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cosors

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I will visit there in October. :)
Congratulations!
I love the hearty dish from there.
It's very time-consuming to cook and only really tastes good on site.
As the French are, it's a kind of cultural asset with its own brotherhood.
However, it is really not suitable for vegans (alone the confit).
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My stomach is growling and it's only early in the morning here.
 
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CHIPS

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Thanks for the link. When I tried to listen to the podcast yesterday their Twitter link led me only to podcast No, 31. There was no No. 32 on their website. Again such a stupid mistake. :mad:
 
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cosors

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This company Neo4J does really smart things with GenAI:

https://neo4j.com/

At the bottom of the home page there are several links, one of which under Learning is "Executive Insights", but if you do the old trick of rubbing a pencil over the page, underneath it says "Idiots Guide".
Discover graph data science goes crazy for me with the dots.
The page seems broken somehow.
Screenshot_2024-04-17-07-55-04-60_40deb401b9ffe8e1df2f1cc5ba480b12.jpg

Screenshot_2024-04-17-07-55-21-17_40deb401b9ffe8e1df2f1cc5ba480b12.jpg

Screenshot_2024-04-17-07-55-36-26_40deb401b9ffe8e1df2f1cc5ba480b12.jpg

Screenshot_2024-04-17-07-55-51-39_40deb401b9ffe8e1df2f1cc5ba480b12.jpg

Dot joining will be quite difficult.
 
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Getupthere

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How does everyone think the 5 year plan is going?
img_7018-jpeg.60995
 

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Frangipani

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Hi @cosors,

I know you have completely written off both ZF and Bosch, but personally I wouldn’t discount either one. Nor Continental. (Fun fact: Conti’s headquarters of the Division for Driver Assistance Systems (ADC Automotive Distance Control Systems GmbH) are in Lindau, less than 30 km from the ZF headquarters.)


asap is an engineering service provider.

In 2019, ZF had acquired a 35% stake in ASAP, but sold it last year, together with other shareholders, to a subsidiary of Indian company HCL Technologies, Inc. that now owns 100%.



StradVision have an office in Friedrichshafen as well, so the number plate could be indicative of either them or ZF, but since I couldn’t find any immediate link between StradVision and ASAP, the (leftover?) ASAP gadget made me think this could still be a ZF-owned (or at least pre-loved one, leased or sold to StradVision) vehicle. But you are right, it would be weird of ZF to use their competitor’s radar… Mind you, they may want to try out their rival’s product! 😜 (Although it seems to be a decade-old model, so not exactly cutting-edge).

StradVision’s second German office is in Meerbusch, so that’s maybe why you spotted the car somewhere in Cologne (I assume). StradVision’s guy there used to work for Conti in Korea, so could that possibly be an explanation for the StradVision car being equipped with a radar by a rival of one of the company’s strategic investors? 🤔


5A80D3CB-1D69-4429-BB4E-DFFDC4D8FB49.jpeg




ZF is completely out as far as I know, as is Bosh for ADAS. The component in the grille is from Conti.
ZF announced last year that they were dropping everything as far as I know. Maybe that's why the vehicle is standing around so openly.
But perhaps Hyundai and Strad Vision are continuing?

That’s only partially correct, though. While it is true that both ZF and Bosch abandoned the development of autonomous vehicle LiDAR sensors, they are of course still very much in the ADAS business and continue to develop other sensors for driver assistance systems, such as radar, ultrasound, camera…

Last year, ZF won the AutomotiveINNOVATIONS 2023 award for their 4D Imaging Radar. Earlier this year, they revealed they had developed a smart seat belt and recently rebranded their Passive Safety Systems Division to ZF LIFETEC. This carve-out sounds promising as to potential future implementation of our tech, when we recall the OnSemi collaboration on smart airbags, revealed during CES 2024.


https://press.zf.com/press/de/releases/release_58434.html (German only)



ABF7213E-A86B-42F1-9976-011A8FCC4545.jpeg


FA873A84-6749-40DF-8882-4B659A1CF042.jpeg



As for Bosch giving up their LiDAR R&D, my (admittedly amateurish) guess is they finally had to concede that their major competitors (Valeo & Luminar come to mind) were way too far ahead in that race, so they eventually decided to drop out and instead focus on areas where they’d stand a chance of leading the pack.


Not reading past the 2023 headlines about Bosch abandoning LiDAR R&D and turning to mmWave sensors instead, could give readers the impression that over time, the Bosch engineers had come to the conclusion that LiDAR is not as indispensable for the future of automated and autonomous driving as is widely believed in the industry. (With one prominent eXception, that is.)

However, once you read on, you will find that a company spokeswoman told the press at the time that Bosch still viewed LiDAR technology as important for automated driving from Level 3 upwards and would continue seeking to integrate LiDAR products into automated driving functions.


D3918F09-CC6C-430F-A5B1-D41F0E6D1236.jpeg


That statement signals to me that abandoning LiDAR R&D is indeed testament to admitting defeat rather than dismissing the technology as redundant for automated and autonomous vehicle applications like Elon Musk has done, ploughing a lone furrow.

Depending on the circumstances, it may actually be wise for a company to resist succumbing to the sunk cost fallacy, but instead pull the ripcord, reposition and restructure, although a lot of money has already gone down the drain (not to mention all the blood, sweat and tears!). Yet, undoubtedly immensely frustrating for everyone involved. And add to that losing face in the public eye and having to endure their rivals’ Schadenfreude (gloating). Well, not so much in this case, as none of the three German Tier 1 automotive suppliers ended up successfully developing competitive LiDAR sensors: In late 2023, Continental - the last one standing, so to say - informed their partner AEye that they intended to discontinue their joint LiDAR development program due to internal restructuring of their business model.

But why should abandoning LiDAR R&D preclude a company from being or becoming a BrainChip customer? There are so many other types of sensors around that BrainChip can potentially make smart, in the automotive sector and elsewhere…

By the way: Just a gentle reminder that another division of Bosch, Bosch Sensortec, partnered with MegaChips in 2015. So if they got or were to get access to our tech via MegaChips, we may never actually get to see a direct IP license from them. As mentioned so often, we’ll have to resort to watching the financials.
 
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If ARM was an arm, BRN would be its biceps💪!
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cosors

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Hi @cosors,

I know you have completely written off both ZF and Bosch, but personally I wouldn’t discount either one. Nor Continental. (Fun fact: Conti’s headquarters of the Division for Driver Assistance Systems (ADC Automotive Distance Control Systems GmbH) are in Lindau, less than 30 km from the ZF headquarters.)




In 2019, ZF had acquired a 35% stake in ASAP, but sold it last year, together with other shareholders, to a subsidiary of Indian company HCL Technologies, Inc. that now owns 100%.



StradVision have an office in Friedrichshafen as well, so the number plate could be indicative of either them or ZF, but since I couldn’t find any immediate link between StradVision and ASAP, the (leftover?) ASAP gadget made me think this could still be a ZF-owned (or at least pre-loved one, leased or sold to StradVision) vehicle. But you are right, it would be weird of ZF to use their competitor’s radar… Mind you, they may want to try out their rival’s product! 😜 (Although it seems to be a decade-old model, so not exactly cutting-edge).

StradVision’s second German office is in Meerbusch, so that’s maybe why you spotted the car somewhere in Cologne (I assume). StradVision’s guy there used to work for Conti in Korea, so could that possibly be an explanation for the StradVision car being equipped with a radar by a rival of one of the company’s strategic investors? 🤔


View attachment 60998






That’s only partially correct, though. While it is true that both ZF and Bosch abandoned the development of autonomous vehicle LiDAR sensors, they are of course still very much in the ADAS business and continue to develop other sensors for driver assistance systems, such as radar, ultrasound, camera…

Last year, ZF won the AutomotiveINNOVATIONS 2023 award for their 4D Imaging Radar. Earlier this year, they revealed they had developed a smart seat belt and recently rebranded their Passive Safety Systems Division to ZF LIFETEC. This carve-out sounds promising as to potential future implementation of our tech, when we recall the OnSemi collaboration on smart airbags, revealed during CES 2024.


https://press.zf.com/press/de/releases/release_58434.html (German only)



View attachment 60994

View attachment 60993


As for Bosch giving up their LiDAR R&D, my (admittedly amateurish) guess is they finally had to concede that their major competitors (Valeo & Luminar come to mind) were way too far ahead in that race, so they eventually decided to drop out and instead focus on areas where they’d stand a chance of leading the pack.


Not reading past the 2023 headlines about Bosch abandoning LiDAR R&D and turning to mmWave sensors instead, could give readers the impression that over time, the Bosch engineers had come to the conclusion that LiDAR is not as indispensable for the future of automated and autonomous driving as is widely believed in the industry. (With one prominent eXception, that is.)

However, once you read on, you will find that a company spokeswoman told the press at the time that Bosch still viewed LiDAR technology as important for automated driving from Level 3 upwards and would continue seeking to integrate LiDAR products into automated driving functions.


View attachment 60996

That statement signals to me that abandoning LiDAR R&D is indeed testament to admitting defeat rather than dismissing the technology as redundant for automated and autonomous vehicle applications like Elon Musk has done, ploughing a lone furrow.

Depending on the circumstances, it may actually be wise for a company to resist succumbing to the sunk cost fallacy, but instead pull the ripcord, reposition and restructure, although a lot of money has already gone down the drain (not to mention all the blood, sweat and tears!). Yet, undoubtedly immensely frustrating for everyone involved. And add to that losing face in the public eye and having to endure their rivals’ Schadenfreude (gloating). Well, not so much in this case, as none of the three German Tier 1 automotive suppliers ended up successfully developing competitive LiDAR sensors: In late 2023, Continental - the last one standing, so to say - informed their partner AEye that they intended to discontinue their joint LiDAR development program due to internal restructuring of their business model.

But why should abandoning LiDAR R&D preclude a company from being or becoming a BrainChip customer? There are so many other types of sensors around that BrainChip can potentially make smart, in the automotive sector and elsewhere…

By the way: Just a gentle reminder that another division of Bosch, Bosch Sensortec, partnered with MegaChips in 2015. So if they got or were to get access to our tech via MegaChips, we may never actually get to see a direct IP license from them. As mentioned so often, we’ll have to resort to watching the financials.
WoW, that surprises and delights me at the same time!
Thank you for the information.
You're right, Meerbusch is close to Cologne.
I was so surprised to see the car just standing there abandoned that I couldn't help but quickly take a few photos.
I've often seen vehicles like this here in the region. But they were always quickly out of sight before I could take any photos.
The only thing that strikes me as odd is the large/big structure on the roof, which seems to have fallen out of time.
Thanks again I will study your post in detail with more time.
I would love it if ZF wasn't out of the running.
You're right, of course. That doesn't mean that they can't be a potential customer. There are now also more details on the subject in the media than when I first heard about it.
They seem to have also dropped their autonomous buses project?
But here comes a nice treat. But it's not ready to present yet.
A friend of mine has recently become project manager for just such vehicles. I'll have to be patient until I can pester him with questions, but if he tells me what he's allowed to say, I'll pass the information on to you.
 
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Frangipani

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They seem to have also dropped their autonomous buses project?

I suppose you mean their autonomous shuttles? Yes and no.


Here is the Dec 2023 press release:


2023-Dec-19

ZF strategically adjusts its shuttle business​


  • Focus on position as a premium supplier for autonomous driving technology
  • Engineering services to provide system knowledge at a higher-level AD as a new offering for customers
  • Adjusted business model builds on ZF’s core strengths and stands for promising growth prospects and higher profitability

Friedrichshafen, Germany. Technology company ZF changes its business model for the global shuttle business and will focus on being a leading technology supplier for autonomous driving. The company has decided to no longer pursue the goal of facilitating entire autonomous transportation systems, including shuttles and their fleet management. Instead, the strategic focus and allocation of funds will shift to providing engineering services to customers and further developing the building blocks needed to advance autonomous driving. Existing partnerships and projects relating to the GRT shuttle will be continued as well as ZF Aftermarket activities.

With the market developing slower than anticipated, and at a time where the persisting multi-crisis and the ongoing transformation towards E-Mobility requires stringent cost focus in the entire industry, the foreseeable high up-front investments are no longer justified.

Having evaluated all options, ZF has concluded that the most promising strategy for the future is to focus on positioning ZF as a premium supplier of autonomous driving technology and engineering services.

ZF is a premium supplier for AD technology

Therefore, ZF will maintain the original position as a supplier to OEMs while continuing to develop the technologies needed to build autonomous transportation systems and advanced passenger cars with assisted and self-driving capabilities. In addition, ZF will market the Group’s unique expertise in systems solutions by offering valuable and highly sought-after development services to customers in the automotive and mobility industry.

In the future ZF enables both OEMs and providers of new mobility systems with its strong portfolio of components and software solutions and offer its capable development services as a booster for customers’ R&D activities. This redirection away from facilitating entire shuttles will also allow ZF to better focus on its core technologies and serve its OEM customers in the passenger car, commercial vehicle, and industrial space. ZF will continue to be a strong enabler of ‘Next Generation Mobility’ by providing OEMs with a unique offering.

Today, automated and autonomous functions have found their way into all vehicle categories, where they make a significant contribution to greater safety, efficiency, and comfort. The technical basis for these functions is provided by ZF, which has developed a strong portfolio of advanced sensors, high-performance computers, special software solutions, and intelligent actuators over the past years.

Continuation of existing partnerships and projects

Existing partnerships and projects with the GRT shuttle for operation in separated lanes will continue as before. This shuttle model from ZF subsidiary 2getthere is already being used successfully in projects such as Rivium in the Netherlands and will continue to be produced and sold by US license partner Oceaneering in the future. Projects such as RABus for researching automated bus operation in the two German cities of Mannheim and Friedrichshafen is important for the new business model and is also indented to be implemented as planned.

ZF will also continue its aftermarket activities for autonomous vehicle fleets and offers services like maintenance, repair and training. For service, customers can rely on ZF’s global network with 20,000 workshop partners worldwide.
 
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cosors

👀
I suppose you mean their autonomous shuttles? Yes and no.


Here is the Dec 2023 press release:


2023-Dec-19

ZF strategically adjusts its shuttle business​


  • Focus on position as a premium supplier for autonomous driving technology
  • Engineering services to provide system knowledge at a higher-level AD as a new offering for customers
  • Adjusted business model builds on ZF’s core strengths and stands for promising growth prospects and higher profitability

Friedrichshafen, Germany. Technology company ZF changes its business model for the global shuttle business and will focus on being a leading technology supplier for autonomous driving. The company has decided to no longer pursue the goal of facilitating entire autonomous transportation systems, including shuttles and their fleet management. Instead, the strategic focus and allocation of funds will shift to providing engineering services to customers and further developing the building blocks needed to advance autonomous driving. Existing partnerships and projects relating to the GRT shuttle will be continued as well as ZF Aftermarket activities.

With the market developing slower than anticipated, and at a time where the persisting multi-crisis and the ongoing transformation towards E-Mobility requires stringent cost focus in the entire industry, the foreseeable high up-front investments are no longer justified.

Having evaluated all options, ZF has concluded that the most promising strategy for the future is to focus on positioning ZF as a premium supplier of autonomous driving technology and engineering services.

ZF is a premium supplier for AD technology

Therefore, ZF will maintain the original position as a supplier to OEMs while continuing to develop the technologies needed to build autonomous transportation systems and advanced passenger cars with assisted and self-driving capabilities. In addition, ZF will market the Group’s unique expertise in systems solutions by offering valuable and highly sought-after development services to customers in the automotive and mobility industry.

In the future ZF enables both OEMs and providers of new mobility systems with its strong portfolio of components and software solutions and offer its capable development services as a booster for customers’ R&D activities. This redirection away from facilitating entire shuttles will also allow ZF to better focus on its core technologies and serve its OEM customers in the passenger car, commercial vehicle, and industrial space. ZF will continue to be a strong enabler of ‘Next Generation Mobility’ by providing OEMs with a unique offering.

Today, automated and autonomous functions have found their way into all vehicle categories, where they make a significant contribution to greater safety, efficiency, and comfort. The technical basis for these functions is provided by ZF, which has developed a strong portfolio of advanced sensors, high-performance computers, special software solutions, and intelligent actuators over the past years.

Continuation of existing partnerships and projects

Existing partnerships and projects with the GRT shuttle for operation in separated lanes will continue as before. This shuttle model from ZF subsidiary 2getthere is already being used successfully in projects such as Rivium in the Netherlands and will continue to be produced and sold by US license partner Oceaneering in the future. Projects such as RABus for researching automated bus operation in the two German cities of Mannheim and Friedrichshafen is important for the new business model and is also indented to be implemented as planned.

ZF will also continue its aftermarket activities for autonomous vehicle fleets and offers services like maintenance, repair and training. For service, customers can rely on ZF’s global network with 20,000 workshop partners worldwide.
Thanks again!
And of course I meant that Meerbusch is near to Cologne and not part of it. It's (close to) Düsseldorf.
But I remain sceptical about all three when it comes to in-house developments and not to only assemble components. But I will read your links carefully.
All but MB seem to be finding it extremely difficult to restructure in the automotive sector here in Germany. And even MB has its problems.
The delegation from MB and BMW in China the last few days had asked the German Chancellor not to raise trade barriers against China. Intended to protect the European market.
I am afraid that the gap of dependency cannot be bridged with in-house development.

We here with Brainchip usually only think of chips and ADAS or assistance systems or to make an EV more comfortable when we think of cars. An EV can also drive without this or drive with existing technology. But not without batteries. And that's where German OEMs are almost empty-handed, totally out of touch, especially with raw materials. That's an important topic for Bosch too.
If China turns off the tap, no EV will roll off the production line, whether with ADAS, LiDAR, assistance systems or without.
That is probably why they are afraid of trade barriers.
 
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Frangipani

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But I remain sceptical about all three when it comes to in-house developments and not to only assemble components. But I will read your links carefully.

Why would the German trinity of automotive suppliers each have established their own AI Labs if they only assembled components? 🧐

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They spend a lot of moolah on R&D in general and also offer all sorts of engineering services:




 
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Frangipani

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Thanks for the link. When I tried to listen to the podcast yesterday their Twitter link led me only to podcast No, 31. There was no No. 32 on their website. Again such a stupid mistake. :mad:

Space Robot Ken made sure the social media team posted the correct link today! 😉


C012E893-3612-400B-B07E-9ABFDB018194.jpeg
 
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"AI has the potential to exceed all the transformative innovations created in the last century "

"Every watt saved enables more compute. This is why Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Oracle have now all adopted Arm Neoverse technology to solve both general-purpose compute and CPU-based AI inference and training. Arm Neoverse is on the path to being the de-facto standard across cloud data centers."

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jtardif999

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AI could gobble up a quarter of all electricity in the U.S. by 2030 if it doesn’t break its energy addiction, says Arm Holdings exec

Before artificial intelligence can transform society, the technology will first have to learn how to live within its means.

Right now generative AI has an “insatiable demand” for electricity to power the tens of thousands of compute clusters needed to operate large language models like OpenAI’s GPT-4, warned chief marketing officer Ami Badani of chip design firm Arm Holdings.

If generative AI is ever going to be able to run on every mobile device from a laptop and tablet to a smartphone, it will have to be able to scale without overwhelming the electricity grid at the same time.

“We won’t be able to continue the advancements of AI without addressing power,” Badani told the Fortune Brainstorm AI conference in London on Monday. “ChatGPT requires 15 times more energy than a traditional web search.”

Not only are more businesses using generative AI, but the tech industry is in a race to develop new and more powerful tools that will mean compute demand is only going to grow—and power consumption with it, unless something can be done.

The latest breakthrough from OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is Sora. It can create super realistic or stylized clips of video footage up to 60 seconds in length purely based on user text prompts.

The marvel of gen AI comes at a steep cost

“It takes 100,000 AI chips working at full compute capacity and full power consumption in order to train Sora,” Badani said. “That’s a huge amount.”

Data centers, where most AI models are trained, currently account for 2% of global electricity consumption, according to Badani. But with generative AI expected to go mainstream, she predicts it could end up devouring a quarter of all power in the United States in 2030.

The solution to this conundrum is to develop semiconductor chips that are optimized to run on a minimum of energy.

That’s where Arm comes in: Its RISC processor designs currently run on 99% of all smartphones, as opposed to the rival x86 architecture developed by Intel. The latter has been a standard for desktop PCs, but proved too inefficient to run battery-powered handheld devices like smartphones and tablets.

Arm is adopting that same design philosophy for AI.

“If you think about AI, it comes with a cost,” Badani said, “and that cost is unfortunately power.”
 
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