Connectome Newsletter April - May 2019
▶︎ Index
- Media
- Business
- Product
- Community
■ MEDIA・PRESS
Two members of the Couger Inc. AI team were ranked among the top ten at the CVPR 2019 workshop of the worldwide famous society for computer vision “CVPR”. Their technical article will be presented in California in June.
The two Couger Inc. AI team members participated in the “Pixel SkelNet On” competition which tested the accuracy of participants’ AI models when recognizing skeletons from shape images. Usually, such models use “GAN” data generating algorithms for extracting the skeleton data. Couger’s AI team members developed their own algorithm “Skeleton-Net” which combines “U-Net” — a technique to understand the image at the pixel level — and “HED” — a method of extracting the shape of the image with high accuracy — and significantly improved the accuracy of skeletal extraction (increasing accuracy from 62% to 77%).
The technology was featured in the morning edition of the The Japan Times | Wide range of potential applications including the likes of self-driving cars and robots.
Because human actions such as “walking” and “stretching your hand to take a product” are common for different activities, the technology has many potential use cases, including in developing industries such as autonomous vehicles and unmanned stores.
In the The Japan Times, the focus point was how the technology developed by Couger Inc. can be used to collect and understand non-verbal communication data such as body language, posture and body movements and thereby significantly improve the communication ability of virtual human agents.
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Couger Inc. and Connectome were featured in one TV program, two newspapers, and in three web articles in April and May.
▼ April.17 Web Article: Morikatron Lab (Professional Game AI Media)
“About Connectome that applied game AI to the real world”
▼ May.20 Newspaper: The Japan Times and Electronic Version
“Couger Inc. develops high precision AI that extracts skeleton from image”
▼ May.20 Web Article: Games Industry Biz
“The influence and potential of blockchain for gaming” in Vol. 31 DeNA GDM
▼ May.26 TV Program: German broadcaster PR07’s program “Galileo”
▼ May.28 Web Article: GeNOM (DeNA’s Owned Media)
Event Report: Mr. Ishii of Couger Inc. talks about the possibility of the “gaming x AI x blockchain” — and the keywords of the future i.e. “machine internet” and “mirror world”
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■ BUSINESS
1. VHA demonstration experiment at a co-working space
2. Digital signage demonstration experiment with a Japanese advertising company
3. Participation in a Singapore government-sponsored program
1. VHA demonstration experiment at a co-working space
As a community assistant, the VHA provides information about facilities and events and promotes interaction between the facility users from different backgrounds (ongoing at facilities in Japan and Singapore).
2. Digital signage demonstration experiment with a Japanese advertising company
In collaboration with a Japanese advertising company, we are planning to test the possibility of “interactive digital signage”. We will examine whether VHA can attract, communicate with, and transform the lives of people in the city. Besides, by communicating with users about the attractive aspects of the city where the communication takes place, we will examine whether VHA can contribute to increased feelings of love for the area amongst users and thereby assist with the revitalization of the locality.
3. Participation in the Singapore government-sponsored program
Two of the Connectome AI Assistant Technologies were selected as topics for the open innovation platform that is run by Info-communications Media Development Authority of Singapore.
Demonstration experiment of VHA in a 5G environment
5G, which enables low-delay and high-capacity data communications, is expected to open up a slew of new business opportunities and create new business domains. We are planning a demonstration experiment of VHAs in a 5G environment in order to enhance the potential of VHAs. We are aiming at working with partner companies who have expertise in 5G or network and system resource optimization or providers of smart glasses, holograms, and other devices that take advantage of the strengths of 5G.
Development of VHA prototype for home care
The home care industry is currently faced with various issues such as low birth rate, ageing populations, labour shortages, need for improving usability, safety, and security. We are inviting partners such as medical equipment or medical services providers to develop a prototype of a home care service using VHAs in order to address these issues.
■ PRODUCT
1. Deployed CNTM Token on Mainnet on May 7.
2. Implemented meta transaction function for the Connectome Marketplace
3. Implementation of hand gesture recognition for VHAs
4. System implementation of emotion recognition from facial expressions for VHAs
Complete deployment of the CNTM token contract on the Ethereum Mainnet!
In May 2019, we deployed a contract on the Ethereum Mainnet that issued 10 billion CNTM tokens that will be available for use in the Connectome ecosystem. Currently, tokens can be traded on the Singapore ABCC Exchange.
In addition, we have implemented a “MetaTransaction” function that enables CNTM token holders to register the VHA without having Ether in the Connectome marketplace. Through this, we aim to promote the circulation of VHA technology by supporting community activities in AirDrop, etc., and by supporting early-adopter VHA creators both now and in the future.
Improvement in the accuracy of image recognition and implementation of the technique | Towards smooth communication between VHAs and Humans
We have implemented two new functions for non-verbal communication while interacting with VHAs i.e. “hand gesture” and “expression recognition”. With the function of recognizing hand gestures, we are able to create more motives for communication, which further encourages dialogue between VHAs and users.
In addition, we added the ability to judge emotions in real time from the facial expressions of the users during dialogue with VHAs. By recognizing emotions during the dialogue, it is possible to increase the input of information about users’ emotional state from the nonverbal elements of communication, which increases the accuracy of communication.
▶︎ Check these out
■ COMMUNITY
Global expansion: The team made 10 speeches in four different countries in just two months!
Our online community expands with the issuance of a utility token
Under the initiative of Connectome Pte. Ltd., we have launched online community support in Telegram and WeChat. This enables real-time communication through instant messengers, in addition to sharing information on social media.
The number of members of Connectome’s Telegram group has reached nearly 9,000 in just one week. Informal Connectome fan groups have also sprung up in, among other places, Japan and Russia.
Invited globally influential AI expert Mr Ben, CEO SingularityNET, to hold a meetup | Mr Ishii, CEO Couger Inc. and Mr Ishiguro, Chief Blockchain Architect, joined in the panel discussion
We invited Mr Ben (CEO SingularityNET) and other team members of SingularityNET to hold a workshop in Japan. SingularityNET introduced an artificial intelligence-based robot called “Sofia” and many other AI projects that have attracted attention from around the world. Couger Inc. CEO Mr Ishii and Chief blockchain architect Mr Ishiguro participated in a panel discussion about the topic of AI x blockchain at the event.
Hosted the first meet-up in Beijing in collaboration with Microsoft
China has a worldwide influence in AI technology. This was our first meet-up in China and it was conducted in collaboration with Microsoft.
VHA is a human-like AI assistant that combines vision, hearing and language processing skills. Organizing community activities related to VHAs in China have enormous potential. Besides Microsoft China, Accenture China was also invited as guest speakers to discuss matters related to AI development, as well as the markets in China and Japan.
Couger Inc. CTO Mr Takahashi gave a lecture at Waseda University’s Blockchain Education Lab
Cougar CTO Takahashi was invited to give a lecture at Waseda University’s Blockchain Education Laboratory, which is aimed at international collaborative research for innovative development and creation of new spheres of scientific knowledge.
Couger Inc. CEO Mr Ishii was invited as a guest lecturer at a game creators meetup by DeNA
Couger Inc. CEO Mr Ishii spoke at Game Developer ’s Meeting Vol. 31 for game creators, which was sponsored by DeNA.
As the use of IP in movies and games is expanding, real-time search engines using AI — such as Connectome — will become increasingly important.
Famous AI companies from around the world gathered in Germany — Couger Inc. CEO Mr Ishii spoke at the “Rise of AI” conference
From AI research institutes such as DeepMind and IBM to university professors, experts from a wide range of AI specialities gathered in Berlin.
Following the TOA conference held last year in Berlin, this was the second time for Mr Ishii to speak at a technical conference in Germany.
After the Rise of AI conference, Mr Ishii also spoke at a meetup organized by Ocean Protocol. Mr Ishii also joined a discussion alongside SingularityNET’s CEO Mr Ben, who is the world’s leading authority on AI, and Mr Peter, who is CTO at Anaconda — an open source company famous globally for a number of AI tools.
Mr Ishiguro, Chief Blockchain Architect at Couger, spoke at the Next X Asia conference | Real-time demo of VHA on a huge monitor received tremendous response
Chief Blockchain Architect Mr Ishiguro talked at the Next X Asia conference, which promotes innovation and global collaboration. In the presentation titled “emotion recognition,” he talked about the importance of non-verbal communication in the interaction between a Virtual Human Agent (VHA) and human users.
We set up a human-sized VHA at the venue, and the visitors enjoyed the experience of real-time communication with a VHA.
