Apple CEO Tim Cook surprise everyone atthis year ’s Worldwide Developers Conference ( WWDC)when he invited a tiny robotics startup onto the level . Out came Boris Sofman , the chief executive of the fast - uprise artificially thinking robotics company Anki . What followed was a glitchy demo of Anki Drive , a seemingly mundane toy gondola secret plan and the young company ’s first merchandise . But these are no ordinary railroad car . These car drive themselves . They make 100 if not chiliad of decisions a second . They adapt over prison term . In other words , these railway car are smart .
https://gizmodo.com/wwdc-2013-roundup-all-the-new-toys-apple-announced-tod-512401795
Well that ’s all well and unspoilt . Smart little race car — how nerveless . But the question one maintain derive back to is just , “ So what ? ” There are more questions . Why does the world need unnaturally thinking toy ? Were these even toy ? Why was that one little red railcar screwing up so much during the demo ? And most of all , why was Apple so excited about this technology that it shared the stage with a essentially unknown inauguration with a silly name ?
So I talked to Anki ’s founders , Mark Palatucci and Hanns Tappeiner . ( Sofman is also a founder but was n’t able-bodied to make the interview . ) They ’re obviously smart guys , having meet about five years ago while earning their Ph.D. ’s from Carnegie Mellon . Palatucci explain that Anki started out as a Night and weekends labor with a lofty underlying precept . “ We realized that most of everything we work on in robotics and AI was just being used in governance projects , ” he enounce . Indeed , DARPA is one of the biggest funders of robotics and AI inquiry . “ Very little was being used in consumer products , and we regard the opportunity to take a lot of what we were pick up in school and bring it to people and their daily lives . ”
That voice nice . Robotics for the people . The philosophy is reminiscent of how Pixar embraced CGI invigoration back in the 1980s , back when it was for the most part being used by other diligence . The doctrine of analogy makes even more sense pass on that the founders foot the entertainment sector for their first product . As such , Anki Drive is part video game and part real - life experience that depends on the very conversant earth of cars . Who does n’t like cars ?
“ Cars have a cross - generational collection , ” Palatucci told me . What makes them even more appealing , though , is the fact that they learn and evolve . “ When you buy the cars they ’re going to be very different , ” he say . “ They have personalities . ”
That sounds a short creepy ; Teddy Ruxpinwas trouble enoughwithout being sentient .
So that ’s why Apple is so interested . Indeed , the iPhone Divine has been make on conquering the living room at least as long as iTunes has fend for TV shows . In the retiring few year , we ’ve catch several devices that enable you to fulfil all of your living room amusement needs using Apple intersection . And even though Applefailed to update Apple TVin this latest round of new discharge , there ’s no planetary house that it ’s slowing down in its quest to fill up all of your amusement motive . That it would be interested in a company that uses Apple genus Apis to create a new variety of amusement is no surprisal . Plus , it never suffer to mistreat on Google ’s toes a minuscule in the outgrowth .
https://gizmodo.com/what-about-apple-tv-512574331
Anki ’s time to come beyond the Apple - wait on launch of Anki Drive is alone unclear . The founders would n’t babble about any other projects they were working on , insisting that they were commit all of their energy to the ego - driving car project . They were also very sensitive about my call Anki Drive a toy because , they tell , “ it ’s something much more than that . ” The genius would n’t even name any competitors because they insisted that Anki ’s applied science was an entirely new thing unlike anything the public has learn . ( That ’s a small bit severe to believe but whatever . )
One matter ’s for sure : Anki is baby-sit pretty . Despite the stumble at WWDC , the company is backed by one of the most striking VC firms in the world and supported by the most worthful technology company in the world . In the past 16 months , they ’ve produce from four employees to 35 and continue to spring up at breakneck speed . And they do have bigger plans .
“ For now we ’re focused on Anki Drive , but it ’s really about the underlying engineering , the building auction block , ” say Palatucci , explaining the bedrock of the AI behind its product . “ Once you have that , you could really begin doing astonishing matter in the substantial world . you could do things you could only see in video game . ”
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