AI For Business Ualbany

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  Multi-exposure HDR capture

  In photography and videography, multi-exposure HDR capture is a technique that creates high dynamic range (HDR) images (or extended dynamic range images) by taking and combining multiple exposures of the same subject matter at different exposures. Combining multiple images in this way results in an image with a greater dynamic range than what would be possible by taking one single image. The technique can also be used to capture video by taking and combining multiple exposures for each frame of the video. The term "HDR" is used frequently to refer to the process of creating HDR images from multiple exposures. Many smartphones have an automated HDR feature that relies on computational imaging techniques to capture and combine multiple exposures. A single image captured by a camera provides a finite range of luminosity inherent to the medium, whether it is a digital sensor or film. Outside this range, tonal information is lost and no features are visible; tones that exceed the range are "burned out" and appear pure white in the brighter areas, while tones that fall below the range are "crushed" and appear pure black in the darker areas. The ratio between the maximum and the minimum tonal values that can be captured in a single image is known as the dynamic range. In photography, dynamic range is measured in exposure value (EV) differences, also known as stops. The human eye's response to light is non-linear: halving the light level does not halve the perceived brightness of a space, it makes it look only slightly dimmer. For most illumination levels, the response is approximately logarithmic. Human eyes adapt fairly rapidly to changes in light levels. HDR can thus produce images that look more like what a human sees when looking at the subject. This technique can be applied to produce images that preserve local contrast for a natural rendering, or exaggerate local contrast for artistic effect. HDR is useful for recording many real-world scenes containing a wider range of brightness than can be captured directly, typically both bright, direct sunlight and deep shadows. Due to the limitations of printing and display contrast, the extended dynamic range of HDR images must be compressed to the range that can be displayed. The method of rendering a high dynamic range image to a standard monitor or printing device is called tone mapping; it reduces the overall contrast of an HDR image to permit display on devices or prints with lower dynamic range. == Benefits == One aim of HDR is to present a similar range of luminance to that experienced through the human visual system. The human eye, through non-linear response, adaptation of the iris, and other methods, adjusts constantly to a broad range of luminance present in the environment. The brain continuously interprets this information so that a viewer can see in a wide range of light conditions. Most cameras are limited to a much narrower range of exposure values within a single image, due to the dynamic range of the capturing medium. With a limited dynamic range, tonal differences can be captured only within a certain range of brightness. Outside of this range, no details can be distinguished: when the tone being captured exceeds the range in bright areas, these tones appear as pure white, and when the tone being captured does not meet the minimum threshold, these tones appear as pure black. Images captured with non-HDR cameras that have a limited exposure range (low dynamic range, LDR), may lose detail in highlights or shadows. Modern CMOS image sensors have improved dynamic range and can often capture a wider range of tones in a single exposure reducing the need to perform multi-exposure HDR. Color film negatives and slides consist of multiple film layers that respond to light differently. Original film (especially negatives versus transparencies or slides) feature a very high dynamic range (in the order of 8 for negatives and 4 to 4.5 for positive transparencies). Multi-exposure HDR is used in photography and also in extreme dynamic range applications such as welding or automotive work. In security cameras the term "wide dynamic range" is used instead of HDR. === Limitations === A fast-moving subject, or camera movement between the multiple exposures, will generate a "ghost" effect or a staggered-blur strobe effect due to the merged images not being identical. Unless the subject is static and the camera mounted on a tripod there may be a tradeoff between extended dynamic range and sharpness. Sudden changes in the lighting conditions (strobed LED light) can also interfere with the desired results, by producing one or more HDR layers that do have the luminosity expected by an automated HDR system, though one might still be able to produce a reasonable HDR image manually in software by rearranging the image layers to merge in order of their actual luminosity. Because of the nonlinearity of some sensors image artifacts can be common. Camera characteristics such as gamma curves, sensor resolution, noise, photometric calibration and color calibration affect resulting high-dynamic-range images. == Process == High-dynamic-range photographs are generally composites of multiple standard dynamic range images, often captured using exposure bracketing. Afterwards, photo manipulation software merges the input files into a single HDR image, which is then also tone mapped in accordance with the limitations of the planned output or display. === Capturing multiple images (exposure bracketing) === Any camera that allows manual exposure control can perform multi-exposure HDR image capture, although one equipped with automatic exposure bracketing (AEB) facilitates the process. Some cameras have an AEB feature that spans a far greater dynamic range than others, from ±0.6 in simpler cameras to ±18 EV in top professional cameras, as of 2020. The exposure value (EV) refers to the amount of light applied to the light-sensitive detector, whether film or digital sensor such as a CCD. An increase or decrease of one stop is defined as a doubling or halving of the amount of light captured. Revealing detail in the darkest of shadows requires an increased EV, while preserving detail in very bright situations requires very low EVs. EV is controlled using one of two photographic controls: varying either the size of the aperture or the exposure time. A set of images with multiple EVs intended for HDR processing should be captured only by altering the exposure time; altering the aperture size also would affect the depth of field and so the resultant multiple images would be quite different, preventing their final combination into a single HDR image. Multi-exposure HDR photography generally is limited to still scenes because any movement between successive images will impede or prevent success in combining them afterward. Also, because the photographer must capture three or more images to obtain the desired luminance range, taking such a full set of images takes extra time. Photographers have developed calculation methods and techniques to partially overcome these problems, but the use of a sturdy tripod is advised to minimize framing differences between exposures. === Merging the images into an HDR image === Tonal information and details from shadow areas can be recovered from images that are deliberately overexposed (i.e., with positive EV compared to the correct scene exposure), while similar tonal information from highlight areas can be recovered from images that are deliberately underexposed (negative EV). The process of selecting and extracting shadow and highlight information from these over/underexposed images and then combining them with image(s) that are exposed correctly for the overall scene is known as exposure fusion. Exposure fusion can be performed manually, relying on the HDR operator's judgment, experience, and training, but usually, fusion is performed automatically by software. === Storing === Information stored in high-dynamic-range images typically corresponds to the physical values of luminance or radiance that can be observed in the real world. This is different from traditional digital images, which represent colors as they should appear on a monitor or a paper print. Therefore, HDR image formats are often called scene-referred, in contrast to traditional digital images, which are device-referred or output-referred. Furthermore, traditional images are usually encoded for the human visual system (maximizing the visual information stored in the fixed number of bits), which is usually called gamma encoding or gamma correction. The values stored for HDR images are often gamma compressed using mathematical functions such as power laws logarithms, or floating point linear values, since fixed-point linear encodings are increasingly inefficient over higher dynamic ranges. HDR images often do not use fixed ranges per color channel, other than traditional images, to represent many more colors over a much wi

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  AI Dungeon

  AI Dungeon is a single-player/multiplayer text adventure game which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to generate content and allows players to create and share adventures and custom prompts. The game's first version was made available in May 2019, and its second version (initially called AI Dungeon 2) was released on Google Colaboratory in December 2019. It was later ported that same month to its current cross-platform web application. The AI model was then reformed in July 2020. == Gameplay == AI Dungeon is a text adventure game that uses artificial intelligence to generate random storylines in response to player-submitted stimuli. In the game, players are prompted to choose a setting for their adventure (e.g. fantasy, mystery, apocalyptic, cyberpunk, zombies), followed by other options relevant to the setting (such as character class for fantasy settings). After beginning an adventure, four main interaction methods can be chosen for the player's text input: Do: Must be followed by a verb, allowing the player to perform an action. Say: Must be followed by dialogue sentences, allowing players to communicate with other characters. Story: Can be followed by sentences describing something that happens to progress the story, or that players want the AI to know for future events. See: Must be followed by a description, allowing the player to perceive events, objects, or characters. Using this command creates an AI generated image, and does not affect gameplay. The game adapts and responds to most actions the player enters. Providing blank inputs can be used to prompt the AI to generate further content, and the game also provides players with options to undo or redo or modify recent events to improve the game's narrative. Players can also tell the AI what elements to "remember" for reference in future parts of their playthrough. === User-generated content === In addition to AI Dungeon's pre-configured settings, players can create custom "adventures" from scratch by describing the setting in text format, which the AI will then generate a setting from. These custom adventures can be published for others to play, with an interface for browsing published adventures and leaving comments under them. === Multiplayer === AI Dungeon includes a multiplayer mode in which different players each have their own character and take turns interacting with the AI within the same game session. Multiplayer supports both online play across multiple devices or local play using a shared device. The game's hosts are able to supervise the AI and modify its output. Unlike the single-player game, in which actions and stories use second person narration, multiplayer game stories are presented using third-person narration. === Worlds === AI Dungeon allows players to set their adventures within specific "Worlds" that give context to the broader environment where the adventure takes place. This feature was first released with two different worlds available for selection: Xaxas, a "world of peace and prosperity"; and Kedar, a "world of dragons, demons, and monsters". == Development == === AI Dungeon Classic (Early GPT-2) === The first version of AI Dungeon (sometimes referred to as AI Dungeon Classic) was designed and created by Nick Walton of Brigham Young University's "Perception, Control, and Cognition" deep learning laboratory in March 2019 during a hackathon. Before this, Walton had been working as an intern for several companies in the field of autonomous vehicles. This creation used an early version of the GPT-2 natural-language-generating neural network, created by OpenAI, allowing it to generate its original adventure narratives. During his first interactions with GPT-2, Walton was partly inspired by the tabletop game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), which he had played for the first time with his family a few months earlier: I realized that there were no games available that gave you the same freedom to do anything that I found in [Dungeons & Dragons] ... You can be so creative compared to other games. This led him to wonder if an AI could function as a dungeon master. Unlike later versions of AI Dungeon, the original did not allow players to specify any action they wanted. Instead, it generated a finite list of possible actions to choose from. This first version of the game was released to the public in May 2019. It is not to be confused with another GPT-2-based adventure game, GPT Adventure, created by Northwestern University neuroscience postgraduate student Nathan Whitmore, also released on Google Colab several months after the public release of AI Dungeon. === AI Dungeon 2 (Full GPT-2) === In November 2019, a new, "full" version of GPT-2 was released by OpenAI. This new model included support for 1.5 billion parameters (which determine the accuracy with which a machine learning model can perform a task), compared with the 126 million parameter version used in the earliest stages of AI Dungeon's development. The game was recreated by Walton, leveraging this new version of the model, and temporarily rebranded as AI Dungeon 2. AI Dungeon 2's AI was given more focused training compared to its predecessor, using genre-specific text. This training material included approximately 30 megabytes of content web-scraped from chooseyourstory.com (an online community website of content inspired by interactive gamebooks, written by contributors of multiple skill levels, using logic of differing complexity) and multiple D&D rulebooks and adventures. The new version was released in December 2019 as open-source software available on GitHub. It was accessible via Google Colab, an online tool for data scientists and AI researchers that allows for free execution of code on Google-hosted machines. It could also be run locally on a PC, but in both cases, it required players to download the full model, around 5 gigabytes of data. Within days of the initial release, this mandatory download resulted in bandwidth charges of over $20,000, forcing the temporary shut-down of the game until a peer-to-peer alternative solution was established. Due to the game's sudden and explosive growth that same month, however, it became closed-source, proprietary software and was relaunched by Walton's start-up development team, Latitude (with Walton taking on the role of CTO). This relaunch constituted mobile apps for iOS and Android (built by app developer Braydon Batungbacal) on December 17. Other members of this team included Thorsten Kreutz for the game's long-term strategy and the creator's brother, Alan Walton, for hosting infrastructure. At this time, Nick Walton also established a Patreon campaign to support the game's further growth (such as the addition of multiplayer and voice support, along with longer-term plans to include music and image content) and turn the game into a commercial endeavor, which Walton felt was necessary to cover the costs of delivering a higher-quality version of the game. AI Dungeon was one of the only known commercial applications to be based upon GPT-2. Following its first announcement in December 2019, a multiplayer mode was added to the game in April 2020. Hosting a game in this mode was originally restricted to premium subscribers, although any players could join a hosted game. === Dragon model release (GPT-3) === In July 2020, the developers introduced a premium-exclusive version of the AI model, named Dragon, which uses OpenAI's API for leveraging the GPT-3 model without maintaining a local copy (released on June 11, 2020). GPT-3 was trained with 570 gigabytes of text content (approximately one trillion words, with a $12 million development cost) and can support 175 billion parameters, compared to the 40 gigabytes of training content and 1.5 billion parameters of GPT-2. The free model was also upgraded to a less-advanced version of GPT-3 and was named Griffin. Speaking shortly after this release, on the differences between GPT-2 and GPT-3, Walton stated: [GPT-3 is] one of the most powerful AI models in the world... It's just much more coherent in terms of understanding who the characters are, what they're saying, what's going on in the story and just being able to write an interesting and believable story. In the latter half of 2020, the "Worlds" feature was added to AI Dungeon, providing players with a selection of overarching worlds in which their adventures can take place. In February 2021, it was announced that AI Dungeon's developers, Latitude, had raised $3.3 million in seed funding (led by NFX, with participation from Album VC and Griffin Gaming Partners) to "build games with 'infinite' story possibilities." This funding intended to move AI content creation beyond the purely text-based nature of AI Dungeon as it existed at the time. After its announcement on August 20, a new "See" interaction mode was made available for all players and added to the game on August 30, 2022. AI Dungeon was retired from Steam on March 12, 2024. == Reception == Approximate

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  Ethics of artificial intelligence

  The ethics of artificial intelligence covers a broad range of topics within AI that are considered to have particular ethical stakes. This includes algorithmic biases, fairness, accountability, transparency, privacy, and regulation, particularly where systems influence or automate human decision-making. It also covers various emerging or potential future challenges such as machine ethics (how to make machines that behave ethically), lethal autonomous weapon systems, arms race dynamics, AI safety and alignment, technological unemployment, AI-enabled misinformation, how to treat certain AI systems if they have a moral status (AI welfare and rights), artificial superintelligence and existential risks. Some application areas may also have particularly important ethical implications, like healthcare, education, criminal justice, or the military. == Machine ethics == Machine ethics (or machine morality) is the field of research concerned with designing Artificial Moral Agents (AMAs), robots or artificially intelligent computers that behave morally or as though moral. To account for the nature of these agents, it has been suggested to consider certain philosophical ideas, like the standard characterizations of agency, rational agency, moral agency, and artificial agency, which are related to the concept of AMAs. There are discussions on creating tests to see if an AI is capable of making ethical decisions. Alan Winfield concludes that the Turing test is flawed and the requirement for an AI to pass the test is too low. A proposed alternative test is one called the Ethical Turing Test, which would improve on the current test by having multiple judges decide if the AI's decision is ethical or unethical. Neuromorphic AI could be one way to create morally capable robots, as it aims to process information similarly to humans, nonlinearly and with millions of interconnected artificial neurons. Similarly, whole-brain emulation (scanning a brain and simulating it on digital hardware) could also in principle lead to human-like robots, thus capable of moral actions. And large language models are capable of approximating human moral judgments. Inevitably, this raises the question of the environment in which such robots would learn about the world and whose morality they would inherit – or if they end up developing human 'weaknesses' as well: selfishness, pro-survival attitudes, inconsistency, scale insensitivity, etc. In Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong, Wendell Wallach and Colin Allen conclude that attempts to teach robots right from wrong will likely advance understanding of human ethics by motivating humans to address gaps in modern normative theory and by providing a platform for experimental investigation. As one example, it has introduced normative ethicists to the controversial issue of which specific learning algorithms to use in machines. For simple decisions, Nick Bostrom and Eliezer Yudkowsky have argued that decision trees (such as ID3) are more transparent than neural networks and genetic algorithms, while Chris Santos-Lang argued in favor of machine learning on the grounds that the norms of any age must be allowed to change and that natural failure to fully satisfy these particular norms has been essential in making humans less vulnerable to criminal "hackers". Some researchers frame machine ethics as part of the broader AI control or value alignment problem: the difficulty of ensuring that increasingly capable systems pursue objectives that remain compatible with human values and oversight. Stuart Russell has argued that beneficial systems should be designed to (1) aim at realizing human preferences, (2) remain uncertain about what those preferences are, and (3) learn about them from human behaviour and feedback, rather than optimizing a fixed, fully specified goal. Some authors argue that apparent compliance with human values may reflect optimization for evaluation contexts rather than stable internal norms, complicating the assessment of alignment in advanced language models. == Challenges == === Algorithmic biases === AI has become increasingly inherent in facial and voice recognition systems. These systems may be vulnerable to biases and errors introduced by their human creators. Notably, the data used to train them can have biases. According to Allison Powell, associate professor at LSE and director of the Data and Society programme, data collection is never neutral and always involves storytelling. She argues that the dominant narrative is that governing with technology is inherently better, faster and cheaper, but proposes instead to make data expensive, and to use it both minimally and valuably, with the cost of its creation factored in. Friedman and Nissenbaum identify three categories of bias in computer systems: existing bias, technical bias, and emergent bias. In natural language processing, problems can arise from the text corpus—the source material the algorithm uses to learn about the relationships between different words. Large companies such as IBM, Google, etc. that provide significant funding for research and development have made efforts to research and address these biases. One potential solution is to create documentation for the data used to train AI systems. Process mining can be an important tool for organizations to achieve compliance with proposed AI regulations by identifying errors, monitoring processes, identifying potential root causes for improper execution, and other functions. However, there are also limitations to the current landscape of fairness in AI, due to the intrinsic ambiguities in the concept of discrimination, both at the philosophical and legal level. ==== Racial and gender biases ==== Bias can be introduced through historical data used to train AI systems. For instance, Amazon terminated their use of AI hiring and recruitment because the algorithm favored male candidates over female ones. This was because Amazon's system was trained with data collected over a 10-year period that included mostly male candidates. The algorithms learned the biased pattern from the historical data, and generated predictions where these types of candidates were most likely to succeed in getting the job. Therefore, the recruitment decisions made by the AI system turned out to be biased against female and minority candidates. The performance of facial recognition and computer vision models may vary based on race and gender. Facial recognition algorithms made by Microsoft, IBM and Face++ all performed significantly worse on darker-skinned women. Facial recognition was shown to be biased against those with darker skin tones. AI systems may be less accurate for black people, as was the case in the development of an AI-based pulse oximeter that overestimated blood oxygen levels in patients with darker skin, causing issues with their hypoxia treatment. In 2015, controversy erupted after a Black couple were labeled "Gorillas" by Google Photos. Oftentimes the systems are able to easily detect the faces of white people while being unable to register the faces of people who are black. This has led to the ban of police usage of AI materials or software in some U.S. states. The reason for these biases is that AI pulls information from across the internet to influence its responses in each situation. For example, if a facial recognition system was only tested on people who were white, it would make it much harder for it to interpret the facial structure and tones of other races and ethnicities. Biases often stem from the training data rather than the algorithm itself, notably when the data represents past human decisions. A 2020 study that reviewed voice recognition systems from Amazon, Apple, Google, IBM, and Microsoft found that they have higher error rates when transcribing black people's voices than white people's. Injustice in the use of AI is much harder to eliminate within healthcare systems, as oftentimes diseases and conditions can affect different races and genders differently. This can lead to confusion as the AI may be making decisions based on statistics showing that one patient is more likely to have problems due to their gender or race. This can be perceived as a bias because each patient is a different case, and AI is making decisions based on what it is programmed to group that individual into. This leads to a discussion about what should be considered a biased decision in the distribution of treatment. While it is known that there are differences in how diseases and injuries affect different genders and races, there is a discussion on whether it is fairer to incorporate this into healthcare treatments, or to examine each patient without this knowledge. In modern society there are certain tests for diseases, such as breast cancer, that are recommended to certain groups of people over others because they are more likely to contract the disease in question. If AI implements these statistics

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  Simultaneous localization and mapping

  Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) is a process where a computer constructs or updates a map of an unknown environment while simultaneously keeping track of an entity's location within it. While this initially appears to be a chicken or the egg problem, there are several algorithms known to solve it in, at least approximately, tractable time for certain environments. Popular approximate solution methods include the particle filter, extended Kalman filter, covariance intersection, and GraphSLAM. SLAM algorithms are based on concepts in computational geometry and computer vision, and are used in robot navigation, robotic mapping and odometry for virtual reality or augmented reality. SLAM algorithms are tailored to the available resources and are not aimed at perfection but at operational compliance. Published approaches are employed in self-driving cars, unmanned aerial vehicles, autonomous underwater vehicles, planetary rovers, newer domestic robots and even inside the human body. == Mathematical description of the problem == Given a series of controls u t {\displaystyle u_{t}} and sensor observations o t {\displaystyle o_{t}} over discrete time steps t {\displaystyle t} , the SLAM problem is to compute an estimate of the agent's state x t {\displaystyle x_{t}} and a map of the environment m t {\displaystyle m_{t}} . All quantities are usually probabilistic, so the objective is to compute P ( m t + 1 , x t + 1 | o 1 : t + 1 , u 1 : t ) {\displaystyle P(m_{t+1},x_{t+1}|o_{1:t+1},u_{1:t})} Applying Bayes' rule gives a framework for sequentially updating the location posteriors, given a map and a transition function P ( x t | x t − 1 ) {\displaystyle P(x_{t}|x_{t-1})} , P ( x t | o 1 : t , u 1 : t , m t ) = ∑ m t − 1 P ( o t | x t , m t , u 1 : t ) ∑ x t − 1 P ( x t | x t − 1 ) P ( x t − 1 | m t , o 1 : t − 1 , u 1 : t ) / Z {\displaystyle P(x_{t}|o_{1:t},u_{1:t},m_{t})=\sum _{m_{t-1}}P(o_{t}|x_{t},m_{t},u_{1:t})\sum _{x_{t-1}}P(x_{t}|x_{t-1})P(x_{t-1}|m_{t},o_{1:t-1},u_{1:t})/Z} where Z {\displaystyle Z} is the normalization constant, which ensures all the probabilities sum up to 1. Similarly the map can be updated sequentially by P ( m t | x t , o 1 : t , u 1 : t ) = ∑ x t ∑ m t P ( m t | x t , m t − 1 , o t , u 1 : t ) P ( m t − 1 , x t | o 1 : t − 1 , m t − 1 , u 1 : t ) {\displaystyle P(m_{t}|x_{t},o_{1:t},u_{1:t})=\sum _{x_{t}}\sum _{m_{t}}P(m_{t}|x_{t},m_{t-1},o_{t},u_{1:t})P(m_{t-1},x_{t}|o_{1:t-1},m_{t-1},u_{1:t})} Like many inference problems, the solutions to inferring the two variables together can be found, to a local optimum solution, by alternating updates of the two beliefs in a form of an expectation–maximization algorithm. == Algorithms == Statistical techniques used to approximate the above equations include Kalman filters and particle filters (the algorithm behind Monte Carlo Localization). They provide an estimation of the posterior probability distribution for the pose of the robot and for the parameters of the map. Methods which conservatively approximate the above model using covariance intersection are able to avoid reliance on statistical independence assumptions to reduce algorithmic complexity for large-scale applications. Other approximation methods achieve improved computational efficiency by using simple bounded-region representations of uncertainty. Set-membership techniques are mainly based on interval constraint propagation. They provide a set which encloses the pose of the robot and a set approximation of the map. Bundle adjustment, and more generally maximum a posteriori estimation (MAP), is another popular technique for SLAM using image data, which jointly estimates poses and landmark positions, increasing map fidelity, and is used in commercialized SLAM systems such as Google's ARCore which replaces their prior augmented reality computing platform named Tango, formerly Project Tango. MAP estimators compute the most likely explanation of the robot poses and the map given the sensor data, rather than trying to estimate the entire posterior probability. New SLAM algorithms remain an active research area, and are often driven by differing requirements and assumptions about the types of maps, sensors and models as detailed below. Many SLAM systems can be viewed as combinations of choices from each of these aspects. === Mapping === Topological maps are a method of environment representation which capture the connectivity (i.e., topology) of the environment rather than creating a geometrically accurate map. Topological SLAM approaches have been used to enforce global consistency in metric SLAM algorithms. In contrast, grid maps use arrays (typically square or hexagonal) of discretized cells to represent a topological world, and make inferences about which cells are occupied. Typically the cells are assumed to be statistically independent to simplify computation. Under such assumption, P ( m t | x t , m t − 1 , o t ) {\displaystyle P(m_{t}|x_{t},m_{t-1},o_{t})} are set to 1 if the new map's cells are consistent with the observation o t {\displaystyle o_{t}} at location x t {\displaystyle x_{t}} and 0 if inconsistent. Modern self driving cars mostly simplify the mapping problem to almost nothing, by making extensive use of highly detailed map data collected in advance. This can include map annotations to the level of marking locations of individual white line segments and curbs on the road. Location-tagged visual data such as Google's StreetView may also be used as part of maps. Essentially such systems simplify the SLAM problem to a simpler localization only task, perhaps allowing for moving objects such as cars and people only to be updated in the map at runtime. === Sensing === SLAM will always use several different types of sensors, and the powers and limits of various sensor types have been a major driver of new algorithms. Statistical independence is the mandatory requirement to cope with metric bias and with noise in measurements. Different types of sensors give rise to different SLAM algorithms which assumptions are most appropriate to the sensors. At one extreme, laser scans or visual features provide details of many points within an area, sometimes rendering SLAM inference unnecessary because shapes in these point clouds can be easily and unambiguously aligned at each step via image registration. At the opposite extreme, tactile sensors are extremely sparse as they contain only information about points very close to the agent, so they require strong prior models to compensate in purely tactile SLAM. Most practical SLAM tasks fall somewhere between these visual and tactile extremes. Sensor models divide broadly into landmark-based and raw-data approaches. Landmarks are uniquely identifiable objects in the world which location can be estimated by a sensor, such as Wi-Fi access points or radio beacons. Raw-data approaches make no assumption that landmarks can be identified, and instead model P ( o t | x t ) {\displaystyle P(o_{t}|x_{t})} directly as a function of the location. Optical sensors may be one-dimensional (single beam) or 2D- (sweeping) laser rangefinders, 3D high definition light detection and ranging (lidar), 3D flash lidar, 2D or 3D sonar sensors, and one or more 2D cameras. Since the invention of local features, such as SIFT, there has been intense research into visual SLAM (VSLAM) using primarily visual (camera) sensors, because of the increasing ubiquity of cameras such as those in mobile devices. Follow up research includes. Both visual and lidar sensors are informative enough to allow for landmark extraction in many cases. Other recent forms of SLAM include tactile SLAM (sensing by local touch only), radar SLAM, acoustic SLAM, and Wi-Fi-SLAM (sensing by strengths of nearby Wi-Fi access points). Recent approaches apply quasi-optical wireless ranging for multi-lateration (real-time locating system (RTLS)) or multi-angulation in conjunction with SLAM as a tribute to erratic wireless measures. A kind of SLAM for human pedestrians uses a shoe mounted inertial measurement unit as the main sensor and relies on the fact that pedestrians are able to avoid walls to automatically build floor plans of buildings by an indoor positioning system. For some outdoor applications, the need for SLAM has been almost entirely removed due to high precision differential GPS sensors. From a SLAM perspective, these may be viewed as location sensors which likelihoods are so sharp that they completely dominate the inference. However, GPS sensors may occasionally decline or go down entirely, e.g. during times of military conflict, which are of particular interest to some robotics applications. === Kinematics modeling === The P ( x t | x t − 1 ) {\displaystyle P(x_{t}|x_{t-1})} term represents the kinematics of the model, which usually include information about action commands given to a robot. As a part of the model, the kinematics of the robot is included, to improve estimates of sensing under con

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  IDMS

  The Integrated Database Management System (IDMS) is a network model (CODASYL) database management system for mainframes. It was first developed at BFGoodrich and later marketed by Cullinane Database Systems (renamed Cullinet in 1983). Since 1989 the product has been owned by Computer Associates (now CA Technologies), who renamed it Advantage CA-IDMS and later simply to CA IDMS. In 2018 Broadcom acquired CA Technologies, renaming it back to IDMS. == History == The roots of IDMS go back to the pioneering database management system called Integrated Data Store (IDS), developed at General Electric by a team led by Charles Bachman and first released in 1964. In the early 1960s IDS was taken from its original form, by the computer group of the BFGoodrich Chemical Division, and re-written in a language called Intermediate System Language (ISL). ISL was designed as a portable system programming language able to produce code for a variety of target machines. Since ISL was actually written in ISL, it was able to be ported to other machine architectures with relative ease, and then to produce code that would execute on them. The Chemical Division computer group had given some thought to selling copies of IDMS to other companies, but was told by management that they were not in the software products business. Eventually, a deal was struck with John Cullinane to buy the rights and market the product. Because Cullinane was required to remit royalties back to B.F. Goodrich, all add-on products were listed and billed as separate products – even if they were mandatory for the core IDMS product to work. This sometimes confused customers. The original platforms were the GE 235 computer and GE DATANET-30 message switching computer: later the product was ported to IBM mainframes and to DEC and ICL hardware. The IBM-ported version runs on IBM mainframe systems (System/360, System/370, System/390, zSeries, System z9). In the mid-1980s, it was claimed that some 2,500 IDMS licenses had been sold. Users included the Strategic Air Command, Ford of Canada, Ford of Europe, Jaguar Cars, Clarks Shoes UK, Axa/PPP, MAPFRE, Royal Insurance, Tesco, Manulife, Hudson's Bay Company, Cleveland Clinic, Bank of Canada, General Electric, Aetna and BT in the UK. A version for use on the Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-11 series of computers was sold to DEC and was marketed as DBMS-11. In 1976 the source code was licensed to ICL, who ported the software to run on their 2900 series mainframes, and subsequently also on the older 1900 range. ICL continued development of the software independently of Cullinane, selling the original ported product under the name ICL 2900 IDMS and an enhanced version as IDMSX. In this form it was used by many large UK users, an example being the Pay-As-You-Earn system operated by Inland Revenue. Many of these IDMSX systems for UK Government were still running in 2013. In the early to mid-1980s, relational database management systems started to become more popular, encouraged by increasing hardware power and the move to minicomputers and client–server architecture. Relational databases offered improved development productivity over CODASYL systems, and the traditional objections based on poor performance were slowly diminishing. Cullinet attempted to continue competing against IBM's DB2 and other relational databases by developing a relational front-end and a range of productivity tools. These included Automatic System Facility (ASF), which made use of a pre-existing IDMS feature called LRF (Logical Record Facility). ASF was a fill-in-the-blanks database generator that would also develop a mini-application to maintain the tables. It is difficult to judge whether such features may have been successful in extending the selling life of the product, but they made little impact in the long term. Those users who stayed with IDMS were primarily interested in its high performance, not in its relational capabilities. It was widely recognized (helped by a high-profile campaign by E. F. Codd, the father of the relational model) that there was a significant difference between a relational database and a network database with a relational veneer. In 1989 Computer Associates continued after Cullinet acquisition with the development and released Release 12.0 with full SQL in 1992–93. CA Technologies continued to market and support the CA IDMS and enhanced IDMS in subsequent releases by TCP/IP support, two phase commit support, XML publishing, zIIP specialty processor support, Web-enabled access in combination with CA IDMS Server, SQL Option and GUI database administration via CA IDMS Visual DBA tool. CA-IDMS systems are today still running businesses worldwide. Many customers have opted to web-enable their applications via the CA-IDMS SQL Option which is part of CA Technologies' Dual Database Strategy. == Integrated Data Dictionary == One of the sophisticated features of IDMS was its built-in Integrated data dictionary (IDD). The IDD was primarily developed to maintain database definitions. It was itself an IDMS database. DBAs (database administrators) and other users interfaced with the IDD using a language called Data Dictionary Definition Language (DDDL). IDD was also used to store definitions and code for other products in the IDMS family such as ADS/Online and IDMS-DC. IDD's power was that it was extensible and could be used to create definitions of just about anything. Some companies used it to develop in-house documentation. == Overview == === Logical Data Model === The data model offered to users is the CODASYL network model. The main structuring concepts in this model are records and sets. Records essentially follow the COBOL pattern, consisting of fields of different types: this allows complex internal structure such as repeating items and repeating groups. The most distinctive structuring concept in the Codasyl model is the set. Not to be confused with a mathematical set, a Codasyl set represents a one-to-many relationship between records: one owner, many members. The fact that a record can be a member in many different sets is the key factor that distinguishes the network model from the earlier hierarchical model. As with records, each set belongs to a named set type (different set types model different logical relationships). Sets are in fact ordered, and the sequence of records in a set can be used to convey information. A record can participate as an owner and member of any number of sets. Records have identity, the identity being represented by a value known as a database key. In IDMS, as in most other Codasyl implementations, the database key is directly related to the physical address of the record on disk. Database keys are also used as pointers to implement sets in the form of linked lists and trees. This close correspondence between the logical model and the physical implementation (which is not a strictly necessary part of the Codasyl model, but was a characteristic of all successful implementations) is responsible for the efficiency of database retrieval, but also makes operations such as database loading and restructuring rather expensive. Records can be accessed directly by database key, by following set relationships, or by direct access using key values. Initially the only direct access was through hashing, a mechanism known in the Codasyl model as CALC access. In IDMS, CALC access is implemented through an internal set, linking all records that share the same hash value to an owner record that occupies the first few bytes of every disk page. In subsequent years, some versions of IDMS added the ability to access records using BTree-like indexes. === Storage === IDMS organizes its databases as a series of files. These files are mapped and pre-formatted into so-called areas. The areas are subdivided into pages which correspond to physical blocks on the disk. The database records are stored within these blocks. The DBA allocates a fixed number of pages in a file for each area. The DBA then defines which records are to be stored in each area, and details of how they are to be stored. IDMS intersperses special space-allocation pages throughout the database. These pages are used to keep track of the free space available in each page in the database. To reduce I/O requirements, the free space is only tracked for all pages when the free space for the area falls below 30%. Four methods are available for storing records in an IDMS database: Direct, Sequential, CALC, and VIA. The Fujitsu/ICL IDMSX version extends this with two more methods, Page Direct, and Random. In direct mode the target database key is specified by the user and is stored as close as possible to that DB key, with the actual DB key on which the record is stored being returned to the application program. Sequential placement (not to be confused with indexed sequential), simply places each new record at the end of the area. This option is rarely used. CALC uses a hashing algo

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  RealSense

  RealSense is an American technology company that develops depth cameras and computer-vision systems used in robotics, access control, industrial automation and healthcare. The company’s stereoscopic 3D cameras and software are marketed as a perception platform for “physical AI”, particularly for humanoid robots and autonomous mobile robots (AMRs). RealSense was incubated for more than a decade inside Intel’s perceptual computing and depth-sensing group before being spun out as an independent company in July 2025 with a US$50 million Series A round backed by a semiconductor-focused private equity firm and strategic investors including Intel Capital and the MediaTek Innovation Fund. Following the spin-out, RealSense announced a strategic collaboration with Nvidia to integrate its AI depth cameras with the Nvidia Jetson Thor robotics platform, the Isaac Sim simulation environment and the Holoscan Sensor Bridge for low-latency sensor fusion. In November 2025, Swiss access-solutions provider dormakaba acquired a minority stake in RealSense and formed a partnership to develop AI-powered biometric access-control and security systems for data centres, airports and other critical infrastructure. == History == === Origins in Intel Perceptual Computing === Intel began developing depth-sensing and perceptual-computing technologies in the early 2010s under the Perceptual Computing brand, with research spanning gesture control, facial recognition and eye-tracking systems. The work led to a series of 3D cameras and developer challenge programmes intended to stimulate software ecosystems for natural-user interfaces. In 2014 Intel rebranded the effort as Intel RealSense, positioning the technology as a family of depth cameras and vision processors for PCs, mobile devices and embedded systems. Early devices such as the F200 and R200 were integrated into laptops and tablets from OEMs including Asus, HP, Dell, Lenovo and Acer, and were also sold as standalone webcams by partners such as Razer and Creative. === Refocus on robotics and near-closure === By the late 2010s Intel had steered RealSense away from mainstream PC peripherals toward robotics, industrial and embedded applications, adding stereo and lidar-based depth cameras to the portfolio. In August 2021, trade publication CRN reported that Intel planned to wind down the RealSense business as part of a broader restructuring, raising questions about the future of the product line. Despite that announcement, Intel continued to invest in new custom silicon for depth cameras, and RealSense remained widely used in mobile robots and automation projects. === Spin-out as RealSense Inc. (2025) === On 11 July 2025, Intel completed the spin-out of its RealSense 3D-camera business into a new privately held company, RealSense Inc., and the new entity announced a US$50 million Series A funding round. The round was led by a semiconductor-focused private equity investor with participation from Intel Capital, MediaTek Innovation Fund and other strategics. Independent coverage described RealSense as serving more than 3,000 active customers and supplying depth cameras to a large share of global AMR and humanoid robot platforms. The company stated that it would continue to support the existing Intel RealSense product roadmap while accelerating development of AI-enabled cameras and perception software. === Strategic partnerships and investments === In October 2025 RealSense and Nvidia announced a strategic collaboration centered on integrating RealSense AI depth cameras with Nvidia’s Jetson Thor robotics compute modules, the Isaac Sim simulation environment and the Holoscan Sensor Bridge for multi-sensor streaming. The collaboration is positioned as enabling “physical AI” workloads such as whole-body humanoid control, real-time mapping and safety-critical human–robot interaction. On 19 November 2025, dormakaba announced that it had acquired a minority stake in RealSense and entered into a partnership to co-develop intelligent access-control solutions, including biometric gates for airports and enterprise facilities. The partnership aims to combine RealSense’s depth and facial-authentication technology with dormakaba’s installed base of sensors, doors and turnstiles. == Products == === Depth-camera families === RealSense’s products are sold as modular components (depth modules, vision processors and complete cameras) and as integrated systems with on-device AI. The company continues to offer and support the Intel RealSense D400 family of active-stereo depth cameras (including the D415, D435 and D455), which are widely used in robotics and automation. These devices combine a RealSense Vision Processor from the D4 family with dual infrared imagers and, on some models, an RGB camera. Earlier generations of Intel RealSense cameras, including the F200, R200, SR300 and the L515 lidar camera, remain in use in niche and legacy applications but are no longer the focus of the independent company’s roadmap. === D555 PoE depth camera === The first new hardware platform announced after the spin-out was the RealSense Depth Camera D555, a ruggedised stereo-depth device aimed at industrial and robotics deployments. The D555 uses the longer-range D450 optical module with a global shutter and integrates RealSense’s Vision SoC V5, a new generation of vision processor optimised for neural-network inference and depth computation. Key features highlighted in technical coverage include: Power over Ethernet (PoE), allowing power and data to be delivered over a single cable and supporting both RJ45 and ruggedised M12 connections; an IP-rated enclosure designed for harsh indoor and outdoor environments; a built-in inertial measurement unit (IMU) to support simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) and motion tracking; native support for ROS 2 and integration with the open-source RealSense SDK. According to independent reporting, the D555 is used in AI-enabled embedded-vision applications in mobile robots and fixed industrial systems, and was among the first RealSense products to be tightly integrated with Nvidia’s Jetson Thor and Holoscan platforms for low-latency sensor fusion. === Software and SDK === RealSense cameras are supported by a cross-platform, open-source software stack historically branded as Intel RealSense SDK 2.0. The SDK provides device drivers, depth and point-cloud processing, tracking and calibration tools, and bindings for languages such as C++, Python and C#. The independent company has continued to maintain and extend the SDK for new hardware, including D555 and other Vision SoC V5-based devices, and publishes reference integrations for ROS 2 and industrial-automation frameworks. === Biometrics and access-control products === In addition to general-purpose depth cameras, RealSense offers facial-authentication hardware and software, commonly referred to as RealSense ID, for biometric access control and identity verification. These products combine an active depth sensor with a dedicated neural-network pipeline running on embedded processors, aimed at applications such as secure doors, turnstiles and kiosks. Use-case material published by partners describes deployments of RealSense-based biometric readers in school lunch programmes, agricultural biosecurity checkpoints and enterprise facilities. The dormakaba partnership announced in 2025 extends this portfolio to integrated biometric gates and sensor-equipped doors in airports and data centres. == Applications == === Robotics and automation === RealSense depth cameras are used in autonomous mobile robots, humanoid robots, drones and industrial automation systems for tasks such as obstacle avoidance, navigation and manipulation. Reuters reported in 2025 that RealSense cameras were embedded in around 60 percent of the world’s AMRs and humanoid robots, citing customers including Unitree Robotics and ANYbotics. Developers and integrators use RealSense systems with platforms such as Nvidia Jetson, ROS and proprietary motion-planning stacks. === Biometrics and security === RealSense technology is also applied in biometric access control and surveillance, where depth and infrared imaging are used to improve anti-spoofing performance for facial recognition. The dormakaba investment and collaboration is aimed at integrating these capabilities into boarding gates, staff entrances and secure facilities, with RealSense providing perception hardware and algorithms and dormakaba providing access-control infrastructure and global distribution. == Reception == Early coverage of Intel RealSense for consumer PCs noted that the technology’s impact would depend on the availability of compelling software and use cases for depth-sensing cameras. Later reporting on the spin-out has characterised the new company as part of a broader wave of investment in robotics and physical AI, with some analysts suggesting that RealSense’s installed base and patent portfolio give it an advantage as dep

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  Parallel terraced scan

  The parallel terraced scan is a multi-agent based search technique that is basic to cognitive architectures, such as Copycat, Letter-string, the Examiner, Tabletop, and others. It was developed by John Rehling and Douglas Hofstadter at the Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition at Indiana University, Bloomington. The parallel terraced scan builds on the concepts of the workspace, coderack, conceptual memory, and temperature. According to Hofstadter the parallel and random nature of the processing captures aspects of human cognition.

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  Fifth Generation Computer Systems

  The Fifth Generation Computer Systems (FGCS; Japanese: 第五世代コンピュータ, romanized: daigosedai konpyūta) was a 10-year initiative launched in 1982 by Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) to develop computers based on massively parallel computing and logic programming. The project aimed to create an "epoch-making computer" with supercomputer-like performance and to establish a platform for future advancements in artificial intelligence. Although FGCS was noted as ahead of its time, and its ambitious goals contributed significantly to the development of concurrent logic programming, it ultimately ended in commercial failure. The term "fifth generation" was chosen to emphasize the system's advanced nature. In the history of computing hardware, there had been four prior "generations" of computers: the first generation utilized vacuum tubes; the second, transistors and diodes; the third, integrated circuits; and the fourth, microprocessors. While earlier generations focused on increasing the number of logic elements within a single CPU, it was widely believed at the time that the fifth generation would achieve enhanced performance through the use of massive numbers of CPUs. == Background == In the late 1960s until the early 1970s, there was much talk about "generations" of computer hardware, then usually organized into three generations First generation: Thermionic vacuum tubes. Mid-1940s. IBM pioneered the arrangement of vacuum tubes in pluggable modules. The IBM 650 was a first-generation computer. Second generation: Transistors. 1956. The era of miniaturization begins. Transistors are much smaller than vacuum tubes, draw less power, and generate less heat. Discrete transistors are soldered to circuit boards, with interconnections accomplished by stencil-screened conductive patterns on the reverse side. The IBM 7090 was a second-generation computer. Third generation: Integrated circuits (silicon chips containing multiple transistors). 1964. A pioneering example is the ACPX module used in the IBM 360/91, which, by stacking layers of silicon over a ceramic substrate, accommodated over 20 transistors per chip; the chips could be packed together onto a circuit board to achieve unprecedented logic densities. The IBM 360/91 was a hybrid second and third-generation computer. Omitted from this taxonomy is the "zeroth-generation" computer based on metal gears (such as the IBM 407) or mechanical relays (such as the Mark I), and the post-third-generation computers based on Very Large Scale Integrated (VLSI) circuits. There was also a parallel set of generations for software: First generation: Machine language. Second generation: Low-level programming languages such as Assembly language. Third generation: Structured high-level programming languages such as C, COBOL and FORTRAN. Fourth generation: "Non-procedural" high-level programming languages (such as object-oriented languages). Throughout these multiple generations up to the 1970s, Japan built computers following U.S. and British leads. In the mid-1970s, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry stopped following western leads and started looking into the future of computing on a small scale. They asked the Japan Information Processing Development Center (JIPDEC) to indicate a number of future directions, and in 1979 offered a three-year contract to carry out more in-depth studies along with industry and academia. It was during this period that the term "fifth-generation computer" started to be used. Prior to the 1970s, MITI guidance had successes such as an improved steel industry, the creation of the oil supertanker, the automotive industry, consumer electronics, and computer memory. MITI decided that the future was going to be information technology. However, the Japanese language, particularly in its written form, presented and still presents obstacles for computers. As a result of these hurdles, MITI held a conference to seek assistance from experts. The primary fields for investigation from this initial project were: Inference computer technologies for knowledge processing Computer technologies to process large-scale data bases and knowledge bases High-performance workstations Distributed functional computer technologies Super-computers for scientific calculation == Project launch == The aim was to build parallel computers for artificial intelligence applications using concurrent logic programming. The project imagined an "epoch-making" computer with supercomputer-like performance running on top of large databases (as opposed to a traditional filesystem) using a logic programming language to define and access the data using massively parallel computing/processing. They envisioned building a prototype machine with performance between 100M and 1G LIPS, where a LIPS is a Logical Inference Per Second. At the time typical workstation machines were capable of about 100k LIPS. They proposed to build this machine over a ten-year period, 3 years for initial R&D, 4 years for building various subsystems, and a final 3 years to complete a working prototype system. In 1982 the government decided to go ahead with the project, and established the Institute for New Generation Computer Technology (ICOT) through joint investment with various Japanese computer companies. After the project ended, MITI would consider an investment in a new "sixth generation" project. Ehud Shapiro captured the rationale and motivations driving this project: "As part of Japan's effort to become a leader in the computer industry, the Institute for New Generation Computer Technology has launched a revolutionary ten-year plan for the development of large computer systems which will be applicable to knowledge information processing systems. These Fifth Generation computers will be built around the concepts of logic programming. In order to refute the accusation that Japan exploits knowledge from abroad without contributing any of its own, this project will stimulate original research and will make its results available to the international research community." === Logic programming === The target defined by the FGCS project was to develop "Knowledge Information Processing systems" (roughly meaning, applied Artificial Intelligence). The chosen tool to implement this goal was logic programming. Logic programming approach as was characterized by Maarten Van Emden – one of its founders – as: The use of logic to express information in a computer. The use of logic to present problems to a computer. The use of logical inference to solve these problems. More technically, it can be summed up in two equations: Program = Set of axioms. Computation = Proof of a statement from axioms. The Axioms typically used are universal axioms of a restricted form, called Horn-clauses or definite-clauses. The statement proved in a computation is an existential statement. The proof is constructive, and provides values for the existentially quantified variables: these values constitute the output of the computation. Logic programming was thought of as something that unified various gradients of computer science (software engineering, databases, computer architecture and artificial intelligence). It seemed that logic programming was a key missing connection between knowledge engineering and parallel computer architectures. == Results == After having influenced the consumer electronics field during the 1970s and the automotive world during the 1980s, the Japanese had developed a strong reputation. The launch of the FGCS project spread the belief that parallel computing was the future of all performance gains, producing a wave of apprehension in the computer field. Soon parallel projects were set up in the US as the Strategic Computing Initiative and the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), in the UK as Alvey, and in Europe as the European Strategic Program on Research in Information Technology (ESPRIT), as well as the European Computer‐Industry Research Centre (ECRC) in Munich, a collaboration between ICL in Britain, Bull in France, and Siemens in Germany. The project ran from 1982 to 1994, spending a little less than ¥57 billion (about US$320 million) total. After the FGCS Project, MITI stopped funding large-scale computer research projects, and the research momentum developed by the FGCS Project dissipated. However MITI/ICOT embarked on a neural-net project which some called the Sixth Generation Project in the 1990s, with a similar level of funding. Per-year spending was less than 1% of the entire R&D expenditure of the electronics and communications equipment industry. For example, the project's highest expenditure year was 7.2 million yen in 1991, but IBM alone spent 1.5 billion dollars (370 billion yen) in 1982, while the industry spent 2150 billion yen in 1990. === Concurrent logic programming === In 1982, during a visit to the ICOT, Ehud Shapiro invented Concurrent Prolog, a novel programming language t

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  MobileNet

  MobileNet is a family of convolutional neural network (CNN) architectures designed for image classification, object detection, and other computer vision tasks. They are designed for small size, low latency, and low power consumption, making them suitable for on-device inference and edge computing on resource-constrained devices like mobile phones and embedded systems. They were originally designed to be run efficiently on mobile devices with TensorFlow Lite. The need for efficient deep learning models on mobile devices led researchers at Google to develop MobileNet. As of June 2025, the family has five versions, each improving upon the previous one in terms of performance and efficiency. == Features == === V1 === MobileNetV1 was published in April 2017. Its main architectural innovation was incorporation of depthwise separable convolutions. It was first developed by Laurent Sifre during an internship at Google Brain in 2013 as an architectural variation on AlexNet to improve convergence speed and model size. The depthwise separable convolution decomposes a single standard convolution into two convolutions: a depthwise convolution that filters each input channel independently and a pointwise convolution ( 1 × 1 {\displaystyle 1\times 1} convolution) that combines the outputs of the depthwise convolution. This factorization significantly reduces computational cost. The MobileNetV1 has two hyperparameters: a width multiplier α {\displaystyle \alpha } that controls the number of channels in each layer. Smaller values of α {\displaystyle \alpha } lead to smaller and faster models, but at the cost of reduced accuracy, and a resolution multiplier ρ {\displaystyle \rho } , which controls the input resolution of the images. Lower resolutions result in faster processing but potentially lower accuracy. === V2 === MobileNetV2 was published in March 2019. It uses inverted residual layers and linear bottlenecks. Inverted residuals modify the traditional residual block structure. Instead of compressing the input channels before the depthwise convolution, they expand them. This expansion is followed by a 1 × 1 {\displaystyle 1\times 1} depthwise convolution and then a 1 × 1 {\displaystyle 1\times 1} projection layer that reduces the number of channels back down. This inverted structure helps to maintain representational capacity by allowing the depthwise convolution to operate on a higher-dimensional feature space, thus preserving more information flow during the convolutional process. Linear bottlenecks removes the typical ReLU activation function in the projection layers. This was rationalized by arguing that that nonlinear activation loses information in lower-dimensional spaces, which is problematic when the number of channels is already small. === V3 === MobileNetV3 was published in 2019. The publication included MobileNetV3-Small, MobileNetV3-Large, and MobileNetEdgeTPU (optimized for Pixel 4). They were found by a form of neural architecture search (NAS) that takes mobile latency into account, to achieve good trade-off between accuracy and latency. It used piecewise-linear approximations of swish and sigmoid activation functions (which they called "h-swish" and "h-sigmoid"), squeeze-and-excitation modules, and the inverted bottlenecks of MobileNetV2. === V4 === MobileNetV4 was published in September 2024. The publication included a large number of architectures found by NAS. Inspired by Vision Transformers, the V4 series included multi-query attention. It also unified both inverted residual and inverted bottleneck from the V3 series with the "universal inverted bottleneck", which includes these two as special cases. === V5 === MobileNetV5's architecture was published shortly after the release of Gemma 3n in June 2025. While the announcement stated a technical report on MobileNetV5 would be available soon, this has not yet materialised. The network is 10 times larger than the largest V4 variant.

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  Portable Format for Analytics

  The Portable Format for Analytics (PFA) is a JSON-based predictive model interchange format conceived and developed by Jim Pivarski. PFA provides a way for analytic applications to describe and exchange predictive models produced by analytics and machine learning algorithms. It supports common models such as logistic regression and decision trees. Version 0.8 was published in 2015. Subsequent versions have been developed by the Data Mining Group. As a predictive model interchange format developed by the Data Mining Group, PFA is complementary to the DMG's XML-based standard called the Predictive Model Markup Language or PMML. == Release history == == Data Mining Group == The Data Mining Group is a consortium managed by the Center for Computational Science Research, Inc., a nonprofit founded in 2008. == Examples == reverse array: # reverse input array of doubles input: {"type": "array", "items": "double"} output: {"type": "array", "items": "double"} action: - let: { x : input} - let: { z : input} - let: { l : {a.len: [x]}} - let: { i : l} - while : { ">=" : [i,0]} do: - set : {z : {attr: z, path : [i] , to: {attr : x ,path : [ {"-":[{"-" : [l ,i]},1]}] } } } - set : {i : {-:[i,1]}} - z Bubblesort input: {"type": "array", "items": "double"} output: {"type": "array", "items": "double"} action: - let: { A : input} - let: { N : {a.len: [A]}} - let: { n : {-:[N,1]}} - let: { i : 0} - let: { s : 0.0} - while : { ">=" : [n,0]} do : - set : { i : 0 } - while : { "<=" : [i,{-:[n,1]}]} do : - if: {">": [ {attr: A, path : [i]} , {attr: A, path:[{+:[i,1]}]} ]} then : - set : {s : {attr: A, path: [i]}} - set : {A : {attr: A, path: [i], to: {attr: A, path:[{+:[i,1]}]} } } - set : {A : {attr: A, path: [{+:[i,1]}], to: s }} - set : {i : {+:[i,1]}} - set : {n : {-:[n,1]}} - A == Implementations == Hadrian (Java/Scala/JVM) - Hadrian is a complete implementation of PFA in Scala, which can be accessed through any JVM language, principally Java. It focuses on model deployment, so it is flexible (can run in restricted environments) and fast. Titus (Python 2.x) - Titus is a complete, independent implementation of PFA in pure Python. It focuses on model development, so it includes model producers and PFA manipulation tools in addition to runtime execution. Currently, it works for Python 2. Titus 2 (Python 3.x) - Titus 2 is a fork of Titus which supports PFA implementation for Python 3. Aurelius (R) - Aurelius is a toolkit for generating PFA in the R programming language. It focuses on porting models to PFA from their R equivalents. To validate or execute scoring engines, Aurelius sends them to Titus through rPython (so both must be installed). Antinous (Model development in Jython) - Antinous is a model-producer plugin for Hadrian that allows Jython code to be executed anywhere a PFA scoring engine would go. It also has a library of model producing algorithms.

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  Zvi Mowshowitz

  Zvi Mowshowitz is an American writer and member of the rationalist community who primarily discusses new developments in artificial intelligence. He is a former competitive Magic: The Gathering player and was CEO of MetaMed. == Career == Mowshowitz is an alumnus of Columbia University and holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics. He co-founded and was the CEO of MetaMed, a medical research analysis firm. He has worked at Jane Street Capital, and has worked for the gambling industry in Las Vegas. He attempted to launch a blockchain game, Emergents, in 2020. === Magic: The Gathering === Mowshowitz held a developer intern position at Wizards of the Coast R&D in 2005. He created the deck TurboZvi. His first-place finishes at major competitions were the 1999 World Championships as part of the four-person United States national team, the 2001 Pro Tour Tokyo, and two 2003 Grand Prix. He has placed in the top eight of four Pro Tours, and earned over $140,000 playing Magic competitively. In 2007, Mowshowitz was elected into the Magic Hall of Fame. Last updated: 12 May 2013Source: Wizards.com Mowshowitz has written about Magic for several outlets, including the official Magic website. === Later career === Mowshowitz is on the board of directors for the Center for Applied Rationality, and is a member of the rationalist community. He also founded Balsa Research, a nonprofit think tank which advocated for the repeal of the Jones Act, increasing the housing supply, and reform of the National Environmental Policy Act. In 2023, Mowshowitz wrote an article for Vox on the topic of artificial intelligence safety. Mowshowitz has a blog on Substack under the name "Don't Worry about the Vase". He has written on topics such as artificial intelligence, economics, and the COVID-19 pandemic. == Personal life == Mowshowitz is the son of American biochemist Deborah Mowshowitz. His parents have both worked as Columbia University professors.

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  Otterly.ai

  Otterly.ai is an Austrian software company, founded in 2024, that provides tools for generative engine optimization, the practice of monitoring and optimizing results in large language models. == History == Otterly.ai was co-founded in 2024 by Thomas Peham, Klaus-M. Schremser and Josef Trauner. The concept for OtterlyAI was developed in response to the increasing use of generative AI tools in digital search and content discovery. The company announced a technology partnership with SEO platform Semrush in January 2025.

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  Fillrate

  In computer graphics, a video card's pixel fillrate refers to the number of pixels that can be rendered on the screen and written to video memory in one second. Pixel fillrates are given in megapixels per second or in gigapixels per second (in the case of newer cards), and are obtained by multiplying the number of render output units (ROPs) by the clock frequency of the graphics processing unit (GPU) of a video card. A similar concept, texture fillrate, refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) the GPU can map to pixels in one second. Texture fillrate is obtained by multiplying the number of texture mapping units (TMUs) by the clock frequency of the GPU. Texture fillrates are given in mega or gigatexels per second. However, there is no full agreement on how to calculate and report fillrates. Another possible method is to multiply the number of pixel pipelines by the GPU's clock frequency. The results of these multiplications correspond to a theoretical number. The actual fillrate depends on many other factors. In the past, the fillrate has been used as an indicator of performance by video card manufacturers such as ATI and NVIDIA, however, the importance of the fillrate as a measurement of performance has declined as the bottleneck in graphics applications has shifted. For example, today, the number and speed of unified shader processing units has gained attention. Although fillrate doesn't provide a substantial bottleneck in games, it can still provide a bottleneck for certain parts of the game, for example applying a gaussian blur can be bottlenecked by fillrate. Scene complexity can be increased by overdrawing, which happens when an object is drawn to the frame buffer, and another object (such as a wall) is then drawn on top of it, covering it up. The time spent drawing the first object is thus wasted because it is not visible. When a sequence of scenes is extremely complex (many pixels have to be drawn for each scene), the frame rate for the sequence may drop. When designing graphics intensive applications, one can determine whether the application is fillrate-limited (or shader limited) by seeing if the frame rate increases dramatically when the application runs at a lower resolution or in a smaller window. Although this is not a full-proof method, modern videogame engines can dynamically reduce the level-of-detail required and thereby reducing fillrate-limited applications. The best way to find fillrate bottlenecks is to use GPU vendor software like NVIDIA Nsight Graphics, AMD Radeon GPU Profile and the Intel Graphics Performance Analyzers.

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  Effective accelerationism

  Effective accelerationism (e/acc) is a 21st-century ideological movement that advocates for an explicitly pro-technology stance. Its proponents believe that unrestricted technological progress, especially driven by artificial intelligence, is a solution to universal human problems, such as poverty, war, and climate change. They perceive themselves as a counterweight to more cautious views on technological innovation and often label their opponents derogatorily as "doomers" or "decels" (short for decelerationists). The movement carries utopian undertones and advocates for faster AI progress to ensure human survival and propagate consciousness throughout the universe. Although effective accelerationism has been described as a fringe movement and as cult-like, it has gained mainstream visibility in 2023. A number of high-profile Silicon Valley figures, including investors Marc Andreessen and Garry Tan, explicitly endorsed it by adding "e/acc" to their public social media profiles. == Etymology and central beliefs == Effective accelerationism, a portmanteau of "effective altruism" and "accelerationism", is a fundamentally techno-optimist movement. According to Guillaume Verdon, one of the movement's founders, its aim is for human civilization to "clim[b] the Kardashev gradient", meaning its purpose is for human civilization to rise to next levels on the Kardashev scale by maximizing energy usage. To achieve this goal, effective accelerationism wants to accelerate technological progress. It is strongly focused on artificial general intelligence (AGI), because it sees AGI as fundamental for climbing the Kardashev scale. The movement therefore advocates for unrestricted development and deployment of artificial intelligence. Regulation of artificial intelligence and government intervention in markets more generally is met with opposition. Many of its proponents have libertarian views and think that AGI will be most aligned if many AGIs compete against each other on the marketplace. The founders of the movement see it as rooted in Jeremy England's theory on the origin of life, which is focused on entropy and thermodynamics. According to them, the universe aims to increase entropy, and life is a way of increasing it. By spreading life throughout the universe and making life use up ever increasing amounts of energy, the universe's purpose would thus be fulfilled. == History == === Intellectual origins === While Nick Land is seen as the intellectual originator of contemporary accelerationism in general, the precise origins of effective accelerationism remain unclear. The earliest known reference to the movement can be traced back to a May 2022 newsletter published by four pseudonymous authors known by their X (formerly Twitter) usernames @BasedBeffJezos, @bayeslord, @zestular and @creatine_cycle. Effective accelerationism is an extension of the TESCREAL movement, being etymologically derived from Effective Altruism and heavily rooted in the older Silicon Valley subcultures of transhumanism and extropianism (which similarly emphasized the value of progress and resisted efforts to restrain the development of technology), alongside elements of singularitarianism, cosmism, and longtermism. It is also often considered to have emerged at least in part from the work of the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (of which Nick Land was a leading member, alongside writers such as Mark Fisher and Sadie Plant). It is sometimes compared and contrasted with the work of philosopher Benjamin Bratton on planetary computation. === Disclosure of the identity of BasedBeffJezos === Forbes disclosed in December 2023 that the @BasedBeffJezos persona is maintained by Guillaume Verdon, a Canadian former Google quantum computing engineer and theoretical physicist. The revelation was supported by a voice analysis conducted by the National Center for Media Forensics of the University of Colorado Denver, which further confirmed the match between Jezos and Verdon. The magazine justified its decision to disclose Verdon's identity on the grounds of it being "in the public interest". On 29 December 2023 Guillaume Verdon was interviewed by Lex Fridman on the Lex Fridman Podcast and introduced as the "creator of the effective accelerationism movement". === Second Trump presidency === Following Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, several prominent tech industry figures expressed support for positions aligned with effective accelerationism, particularly regarding deregulation and technological advancement. The potential appointment of Elon Musk to government roles focused on auditing federal programs drew support from venture capitalists who anticipated reduced regulatory oversight of the technology sector. Notable tech figures publicly connected these developments to the movement's principles. Aaron Levie, CEO of Box, expressed support for "removing unnecessary red tape and over-regulation", while Mark Pincus, early Facebook investor and Zynga founder, explicitly referenced "effective accelerationism" in his post-election commentary. Venture capitalists viewed the incoming administration as an opportunity to ease regulations that had affected technology mergers and acquisitions during the previous years. == Relation to other movements == === Traditional accelerationism === Traditional accelerationism, as developed by the British philosopher Nick Land, sees the acceleration of technological change as a way to bring about a fundamental transformation of current culture, society, and the political economy. This is done through capitalism, which Land views as "an autonomous force that’s reconfiguring society" that can overcome its limits if intensified. Land's work has also been characterized as concerning "the supposedly inevitable 'disintegration of the human species' when artificial intelligence improves sufficiently." While both concern ideas like a technocapital singularity and AGI progress, effective accelerationism focuses on using AGI for the greatest ethical good for conscious life and civilization (whether human or machine), as well as expanding civilization and maximizing energy usage in order to align with the "will of the universe". Land focuses on capitalist self-optimization as the driver of modernity, progress, and the eroding of existing social orders. Land has expressed support for effective accelerationism, while Thomas Murphy referred to the movement as "Nick Land diluted for LinkedIn". === Effective altruism === Effective accelerationism diverges from the principles of effective altruism, which prioritizes using evidence and reasoning to identify the most effective ways to altruistically improve the world. This divergence comes primarily from one of the causes effective altruists focus on – AI existential risk. Effective altruists (particularly longtermists) argue that AI companies should be cautious and strive to develop safe AI systems, as they fear that any misaligned AGI could eventually lead to human extinction. Proponents of effective accelerationism generally consider existential risks from AGI to be negligible, and claim that even if they were not, decentralized free markets would much better mitigate this risk than centralized governmental regulation. === Degrowth === Effective accelerationism stands in stark contrast with the degrowth movement, sometimes described by it as "decelerationism" or "decels". The degrowth movement advocates for reducing economic activity and consumption to address ecological and social issues. Effective accelerationism on the contrary embraces technological progress, energy consumption and the dynamics of capitalism, rather than advocating for a reduction in economic activity. == Reception == The "Techno-Optimist Manifesto", a 2023 essay by Marc Andreessen, has been described by the Financial Times and the German Süddeutsche Zeitung as espousing the views of effective accelerationism. Mother Jones also characterized it as expressing effective accelerationism and reported that Andressen cited Land's work. David Swan of The Sydney Morning Herald has criticized effective accelerationism due to its opposition to government and industry self-regulation. He argues that "innovations like AI needs thoughtful regulations and guardrails ... to avoid the myriad mistakes Silicon Valley has already made." During the 2023 Reagan National Defense Forum, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo cautioned against embracing the "move fast and break things" mentality associated with "effective acceleration [sic]". She emphasized the need to exercise caution in dealing with AI, stating "that's too dangerous. You can't break things when you are talking about AI." In a similar vein, Ellen Huet argued on Bloomberg News that some of the ideas of the movement were "deeply unsettling", focusing especially on Guillaume Verdon's "post-humanism" and the view that "natural selection could lead AI to replace us as the dominant spe

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  OpenAI Operator

  OpenAI Operator was an AI agent developed by OpenAI, capable of autonomously performing tasks through web browser interactions, including filling forms, placing online orders, scheduling appointments, and other repetitive browser-based tasks. It uses OpenAI's advanced models to expand practical automation capabilities for users in daily activities. Operator was launched on January 23, 2025. It was released as a limited-access research preview to ChatGPT Pro-tier subscribers in the United States on February 1, 2025, with future plans to broaden availability. Operator was deprecated after the release of ChatGPT agent, and shut down on August 31, 2025. == Performance and limitations == In benchmark assessments, Operator achieved notable success, scoring 38.1% on OSWorld benchmarks (OS-level tasks) and 58.1% on WebArena benchmarks (web interactions). However, it did not reach human-level accuracy and faced limitations with intricate user interfaces and extended workflows. == Safety and privacy == OpenAI emphasized privacy and safety measures within Operator, including stringent data protection protocols and built-in safety checks designed to prevent unauthorized sensitive actions or information misuse. == Availability == Initially, Operator was only available to ChatGPT Pro subscribers in the U.S., with plans for broader availability to Plus, Team, and Enterprise users in the future.

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