Monday, June 19, 2017

Up from the archives to read again...


China's app companies

Discussion in 'Main Forum' started by jfiebMar 28, 2017.
  1. jfieb

    jfiebWell-Known Member



    I want to learn some stuff on this. Can be skipped for now as it has NO ties to QUIK at this time beyond its
    an adjacent possibility.

    Why?

    US App companies ( numerous) are speaking to QUIK on Voice UX, and some on wearables.
    China should be NO different should they?

    Tencent increases its focus on artificial intelligence



    When it comes to artificial intelligence (AI) and Chinese tech companies, thoughts often begin and end with Baidu. But Tencent, Asia’s second highest-valued tech company behind Alibaba, has reminded the world that it too is investing in the field.

    Search giant Baidu was one of the first to make a major commitment to deep learning. It spent over $2.9 billion on R&D over a 2.5 year period, according to Bloomberg, and currently has more than 1,300 specialists working on a variety of technologies that include AI and augmented reality. Baidu, however, suffered a blow when its chief scientist Andrew Ng, who heads up its U.S.-based research team, announced his departure last week.

    There’s one more exit to add to that list after Tencent announced today that it poached machine learning researcher Tong Zhang, who heads up Baidu’s Big Data Lab, to lead its own AI Lab. The Shenzhen-based lab is focused on computer vision, speech recognition, and natural language processing.


    QUIK, can you get someone over to talk to Tencent in Shenshen? ALready have...thanks 


    Tencent, best known for WeChat, China’s top messaging app, announced the lab last April. It said today that it has 50 AI specialists housed there. Aside from that development facility, Zhang — who received a PhD in Computer Science from Stanford and has worked at IBM and Yahoo — will lead a team of 200 product engineers that’s tasked with converting AI advances into tangible features and updates for Tencent’s apps and services.

    “Tencent is looking at four areas for AI application: content, social, online games and cloud services. At present, over a hundred Tencent products, including Weixin/WeChat, QQ and Tian Tian Kuai Bao, a Tencent news app, use AI technology,” the company added.

    That’s a similar goal to Baidu, which got serious on deep learning when it hired Ng, a co-founder of online learning startup Coursera, in 2014.


    A world-renowned AI expert, Ng previously made his name when it helped found Google’s deep learning team, Google Brain. Ng said in his departure note that Baidu’s AI efforts had been felt across its “existing businesses in search, advertising, maps, take-out delivery, voice search, security, consumer finance and many more” areas.

    “The team is stacked up and down with talent; I am confident AI at Baidu will continue to flourish,” he added.


    For now, Tencent is talking up its AI prowess in the field of Go, the strategic game that Google made its mark on when its AI (AlphaGo) triumphed over world champion Lee Seedol last year.

    Tencent said its ‘Fine Art’ AI, which was developed by 13 Tencent engineers, defeated high-ranking Japanese Go player Ryo Ichiriki last week. All in all, the firm said the AI has taken on 100 “renowned human players,” winning 406 of over 500 rounds that it has competed in.

    WHy not a Tencent Wechat wearable, or VR, or other stuff. An always listening rice cooker? More useful than Echo?  :)

    Will track along.

    This snip on their research lab...

    The Shenzhen-based lab is focused on computer vision, speech recognition, and natural language processing.

    Get a China speech IP...( like CyWee ) partner QUIK.

    THanks in advance.

  2. jfieb

    jfiebWell-Known Member



    China’s Q&A voice app Fenda lands millions of dollars funding from Tencent and others
    By Ke Jin -
    November 24, 2016
    219


    Q&A voice app Fenda announced on Thursday that it has secured its Series A+ round of financing from tech giant Tencent. This financing comes after Fenda secured its Series A financing this June from Sequoia Capital China and Vision Capital.

    According to Fenda, the new financing will be used in upgrading product and user experiences, and cultivating web celebs in knowledge-sharing and marketing.

    Up until now, Fenda has secured a total of over RMB 200 million (USD 29 million) in financing.

    “When we founded this company a year ago, we believed that the age of knowledge-sharing was coming, and that knowledge can also be priced and traded,” said Ji Xiaohua, founder of Fenda. He said that in the future we can expect there will be a large number of web celebs who turn what they know into cash, and distribute their knowledge according to the dynamic needs of the public.

    Before establishing Fenda, which in Chinese literally means “one-minute answer”, Ji also founded Guokr.com in 2010 and Zaihang in 2015: while the former is China’s leading online community for science and technology education, the latter offers one-on-one mentoring sessions, with mentors and mentees meeting offline for talks.

    “Tencent believes in the potential of knowledge-sharing,” said Xia Yao, the Executive Director at Tencent Investment. “By investing in Fenda, the ecology of Tencent can improve further.”

    Fenda now has more than 10 million users. Among these, over one million are paying users, and over 500,000 are experts in their own field who get paid for answering questions.

    Its an APP, it voice focused, it got Tencent $$

    “By investing in Fenda, the ecology of Tencent can improve further.”


    Voice UX should be BIGGER/ faster in China than here....


    Again this is digressive work, NO known anything of meaning to QUIK.

    Just adjacent possible for a very good LPSD MCU combo.

    In the cloud FPGA = Inference ( 90% of AI?)

    IF eFPGA on the edge = local intelligence?

    The metric of valuation? Very high, very wild. Note: this is unknown at this time, whether it happens this way, but it is NOT priced in for even 10 cents, tencents..........will track along.
    Last edited: Mar 28, 2017
  3. jfieb

    jfiebWell-Known Member



    The web firm Tencent (TCEHY, +0.17%) has become the most valuable company in Asia, and one of the top 10 in the world by market capitalization.

    It wasn't so long ago that Tencent was racing neck-and-neck with Samsung — their share prices were both up by a third on the year — to overtake state-owned China Mobile and steal the title of the most valuable company in Asia.

    Samsung has flagged over the last few days, however, after it had to issue a recall for its flagship Note 7 handset because of reports about battery fires. But stock in Tencent has continued to surge, rising 3.8% in Hong Kong on Monday. That took it to a valuation of HK$1.976 trillion ($255 billion).

    Get Data Sheet, Fortun
  4. jfieb

    jfiebWell-Known Member



    Baidu is acquiring xPerception, a U.S. startup focused on computer vision
    Posted 1 hour ago by John Mannes (@JohnMannes)


    Baidu is acquiring xPerception, a US startup specialized in computer vision, according to Reuters. Details are sparse, but we know the startup has its own module for object recognition and depth perception that can be deployed on robots and drones.

    The Chinese tech giant has been active in machine intelligence M&A this year. Back in February it acquired Raven Tech, a Chinese startup developing its own voice assistant. This new acquisition is notable because it involves a US startup. It could also hold the key to Baidu’s future autonomous driving and augmented reality efforts.

    xPerception was founded by Dr. Bao Yingze and Dr. Chen Mingyu, two early Magic Leap engineers. The team is expected to continue its work under the wings of Baidu.

    In March, Andrew Ng, Baidu’s chief scientist, left the company to the detriment of its internal machine intelligence efforts. Baidu faces additional barriers that its contemporaries like Google don’t have to face for research and development.


    While the AI talent race plays out on a global scale for all companies, its epicenter rests in the United States. xPerception is another US anchor for the company that has been pouring resources into its Silicon Valley AI Lab.

    We reached out to the team over at xPerception and will let you know if we hear any additional context.

  5. jfieb

    jfiebWell-Known Member



    I want to reread this today along with a few other items.....


    Jun 19, 2017
    Previous Release
    PDF
    Add to Briefcase
    QuickLogic Establishes Wholly Foreign Owned Enterprise in China
    Investment Demonstrates Commitment to the China Mobile Market


    SUNNYVALE, Calif., June 19, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- QuickLogic Corporation (NASDAQ:QUIK), an innovator and developer of ultra-low power programmable sensor processing solutions, display bridges, FPGAs, and embedded FPGA (eFPGA) IP, established a Wholly Foreign Owned Enterprise (WFOE) in Shanghai, China to accelerate the company's expansion in China and other Asian markets. This complements the company's existing research and development and support center in India and the recently established eFPGA IP support center in Taiwan.

    "By using the WFOE structure for our new Chinese venture we are able to maintain 100% control and ownership of the new enterprise, and through that, optimize the focus on our goals and protection of our IP," said Brian Faith, president and CEO of QuickLogic Corporation. "With eight of the top ten smartphone companies and a rapidly expanding market for wearable and voice-enabled IoT products, China represents a huge opportunity for QuickLogic. We believe that having a WFOE in Shanghai will enable us to address these opportunities more effectively and accelerate our numerous EOSTM S3 and eFPGA engagements with major Chinese OEMs."


    For a tiny company I have always appreciated their global footprint....more so ALL the time. We have DAC this wk and next BF and SC are in Shanghai.....the adjacent possible for QUIK IS in China and now they can be in that coral reef, in that coffee shop, and listen as well as they talk

    the "technological collateral" they get will help form their road map that will be spot on....
  6. jfieb

    jfiebWell-Known Member







    One conclusion from the material here....

    There is very real reason to expect voice to be BIG sooner than even here?
    DOnt forget the Barge in they have added...Rick said it...China is NOISY ?

  7. jfieb

    jfiebWell-Known Member



    Up from the archives...

    here’s one more exit to add to that list after Tencent announced today that it poached machine learning researcher Tong Zhang, who heads up Baidu’s Big Data Lab, to lead its own AI Lab. The Shenzhen-based lab is focused on computer vision, speech recognition, and natural language processing.


    QUIK, can you get someone over to talk to Tencent in Shenzhen? ALready have...thanks



    Good allocation of finite $$...especially as the Barge in feature is being trialed there..

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