Last year, Intel partnered with Lady Gaga on the Super Bowl Halftime Show to showcase its latest aerial technology called “Shooting Star.” Intel did a reprise performance of its Shooting Star technology for Singapore’s 52nd birthday this past week. Instead of fireworks, the tech-savvy country celebrated its National Day Parade with a swarm of 300 LED drones animating the night sky with shapes, logos, and even a map of the country.

Intel announced plans to acquire Israel-based Mobileye, a developer of vision technology used in autonomous driving applications, for $15.3 billion. Mobileye share prices jumped from $47 to $61 (the tender offering price is $63.54) on the news, a 30% premium. The purchase marks the largest acquisition of an Israeli hi-tech company ever.

Thursday night, and I am heading off to CES, and it’s become the main show it seems for announcing robocar news. There’s already a bunch.

Intel is establishing an autonomous driving division; hacker George Hotz is open-sourcing his self-driving software in a bid to become a network company; LiDAR and distancing devices are changing. What does it all mean?

Two CES keynote presentations illustrate how artificial intelligence and data synthesis will provide the backbone to enable meaningful and productive interaction between humans and machines … not only on screens, but with gestures, visual cues and spoken understandable communication to and from smart devices and robots of all types. And it’s not just a near-term future they foretell — they give examples of where it is already happening.

Intel Corp. has acquired German drone and autopilot developer Ascending Technologies. Ascending’s LED light painting technology was used to fly and draw the Intel logo while the moves were shot with long exposure photography.

Guest talk in the ShanghAI Lectures, 2009-10-29

How can science fiction help prototype emerging science theory and experimentation? Expanding on the framework of consumer experience architecture, this talk explores how a fictional story, based specifically on current works of scientific research, can lead to the expansion and further experimentation of a dramatic new approach to artificial intelligence and domestic robots.