Life 2.0 for François Piednoël

Discussion in 'Main Forum' started by jfieb, A moment ago.

Thread Tools

Unwatch Thread

1. 

   jfiebWell-Known Member

   
   

   Digressive and can be skipped, but I want to track it along. What a life, career, and he has something he wants to do,...he has done more than his share?
   
   
   
   Intel principal engineer François Piednoël quits after 20 years
   Written by Gareth Halfacree
   
   July 24, 2017 // 11:27 a.m.
   
   Tags: #amd #atom #conroe #engineer #francois-piednoel #hedt #intel #kaby-lake #katmai#nehalem#penryn #principal-engineer #sandy-bridge #skulltrail #skylake #skylake-x
   
   
   
   
   Intel principal engineer François Piednoël, best known for his work as the architect behind the dual-processor high-end desktop (HEDT) Skulltrail platform, has announced he has quit the company after 20 years.
   
   Following a military career spanning 26 years - about which he says 'don't ask, can't tell - François Piednoël was snapped up by Intel in December 1997 to act as its principal engineer. In that role, Piednoël fathered the company's first dual-processor high-end desktop (HEDT) platform, Skulltrail, launched the Extreme Edition brand, optimised performance on the Pentium 4, and aided engineering of the Katmai, Conroe, Penryn and Nehalem central processing unit (CPU) and Sandy Bridge to Skylake, Kaby Lake, Skylake-X, and Atom system-on-chip (SoC) product families.
   
   
   
   Just wow!
   
   In short, and unsurprising for the company's principal engineer, Piednoël has had his fingers in most of Intel's pies for the past two decades. Now, though, he's off to pastures new - and it looks like the news may have come as a surprise to Intel.
   
   'This morning, I am informed [sic] my management that I do not wish to continue my employment at Intel,' Piednoël announced via social networking service Twitter late last week. 'New adventures coming, very exciting!' When asked whether these adventures would take place at Intel's longstanding rival AMD, Piednoël replied: 'NEVER! Because my knowledge about Intel is too deep, I would get lawyers knocking on my door next day. And I have worked on PC and CPU platforms for 20 years, it is time to do something different.'
   
   Exactly what that 'something different' might be is not yet clear: Piednoël's LinkedIn profile still has him listed as principal engineer at Intel. Intel itself, meanwhile, appears to have been taken by surprise: The company has not made an announcement regarding Piednoël's departure and declined to comment when approached prior to the publication of this article.

The video is only 10 min....worth the time


https://www.mobileworldlive.com/mwc...the-human-element-sanjay-jha-globalfoundries/

it fits with the host/client concept Rick N speaks of. China...not made in China anymore, but "innovated" in China.
an ecosystem....5G is as important as voice has been..

intelligence----low power, 22FDX= client intelligence, host intelligence=finfet, memory bus bandwidth really good with 22FDX....all technology needed at Global Fo.

PS.add in Dr Saxe talk here....the cost of 15k gates of eFGPA drops...paraphrasing say .10 at 60nm down to .02 cents at 22. I have read enough that I sort of understand why Dr. Saxe said,
22FDX is going to be a very good node. So its good we have interest at 60 and 55 nm, somebody is willing to pay .10 to get the flexibility? Something like that.

doing my part against

Info asymmetry...so much capability.

Rokid, the assistant that can see, hear and sing raises $50M at $450M valuation
Posted Nov 1, 2016 by John Mannes (@JohnMannes)



Meet Melody. Despite looking like a giant egg with a TV for a heart, she actually may be the first thing to put a smile on your face this morning. She can recognize you, listen to you, and even sing for you — all the while being a hub for home IoT.

The whole package may seem a bit corny, albeit in a cute candy corn kinda way, but for investors in Rokid, Melody’s maker, the device is anything but a joke. Advantech, a Chinese investment firm, just led a $50 million dollar round in Rokid at a $450 million valuation alongside existing investors, IDG Capital Partners and Walden International.

Tami Zhu, General Manager of Rokid, explained in a conversation that much of the company’s seemingly high value rests in its large intellectual property portfolio. Rokid’s 90 person team consists of 15 PhDs and 21 masters holders working on problems like natural language processing and computer vision. Comparatively in the States we have PhD-heavy companies like Semantic Machines that have raised relatively modest sums of money to tackle difficult AI problems, but we also have Magic Leap’s $542 million Series B — so it’s probably premature to make any concrete judgements.


The roughly 100 person Rokid team poses for a company picture.

One of the defining philosophies behind Rokid is that the future of human computer interaction will be multimodal, explains Zhu. Rokid has been built from the ground up to recognize specific faces and unique voices. As a hub for the internet of things in the home, not having to specify “John’s Spotify” when asking for music to be played is convenient, and in some cases incredibly pragmatic if you, like me, live in a home where multiple people share the same name.

To enable Melody to interact in both English and Mandarin, researchers had to painstakingly record the speaking patterns of people in both languages before generalizing the sounds with post-processing. The end result is that Melody can say words she was never taught by patching together composite sounds.


Aside from the software, the most striking feature of Rokid is the large, brightly colored, display on the front of the device. It is actually made possible by an internal DLP projector that shows relevant content like album art, weather, and time. Rokid also comes with a companion app for mobile that lets users remotely interact with the device with their phone.

Unfortunately today you will struggle to get your hands on Rokid. The device is only available in China — and even if you happen to find yourself there, you’ll still be looking at an $800 tab for the features.

Realistically, $800 is a crazy sum to pay for a product that, while more advanced than Echo or Home, still fundamentally competes with Amazon and Google for customers. Zhu however made it clear that a U.S. pricing strategy would be much different when Rokid finally becomes available here.

Mingming Zhu is the founder of Rokid Inc. He is a serial entrepreneur with vast experience in artificial intelligence and language science whose childhood dream was to build a cutting-edge machine that creates an emotion connection to users through deep learning and advanced engineering.

Prior to founding Rokid Inc. in 2014, Mingming was the head of M-team for Alibaba Group where he led the company’s deep learning, natural language processing, and development vision endeavors. His previous company, Mammoth Technologies, was purchased by Alibaba Group in 2010.

Mingming also co-founded Zhejiang SU2 Technology Ltd. in 2007, which is a mobile internet software platform company based in Hangzhou, China.

He holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, ICSI, and a bachelor of science in computer science from Zhejiang University.

So many REALLY smart China players in Voice/AI...

QUIK can you parter with more of theses guys.

Like who

Iflytek
Mobvoi
Rokid

thanks

1. sparkyinmo, Yesterday at 2:36 PMReport

   #75LikeReply
2. 

   jfiebWell-Known Member

   
   

   Synaptics had to add voice or close up?
   
   Biometric interface technology company Synaptics (NASDAQ:SYNA) has announced an agreement to acquire Conexant Systems for $341 million in cash and stock.
   
   Concurrent with the deal, it also will acquire the Multimedia Business Solutions of Marvell Technology (NASDAQ:MRVL) for $95 million in cash.
   
   The two deals will spearhead Synaptics’ initiative to penetrate the promising consumer IoT via voice- and audio-based human interface markets.
   
   
   .......
   We are very excited to have quickly closed on this important acquisition and be able to immediately leverage the added voice and audio solutions to pursue the growing opportunities in consumer IoT. With the broadened portfolio of technologies and products, we will not only diversify our customer base, but also provide our customers more value-add. We look forward to working with our global partners to deliver a full range of solutions to our core mobile, automotive, and PC markets, and now for consumer IoT,” said Rick Bergman, President and CEO, Synaptics.
   
   Synaptics will provide further information regarding the acquisition during its scheduled earnings conference call on Thursday, August 3, 2017. Please refer to the call details below.
   
   Investor Call:
   

   Last edited: 19 minutes ago

   jfieb, 31 minutes agoEditDeleteReport

   #76Reply
3. 

   jfiebWell-Known Member

   
   

   Conexant Showcases Next-Gen Voice as an Interface and USB-C Headset Solutions at CES 2017
   by Conexant | Jan 4, 2017 | Press Release |
   
   
   At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, Conexant will educate the CE industry about new hardware and software solutions designed to enable new voice-enabled AI assistant devices and next-gen USB-C type headphones
   
   LAS VEGAS and IRVINE, Calif., January 4, 2017 – Conexant, a leading provider of audio and voice technology solutions that enable a more natural user experience, today announced that it will be showcasing its latest embedded hardware and software solutions designed to make it easy for CE manufacturers to develop new high-performance voice-enabled products and USB-C digital headphones.
   
   At CES 2017, Conexant will be showcasing its recently announced two-microphone voice input processor development kit for Alexa Voice Service that it developed jointly with Amazon. Additionally, Conexant is announcing that its next-generation AudioSmart 3.0 voice input processing technology is the first two microphone solution to pass Microsoft’s stringent requirements for ideal Cortana v2.0 Premium Far-Field voice processing. Both of these developments further build upon the company’s leading position in the voice as an interface market, and expand on other recent successes, such as being the first solutions provider to enable a natural language capable AI assistant for the Korean market that offers excellent noise robustness and far-field performance. Conexant’s next-generation AudioSmart voice processing solutions have become the de facto standard for developing CE devices capable of providing excellent far-field voice performance and unrivaled speech recognition accuracy for cloud AI engines like Amazon Alexa, Okay Google, Microsoft Cortana and others.
   
   “Voice as an interface is the hottest trend in the CE market, and has solidified its position as the future of human to machine interaction. Conexant is no stranger to voice input processing. In fact, our voice solutions are regarded as the industry’s best, and we’ve helped dozens of leading manufactures around the world ship millions of noise robust, far-field voice capable devices across several categories,” said Saleel Awsare, President of Conexant. 
   
   In addition to helping CE manufactures dramatically improve performance of, and reduce time to market for, new voice-enabled products in all categories, Conexant will also be showcasing its latest CODEC solutions that redefine what headphones are capable of.
   
   Designed to give headphone and headset manufacturers a competitive edge in the emerging USB-C headphone category, and help the $13 billion headphone and headset industry confidently transition away from analog audio, Conexant’s USB-C CODECs enable headphones to benefit from having power and a digital audio signal available to them, as well as the ability to transmit data directly from the cable. Unlocking the potential for significant innovation in the booming headphone market, Conexant’s AudioSmart USB-C CODECs enable brands to deliver their signature sound quality uniformly across all devices, while also delivering powerful advanced features including Voice Control, Active Noise Cancellation, Noise Suppression, Wind Noise Cancellation, Smart Voice Pickup, and more.
   
   “This year at CES, Conexant will be showcasing how its latest solutions can be utilized by manufacturers to not only build incredibly high-performance voice-enabled devices and feature-rich USB-C headphones, but dramatically reduce time to market and engineering costs associated with creating these products. Conexant doesn’t just provide the industry with powerful embedded solutions, it provides expertise in engineering. We help our customers maximize the benefits offered by our solutions, enabling them to innovate class-leading products with unrivaled performance.” Awsare continued.
   
   Who: Conexant
   What: Showcasing next-generation voice as an interface technologies and next-generation USB-C headphone CODEC solutions at CES 2017
   

   jfieb, 24 minutes agoEditDeleteReport

   #77Reply
4. 

   jfiebWell-Known Member

   
   

   Synaptics Calls for Voice Standards
   CEO says emerging market lacks ease of use
   
   Rick Merritt
   
   7/31/2017 00:01 AM EDT
   
   
   
   
   “You don’t want 15 flavors of home assistants communicating in different ways. We need standards such as standard commands. You don’t want to learn different digital languages,” Bergman said. “It’s a little early, but maybe the ultimate vision is that AI gets so good it’s smart enough to figure commands out independent of device types,” he added.
   
   An analyst agreed, noting consumer Internet of Things markets have developed more slowly that predicted, in part due to poor ease-of-use.
   
   “Voice interfaces help, but natural-language processing is a misnomer. There is nothing natural about talking to today’s devices,” said Mike Demler, a senior analyst with the Linley Group.
   
   Demler gave an example of a voice device that failed to respond to a simple request. His wife found from research online that it required use of the word “to” before the name of the device.
   
   “I needed to say, ‘Play jazz to bedroom,’” Demler said. “Right now these devices are teaching us to speak their language rather than the other way around,” he added.
   
   The good news is the market is moving. Conexant claims it has as many as 60 design wins for its far-field voice chip set. They include an HP PC, Harmon Kardon speakers and an LG refrigerator.
   
   “There are so many potential applications — car speakers, lighting, thermostats, TVs, set tops…the nice part is we can participate in various ecosystems” such as services from Amazon, Baidu, Samsung and SK Telecom, Bergman said.
   
   It’s a crowded field with Intel, Mediatek, Nvidia, NXP, Qualcomm, RDA Microelectronics, Realtek and Texas Instruments already engaged.
   
   “We felt comfortable Conexant’s far-field technology and other audio algorithms were best in class. Its tough stuff to do, and they’ve worked on it for a decade,” Bergman said.
   
   Next page: A toothpick-shaped touch-display driver
   
   
   
   Sources project nearly 25 million smart speakers and other personal assistants could ship this year. Click to enlarge. (Images: Synaptics)
   
   commentary- regular readers are aware of the fast pace of the M & A related to voice. It is heating up and just won't stop. It has to be on the work bench or you cannot expect to be around long? There is a relationship between Voice and AI. The best players have AI on the bench along with voice, so they can put them together.

this slide deck is ALL hardware of IoT stuff...long 240 slides...

Six Key Internet Of Things (IoT) Trends To Watch For In 2018

https://www.forbes.com/sites/benjam...lete-slides-and-some-analysis/2/#350485ea703a

this link if you have trouble with the top one

https://www.slideshare.net/haxco/hardware-trends-2017


voice starts 72 thats nice.

IMPORTANCE of China in connected devices- made clear.

Go Really fast to see the IoT but slow down at 203-226....thats the China section and # 6

211 voice devices that are China specific-just BOOMING. China's Alexas

213 Voice assistant tip of the AI Iceberg....

Consider that we can watch how QUIK can extend into AI...one way AEC...AIspeech more ecosystem players

Key bullet---China knows a lot about what is going on here- the opposite IS not true. Information asymmetry.

Man am I glad we have set up the Shanghai office and have the eFPGA design center close by....really great use of $$?
A new name for me to work on Mobvoi( voice player ?)......

Wow, what an impressive work, especially liked voice. its relation to AI, the China section was fantastic.
5 stars, good background for any QUIK holders to be familiar with.

Commentary; I will spend even more time reading on China to cut the info asymmetry, it suggests that time spent reading more on IoT stuff there will be WELL worth it. So try to learn a few more names .

As we go forward incremental tidbits in the geography may be a LOT more important than most will realize.

The office in Shanghai, the eFPGA support center in Taiwan, the Chengdu 22 FDX program of Global Fo......spot on.

Sign them all up QUIK for both the Eos and the eFPGA, the efforts of I Wang in Sept. fit in here too.

Mobvoi

Discussion in 'Main Forum' started by jfieb, 12 minutes ago.

Thread Tools

Unwatch Thread

1. 

   jfiebWell-Known Member

   
   

   Where are they located?
   
   China.
   
   What is their expertise?
   
   http://www.chumenwenwen.com/en/site/index.html
   
   

   • Advanced Chinese speech recognition system:
     tailored for mobile search
     Advanced Chinese speech recognition system:
     tailored for mobile search
     Mobvoi independently researches and develops a full set of speech recognition technology, including online and offline speech recognition, and offline hotword detection. Mobvoi's speech recognition accuracy is far ahead of peers in the field of mobile search.

   jfieb, 12 minutes agoEditReport

   #1Reply
2. 

   jfiebWell-Known Member

   
   

   For insight into trans-Pacific tech rivalries and relationships, The WorldPost spoke with Li Zhifei, founder and CEO of Mobvoi, a Beijing-based artificial intelligence startup that in many ways bridges Beijing and Silicon Valley. Li worked as a research scientist at Google before returning to Beijing to found his own company. Mobvoi has since taken on investment from Google and served as the company’s proxy for bringing Android Wear to China, where Google services are blocked. Mobvoi is now marketing own smartwatch, Ticwatch 2, to international consumers through a Kickstarter campaign that has raised almost $1.5 million. 
   
   Li spoke with The WorldPost about innovation ecosystem in Silicon Valley and Beijing, and why Chinese and U.S. tech companies can’t seem to crack each other’s markets. 
   
   You’ve spent time as a research scientist at Google in Silicon Valley and now founding Mobvoi in Beijing. How would you compare the innovation ecosystem between these two places?
   
   I would argue that Beijing has caught up with Silicon Valley really quickly. If you think about two or three years ago there was still quite a difference in terms of business models and talent. I think right now Beijing is really close to Silicon Valley in many aspects, and in some ways Beijing might be ahead. 
   
   Beijing has caught up with Silicon Valley really quickly.
   
   In terms of talent, those really good people ― really motivated, smart, well-educated and professional ― I think Silicon Valley is still much better than Beijing. But it’s a process. I would argue that Beijing is catching up because all those things can be trained, as long as you’re facing real problems. Right now companies like Didi and Xiaomi have tough problems, and commercializing is very important. They gradually become better and better because they face real problems, and if they solve the problem they get real returns.
   
   If you think about the VC money, I think Beijing is comparable to Silicon Valley and sometimes the market size might actually be bigger. It’s much easier for you to attract 1 or 2 million users just in Beijing. That’s the benefit of China.
   
   But Silicon Valley certainly has a lot of advantages. If you’re a company in Silicon Valley, from day one you’re a global company. When the world looks at Beijing and Silicon Valley, they always think Silicon Valley really represents the global values of human society, while Beijing is seen as China-specific. Especially in the Western world, I think there still exists bias towards the Chinese system. From that sense I think Silicon Valley companies still have an advantage: from day one they can go global, they have a global brand.
   
   Recently Uber sold its China operations to Didi, and we’ve seen lots of new partnerships between companies in the two ecosystems. What’s driving this trend of increasing cooperation and partnerships between Silicon Valley and Beijing?
   
   I think absolutely the relationship between Beijing and Silicon Valley is going to be much tighter, and there will be a lot more interaction. The real motivation is commercial ― the business side. I remember in 2010 when Google withdrew from China, their revenue from China might have just been 1 percent of their global revenue. That’s really nothing.
   
   The relationship between Beijing and Silicon Valley is going to be much tighter.
   
   But if you think about how mobile has changed in the last three or four years, the Chinese mobile phone market is now the largest in the world, I think around 20 percent globally. That means as long as you’re a global company and you care about that 20 percent of the market, then you’ve got to either operate here locally or have a good partner in China.
   
   On the other hand, Chinese companies also want to go global. Now companies here are confident: they have money, they have people, they have the market share and they also have a global view. That’s why you’re seeing so much foreign investment by Chinese tech companies in Silicon Valley and Europe.
   
   Given that desire to access China, what are the main obstacles ― other than outright government blocking of sites ― that U.S. tech companies face in China?
   
   I think for U.S. companies coming to China, if your company is more operational ― if it’s really not about technology ― those companies really don’t have a lot of competitive advantages here. It’s more about local operations, speed of action, competition in fundraising. For funding or speed of operations, I think local Chinese companies are really, really strong. That’s exactly why a company like Uber has a really tough war here. Didi is so aggressive in terms of raising money, speed of execution, growth, etc. You have to make quick decisions, quick reactions to changes in the market, and if your headquarters is in the U.S. it’s going to be difficult.
   
   But I think for technology companies it might be a little different. If it’s really technology-driven and it’s actually at the frontier, those companies still have an advantage when they come to China. But for the operations, they still need to have some really localized operation teams. I think Silicon Valley companies have a really global view, but they need local action.
   
   
   Commentary; QUIK is in the right business, its good they have the Shanghai center, for local action- things happen faster. It just made me feel good knowing QUIK has done these things
   
   
   
   NICOLAS ASFOURI VIA GETTY IMAGES
   
   A Tibetan Buddhist monk talks on his smartphone as he sits on the grassland of the Tibetan Plateau in Yushu County.
   
   When talking about your own company’s move into international markets, you’ve said, “We’re not going to emphasize that we’re a Chinese company, but we’re not going to hide it either.” What do you think are the obstacles for Chinese companies as they go global?
   
   Chinese companies are much more confident now in terms of the technology, the speed we can execute, how hard we can work on the problem. But we certainly face problems in the way the Western world thinks about Chinese companies: they don’t have real technology, they don’t have innovation, they produce cheap products, they are not trustworthy. I think those ideas are still in the minds of most Western people, and those are real obstacles we’re going to face.
   
   But for me and for many Chinese technology companies, if you want to go overseas, I think you really have to focus on the product and the user itself. As long as you have a really, really good product, when users are purchasing the product they won’t be worried if you’re from China or from Russia. If you don’t have a good product or user experience you have zero chance of being successful in the U.S. Once you have this, you might have a chance, as long as you’re patient.
   
   Our mission is to define the next generation of human-computer interaction by using AI technology.
   
   Your international Kickstarter campaign for the Ticwatch 2 has already raised over a million dollars. Why did you choose to launch Ticwatch 2 on global markets, and what will it be like entering into the global marketplace?
   
   For Mobvoi, we want to be a global company, and we want to be a technologically innovative company. Our mission is to define the next generation of human-computer interaction by using AI technology. I think this is really something new; it’s a mission that hasn’t been fulfilled by anyone in the U.S. or any other country.
   
   We really want to collect feedback globally. If you get a global view of the market and you get a lot of feedback from all kinds of places, it will actually change the way you think about the problem and address it.
   
   We’re pretty confident that our product is competitive. In China we face the exact same competition: Apple, Huawei, Samsung, Moto 360. They all have products here [in China], so when we go overseas it’s the exact same competition we’re facing. In China we’re doing very well when compared with those big brands.
   
   The Western market for this new emerging category is really interested in seeing a new brand, a new way of doing the smartwatch. I think our way of doing the smartwatch is really different: we do the algorithm, operating system and hardware all by ourselves, so it’s an entirely integrated product and its highly optimized. I think we’re going to bring something new and unique to the smartwatch market.
   
   This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
   
   
   Info asymmetry.. sometimes there is discussion about the growing short position. Where are they very vulnerable....INfo asymmetry. They don't know enough about China and this may be a BIG mistake?
   
   Voice companies are AI companies.
   
   AISpeech
   
   IFlytek
   
   Mobvoi
   
   QUIK can you from time to time give us more names for China voice partners. Mobvoi with its focus on Voice and wearables would be a great one to partner with....thanks in advance.