Nvidia that had the honors of delivering the keynote address at the CES 2017 event was always expected to make some blockbuster revelations that would chart out its course for the year ahead. And the company didn’t disappoint either as it unveiled grand plans of how it wishes to use technology to make life simpler for the people at large.
Among the most significant of all that Nvidia announced is the company’s approach to the emerging new segment of self-driving cars. The company announced a new Xavier supercomputing platform that enables the car to learn the nuances of self-driving by watching a human drive. The company showcased an Audi Q7 which is said to have just four days of training but is still able to drive itself on its own responsibly.
In fact, it is the quick learning attribute that makes the Nvidia tech all the more potent considering that it enables the car to quickly adapt to any driving conditions almost in real-time. However, that’s just one aspect of the Nvidia self-driving package as it also entails the application of AI to monitor the car’s in-car environment.
Termed AI Co-Pilot, the system will be keeping an eye over the drivers, like which direction their heads are turning, watch their eye and lip movements and so on. This way, the system will be able to make out if the driver is too angry and will suggest pulling over. Or it can also make out what the driver is saying from lip movements even when, say there is too much noise in the cabin and so on.
Another area where Nvidia would be making its presence felt is the AI based home voice assistant segment. Currently dominated by the Amazon Echo powered by Alexa artificial intelligence system, Nvidia’s offering in the segment will be the Shield media streaming device.
Also accompanying the Shield will be the Nvidia Spot, which will serve as the Shield’s peripheral device and is essentially a microphone that users can place anywhere in their house. Also, with a range of 20-feet, the Spot boasts of echo cancellation and allow the user to speak to the device almost from anywhere within their house.
Providing the AI backbone to the Shield will be Google Assistant, the artificial intelligence based voice activated a digital personal assistant system that Google designed. Interestingly, Google Assistant also serves in the company’s own Google Home smart speaker devices besides the Pixel smartphones.
Saving perhaps the best for the last, the other crucial revelation that CEO Huang made during his keynote address is the launch of a cloud-based gaming platform named GeForce. Its graphics processing units used in high-end gaming devices that have brought Nvidia to the limelight though with the GeForce initiative, the company is aiming to bring top-end games within the ambit of the masses.
The biggest advantage with GeForce is that the games would be running in the cloud and not on the user’s own devices. This way, people will be able to play all the latest games without having to invest in developing their own PCs. The only requirement though will be a reliable and high-speed internet connection while the service itself costs $25 for 20 hours.
