Amazon unveiled AI-powered robotics systems that will be used to handle packages at its fulfillment and sort centers. The first robot, Proteus, resembles a vacuum and relies on proprietary "safety, perception, and navigation technology" to move around. The second is Cardinal, an AI-powered robotic arm that can lift packages and place them in carts using computer vision. More: - Proteus is Amazon's first fully autonomous, mobile warehouse robot that's designed to operate alongside human workers.
- The e-commerce giant said it will initially use Proteus to handle its outbound GoCarts — or wheeled trolleys carrying packages — around its warehouses and sorting centers.
- It could also deploy Cardinal, the robotic arm, for placing packages into GoCarts as early as 2023.
- Amazon recently announced plans to invest $1B in supply chain, fulfillment, and logistics technologies via a newly formed Industrial Innovation Fund. Initial beneficiaries include the startups Mantis Robotics and Agility Robotics.
- The update comes after a company memo from 2021 suggested that Amazon may run out of U.S. warehouse workers by 2024. Increased automation was listed as one of the six "levers" it could trigger to delay labor shortages.
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Elon Musk said that Tesla is on track to have a prototype of its humanoid robot ready by the end of September. During Tuesday's Qatar Economic Forum, the CEO implied that the Optimus prototype could be revealed during Tesla's next AI Day on Sept. 30. More: - Musk went on to say that AI Day emphasizes that Tesla is "more than a car company" and is, in fact, "the leading real-world AI company that exists."
- Without elaborating, Musk previously tweeted that this year's AI Day will have "So many cool updates!"
- Like past events, he said the purpose of AI Day is to "convince great AI/software/chip talent to join Tesla."
- Reports noted that it's likely Tesla will provide updates on its Full Self-Driving, new self-driving chip, and Dojo supercomputer program.
- Ambitiously, Musk has previously said Tesla aims to start producing its Optimus humanoid robot "hopefully" in 2023.
TESLARATI 
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Alphabet AI subsidiary DeepMind announced Flamingo, a family of pre-trained machine vision and language models that outperforms all other few-shot learning approaches. Few-shot learning is a type of ML where the model can make predictions based on only a few training examples. More: - The 80B parameter vision-language model takes combined text and image inputs and generates text answers.
- For example, it can answer questions and chat with users about images and videos. On 16 vision-language benchmarks, it outperformed all other few-shot learning examples.
- DeepMind said Flamingo can perform different open-ended multimodal tasks with only a handful of specific examples.
- It's based on DeepMind's Chinchilla 70B parameter language model and its Perceiver multimodal classifier model, combining them into a single neural network.
- Researchers previously introduced Flamingo in a pre-print paper and described it in a blog post.
INFOQ
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General Motors will invest an undisclosed amount in Israeli tech firm UVeye, a developer of AI-enabled inspection stations for vehicles, according to The Verge. UVeye's technology combines AI, machine learning, and cameras to "examine" cars and identify defects and maintenance issues on their tires, exterior, and underbody. More: - The automaker reportedly made the investment via its venture fund, GM Ventures.
- Through the partnership, GM will begin selling UVeye's "body scanner" technology to its 4,000 dealerships in the U.S.
- The inspections stations have three AI systems in total:
- Two 360-degree exterior inspection systems, called Atlas and Atlas Lite, can scan the exterior for dents, paint chips, rust, and more.
- The Artemis system can check tire air pressure and tire quality.
- Helios is an underbody scanner that can identify fluid leaks, frame damage, and brake and exhaust system problems.
- Earlier this year, Volvo began offering the technology as an optional add-on system to its dealer service departments via a subscription plan.
THE VERGE
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Asia's Guardforce AI is expanding its Robotics-as-a-Service (RaaS) business to San Francisco and Tokyo, where it recently opened new offices. The security solutions provider is now offering its food delivery robots, disinfection robots, and T-series robot for reception services in these markets. More: - The openings are a part of Guardforce's longer-term plans to expand in key markets globally, chairman Terence Yap said.
- The company wants to become "a leading provider of RaaS services worldwide."
- Last month, Guardforce AI said it has now deployed 4,800+ robots at hospitals, hotels, restaurants, and other facilities across nine countries. It now expects to surpass 10,000 by the end of 2022.
- The robots can perform tasks such as patrolling areas, hotel check-in and check-out, temperature screenings, and disinfecting hospitals.
- Based in Singapore, Guardforce AI also recently acquired New Jersey-based SBC Global Holdings Inc, a robotic technology-as-a-service firm, as part of its U.S. expansion plans.
SEEKING ALPHA
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🍋 FRESH FUNDING 🍋 - CloudNC (London, U.K.), advanced software that enables factories to autonomously manufacture precision parts: $45M B led by Autodesk, participation from Lockheed Martin, British Patient Capital, Atomico, Episode 1 Ventures.
- Grid.ai (New York, N.Y.), open-source PyTorch Lightning framework: $40M B led by Coatue, participation from Index Ventures, Bain, Mantis VC, First Minute Capital.
- Tabnine (Tel Aviv, Israel), AI-powered assistant for software developers: $15.5M led by Qualcomm Ventures, OurCrowd, Samsung NEXT Ventures, participation from Khosla Ventures, Headline Ventures.
- Bardeen.ai (San Francisco, Calif.), proactive workflow automation platform: $15.3M A led by Insight Partners, participation from 468 Capital, FirstMark Capital, et al.
- Neuron7 (San Jose, Calif.), AI-powered customer and field service software: $10M A from Battery Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners.
- Amy (Tel Aviv, Israel), pre-meeting prospect research automation platform: $6M Seed led by Next Coast Ventures, Lorne Abony, participation from Jim Mellon and Eric Ludwig, Micha Breakstone, et al.
For the latest on AI startup funding and more in the VC community, subscribe to our newsletter, Inside Venture Capital.
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- AI computing company Cerebras Systems claimed a record for the largest AI NLP models trained on a single Cerebras CS-2, the world's fastest AI processor.
- U.S. Air Force retired General John E. Hyten has joined the advisory board of enterprise AI software company C3 AI.
- Ikea's launched an AI-enabled iOS app that scans rooms to generate 3D replicas. In the virtual space, users can remove and replace existing furniture with the company's products.
- Qualcomm announced its new AI Stack, a unified platform of its existing AI software tools for developers.
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 |  | Beth is a writer and analyst at Inside.com covering artificial intelligence and daily tech news. Since starting work at Inside, she has covered various topics including virtual reality, drones, and e-commerce. Prior to that she was a public policy and investigative reporter for The Arizona Republic, where she won a Pulitzer Prize nomination and First Amendment Award for reporting on the rising costs of pensions. Reach her at Beth.Duckett@inside.com. |   | | 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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