Laceli AI compute stick, Parris, automated ML training tool, EZPOS ICO and Ripple’s effect on Ethereum in today’s top stories around machine learning, blockchain and data science news.
The new USB stick race is on!
Gryfaclon launches Laceli™ AI compute stick to counter Intel Movidius’s Neural Compute Stick
Gyrfalcon Technology Inc, a Silicon Valley AI chip startup, has launched its Laceli™ AI Compute Stick after Intel Movidius announced its deep learning Neural Compute Stick in July, 2017.
The Laceli™ AI Compute Stick, built on top of Lightspeeur® 2801S, Gyrfalcon’s ultra-low power high performance AI processor, runs a 2.8 TOPS performance within 0.3 Watt of power. This is 90 times more efficient than the Movidius USB Stick, claims the company. Lightspeeur® is based on Gyrfalcon Technology Inc’s APiM architecture, which uses memory as the AI processing unit.
The standard USB 3.0 Stick can be connected to a range of devices from desktops to mobile devices, and can enhance their image-based deep learning capabilities to unprecedented levels without the need to connect to a cloud based system.
With Caffe and TensorFlow support, the Stick enables various application development backgrounds. It can be used in many smart applications such as image and video recognition, natural speech understanding, natural language processing, and day-to-day AI applications.
Expect to see the Laceli™ AI Compute Stick in January 2018 at CES 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada where there showcase it to the public for the first time.
Automated machine learning advances in news
Introducing Parris: a new automated training tool for machine learning algorithms
Parris is a free and open source tool that attempts to provide a one-stop training solution for building machine learning algorithms.
It makes no assumptions about the environment that you run, except that it can be installed programmatically on the launch of a server. You choose the environment into which your training algorithm will run, and this presumes that your chosen environment is available with that service.
However, since Parris is an independently developed tool and just launched, it is missing many of the nice features that other training tools such as FloydHub offer. Features such as version control, having a proper CLI utility, and graphing capabilities, are currently not on the roadmap for Parris.
You can check out the tool on GitHub here.
On blockchains and cryptocurrencies
EZPOS ICO released today; its cryptocurrency EZT uses crowdsale of tokens as rewards for customer loyalty
EZPOS Holding Singapore, a cloud-based point-of-sale systems provider, today began an initial coin offering crowdsale of tokens for a product designed to help merchants maintain the loyalty of customers.
The EZPOS platform uses a blockchain that makes its system difficult to tamper with and also provides value to its tokens. Using a digital currency, called EZTokens or EZT, merchants using EZPOS’ point-of-sale network can assign, distribute and track loyalty points “Owned” by customers.
A customer with a history of purchasing a particular brand will receive loyalty points that can then be exchanged for a discount on that brand in the future. Every time the customer buys a product from that brand and points are generated, the EZPOS blockchain would build up a historical record that could be plumbed later by marketers and brand advocates.
EZPOS is the newest addition to a growing like of companies looking into using loyalty systems and tokens to keep customers coming back to their stores.
Should Ethereum better watch its back? Ripple seems all set to put up a fight for the second spot in the cryptocurrency hierarchy
Ripple, aka XRP, a cryptocurrency established by Ripple Labs Inc., surpassed Ethereum in trading New Year’s Eve to become the second-largest token behind bitcoin by market capitalization.
Ripple Labs was founded in 2012 with XRP being released in August 2013 as a cryptocurrency that could be used to facilitate global interbank transfers as an alternative to the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) network.
Unlike many new coins and tokens entering the market during a surge of initial coin offering, XRP actually had a provable business case and an established company behind it.
“Ripple does away with the idea of XRP as any kind of investment asset and instead focuses on making the blockchain as strong as possible for the good of the institutional entities that Ripple serves, like American Express or Santander Bank,” the site noted.
Because XRP is not on an open blockchain, it sits on a set allocation as determined by Ripple Labs, so far 100 billion XRP. And the company itself holds the majority of the coins.