Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, recently announced that it is working to commercialize tactile sensors for AI. Developed in collaboration with GelSight and Wonik Robotics, the new Meta devices aren’t designed for consumers but instead cater to scientists so they can train AI to “perceive and interact with their surroundings as well as coexist safely with humans.”
The company noted that it worked with GelSight to develop Digit 360, “a tactile fingertip with human-level multimodal sensing capabilities.” This tech will enable AI models to sense and detect changes in their surroundings.
Digit 360 also comes with on-device AI models that allow the sensor to process information locally and reduce latency when responding to touch. Meta is publicly releasing the code and design for Digit 360, which it claims might help in the development of more realistic virtual environments.
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Meta Released PARTNR To Evaluate AI Effectiveness
Meta also announced the launch of Digit Plexus, a hardware-software solution that can use and integrate various fingertip and skin tactile sensors on a single robotic hand and transmit the data to a host computer.
While GelSight will manufacture and distribute Digit 360, which will be available sometime in 2025, the South Korean firm Wonik Robotics will be responsible for the fully integrated robotic hand dubbed “Allegro Hand,” which uses the Digit Plexus platform.
The company also released Planning And Reasoning Tasks in humaN-Robot Collaboration (PARTNR), which serves as a benchmark to evaluate the effectiveness of an AI model when used with humans on day-to-day tasks. Developed using the company’s simulated environment - Habitat, PARTNR features 100,000 natural language tasks involving 60 houses and 5800 plus unique objects.
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Meta Reportedly Working On AI-Powered Search Engine
Meta seems to be working on an AI-powere search engine to decrese its reliance on Google and and Microsoft, according to a report from The Information. The search engine would reportedly offer AI-generated search summaries of current events within the Meta AI chatbot.
The Meta AI bot built into Instagram and Facebook currently leverages Google -- whose parent company, Alphabet, will report quarterly earnings tomorrow - and Microsoft Bing to answer questions about recent news and events.
That might eventually change, as the company’s web crawler was spotted roving the web months ago. The Information’s source indicates a team has been working for about eight months to build a database of information for its chatbot.
Meta has worked on gathering location data that could be taken on Google Maps, and in September, Bloomberg reported that Apple’s work on search tools in the App Store showed how it “has what it needs” for its own AI-powered Google Search replacement.