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AV Technology Is Not s Bowl of Cherries.

AV Technology Is Not a Bowl of Cherries

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake: 
Cruise’s playbook has helped shatter public confidence in automated vehicles. We now wonder if there is a new playbook in the works – consisting of concrete actions – for every AV company so that they won’t make the same mistakes

Two days after the California DMV ordered it to suspend its San Francisco driverless taxi service, Cruise “proactively” bit the bullet and “paused” robotaxi operation nationally. 

Now Cruise is going to “take time to examine our processes, systems, and tools and reflect on how we can better operate in a way that will earn public trust.”

Here’s hoping the company will put its commitment where its mouth is.

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Arm Up, RISC-V Down, But The Real Loser Is x86

Arm Up, RISC-V Down, But The Real Loser Is x86

By Peter Clarke

What’s at stake:
Although application-specific processing and neural-network architectures are becoming more significant with each passing year, established microprocessor architectures and their support of specific software bases remain significant. They have fostered and dominate big consumer markets such as personal computing and mobile phones. The conventional wisdom is that, just as Arm – once agile and without legacy baggage – could come to rival the original processor pioneer architecture x86, the open-source RISC-V is going to do the same to the now less agile and more encumbered Arm architecture.

Last week was one of contrasting fortunes for the microprocessor architectures Arm and RISC-V.

Read More »Arm Up, RISC-V Down, But The Real Loser Is x86
G.M. in S.F.: Cruise in for a Bruisin

G.M. in S.F.: Cruise in for a Bruisin’

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
It’s good to remember that for most utterances in life, whether you are a politician, a tech company, or a big-time CEO, it’s the half-truths you spout — to the public, to regulators, the media and customers — that get you into trouble.

Of course, some people get away with the flim-flam. Most of us, however, figure out early what the safest — if not the most lucrative — policy is.

In that spirit, the California Dept. of Motor Vehicles (DMV) this week announced the immediate suspension of General Motors’ Cruise robotaxi operation in San Francisco.

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Nvidia-Arm: Where is this Relationship Headed? Ojo-Yoshida Report

Nvidia-Arm: Where is this Relationship Headed?

By Bolaji Ojo

What’s at stake
What exactly does Nvidia want with Arm, the chip IP vendor that the AI chip giant cannot seem to steer completely clear off nor digest? This could be a defensive move by Nvidia, or it could be a continuation of plans unfulfilled when it was forced to abandon plans to purchase Arm two years ago.

Nvidia Corp. and Arm Holdings can’t seem to get away from each other.

The AI chip giant and the semiconductor intellectual property developer are in the news again this week. This time, the report is about a speculative multi-party tango about the purported planned development of a new Arm-based PC central processing unit (CPU) by Nvidia.

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Olofsson’s Dream: A Plug & Play Chiplet

Olofsson’s Dream: A Plug & Play Chiplet

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
With the whole industry struggling for consensus on a standard for chiplet interposers and bricks, a startup that has up and turned that trick is the definition of “disruption.” It’s anyone’s guess whether Zero ASIC will be richly rewarded for its insightful initiative or hammered down for being the nail that sticks out.

So far, chiplets have been an elusive vision, despite high hopes in the semiconductor industry.

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Apple CEO Tim Cook in conversation with Mother Nature.

Can TSMC Meet Apple’s 2030 Net-Zero Pledge?

By Junko Yoshida and George Leopold

What’s at stake:
The chip industry’s laudable shift to sustainable manufacturing so far fails to address a key contributor to greenhouse gasses: the complex, energy-hogging steps needed to produce advanced devices. Apple fails to mention that challenge in its recent green marketing campaign. That approach is disingenuous.

If you haven’t watched Apple Inc.’s well-crafted sustainability promo, “2030 Status/Mother Nature/Apple,” you should. Released on Sept. 12, the video generated more than 4 million views on YouTube in just a month.

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PROPHESEE Event-Based Metavision GenX320 ZinnLabs Eye Tracking

Prophesee Emboldens Its Mass Consumer Outreach

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
Prophesee is the little engine that could. By launching its fifth-generation event-based imaging sensor and going after the consumer mass market, the French startup run by Luca Verre is demonstrating its resilience. Nothing could deter CEO Verre and his team from leaving any stone unturned in search of a market fit for its neuromorphic vision systems. The unknown is whether AR/VR is the segment that can open the volume market to Prophesee and, if so, how long might it take.

In 2014, a unique bio-inspired vision technology was an asset big enough to convince a team of scholars and a businessman to establish Prophesee.

Prophesee didn’t invent neuromorphic computing. But it has become a pioneer in commercially implementing its principle: Humans don’t record the visual information based on a series of frames. Instead, they capture the stuff of interest – spatial and temporal changes – and send that sparse information efficiently to the brain.

Prophesee has done a yeoman’s work pitching event-based sensors to neophytes, but its efforts have yet to build the mass market. 

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Pet Robots vs Robotaxis

By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
Never underestimate pet robots. Sure, they’re toys and they’re adorable . But they foreshadow a future in which people need to communicate, interact and establish relationships with machines.

I’ve been back “home” in Japan for less than a week, during which I’ve been repeatedly reminded — again — of this country’s eternal fascination with robots, and with how people here tend to fall in love with anything cute.

I refer, of course, to Nicobo, a cuddly robot developed by Panasonic and released last May.

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