE

stp2y0 CommentsGenAISiliconANGLE, Unpacking Capital One's approach to maintaining data and turning it into a product, Victor Dabrinze

Data is the backbone of today’s enterprise. As the era of data products unfolds, companies face the mounting challenge of managing it in large volumes while ensuring control and sustained usability. Capital One Financial Corp. is leading the way as a financial industry example, orchestrating a symphony of data products and platforms to fuel its decision-making engine. “Data products are so much at the heart of what our team gets to work on for Capital One,” said Christina Egea (pictured), vice president of Enterprise Data product management at Capital One. “For us, data products at their core [means] treating data itself as a product, applying product…

26 May

Generative AI that imitates human motion

stp2y0 CommentsGenAISports Science; Engineering; Electricity; Robotics Research; Neural Interfaces; Artificial Intelligence; Robotics; Computer Modeling

Walking and running is notoriously difficult to recreate in robots. Now, a group of researchers has overcome some of these challenges by creating an innovative method that employs central pattern generators -- neural circuits located in the spinal cord that generate rhythmic patterns of muscle activity -- with deep reinforcement learning. An international group of researchers has created a new approach to imitating human motion through combining central pattern generators (CPGs) and deep reinforcement learning (DRL). The method not only imitates walking and running motions but also generates movements for frequencies where motion data is absent, enables smooth transition movements…