Keith Kirkpatrick

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly entering a new phase within enterprises. An increasing number of enterprises are transforming trial AI programs into full-blown, enterprise-wide deployments. This trend is largely based on the early successes of pilot programs, as well as the continuing advancements in AI hardware, software, and services.
A key reason why enterprises are embracing AI is companies have realized that the massive amount of process, operational, and transactional data they ...

Quantum computing (QC) can best be defined as the use of the attributes and principles of quantum mechanics to perform calculations and solve problems. Quantum computers are designed to utilize quantum bits (qubits), which are subatomic particles such as electrons and photons, to represent data. When these qubits are combined, or entangled, they can exist in multiple states (known as superposition). The result is that multiple calculations can be carried out at once, as each qubit can represe...

A digital twin is a digital representation that provides the elements and dynamics of how a device or ecosystem operates and lives throughout its life cycle. Digital twins are useful for simulating the capabilities of machine tools in a safe and cost-effective way, as well as identifying the root causes of problems occurring in physical tools or infrastructure. If a physical machine tool breaks down or malfunctions, engineers can evaluate the digital traces of the digital twins’ virtual machi...

One of the key challenges faced by multinational corporations and governments is ensuring the secure transmission of data across the internet. Despite the use of data encryption protocols, there are still security risks associated with sending sensitive data between parties. Malevolent operators may be able to crack mathematical security protocols or acts of sabotage or carelessness may expose cryptographic keys inadvertently, allowing other parties to eavesdrop or intercept a message without...

One of the major challenges in the healthcare field is being able to accurately assess the overall health of a patient. Most people see a number of different healthcare providers. Even though electronic medical records (EMRs) have taken hold (EMR penetration in office-based settings in the U.S. is at about 86%, according to 2017 data from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology), there is relatively little information sharing between practices unless records a...

Despite the significant progress being made with autonomous vehicles, it will be at least a decade before driverless passenger cars are produced in large volumes, and likely decades before traditional cars disappear from the roads. That is why automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), suppliers, and technology vendors are focused on the development and deployment of in-car AI technology, which provides drivers with a safe and intuitive way to interact with the vehicle’s operational ...

Over the next several decades, autonomous vehicles (AVs) are likely to be a common sight on roadways both in the United States and around the world. But ensuring that these vehicles can safely operate without driver intervention on the various types of highways, streets, and roads, while simultaneously managing traffic, other vehicles, and changing weather conditions, requires significant testing to feed data into the driving algorithms.
A 2016 Rand Corporation study estimated that AVs would ...

The healthcare industry has traditionally been an early adopter of new technology, particularly tools and techniques that can make healthcare delivery safer, more effective, and more efficient. Nonetheless, the speed of that adoption is often curtailed by regulators, which are charged with ensuring that not only are new technologies safe to use, but also offer improvements in efficacy, speed, or accuracy. Moreover, in recent years, regulators also have focused on ensuring that any new device,...

What if your car’s navigation system could simultaneously calculate all of the possible routes from New York City, to Washington, D.C., and account for weather conditions, current and future traffic conditions, road construction, and even traffic signals, providing you with the optimal route in real time? How about an algorithm that would automatically mine through possible compounds to find the most stable one on which to develop a new, life-saving drug? Or how about a wedding planning appli...

Communications of the ACM, Vol. 61 No. 6, Pages 15-17
10.1145/3204449
Comments
Sensor technology is designed to allow machines to interact with real-world inputs, whether they are humans interacting with their smartphones, autonomous vehicles navigating on a busy street, or robots using sensors to aid in manufacturing. Not surprisingly, three-dimensional (3D) sensors, which allow a machine to understand the size, shape, and distance of an object or objects within its field of view, have attra...

Since the beginning of time, humans have tried to accurately forecast the weather, using historical data and patterns to infer what might occur in the future. While the most obvious consumer benefit of simply enhancing convenience (e.g., helping to schedule a vacation so it does not coincide with bad weather or ensuring that the Little League game is not scheduled for a rainy day), even slight improvements in predicting the weather could yield significant gains for businesses, government agen...

Enterprises are clearly recognizing the value associated with incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) into their business processes. The number of proof-of-concept and pilot programs continues to grow, and larger scale commercial deployments of AI technology are being publicized by enterprise organizations around the globe. Indeed, much of the success of AI is due the fact that most tasks currently delegated to AI technology are data-driven and therefore easily measured or benchmarked. Whe...

While there has been an outsized amount of hype around self-driving cars over the past few years, regulatory and technological challenges likely will delay their introduction until at least the early part of the next decade. In fact, it is more likely that types of autonomous vehicles that can be operated within an enclosed setting, such as vehicles used on construction sites, will gain traction before self-driving cars do.
San Francisco-based Built Robotics is taking the lessons learned from...