Rundle Mall Store Opening Cruzr (Telstra’s Humanoid Robot) and I headed out to South Australia to support the re-opening of the state’s flagship store. Cruzr attended an exclusive preview event the night before, and met the key stakeholders in Telstra Retail. The next morning, Cruzr was set up and ready to go. A coffee cart had been organised, and Cruzr would be partnered up with the barista for the day. Cruzr is able to greet Read more…
Humanoid Robotics Humanoid robots provide artificial intelligence with a physical point of presence, allowing chatbots to escape the screen, blurring the lines between the digital and physical world. As part of Telstra’s humanoid program of work, I’ve had the opportunity to work on the Cruzr humanoid robotic platform, manufactured by UBTECH, one of the largest robotics companies globally. Prior to this, I also worked on Softbank’s NAO and Pepper robots. Nao Softbank Cruzr Concierge We Read more…
Search and Rescue Telstra has built a UAV swarm in-house, for surveying and search and rescue applications. The swarm is made up of 9 drones which fly together in concert. With such rich aerial data sets and video available in real time, how might we better augment emergency response operations? Myself and a colleague Ravi Singh were asked to evaluate different technologies options to enable search and rescue operations for the swarm. We kicked off Read more…
An ongoing challenge to creating robust object detection algorithms is their thirst for large datasets. Thanks to transfer learning, rapid prototypes are possible with as little as 10 images, thanks to weeks of pre-training, and can be trained in as little as one hour! Of course, to create a more robust algorithm, large datasets are required from a wide range of environments, to help the AI generalise to new contexts. Annotation (the process of Read more…
External GPU (eGPU) As part of my AI Program of Work, I recently acquired a Razer Core v2 eGPU housing, with a NVIDIA Titan Xp graphics card. eGPUs allow for portable graphics cards, to enable or further augment devices lackign in computational power. This is a fantastic tool, as it can turn low spec laptops into AI workstations! I have been using it in conjunction with my Razer Blade laptop (pictured in the background) over Read more…
My favourite aspect of augmented reality (AR) is how it blurs the distinction between the physical and digital worlds. I was asked as part of an innovation exercise to develop a rapid prototype of how AR could apply to banking. To children, receiving pocket money to a bank account just isn’t as tangible as receiving cash (though this may be changing through increased exposure to digital devices and gamification!). Younger children also tend to prioritise Read more…
MaskRCNNs for Object Detection MaskRCNN is a region-based convolutional neural network, used for object detection. What makes this algorithm cutting edge is the ability to perform detections using a mask (outline of the object), not just by drawing a bounding box around the object of interest. By identifying each pixel related to the object of interest, a new range of applications are now possible. This could be rust, hire car damage or potholes in roads! Read more…
Cell on Wings My colleague, Peter Jones, heads up Telstra’s RPAS program (Remotely Piloted Aircraft System). He showcased Telstra’s Cell on Wings at the MilCIS conference recently, demonstrating an innovative new approach to disaster recovery and telecommunications. Telstra’s Pulse Aerospace Vapor 55 Helicopter The Cell on Wings is an experimental prototype, in its second generation, focussed on the rapid recovery of Telstra’s network in the case of natural disasters, which may damage cell towers. The Read more…
MilCIS I had the opportunity to travel to Canberra, and represent Telstra Labs at MilCIS (Military Communications and Information Systems Conference). I was joined by my colleague Peter Jones, representing the Telstra UAV program, as well as Telstra Track and Monitor, Readify (Telstra consulting company), and Telstra Liberate Your Workforce (Office 365). I demonstrated an example of the MaskRCNN, and discussed the pipeline of data capture from the displayed helicopter, ingestion into a big data Read more…
Project HALIA is a joint project between Telstra, QANTAS and Microsoft that was showcased at MilCIS 2018. It was work on by my colleague Gagan Singh, who leads Media & Immersive Experiences (Mixed Reality) in our team. A colleague of mine, Gagan Singh, helped build and develop the application together with Readify, a consulting company within Telstra. The application is targeting at reducing inspection times of aircraft that are struck by lightning. If a lightning Read more…