 RightHand Robotics secured $66M in Series C financing for its autonomous robotic picking solutions. The Massachusetts company specializes in robotics for warehouse and fulfillment operations. More: - RightHand, founded by a team from the Harvard Biorobotics Lab, the Yale GRAB Lab, and MIT, offers a robotic piece-picking solution called RightPick.
- The tech relies on AI software with intelligent grippers and machine vision to pick up and handle items and fulfill orders.
- The funding round was led by investors Safar Partners, Thomas H. Lee Partners, and SoftBank Vision Fund 2.
- Zebra Technologies, which has its own robotic inventory offerings, also joined the round along with Epson, Global Brain, and previous investors.
- Righthand says it will use the fund to scale its global presence, expand its offices, acquire new talent, and accelerate product and business development.
TECHCRUNCH 
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Google proposed "best practices" for its cloud customers to shrink their machine-learning carbon footprints. The company says the best practices, called the "4Ms," have kept its ML energy use to less than 15% of its total usage for the past three years. The company claims the measures can collectively lower ML's energy use 100-fold and its carbon footprint 1,000-fold. More: - The "4Ms" refer to models, machines, mechanization, and map optimization. The company published a preprint research paper and blog post about the initiatives.
- Google says companies can reduce their energy usage by:
- Selecting efficient ML model architectures to advance ML quality, lowering computation by up to 10x.
- Using processors optimized for ML training to improve performance and energy efficiency 2x to 5x.
- Computing in the cloud rather than on-site, which can reduce energy usage and emissions by up to 2x.
- Using the cloud to choose the location with the cleanest energy, further cutting the gross carbon footprint by 5x–10x.
DATA CENTER DYNAMICS
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 A message from AXONIUS Controlling Complexity: a video featuring Amy Bream. Presented by Axonius. Watch it now Complexity is inevitable. Just ask adaptive athlete Amy Bream. She was born with one leg, but didn’t let that stop her from growing up to become a kickboxer. In 2021, she competed in the CrossFit Games, coming in second place worldwide. The key to her success? Controlling what she can. The message of control and complexity is a universal truth that applies to all areas in life. One of these areas is asset management. And that’s where Axonius comes in. Axonius correlates asset data from existing solutions to do three things: - Provide an always up-to-date asset inventory
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More law firms are using AI-powered algorithms to vet candidates during the hiring process, according to Bloomberg Law. AI-based hiring practices range from automated resume screenings to algorithms that analyze job candidates' questionnaires or their responses in video interviews. More: - The AI tools can promote workforce diversity and ensure that well-fitting applicants who were overlooked get a seat at the table if AI flags them as a good match, supporters say.
- For example, at least 11 law firms have adopted vendor Suited AI's tool for reviewing job applicants in finance and law. The tool works by comparing an applicant's questionnaire to the same one done by the company's top performers, seeing how well they match up.
- Similar hiring technology offered by AI firm HireVue is now used by more than 39% of Fortune 100 complaints, including Delta and Hilton, it said.
- The tools can improve workforce diversity, though concerns about bias during the screening process still remain.
- New laws attempt to address this. For example, the NYC council passed a law that requires AI hiring software to do audits to make sure their tech doesn't discriminate. The law, which takes effect in Jan. 2023, will also require employers to tell candidates when they're being evaluated using AI software.
BLOOMBERG LAW
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 AI/MLOps company Prolego has coined the term "AI native" to describe consumers who intuitively understand AI's rules and view the technology as a "way of life" more so than an amenity. The company says AI natives are defined by their relationships with surrounding AI products, such as smart assistants, and are willing to co-create and invest in the technology. Prolego came up with the term after conducting a research campaign on AI, the results of which are below. Background: - The research team surveyed 1,055 U.S. adults aged 18 to 64.
- They also conducted 20 interviews with people in 13 states and spoke with 20 AI experts and industry leaders.
Positives about AI: - 40% of respondents said they believe more companies don't leverage AI because the right technologies don't exist yet. Only 20% said it's because AI isn't useful to the business.
- Nearly 50% of consumers said they expect products to learn from their behavior and get smarter over time.
- 90% said they are comfortable with purchasing or using products from entertainment companies that use AI. This was only 65% for banking companies.
- 61% said they are more comfortable when companies explain clearly how they protect personal data.
Concerns of AI: - The most common concerns about AI focus on the concentration of power.
- For example, 52% are worried that advances in AI will give a small number of people too much power over the next decade.
- Only 37% were worried that AI would become self-aware and pose a threat to humanity:
VENTUREBEAT
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 Depict.ai CEO and co-founder Oliver Edholm. Depict.ai, an AI-based product recommendation engine for e-commerce stores, announced $17M in funding to further invest and expand its product across the U.S. and Europe. Tiger Global led the Series A round, with participation from Initialized Capital, EQT Ventures, Y Combinator, and angel investors. More: - Stockholm-based Depict.ai says its AI-enabled product recommendations don't require historical sales data.
- By using deep learning, the startup claims it can understand a merchant's offerings through images and information recognition and offer a recommendation service.
- Its tech can help e-commerce stores compete with giants such as Amazon, which have access to massive amounts of data that their smaller rivals lack.
- "We're starting by giving every e-commerce store the AI technology they need to deliver world-class product recommendations," said CEO and co-founder Oliver Edholm, who is 19 years old.
- Fun fact: Edholm was the youngest AI researcher in the world when he took a job as an ML engineer at Klarna in 2018.
TECH.EU
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The FDA has cleared Viz.ai's AI algorithm for detecting brain aneurysms. The cloud-based system can analyze CT signs to look for signs of weakness in cerebral blood vessels, which can fill with blood and potentially rupture, resulting in life-threatening bleeding. More: - Viz.ai, an AI medical imaging startup, said it received FDA 510(k) clearance for its aneurysm algorithm.
- In a University of Toronto study, the algorithm reached 94% accuracy in detecting 674 aneurysms in 528 CTA scans.
- Viz.ai said it will add the algorithm to its digital care coordination platform, which also uses AI to detect ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke, cerebral perfusion, pulmonary embolisms, and aortic disease. It's used in more than 1,000 hospitals.
- Founded in 2016 by Mansi and CTO/AI specialist David Golan, Viz has raised at least $150M from VC firms Insight Partners, Scale Venture Partners, Kleiner Perkins, and Innovation Endeavors, among others.
- In 2021, Viz.ai's revenue reached $12M.
FIERCE BIOTECH
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- Debanjan Saha, Google Cloud's former data analytics VP, left the company to become president and COO of AI software platform DataRobot.
- Motional and Via are launching a free robo-taxi service with autonomous driving technology in Las Vegas.
- U.K. cyber-defense company Darktrace says it will acquire Cybersprint B.V., which uses machine learning to surface attack vulnerabilities, for $53.7M.
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 |  | Beth is an Inside Analyst and a former public policy/investigative reporter. She has covered AI, VR, technology, and e-commerce for Inside. When she's not busy writing, she's hiking in Arizona's desert, playing pickleball, or trying out new Mexican food recipes. |   | | Editor | Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 Ford. | |
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