Category: Tech news

Properly equipped Tesla vehicles can now recognize and respond to traffic lights and stop signs thanks to a software update the company started pushing out to owners over the weekend.

The software update had been available to a sliver of Tesla owners, some of whom had posted videos of the new capability. Now, the automaker is pushing the software update (2020.12.6) to the broader fleet.

The feature isn’t available in every Tesla vehicle on the road today. The vehicles must be equipped with the most recent Hardware 3 package and the fully optioned Autopilot package that the company has marketed as “full self-driving.”

The feature, called Traffic Light and Stop Sign Control, is designed to allow the vehicles to recognize and respond to traffic lights and stop signs.

To be clear, Tesla vehicles are not self-driving and this feature has its limits. The feature slows properly equipped Tesla vehicles to a stop when using “traffic-aware cruise control” or “Autosteer.” The vehicle will slow for all detected traffic lights, including green, blinking yellow and off lights, according to the software release notes.

As the vehicle approaches an intersection, a notification will indicate the intention to slow down. The vehicle will then begin to slow down and stop at the red line shown on the driving visualization, which is on the center display.

DragTimes tested and shared a video of a beta version of the feature (posted below).

Owners must pull the Autopilot stalk once or manually press the accelerator pedal to continue through the stop line. Tesla said the feature is designed to be conservative at first. Owners will notice that it will slow down often and will not attempt to turn through intersections. “Over time, as we learn from the fleet, the feature will control more naturally,” the company wrote in the release notes.

Tesla warns in the release notes that “as with all Autopilot features, you must continue to pay attention and be ready to take immediate action, including braking because this feature may not stop for all traffic controls.”

The software update also improved driving visualization, which is displayed in the vehicle. Additional objects such as stop lights, stop signs and select road markings now appear on the screen. The stop sign and stop light visualizations are not a substitute for an attentive driver and will not stop the car, Tesla said in the release notes.

We weren’t alone in being impressed by Motiv. The startup helped flip the script on wearables by essentially cramming a fitness tracker’s worth of technology into a ring. This week, San Francisco “digital identity” startup Proxy announced that it’s acquiring the company.

The company’s site is littered in buzzwords, but Proxy specializes in digital key cards — essentially providing a way to use digital devices like smartphones to access businesses and homes. An odd fit for a company that makes exercise rings, until you look at what Motiv’s been up to in recent years.

Among the additions to the tiny hardware platform are NFC payments, lost phone tracking and two-factor device authentication through gait monitoring. Whether or not Proxy ultimately has interest in manufacturing and selling a fitness ring, there’s plenty of underlying technology here that would be of interest to a digital identity company.

“The demand for our technology is only going to increase and we saw a clear path forward in the importance of validating one’s identity in both the physical and digital worlds,” Motiv said in a blog post. “Keys, access cards and passwords are rapidly being replaced with a biometric identity which provides greatly improved security and convenience.”

While the app will continue to be available for download (no word on how long it will continue to offer support), the deal marks the end of Motiv’s online sales, while partner retailers will burn through the rest of their stock.

Proxy, on the other hand, says it’s committed to the ring as the future of the wearables category. “With this acquisition, Proxy plans to bring digital identity signals to smart rings for the first time and revolutionize the way people use technology to interact with the world around them,” the company writes. “We believe it’s possible to ignite a paradigm shift in how people use wearables to interface with the physical world, so they can do and experience things they never have before.”

While compelling, the fitness ring hasn’t exactly taken the wearable category by storm in the past three years, as the space continues to be almost exclusively dominated by smartwatches and headphones. For those who still believe in the form factor, Motiv has had some competition recently from companies like Oura, a ring largely built around sleep tracking. 

MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) has released a video of their ongoing work using input from muscle signals to control devices. Their latest involves full and fine control of drones, using just hand and arm gestures to navigate through a series of rings. This work is impressive not just because they’re using biofeedback to control the devices, instead of optical or other kinds of gesture recognition, but also because of how specific the controls can be, setting up a range of different potential applications for this kind of remote tech.

This particular group of researchers has been looking at different applications for this tech, including its use in collaborative robotics for potential industrial applications. Drone piloting is another area that could have big benefits in terms of real-world use, especially once you start to imagine entire flocks of these taking flight with a pilot provided a view of what they can see via VR. That could be a great way to do site surveying for construction, for example, or remote equipment inspection of offshore platforms and other infrastructure that’s hard for people to reach.

Seamless robotic/human interaction is the ultimate goal of the team working on this tech, because just like how we intuit our own movements and ability to manipulate our environment most effectively, they believe the process should be as smooth when controlling and working with robots. Thinking and doing are essentially happening in parallel when we interact with our environment, but when we act through the extension of machines or remote tools, there’s often something lost in translation that results in a steep learning curve and the requirement of lots of training.

Cobotics, or the industry that focuses on building robots that can safely work alongside and in close collaboration with robots, would benefit greatly from advances that make the interaction between people and robotic equipment more natural, instinctive and, ultimately, safe. MIT’s research in this area could result in future industrial robotics products that require less training and programming to operate at scale.

Amazon is piloting a new system aimed at validating the identify of third-party sellers over video conferencing, the company announced on Sunday. The technology is a part of a series of seller-verification processes that Amazon uses to combat fraud on its platform, which the company claims stopped 2.5 million suspected bad actors from publishing their products to Amazon in 2019.

Earlier this year, Amazon began testing a process where seller verifications were handled in person. But due to the coronavirus outbreak and social distancing requirements, the company says it pivoted to live video conferencing in February.

The pilot program is now running in a number of markets, including the U.S., U.K., China and Japan. To date, more than 1,000 sellers have attempted to register an account through the pilot experience, Amazon says.

To vet the sellers, Amazon’s team sets up a video call, then checks that the individual’s ID matches the person and the documents they shared with their application. The Amazon associates also lean on third-party data sources for additional verification. In addition, the call may be used to provide the seller with information about problems with their registration and how to resolve them.

“Amazon is always innovating to improve the seller experience so honest entrepreneurs can seamlessly open a selling account and start a business, while also proactively blocking bad actors,” an Amazon spokesperson said about the new initiative. “As we practice social distancing, we are testing a process that allows us to validate prospective sellers’ identification via video conferencing. This pilot allows us to connect one-on-one with prospective sellers while making it even more difficult for fraudsters to hide,” they said.

In addition to video conferencing, Amazon also uses a proprietary machine learning system to vet sellers before they’re allowed online, it says. This system analyzes hundreds of different data point to identify potential risk, including verifying whether the account is related to another account that was previously removed from the marketplace, for example. The sellers’ applications are also reviewed by trained investigators before being approved.

Seller verification is only one way Amazon has taken on fraud, however.

The issue continues to be a serious problem across online marketplaces, where sellers hawk counterfeit items and scam consumers. Some retailers, including Nike and Birkenstock, have found the hassles aren’t worth the risk of dealing with Amazon, as a result.

While the retailer has long been accused of avoiding issues around fraud, it’s more recently pledged to spend billions to address the problem and has inserted itself into legal battles with fraudulent sellers and counterfeiters in recent years.

For example, it filed three lawsuits in 2018 in partnership with fashion designer Vera Bradley and mobile accessories maker Otterbox over counterfeits. It has also sued sellers buying fake reviews and others involved in the fake review industry. 

Last year, Amazon announced an initiative called Project Zero, which introduced a range of tools for brands to use to help Amazon fight fraud. The brands can opt to provide Amazon with their logos, trademarks and other key data, allowing the retailer to scan its billions of product listings to find suspected counterfeits more proactively.

Another tool, serialization, allows brands to include a unique code on their products during manufacturing, which can later be scanned to verify that a purchase is authentic. This tool, now known as Transparency, expanded to other markets last summer, including Europe, Canada and India.

But unlike these earlier efforts, seller verification aims to cut down on products being listed in the first place –not just removed once listings go live or stopping fraudulent products from being shipped to customers.

 

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