AI Assistants, Smartwatches That Are Saving Millions...1

Artificial Intelligence, smartwatches and many other devices are restructuring the habits of millions resulting in their life extension.  They are also saving thousands from what would have been, in the past, life-ending accidents.


TIMELY HELP AVAILABLE BECAUSE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE


See These Pages: FUTURISM TECH TRENDS SINGULARITY SCIENCE CENSORSHIP SOCIAL NETWORKS eREADERS MOBILE DEVICES


The disaster of hurricane Harvey has been well broadcast, but some of the help the technological innovations of the past years have not been as well broadcast.

Tyler Frank, a 14 year-old boy who suffers from sickle-cell anemia, was undergoing exposure from the elements and general shock of the event.  At first, he called 911 to little avail.  He then plead for help on Facebook which also accomplished nothing.  Finally, in desperation he asked Siri on his iPhone to call the Coast Guard on the morning of August 27th.  Help came the next morning with the arrival of Coast Guard helicopter.

In March of 2017, the London Daily Mail, posted an article on how a 4 year-old boy named Roman used his mother's thumb to unlock her iPhone and asked Siri to call the emergency service.  His mother had fallen into a coma and did not appear to be breathing.  Within 13 minutes rescuers forced their way into the house and revived the mother.  The London police are encouraging parents to teach their children how to use these devices to ask for help.



Off the coast of Key Biscayne Florida, some fishermen ran into very rough seas.  As the boat sank, they barely had enough time to put on their lifejackets.  They could not use the phones' screen to call 911 so they spoke to Siri who was able to summon help.

Christopher Beaucher was checking his mother's vacant cottage when he saw something suspicious and went inside.  When he turned on the lights the house exploded into flames.  Obviously, he could not dial the phone due to the burns on his hands and face.  He asked Siri do dial 911 and was able to get help before he began going into shock.

In June 2016, a woman from Australia saw her one-year-old child, Gianna turn blue on her baby monitor.  Her mother acted quickly and instead of fumbling with dialing she told Siri to call 911.  She later wrote a thank-you note to Apple for instituting Siri.



Apple has understood the implications of what Siri is doing and produced a commercial highlighting these kinds of events.



Of course, there are Apple commercials that demonstrate in a humorous way how Siri is changing people.


There are not any easy-to-find stories on Microsoft's Cortana voice AI saving lives, there there are on Amazon's Alexa.  On July 2, 2017, the police were summoned inadvertently, by the perpetrator himself when he threatened that if his girlfriend called the police he would kill her.  He asked her, "did you call the sheriff? an d that the Amazon Echo device called the sheriff and 911 called back the victim's cell phone number.  Police arrived and the boyfriend was arrested.

Google Now, Android's AI, has at least saved one life.  This was done through Google's Advanced Mobile Location technology.  Unfortunately, this technology has only been implemented in the UK, Estonia, parts of Austria and Lithuania.  But this will change, meaning more lives will be saved.  Here is a video of it:




In the horrible massacre that occurred in Las Vegas in October 2017, 23 year-old Jordan Mclidoon was hit by gunfire and lay for hours as he died.  Heather Gooze was nearby and held him during that time.  When he died, she reached for his iPhone and although it was locked, was able to summon Siri to call his mother and inform her of the passing of her son.

Apple Watch Saves A Life through an app called HeartWatch.  On Sunday October 15th, James Green a podcast producer from Brooklyn, received an alert from the HeartWatch app on his Apple Watch his hear rate was

continually above his normal resting rate.  Having had a previous pulmonary embolism, he recognized the other symptoms he was having (shortness of breath, etc.).  When he immediately reached out to his doctor, he was rushed into an emergency room and was treated with blood thinners.  His doctor said that if he had not come in immediately, he would have died.  


THE FUTURE OF SIRI, CORTANA, GOOGLE NOW, ETC.
These AIs are just at their beginning.  Now they are coming to the home.  Google, Amazon, Apple and to a lesser extend Microsoft are fighting for the American home.  Each company is spending almost a billion dollars each in expanding and improving these voice activated assistants.

CBInsights Research Briefs, in a report titled, The Race For AI: Google, Baidu, Intel, Apple In A Rush To Grab Artificial Intelligence Startups, states:

Google is the most active acquirer of AI startups, with 12 acquisitions under its belt since 2012. In 2013, Google picked up deep learning and neural network startup DNNresearch from the computer science department at the University of Toronto. This acquisition reportedly helped Google make major upgrades to its image search feature. In 2014 Google acquired British company DeepMind Technologies for some $600M (Google’s DeepMind program recently beat a human world champion in the board game “Go”). Last year, it acquired visual search startup Moodstock, and bot platform Api.ai. More recently, in Q3’17, Google acquired India-based Halli Labs. 

Apple has been ramping up its M&A activity, and ranked second with a total of 8 acquisitions. It recently acquired California-based Lattice Data for $200M and Tel Aviv-based RealFace, valued at $2M. (The table below excludes computer vision-based AR/VR startups like SensoMotoric Instruments, which Apple acquired in Q2’17.) 

Intel, Microsoft, and Facebook are tied for third place. Intel acquired 3 startups in 2016 alone: Itseez, Nervana Systems, and Movidius, while Facebook acquired Belarus-based Masquerade Technologies and Switzerland-based Zurich Eye recently. Microsoft recently acquired Genee and conversational AI startup Maluuba.

Click To Enlarge

DBInsights produced another excellent chart in the above mentioned article.

Click To Enlarge

As can be seen from the above chart, the competition in Artificial Intelligence is not new.  It has been building up.  Forbes magazine gives an idea of the amounts of money being spent on AI by the likes of Google.

Click To Enlarge

All the companies are quickly buying or submitting patents.  Again Forbes has done excellent research:

Click To Enlarge

Machine learning is an essential part of the investment:

Click To Enlarge

Telecom and the Financial Services were early adopters:

Click To Enlarge

The McKinsey Report, which Forbes has been quoting and from which these excellent charts originate, predicts that High Tech, Communications and Financial Services will lead all other industries in the adoption of AI:

Click To Enlarge

In terms of profits, Healthcare , Financial Services and Professional Services are seeing the greatest profit margins from the adoption of AI:

Click To Enlarge

The next installment of this series will cover the actual features of the apps that will change healthcare and contribute toward longer lifespans.