- This device can fit on your fingertip, but it will make sure your self-driving car doesn’t end up in a ditch…
- One of the largest blockchain acquisitions in history is not what you’d expect
- Audio dropping out during your conference call? Let the AI take over
Dear Reader,
The weekend delivered great news. In the U.S., which has the largest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the world, the number of new cases appears to have peaked on Friday.
Friday’s peak of 35,100 new cases dropped below 29,000 on Easter Sunday. Finally, we are beginning to hear some healthy discussion about when and how to begin the process of slowly reopening the economies of both the U.S. and Europe.
This peaking is also consistent with what I’m seeing out of the data from New York City. Here is a chart of the daily hospitalizations (data is directly from the NYC Health Department).
The peak of new hospitalizations was on April 3 at 1,633. April 11 had 149. We can see the same trend in the number of reported deaths.
The peak in deaths was on April 7 at 476. April 12 is currently reported at 29. The April 12 data is likely to increase a bit due to delays in reporting, but it will certainly be much lower.
It took a lot of digging and a couple of phone calls to figure out what was happening at the overflow medical facilities established at New York’s Javits Center and the hospital ship, the United States Naval Ship (USNS) Comfort.
Each facility has the capacity of an additional 1,000 beds. Are they full? We might be surprised…
As of April 6, last Monday, combined they were serving less than 100 patients. That’s less than 5% utilization.
And by last Thursday, the numbers increased to 189 patients at Javits and 53 patients on the Comfort. Both facilities can treat those with COVID-19 as well. Combined, that’s 12% utilization.
The reason for the increase at these two facilities wasn’t an influx of new cases. The oxygen system at two hospitals in Queens failed, so many patients were relocated to Javits and the Comfort.
It is wonderful that the backup was there just in case it was necessary. It’s even better news that hospitalizations and deaths are rapidly declining. It’s terrible that this isn’t more widely reported by the mainstream press.
I did some digging to figure out why New York City is one of the only places in the U.S. that has some hospitals running at capacity.
As it turns out, in a study by a professor at Columbia University, New York City ranks No. 220 out of 305 hospital regions in the U.S. for preparedness regarding intensive care bed capacity per 10,000 residents. It only has 2.7 for every 10,000 people.
Wow – 72% of hospital regions around the country were better prepared than New York.
The great news is that this is a problem that New York City can fix, and I hope that it does after this experience. The even better news is that the overflow facilities at Javits and the Comfort will not be needed. I expect they will soon be shut down, just as the facility in Seattle was last week.
I’m confident that we’re over the peak. We’re likely past the worst of it, and I’m going to look forward to the recovery that is soon to come.
Now let’s turn to today’s insights…
This new device will make self-driving cars dramatically safer…
A breakthrough that could have implications for self-driving cars, autonomous drones, and even our smartphones caught my eye over the weekend.
The University of Michigan has produced a precision shell integrating gyroscope that is 10,000 times more accurate than the gyroscopes we use today.
Gyroscopes are tiny devices that determine position, acceleration, and rotation. They are often used in conjunction with GPS systems to help determine location second by second. Combined with GPS systems, they are used by navigation systems.
Here’s a visual of the University of Michigan’s new gyroscope technology:
A New Highly Accurate Gyroscope
Source: University of Michigan
We might not know it, but all our smartphones today contain gyroscopes. This device is what prompts our phones to light up when we pick them up. And it’s what prompts our phones to rotate to widescreen view when we turn them sideways.
However, the problem with existing gyroscopes is that they aren’t very accurate. They work just fine for phone rotations or sensing that the phone is being moved. But they aren’t suitable for more complicated applications like precise location tracking.
Cars – and, of course, self-driving cars – use GPS for navigation systems with backup support from onboard gyroscopes. As long as they have a connection to GPS satellites, they are fine. But cars lose GPS connection in certain areas like tunnels. That’s when cars use gyroscope technology as a backup.
The problem is that today’s gyroscopes are inaccurate for navigation. The longer a car goes without a GPS signal, the gyroscope rapidly falls off course.
For every minute driven at 50 km/h, the car would drift seven meters out of position (23 feet). And for every five minutes driven at that speed, the car will move 850 meters (roughly half a mile) out of position.
So after a minute of relying on a gyroscope, the car could be in the wrong lane or even off the road. And after five minutes, the car would be so far off that navigation wouldn’t be very useful.
Of course, self-driving cars know how to stay in a lane and avoid the shoulder of the road (or a ditch). They have plenty of sensors to make sure the car is safe. So the real issue is about accurate navigation and making sure the car understands exactly where it is on the road in any situation… even without GPS.
That’s where this new precision shell integrating gyroscope comes in. After one minute of driving, it reduces the potential for error to two millimeters. And after five minutes, its maximum positional error would be only 30 centimeters (about 12 inches).
So this is a great development. This new gyroscope will ensure that self-driving cars are always safe, even without GPS connection.
The cost to produce this kind of gyroscope is about 10 times what we use in our smartphones today (about $50). The additional cost will barely affect the price of a vehicle.
But as the costs drop due to manufacturing improvements, I can see a path to putting one of these in every smartphone. I’ll be keeping an eye out for which semiconductor manufacturer licenses this technology to commercialize it.
One of the largest blockchain acquisitions in history just happened…
Word is out that cryptocurrency exchange Binance is going to acquire CoinMarketCap. This is one of the top three acquisitions ever in the blockchain industry.
As those familiar with the blockchain space will know, Binance is one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges.
And CoinMarketCap is a top site for cryptocurrency investors and traders. It receives more traffic than any other similar site. It tracks the price movements and vital statistics of the entire universe of cryptocurrencies and digital assets.
We can think of CoinMarketCap as something of a “leaderboard” in the world of digital assets.
It’s no surprise that Binance would want CoinMarketCap.com. In terms of traffic, the site is ranked No. 534 out of all the websites in the world. That’s incredible.
For comparison, the Financial Times’ website ranks No. 1,355. And financial news site Barrons.com is ranked No. 5,792. CoinMarketCap is far more popular than both.
So Binance will be able to drive lots of new customers to its exchange from CoinMarketCap.com. It’s a logical acquisition for Binance.
What is surprising is the price tag. Apparently, Binance is going to pay $400 million. That’s a huge price for a simple data aggregation website.
And at $400 million, the CoinMarketCap acquisition will tie for the largest blockchain deal in history. The other two deals were Poloniex, which was acquired by Goldman Sachs-backed Circle for $400 million in 2018. And BitStamp was acquired by a Belgian investment firm for $400 million in 2018 as well.
There’s a little humor here…
Both Poloniex and BitStamp were cryptocurrency exchanges. They were real blockchain-based businesses. But CoinMarketCap doesn’t use blockchain technology at all.
So one of the largest blockchain-related acquisitions in history… isn’t even a blockchain company. I can’t help but feel a bit empathetic for the blockchain industry. It has been a tough two and a half years for the industry. To have one of the top three deals be a leaderboard website is pretty comical.
That doesn’t mean that there won’t be bigger success stories down the line.
Rumor has it that Ripple Labs and Coinbase are gearing up for eventual initial public offerings. And other well-established firms like Square, Facebook, Amazon, and Robinhood have been very active in the space over the last couple of years.
The industry will come back stronger, but it might not be in 2020…
The new AI that can predict what we will say on video calls…
We will wrap up today with a timely subject, given how many videoconferencing calls are taking place right now.
With the additional strain on networks, many users have experienced glitches and choppy audio on their video calls. If anybody has been on a conference call recently, I’m sure you’ve dealt with this.
Google’s new artificial intelligence (AI) sets out to fix that…
Google just implemented an AI in its video call app Duo that can mimic our voice and speech patterns. This AI listens to our calls, and when our voice drops out, it covers the gap momentarily by predicting what our next syllables were going to be.
The AI cannot predict entire words and phrases yet. It can only insert syllables to complete our words when our audio drops midspeech.
Even so, this is a very impressive tech. What’s more, the AI can autocomplete sections of speech in 48 different languages.
Going one step further, if this technology were refined, it could even be used to assist people with speech impairments to communicate more effectively.
Of course, there could be a downside…
What if the AI makes a mistake and puts the wrong words in our mouth? “Wow, you look like a heroine” could become “Wow, you look like you’re on heroin,” as just one theoretical example. Just a little bit off, and the AI could cause serious damage.
Still, I suspect other video call services, like Zoom, will ultimately implement this kind of AI technology. The ability to smooth out faults in the audio will be attractive to these companies.
Regards,
Jeff Brown
Editor, The Bleeding Edge
P.S. The fact that video call glitches are a topic for us today highlights how 4G wireless networks, wired networks, and data centers are overloaded right now.
Peak usage on wireless networks around the world has jumped 20–40% in the last month due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Videoconferencing traffic has jumped 300%. And gaming traffic has exploded 400%.
These numbers are incredible. And they are placing a major strain on our wireless networks. Simply put, 4G was not designed to handle this drastic spike in traffic and usage.
For this reason, the migration to fifth-generation (5G) wireless networks is more important than ever. President Trump went so far as to say that 5G is a matter of national security.
And that’s why I hosted a State of 5G Summit last week, right from our nation’s capital in Washington, D.C.
There, we talked about the 5G buildout, how its progressing, and how the coronavirus is actually accelerating the trend. I also performed a 5G speed test to show how 5G is 100 times faster than 4G right now.
That’s right – these lightning-fast speeds are available to us today. It’s no longer a hypothetical.
And, of course, we talked about the major investment opportunities that 5G provides us today. I even spilled the beans on my top small-cap 5G stock and why I believe it’s set to soar at least 1,000% for investors taking a position today.
For readers who missed my State of 5G presentation, simply go right here to see a replay.
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