Jia Yueting survives? FF receives $1 billion in financing; Qualcomm releases Snapdragon 845, expected to be used in Xiaomi 7 next year | Lei Feng Morning News

FF receives $1 billion in financing, can Jia Yueting survive?

It is reported that on December 1, Jia Yueting signed an agreement with an investment institution from Hong Kong through his legal team. According to the agreement, FF will receive an investment of more than 1 billion US dollars. In the past six months, Jia Yueting's team has contacted nearly 20 investment institutions, one of which has a strong intention and sent a team from Hong Kong to the United States for due diligence three weeks ago. It has paid a $30 million earnest money to solve FF's urgent needs. After the transaction is completed, Jia Yueting will push the FF production base to start construction as soon as possible to fulfill his promise to launch the new car in 2019. FF's car manufacturing, which was in a precarious situation, finally made a move, and Jia Yueting began to survive.

On the morning of December 1, the two parties finally reached an investment agreement, but the background of the investors and the transaction valuation were kept strictly confidential. In a conversation with The Prism in November, Jia Yueting revealed that he had quoted a valuation of $5 billion for FF, which is comparable to the current valuation of the domestic car startup NIO.

Sources pointed out that among the relevant Hong Kong consortiums, those who can decisively take action in such a crisis need not only deep industry observation, but also strong business acumen. Among those who meet the above two characteristics, "Little Superman" Li Zekai is the most likely. Since losing the "Fisker Bidding Case" to Wanxiang Group in 2015, Li Zekai has been looking for opportunities to layout in the automotive industry. In response to the above news, people related to LeTV Auto responded that FF's Series A financing is in progress, and the specific progress will be announced to the public at the right time. However, Li Zekai's spokesperson said that Li Zekai himself has no intention of investing in or cooperating with FF, and has no intention of investing or cooperating.

SenseTime and Honda join forces to accelerate the development of autonomous driving

On December 7, Chinese artificial intelligence unicorn SenseTime and Japanese auto giant Honda jointly announced that the two companies have signed a long-term cooperation agreement to jointly deepen autonomous driving technology and accelerate the development of smart cars. The two parties will work together to develop L4 autonomous driving solutions suitable for passenger car scenarios based on Honda's vehicle control technology system and integrate SenseTime's leading visual algorithms and development platforms. In addition, they will continue to cooperate in robotics in the future.

As a cutting-edge emerging field, autonomous driving has set strict requirements on algorithms and development platforms. The technical challenges are extremely high, and international giants including Google, Apple, and Tesla have made sustained investments. SenseTime has made continuous international breakthroughs in the field of autonomous driving technology by leveraging its original technology accumulation in the field of computer vision and its self-built world-leading deep learning supercomputing platform.

In this cooperation, SenseTime not only provides visual algorithms, but also chips and embedded systems for autonomous driving. This will lead to a new trend in the application of AI vision technology in automotive scenarios, bringing users a safer and more extreme driving experience.

Baidu Maps and China Academy of Urban Planning and Design to Promote Smart Cities

On December 6, Baidu Maps and the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design (CAPD) signed a strategic cooperation agreement in Beijing and established the "Baidu Maps Smart Eye CAPD Joint Innovation Laboratory" for joint research. In addition, Baidu Maps will also open relevant big data to the CAPD Xiong'an New Area Planning Working Group for free, providing a reference for the planning and construction of Xiong'an New Area.

The main research areas of the innovation laboratory will include: dynamic monitoring and evaluation of urbanization, planning diagnosis, evaluation and simulation, research on major topics, talent training and the establishment of a "double innovation" platform, etc. Baidu Maps, which has massive big data and artificial intelligence technology, has signed a contract with the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design, a leading institution in the planning industry, to diagnose the city, explore new models of urban planning, and create greater value for urban development.

VIVE FOCUS will start pre-sale in China on "Double 12", with prices starting at 3999 and shipping in January

Leifeng.com learned that on December 7, HTC announced that the high-end VR all-in-one machine VIVE FOCUS will be officially available for pre-sale from 00:00 on December 12, Beijing time. At that time, Chinese consumers can pre-order through major online (Vive official website, JD.com, Tmall, etc.) and offline (Gome, Suning, etc.) sales channels. The retail version of Vive Focus is equipped with a Bluetooth controller and has two color options: "Charming White" (official recommended retail price RMB 3,999) and "Electric Eye Blue" limited edition (official recommended retail price RMB 4,299). According to Leifeng.com, the first batch of products is expected to start shipping in January 2018.

Wang Congqing, President of HTC Vive China, said: "The retail launch of Vive Focus all-in-one marks the beginning of the entry of high-end VR experience into the mass consumer market in 2018." In order to create a high-end mobile VR experience that is free and immersive, Vive Focus uses inside-out tracking technology, supports six degrees of freedom (6DoF), and can achieve world-scale positioning. The device is also equipped with a high-definition AMOLED screen with a 3K resolution and a refresh rate of 75Hz, a 110-degree field of view (FOV), supports pupil distance adjustment and has built-in speakers, allowing users to "immerse" in a low-latency, high-definition virtual world anytime, anywhere.

Vive Focus is equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor and supports the VIVE WAVE VR open platform and rich content on the VIVEPORT application platform. In addition, Vive Focus also supports MicroSD card expansion of storage capacity (up to 2TB), and can be connected to more devices or accessories via USB Type-C, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

Qualcomm releases Snapdragon 845, AI performance tripled

On December 6, Hawaii time, Qualcomm officially announced more details of the new Snapdragon 845 mobile platform during the second Snapdragon Technology Summit. It is worth mentioning that this is the third generation of Snapdragon AI chip platform. Snapdragon 845 continues to use 10nm process, integrating Kryo 385 CPU, Adreno 630 GPU, Hexagon 685 DSP, Spectra 280 ISP, X20 LTE modem, dedicated mobile security chip and other important chips. It is expected to be used in flagship smartphones including Samsung Galaxy S9 and Xiaomi Mi 7 at the beginning of next year.

However, Leifeng.com found that there is no obvious AI computing unit in the entire internal module, but it is still a traditional DSP, ISP and other processors for specific scenarios. Regarding this, Gary Brotman, Qualcomm AI and machine learning product manager, told Leifeng.com separately after the press conference: "We don't want to just add an 'AI module' to the mobile phone processor, but let AI technology really bring changes to consumers." In fact, Qualcomm's final choice for AI computing is "heterogeneous" - including CPU, GPU, DSP, all have the ability to run AI algorithms. Qualcomm has specially developed a NPE system for this purpose, which is specifically used to manage various artificial intelligence languages, architectures, and algorithms, and then allocate tasks according to the advantages and disadvantages of the three chips of CPU, DSP, and GPU, and finally provide solutions for different application scenarios.

Qualcomm and Baidu collaborate to optimize DuerOS artificial intelligence system

On the third day of the second Qualcomm Snapdragon Technology Summit, Qualcomm and Baidu jointly announced that they will work together to optimize Baidu DuerOS's artificial intelligence solutions on mobile phones on Snapdragon mobile platforms (including the upcoming Snapdragon 845 mobile platform). The cooperation between the two parties can be used as a reference application optimization to launch a complete set of artificial intelligence voice and smart assistant solutions for global smartphones and IoT terminals, making it easier for more OEM manufacturers to bring AI voice solutions to their terminal products, thereby providing a better user experience and optimizing product time to market.

It is reported that the conversation skills developed by DuerOS currently cover 10 major fields and more than 200 sub-fields. Since January 2017, Baidu DuerOS has attracted more than 130 hardware partners and quickly landed in home, car, mobile and other scenarios, covering mobile phones, TVs, OTT set-top boxes, projectors, speakers, refrigerators, children's toys, smart car machines, smart rearview mirrors and many other hardware categories.

Samsung officially releases Xuanlong MR and Tong 3D notebooks

On December 7, Samsung officially released the Odyssey MR and the Hitomi 3D laptop. Both new products have been officially launched before, with the price of the Samsung Odyssey MR being 4,499 yuan, and the price of the Hitomi 3D laptop being 5,599 yuan. The Samsung Odyssey MR is a product jointly developed by Samsung Electronics and Microsoft, featuring two 3.5-inch Samsung AMOLED screens with a resolution of 1440x1600, AKG headphones that support spatial sound, and a 6-axis motion controller, without the need for external motion sensors for tracking and capture.

Glasses-free 3D laptop. It is white in color and equipped with a 15.6-inch FHD screen that supports glasses-free 3D screen technology. It uses a cylindrical lens array type glasses-free 3D technology to form left and right eye parallax by changing the display direction of screen pixels. With the built-in 3D Dongdong player, it is transmitted to the human brain and synthesized to form a three-dimensional 3D image. It is worth mentioning that the pupil 3D laptop can identify the pupil position through the human eye recognition camera, thus bringing better 3D effect.

Nissan plans to test self-driving cars on public roads in March next year

On December 5, Nissan said it will test self-driving cars on public roads in Japan in March next year, hoping to officially launch "autonomous taxis" before 2020. It is understood that the self-driving car will use Leaf electric cars, equipped with sensors, cameras and self-driving software developed by DeNA Co.

Nissan is currently competing with both newcomers and veterans in the auto industry, such as Waymo, Tesla, and traditional auto giants including General Motors. According to relevant data, Waymo has a clear advantage over automakers and other technological competitors.

In Japan, Nissan models are becoming increasingly popular for their semi-autonomous features, such as self-parking, including the Serena van, X-Trail SUV and the new Leaf electric car. Nissan said the Japanese automaker is striving to launch a fully self-driving car by 2022, hoping to become a leader in autonomous driving technology.

Google releases an AI tool that can interpret genomes

On December 4, Google released an AI tool, DeepVariant, which uses the most advanced AI technology to create a more accurate human genome map.

DeepVariant can automatically identify small insertion and deletion mutations, as well as single base pair mutations in sequencing data, helping to convert high-throughput sequencing reads into a whole-genome map.

Last year, DeepVariant won first place in the PrecisionFDA Truth Challenge, demonstrating that in the genomics field, deep learning can be used to automatically train systems that outperform complex hand-crafted systems.

DeepVariant will also be available on Google Cloud Platform to appeal to anyone who wants to use the latest AI technology. Genomic medicine represents a particularly significant opportunity because the scale and complexity of the data are unprecedented. AI is the only technology currently available to interpret and process massive amounts of data and will revolutionize the future of medicine.

Lyft and nuTnomy to pilot self-driving cars in Boston

On December 6, autonomous driving technology company nuTonomy said that Lyft will work with nuTonomy to conduct an autonomous driving pilot in Boston. Currently, passengers can be matched to autonomous driving cars in some areas of Boston. Although the pilot is only carried out in some areas of Boston, launching the test is crucial to collecting data and expanding the project.

Lyft is relatively unknown in the self-driving car market, where Waymo and Uber are both seeking to build out large self-driving networks. It is certain that more money will flow into both autonomous driving and shared mobility in the future.

In October, Delphi acquired nuTonomy for $400 million, and Lyft invested another $500 million this month. For Lyft, investing in a company with autonomous driving expertise is an opportunity, and it also helps companies like nuTonomy quickly gain a large travel platform.