Buzzworthy AI: Microsoft expands its Premonition mosquito-tracking outbreak prediction system

Principal hardware architect Nicolas Villar puts the Premonition mosquito-tracking system through its paces in a Microsoft lab. (Microsoft Photo)

Five years after starting out as an experimental project to see if advanced sensors and artificial intelligence could spot the signs of a disease outbreak before it happens, Microsoft Premonition is turning into an honest-to-goodness biothreat protection network.

Premonition’s researchers aim to set up about 100 sensor stations in Texas’ Harris County, to track swarms of mosquitoes that could transmit diseases ranging from malaria and dengue fever to Zika and West Nile viruses. AI algorithms will analyze that tracking data for the telltale signs of an epidemic in the making, just as weather forecasting programs look for the signs of a storm on the way.

“It will really be almost like a weather map, the likes of which has not really been seen before in the mosquito vector space,” Ethan Jackson, senior director of Microsoft Premonition, told Geekwire.

The expansion of the Premonition program was announced today in conjunction with this week’s annual Microsoft Ignite conference for software developers.

Harris County, dominated by the city of Houston with a population of 4.7 million, was the site for Microsoft Premonition’s earliest experiments. Those field tests were aimed at determining whether sensor-equipped mosquito traps could identify the particular types of mosquito that causes particular diseases — for example, Anopheles mosquitoes for malaria, Aedes mosquitoes for Zika and dengue, Culex mosquitoes for West Nile.

Microsoft researchers found that they could, based on data from optical sensors that tracked the beat of the mosquitoes’ wings. During 2016’s field tests in Harris County, the system recorded a 90% accuracy rate for identifying the mosquitoes linked to the Zika virus. That’s no small feat, considering that there are 3,600 known species of mosquitoes, 50 of which are active in Harris County.

Since then, Jackson and his colleagues have widened the system’s capabilities by bringing wild mosquitoes to a custom-built facility on Microsoft’s campus in Redmond, Wash., known as the Premonition Proving Ground.

“This is Microsoft’s first biocontainment facility,” Jackson said. “It’s unique in its ability to allow us to import wild species, rear them up from eggs, and then digitize them in our sensors so that we can pre-train our classifiers.”

Researchers can then check test their robotic traps and digitized models with real-life mosquitoes. “We have a feedback loop, an agile engineering loop that’s happening at Microsoft,” Jackson said.

Microsoft researchers evaluate robotic designs and train artificial intelligence models to recognize different species of mosquitoes inside a biosecure “Premonition Proving Ground” on the Redmond campus. (Microsoft Photo)

The lab experiments helped Microsoft fine-tune Premonition’s tools.

“We’re at a place now where we’re ready to go back and try these systems at scale, and see what happens when you instrument this city with these kinds of systems so you’re getting 24/7 monitoring of the biome,” Jackson said.

Umair Shah, executive director of Harris County Public Health, hopes the technology’s impact won’t be limited to mosquito-borne diseases.

“This partnership will also evaluate new genomic capabilities to detect known and emerging pathogens from environmental samples, which we now know is especially important for diseases like COVID-19,” he said in a Microsoft blog posting..

Being able to predict where an outbreak might blossom would help public health officials stay a step ahead — for example, by using pesticides in targeted areas to tamp down mosquito swarms, or ramping up localized strategies to catch coronavirus before it spreads.

One of Microsoft’s corporate partners on Premonition is Bayer, which is participating in an industry campaign to eradicate malaria by 2040. Jacqueline Applegate, president of Global Vegetable Seeds and Environmental Science at Bayer, said Microsoft Premonition will help Bayer “be even more prescriptive and optimize our vector control strategies so that they have the greatest impact.”

Over the past five years, Microsoft Premonition’s technologies have been tested at sites ranging from the sands of the Florida Keys to the forests of Tanzania. Jackson said the follow-up experiments have shown that sensor networks can pick up a wide spectrum of information about biological interactions in ecosystems.

To explore the wider applications, Microsoft is partnering with academic researchers at Vanderbilt University, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. This month, the academic consortium began a $924,000 project funded by the National Science Foundation to develop predictive models of ecosystem-wide activity.

Jackson marveled at how his perspective on Premonition has progressed.

“When we first started this project, we were asking, how could you understand biological threats from the perspective of a mosquito? That was the science question that drove our initial engineering,” he said. “We’ve really evolved from that question to say there’s a set of technologies that form a sensor network, and that sensor network is the thing that’s missing today.”

After five years, Microsoft says it’s ready to fill in that missing piece.

View the original article here

from WordPress https://cybersonday689753477.wordpress.com/2020/10/16/buzzworthy-ai-microsoft-expands-its-premonition-mosquito-tracking-outbreak-prediction-system/

Amazon expands ‘Project Zero’ anti-counterfeit program that Bezos cited in antitrust hearing

Photo: Julie Clopper / Shutterstock.com.

Amazon is taking its “Project Zero” anti-counterfeit program to seven additional countries, expanding a program designed to help brands fight fake products, amid heightened scrutiny of knock-offs on its e-commerce platform.

Project Zero will now be available to sellers on the Amazon online stores in Australia, Brazil, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates, bringing the total to 17 countries, the company announced Monday night. Launched last year, the program is already available in the U.S., UK, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Japan, India, Mexico, and Canada.

Amazon says more than 10,000 brands, ranging from small companies to large global retailers, have enrolled in the program, which gets its name from Amazon’s stated goal of zero counterfeit products on its platform. The company cited the examples of Arduino, BMW, ChessCentral, LifeProof, OtterBox, Salvatore Ferragamo, and Veet as participants.

Counterfeits were one of the topics that legislators grilled Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos about in a recent Congressional antitrust hearing with other major tech CEOs.

“Amazon has said it’s fixing its counterfeit problem, but counterfeiting seems to be getting worse, not better,” said U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson, a Democrat from Georgia, asking Bezos why Amazon doesn’t do more to fight counterfeits.

He added, “Amazon acts like it’s not responsible for counterfeits being sold by third-party sellers on its platform, and we’ve heard that Amazon puts the burden and cost on brand owners to police Amazon’s site, even though Amazon makes money when a counterfeit good is sold on its site.”

In response, Bezos outlined the company’s fight against counterfeits and disputed the notion that counterfeits are ultimately a benefit to Amazon.

“I think this is an incredibly important issue and one that we work very hard on. Counterfeits are a scourge,” he said. “It does not help us earn trust with customers. It’s bad for customers. It’s bad for honest third-party sellers. We do a lot to prevent counterfeiting. We have a team of more than a thousand people that does this. We invest hundreds of millions of dollars in systems that do this.”

As an example, Bezos pointed to Project Zero, saying it “helps brands serialize individual products, which really helps with counterfeiting.”

That was a reference to one of Project Zero’s three main components, in which brands apply a unique code in the packaging or product to allow Amazon to confirm the authenticity of individual products. Project Zero also includes self-service tools for brands to remove listings from Amazon.com, and technology that automatically identifies suspicious listings.

“Amazon is committed to protecting our customers and the brands we collaborate with worldwide,” said Dharmesh Mehta, Amazon vice president of Worldwide Customer Trust and Partner Support, in the news release announcing the expansion Monday night. “Project Zero has been a leap forward in protecting brands, especially for those that use all three of its components.”

In the hearing, Rep. Johnson cited prior testimony from David Barnett, the CEO of PopSockets brand phone holders, who had said in an earlier hearing that Amazon listed counterfeit versions of the product ahead of genuine ones, and only stopped the practice after PopSockets committed to spend $2 million on advertising.

“That’s unacceptable,” Bezos said, promising to look into the specifics of the PopSockets claims, which received widespread coverage earlier this year. “If those are the facts, and if someone somewhere inside Amazon said, ‘Buy X dollars in ads, and then we’ll help you with your counterfeit problem,’ that is unacceptable.”

Even if Amazon makes money in the short term on counterfeit goods, it’s ultimately not in its best interest to allow fake goods, Bezos said. “I would much rather lose a sale than lose a customer,” he said.

As noted by Bezos in the hearing, the company announced the formation of an internal “Counterfeit Crimes Unit” earlier this year as part of its initiatives.

Amazon has also filed a series of lawsuits over counterfeit goods in recent years, most recently joining Italian luxury fashion brand Valentino to pursue an alleged counterfeiter of the company’s Rockstud shoes. Amazon has filed similar suits in the past in partnership with companies including Nite Ize, a maker of mobile accessories and LED products; Vera Bradley, designer of purses and accessories; and high-end phone case company OtterBox.

The company has sought to avoid legal liability for counterfeit goods sold on its platform. In what became a landmark case, Amazon was sued in 2013 by Seattle-based novelty pillowcase maker Milo & Gabby over knock-offs sold by other companies on Amazon.com. Courts sided with Amazon’s argument that the sellers of the counterfeits were the ones who should be held liable.

View the original article here

from WordPress https://cybersonday689753477.wordpress.com/2020/09/08/amazon-expands-project-zero-anti-counterfeit-program-that-bezos-cited-in-antitrust-hearing/

Bill Gates-backed startup Likewise expands to TVs, bringing content picks and lists to living room

Likewise TV launched on Amazon Fire TV, Android TV and Apple TV. (Likewise Photo)

Likewise, a Seattle-area startup that offers personalized picks for movies, TV series and other content, has released a new TV version of its app to let users track and quickly launch recommended shows on the big screens in their living rooms.

The new Likewise TV apps for Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Apple TV work as a companion to the Likewise smartphone apps for iOS and Android. Users can save a show or movie to a list on their smartphones, for example, and see it appear immediately in the Likewise TV interface. From there, they can click once to launch the show in Netflix, Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Hulu, or other streaming services.

It’s the biggest expansion of the company’s footprint since Likewise made its public debut in October 2018. Led by CEO Ian Morris, a veteran Seattle tech executive, the company was the brainchild of Larry Cohen, the former Microsoft communications chief. Cohen is chairman of Likewise and the CEO of Gates Ventures, Bill Gates’ private investment firm. Gates is the primary financial backer of the startup, investing an undisclosed sum into the company.

Ian Morris, Likewise CEO. (Likewise Photo)

Likewise lets users track and recommend their favorite movies, shows, books and podcasts. It then uses their preferences, along with recommendations from friends and picks from the Likewise editorial team, to surface other content that they might like, which might not have been on their radar otherwise.

For example, Morris recalled a moment a few months ago when the Likewise app suggested he try the Bill Simmons Podcast, even though he hadn’t previously been a listener. The reason: Malcolm Gladwell was a guest on the show, and Morris had recommended the Gladwell podcast “Revisionist History” and several of Gladwell’s books in the Likewise app.

The company hopes the new Likewise TV app will become the home page for users on their big screens.

One advantage is the ability to save lists that combine content from a variety of streaming services, grouped by categories that make sense to the user, rather than requiring them to start inside individual streaming services. For example, Morris has a list of movies that he watches with his family. He saves items to that list on the Likewise app on his phone, which he can then access directly on his TV.

“I can tell you, it’s completely changed the way I watch TV,” he said.

That said, the company is being pragmatic and playing the long game as it seeks to build its user base for the Likewise TV app.

“I expect this feature will be, in the short term, more about extending the value to our existing users, who are mostly on the mobile app,” Morris said.

Likewise doesn’t disclose its total number of users, but Morris said the number of monthly active users has grown ten-fold in the past year and tripled in the last four months, as people seek new entertainment while at home due to restrictions during the pandemic.

Gates, whose seasonal book picks are closely followed by many other readers, keeps a series of lists in Likewise tracking his recommendations for movies, books and other content.

The company has more than 30 employees. It is not yet generating revenue, and doesn’t charge users for its app. The company has been starting by focusing on the product experience and user engagement, before looking to build its user base significantly. After that will come monetization, which is likely to involve advertising revenue and referral fees from content providers.

Morris spent seven years at Microsoft before becoming CEO of real estate services company Market Leader, taking it through an IPO and acquisition. Michael Dix, managing partner of consulting company Intentional Futures, is a Likewise co-founder and board member along with Cohen and Morris.

Support independent journalism at a time when trusted storytelling and community engagement is more important than ever.

Join today!

View the original article here

from WordPress https://cybersonday689753477.wordpress.com/2020/08/17/bill-gates-backed-startup-likewise-expands-to-tvs-bringing-content-picks-and-lists-to-living-room-2/

Bill Gates-backed startup Likewise expands to TVs, bringing content picks and lists to living room

Likewise TV launched on Amazon Fire TV, Android TV and Apple TV. (Likewise Photo)

Likewise, a Seattle-area startup that offers personalized picks for movies, TV series and other content, has released a new TV version of its app to let users track and quickly launch recommended shows on the big screens in their living rooms.

The new Likewise TV apps for Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Apple TV work as a companion to the Likewise smartphone apps for iOS and Android. Users can save a show or movie to a list on their smartphones, for example, and see it appear immediately in the Likewise TV interface. From there, they can click once to launch the show in Netflix, Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Hulu, or other streaming services.

It’s the biggest expansion of the company’s footprint since Likewise made its public debut in October 2018. Led by CEO Ian Morris, a veteran Seattle tech executive, the company was the brainchild of Larry Cohen, the former Microsoft communications chief. Cohen is chairman of Likewise and the CEO of Gates Ventures, Bill Gates’ private investment firm. Gates is the primary financial backer of the startup, investing an undisclosed sum into the company.

Ian Morris, Likewise CEO. (Likewise Photo)

Likewise lets users track and recommend their favorite movies, shows, books and podcasts. It then uses their preferences, along with recommendations from friends and picks from the Likewise editorial team, to surface other content that they might like, which might not have been on their radar otherwise.

For example, Morris recalled a moment a few months ago when the Likewise app suggested he try the Bill Simmons Podcast, even though he hadn’t previously been a listener. The reason: Malcolm Gladwell was a guest on the show, and Morris had recommended the Gladwell podcast “Revisionist History” and several of Gladwell’s books in the Likewise app.

The company hopes the new Likewise TV app will become the home page for users on their big screens.

One advantage is the ability to save lists that combine content from a variety of streaming services, grouped by categories that make sense to the user, rather than requiring them to start inside individual streaming services. For example, Morris has a list of movies that he watches with his family. He saves items to that list on the Likewise app on his phone, which he can then access directly on his TV.

“I can tell you, it’s completely changed the way I watch TV,” he said.

That said, the company is being pragmatic and playing the long game as it seeks to build its user base for the Likewise TV app.

“I expect this feature will be, in the short term, more about extending the value to our existing users, who are mostly on the mobile app,” Morris said.

Likewise doesn’t disclose its total number of users, but Morris said the number of monthly active users has grown ten-fold in the past year and tripled in the last four months, as people seek new entertainment while at home due to restrictions during the pandemic.

Gates, whose seasonal book picks are closely followed by many other readers, keeps a series of lists in Likewise tracking his recommendations for movies, books and other content.

The company has more than 30 employees. It is not yet generating revenue, and doesn’t charge users for its app. The company has been starting by focusing on the product experience and user engagement, before looking to build its user base significantly. After that will come monetization, which is likely to involve advertising revenue and referral fees from content providers.

Morris spent seven years at Microsoft before becoming CEO of real estate services company Market Leader, taking it through an IPO and acquisition. Michael Dix, managing partner of consulting company Intentional Futures, is a Likewise co-founder and board member along with Cohen and Morris.

Support independent journalism at a time when trusted storytelling and community engagement is more important than ever.

Join today!

View the original article here

from WordPress https://cybersonday689753477.wordpress.com/2020/08/02/bill-gates-backed-startup-likewise-expands-to-tvs-bringing-content-picks-and-lists-to-living-room/

Amazon expands route for package delivery robot Scout with addition of two Southern cities

(Amazon Photo)

Amazon Scout, the package delivery robot that looks like a cooler on wheels, is headed to two new cities as the tech giant continues to expand the test market for the device.

Scout will now operate in Atlanta and Franklin, Tenn., the company announced on Tuesday. Scout started its journey in Snohomish County, Wash., in January 2019 and last August the autonomous machine started operating in Irvine, Calif. Field tests will continue in those areas.

In a blog post on Tuesday, Amazon Scout Vice President Sean Scott said that Scout has continued to operate throughout the coronavirus pandemic and has helped the company meet increased customer demand.

“Adding Atlanta and Franklin to our existing operations gives Scout devices the opportunity to operate in varied neighborhoods with different climates than they operate in today,” Scott said, adding that Amazon has a significant presence in the areas through corporate offices and logistics facilities.

Amazon says the same delivery options are available via Scout as with any order, including same-day, one-day and two-day shipping for Prime members. The robots, developed at an Amazon lab in Seattle, autonomously follow their delivery route, and for now are accompanied by an Amazon Scout Ambassador.

View the original article here

from WordPress https://cybersonday689753477.wordpress.com/2020/07/22/amazon-expands-route-for-package-delivery-robot-scout-with-addition-of-two-southern-cities/