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Nvidia Unveiled its New $99 AI Computer for Everyone

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Every person is aware of the fact that AI and machine learning is the next big thing. Slowly, the two technologies are making their way in the real world. On the same league, Nvidia has unveiled the $99 AI computer Jetson Nano along with a developer kit of the Nano, for the developers, makers, and researchers, in its GTC conference held on Monday.

nvidia-jetson-nano
Image Source: zdnet.com

The company has already introduced its Jetson embedded graphics platform and the Jetson Nano Developer kit is the extension of the same. The Nvidia’s Jetson line up works towards providing products to help makers, developers and the students, in the projects based on robotics, AI and autonomous machine applications.

In 2015, the company came with the Jetson TX1 “Supercomputer-on-Module” which provided brains to the robots, drones, and self-driving vehicles. It was the first step for the company in the field of AI and machine learning. After TX1, the company had launched TX2 embedded with a 256-core Pascal GPU and a Jetson AGX Xavier embedded with a 512-core Nvidia Volta GPU. All the three Nvidia’s AI products were high-end products.

But the Jetson Nano is an affordable and tiny $99 computer optimized for AI and machine learning, embedded with 128 CUDA core GPU. The Jetson Nano is based on the Maxwell architecture and offers 472 GFLOPs and is powered by a 64-bit quad-core Arm Cortex-A57-based CPU and a 4GB RAM. The computer also possesses a video processor, which is able to handle up to 4K 30fps encode or 4K 60fps decode. It also has got support for the Gigabit Ethernet, microSD storage, I/O for cameras, and other ports and interfaces, including USB-C.

The Nano kit is a plug and plays DIY kit, which also supports a few AI frameworks including TensorFlow, PyTorch, Caffe, Keras, and MXNet.

Although the Jetson Nano is not as powerful as Nvidia’s previous models, the new Jetson Nano, being cheaper, may help many hobbyists and students with their DIY projects. The company is also offering the production-ready kits for $129, for some specific companies and people who want to build their own AI devices.

The company has also introduced a $250 autonomous robotics kit named JetBot at the event. The JetBot is specially designed to build a self-driving robot.

Jeff Bezos Prepping Up for the Upcoming MARS Event to be Held in California

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Like other past few years, Jeff Bezos is all set for its Mars Conference to be held in the coming week. Every year, Jeff Bezos hosts an invite-only robotic conference in the third week of March, where billionaires, astronauts, and roboticists participate in discussions and debates on the future of AI, robotics, machine learning and other space technologies.

jeffbezos
Image Source: geekwire.com

MARS stands for Machine learning, home Automation, Robotics, and Space exploration, and according to an announcement made by the company in January 2019, a similar conference, with the same name will be launched in June, which will be open to the public. The event will be held in Las Vegas between June 4th and 7th.

Bezos is all prepping up for the upcoming event, and like every other year, the event will take place at the Parker Resort in Palm Springs. Reportedly, the place has been decorated with the Blue Origin logos (Bezos’ rocket company) all around. Also, a solar-powered sailing drone, the Saildrone, has also been spotted at the location.

Since the event is an invite-only, not everyone is aware of which type of technologies were launched in past events. Last year, Bezos showcased a SpotMini robot, for which, he had also tweeted, “Taking my new dog for a walk.” And, in 2017, Bezos released a picture where he dressed up in a giant robot suit.

The event hosts famous contributors from various fields of technologies, and last year, the invitees included Mike Massimino (former astronaut), Adam Savage, and Michael J. Fox, etc. This year too we can expect some great personalities from the tech world participating in the event. According to the reports, MARS conference will feature Andrew Ng, Colin Angle, Aicha Evans, Naveen Rao, Robert Downey Jr, etc.

The conference this year may be discussing Amazon’s various AI initiatives and the practical application of machine learning. The hashtag #MARS2019 on Twitter may help you have the glimpse of this year’s MARS event highlights.

Apple Giving 10% Cash Bonus to its Users to Make Purchases for Apple Services

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According to a report from MacRumors, Apple is sending emails to its App Store and iTunes users about the bonus Apple is offering to its users when they add money to their Apple ID account. According to the news, these offers have been made available from 10th March and will be over as soon as 14th March.

apple
Image Source: slashgear.com

The offers will be applied to the direct transactions of money through a credit or debit card while making purchases on iTunes, App Store and iCloud. For now, the users will get a 10 per cent discount on the transactions, and the offer will be valid for only a single purchase per user.

The money can be easily added from the settings of the Apple Account. The users need to go to the Settings, tap on their Account Name, then select the iTunes and App Store option. After that, they can choose the “Add Funds to Apple ID” option from the selected Apple ID. In this option, the various options of amounts to be added will appear on the screen. Here the users need to add the money.

The money can also be added to the Apple Account directly from “Add Funds” options on the iTunes Store or by clicking on the Apple ID on App Store. The offer is also available for Desktop users.

The new bonus offer from Apple is applicable to any purchase amount between the US $1 to the US $200. So the greater the amount, the greater will be the discount.

The offer currently, is not valid for the users in the UK, Australia or Canada. And, for countries like Germany, the discount rate is set to 15 per cent. The money added to the Apple Account is used to purchase paid apps, music on iTunes, and to purchase storage space on iCloud. So when the users will add money to their Apple Accounts in the given dates, they will get 10 per cent extra money to pay for Apple services.

Airbnb Confirms its Plans to Buy Last-minute Hotel Booking App ‘HotelTonight’

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In January, the Wall Street Journal had reported that Airbnb was planning to acquire the hotel-booking application HotelTonight, but the negotiations for the transaction had “gone cold”. But, on Thursday, the company confirmed in a statement, that it is going to acquire the last-minute hotel booking business HotelTonight.

airbnb
Image Source: abc.net

The HotelTonight is a hotel booking app that allows its users to find and book good and affordable hotels even at the last minute. The app is specially designed to help its partners to sell their unsold rooms, and similarly, it is beneficial for the people, too, who are always on the go or for the ones who are in the need of last-minute arrangements.

This acquisition will help the Airbnb users to easily book hotels for their immediate plans, and they will have the freedom to travel without months-long planning. HotelTonight, currently, is operating in America, Europe and Australia. It also offers great discounts to entice more users. The company was recently valued at $463 million in the private market.

After treehouses and the boutique hotels, this is another progressive step for Airbnb towards growth. Last year, with the introduction to boutique hotels, the company claimed to have gained raised profits, and with the success of the boutique hotels, even the company has doubled the number of those hotels.

Airbnb has not disclosed the terms and the sum of the deal. Also, even after the deal, HotelTonight will operate as a separate entity and will work collaboratively with the Airbnb President Greg Greeley.

“We started HotelTonight because we knew people wanted a better way to book an amazing hotel room on-demand, and we are excited to join forces with Airbnb to bring this service to guests around the world,” Sam Shank, co-founder and CEO of HotelTonight said in a statement. “Together, HotelTonight and Airbnb can give guests more choices and the world’s best boutique and independent hotels a genuine partner to connect them with those guests.

Airbnb has been working on expanding its services and acquiring other hotel booking services in order to grow bigger. Also, the start of the year for Airbnb was with the acquisition of Danish startup Guest. A platform which provides the facility to book venues for meetings and other work-related events.

Tesla Launches New V3 Supercharger to Slash the Waiting Time for its Users

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Tesla hosted a customer event at its Fremont, California headquarters on Wednesday evening, where it launched its latest third generation V3 Supercharger charging stations. The new V3 Supercharger is specially designed to reduce the charging time for the electric vehicles and can charge some of the Model 3 at a rate of 250kW, making the vehicle capable of running at a speed 75 miles in 5 minutes of charging.

tesla-supercharger
Image Source: inverse.com

Due to the high demand of the Tesla cars, especially the Model 3, the requirement for the charging station has also increased. Due to the lesser number of charging stations and with lesser power chargers, the waiting time for the vehicles has been the biggest concern for the Tesla owners.

The company is also going to the update the battery system for its vehicle, such that the battery will be able to warm up before charging, such that the battery will be charged at its peak point for the maximum time, in order to slash the wait time.

The new V3 Supercharger is a completely different device from its predecessor and includes a 1 MW power cabinet and a liquid-cooled cable design. According to Tesla, after charging a vehicle for an hour, the vehicle can run to up to 1,000 miles.

The new V3 Supercharger has also been improved at the charging rates for Model S and Model vehicles, and it takes 50 per cent lesser time to charge the mentioned vehicles.

For now, the first few V3 Superchargers have been installed in Fremont available to members of Tesla’s “early access program”. These are few of the Tesla car owners who are allowed to participate in the testing of the latest software and hardware updates from the company.

For the other users, the V3 Superchargers will be available only in April, and according to Tesla, by the end of this year, the Supercharger network will be capable of serving more than twice the vehicles, it currently provides services to, per day.

Nintendo Announces a Labo Cardboard VR Kit for the Switch

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It was in 2014 when Google demonstrate a cardboard virtual reality. Last year in April, Nintendo introduced a gaming and construction toy platform, including kits with cardboard cut-outs and other materials, that are used to create different toy-con DIY projects.

Nintendo Labo VRKit
Image Source: uploadvr.com

Now, Nintendo Labo has stepped a bit forward and has announced the latest Labo VR Kit for the Switch. The new Labo VR Kit transforms the Nintendo Switch into a VR Kit and puts the system a few inches from your face. The kit is available in various options, and when assembled.

The cost of the main Labo VR Kit is $79.99 and offers six different toy-con designs. The six toy-con includes a pair of VR goggles, a blaster, a camera, an elephant, a bird and a wind pedal. The kit also comprises a screen holder and a safety cap. The Labo VR Kit also incorporates the Labo software, step-by-step instructions, and the “garage” mode for building your own Labo creations.

The users who already own a Labo VR Kit can use the Toy-Con Garage with the Nintendo Labo Kit and experiment with their Labo Kit.

Although the $79.99 is a complete kit, the company is also offering cheaper kits with lesser toy-con sets. You can also buy a $39.99 starter kit that includes the goggles and blaster. The other kits for the same price are the pairs of the elephant and the camera, and the wind pedal and the bird. You can also purchase additional project kits as well. Even you can get the elephant for $20, later.

Nintendo Labo works towards teaching engineering and basic programming to its users, so the Labo Kits for VR are just to promote creativity. These are the fun games that are nowhere close to the high definition games. The Labo VR games can be played without mounting the Switch to your face or even without using the Nintendo Switch.

The kit is a way to “introduce virtual reality in a way that’s fun and approachable for both kids and kids at heart,” said Doug Bowser, the incoming President of Nintendo America.

The new Labo VR Kit is considered as the unique first Virtual Reality experience. The kit will be available in the market from 12 April this year.