Skip to content

Featured

Transformers in Auto: Who Does it, Who Needs it?

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
Tech companies are promoting myriad claims that they have solutions to process transformer algorithms better than others. The benchmarking of transformer engines is not yet available.

The burgeoning trend toward generative AI has flipped the whole AI world on its head, or so it seems.

Large Language Models (LLMs), as seen in ChatGPT, are mostly limited to language modeling and text generation. But transformers – an overarching deep-learning architecture that underlines LLMs and other generative AI applications – offers a model useful in data streams ranging from text, speech and image to 3D and video, or any sensory data. 

Read More »Transformers in Auto: Who Does it, Who Needs it?
Over stuffed baggage

Handling the Baggage of Edge AI

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
Everyone loves talking about Edge AI, but without mentioning the persistent gap between the AI and embedded worlds. Edge AI designers are caught in a never-ending cycle of ‘optimization’, pressed to fit neural network models and achieve acceptable accuracy on their hardware. They are desperate for tools to lighten their load. At stake is the scaling of edge AI deployment.

Edge AI today stands at “this uncomfortable junction,” said Evan Petridis, CEO at Eta Compute, in a recent interview with the Ojo-Yoshida Report. Edge AI straddles two domains – machine learning (ML) and embedded. These two distinctly different fields share neither the same language nor design philosophies.

Read More »Handling the Baggage of Edge AI
Multitasking secretary

Where Have All the Secretaries Gone?

By David Benjamin

What’s at stake:
Digital tools are wonderful things. They can do miracles — awesome things that ordinary humans cannot do. And yet, we all need to be reminded that the tool suffers as many limitations as the humans who wield it.

In this and other tech publications, I’ve learned that lidar is a sort of sensor that has advanced the promise of autonomous driving, because it can help read a vehicle’s surroundings and guide its safe passage down the road, past hail and sleet and leaping herds of deer.

The potential of lidars and radars and their bond with artificial intelligence, machine learning and other miracles of the digital revolution is intriguing. But it also stirs my reserves of skepticism. Since seeing my first Vegematic commercial on late-night Channel 8, I’ve been guided by the principle that no labor-saving device has ever lived up to its promos.

Read More »Where Have All the Secretaries Gone?
The V-model from ISO 26262, Road vehicles — Functional safety

Is ISO’s New AI Functional Safety Standard Road-Ready? Hardly.

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
The conventional narrative is that artificial intelligence (AI) can transform safety, as a tool that can be used to detect anomalies and identify workplace hazards. Still unknown, however, is the functional safety of AI hardware and software. A group of engineers who delievered ISO 26262 is taking on the challenge.

AI is already being applied to safety-critical applications, such as autonomous vehicles or highly automated advanced driver assistance systems. So, how can designers of AI-driven E/E systems and developers of AI components validate their new designs as functionally safe – before AI-driven cars hit the road for millions, or billions, of test miles?

Read More »Is ISO’s New AI Functional Safety Standard Road-Ready? Hardly.

Intel Drops Tower Deal as China Withholds Approval

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake:
Intel’s goal for itself in the foundry business has suffered a setback with China’s rejection of the Tower Semiconductor acquisition. It is a deep wound that should have been anticipated. Now that the inevitable has happened, the question arises: what was Intel’s fallback plan for gaining the edge it had sought from the Tower offer?

Intel Corp. says its acquisition plans for Tower Semiconductor have been cancelled.

Read More »Intel Drops Tower Deal as China Withholds Approval
Cruise robotaxi crashes into San Francisco Muni Bus

CPUC Votes: Lobbyists 1, Firefighters, Cops & Engineers 0

What’s at stake: 
Technology innovations should be welcomed by all. But every new development requires rigorous engineering based on sufficient data. We now face a future arranged by corporate lobbyists and compliant regulators — captivated by the latest miracle machine — with little regard to safety, to which the machine’s ensabler will pay mere lip service ’til catastrophe strikes.  

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC)’s 3-1 vote last night has given official approval to a plan proposed by Waymo and Cruise to expand their commercial robotaxi business 24 hours a day, to all parts of San Francisco — without restriction or regulation.

This win is huge for the autonomous vehicle companies, and those who own them – Alphabet and General Motors.

Read More »CPUC Votes: Lobbyists 1, Firefighters, Cops & Engineers 0

Europe’s RISC-V JV: The Anti-Monopoly Gang

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
Automotive chip suppliers and carmakers are betting their future on RISC-V to unshackle themselves from Arm’s roadmap. This might work, it might not. At stake is the future of the IP house, which persists in its delusion that the momentum behind RISC-V does not matter.

To me, it seems clear that the recently announced formation of an equally-shared RISC-V joint venture in Germany – among Bosch, Infineon, NXP, Nordic and Qualcomm – will prove a significant force in the way the electronics industry does business, despite some skepticism in the industry.

Doubters call this a “more of the same” European project, especially in automotive, in which Bosch often takes charge. collaborates with others, to deveop certain technologies.

Others wonder how long it will be before the JV’s RISC-V cores can be designed into commercial products and make a difference on the market. One analyst quipped: “If I am a manager at Arm looking after the partnerships, I won’t be losing my sleep over this.”

Read More »Europe’s RISC-V JV: The Anti-Monopoly Gang