AI Tech moves into the restaurant industry

Emerging Tech Roundup — September 30

The Quantious team’s top picks for timely trending news in the tech world.

This week in tech: Netflix sets up to develop its own games, Vollebak furthers development of a camouflage-enabling jacket, Apple’s Crash Detection feature is tested, Shopify introduces hardware for brick-and-mortar retailers, Chipotle tests its AI chip-making tech in California, a text-to-Pokémon tool can turn anyone into a Pokémon, and Raydiant creates a menu item-suggesting AI.

Netflix builds its own game studio

(Engadget, September 26)

Netflix is developing an “in-house game studio in Helsinki, Finland” to create its own games, directed by Marko Lastikka, who previously worked for Zynga and EA. Though details have not yet been released around which games will be produced, it is confirmed that this will be the company’s first effort at creating games from scratch rather than purchasing them from third parties.

Vollebak nears one step closer to an invisibility cloak

(Wired, September 26)

UK-based company Vollebak is starting to make real progress in developing a camouflage-enabling jacket, using graphene layers. The technology allows researchers to control the charge of electrons across layers, and essentially convert the graphene “into a reflective material when it comes to infrared thermal radiation.” When the jacket is hit with light, the reflection would make the person wearing it near invisible. As of now there is still a long way to go in terms of development, pushing any retail offerings of the jacket out by a decade, realistically.

YouTubers put iPhone 14 Crash Detection to the test by totaling four cars

(9to5Mac, September 27)

Apple has rolled out a new feature that is trained to ask the status of a driver after it detects a car accident, and if there is no response, alert emergency services. Multiple users have decided to test the feature, including YouTuber TechRax, who intentionally crashed their vehicle while wearing the watch, finding that the Emergency SOS was in fact triggered. YouTubers Luke Miani and Sam Kohl also tested the feature, however, and were unable to trigger it even after totaling four cars. Given the mixed results, Apple may have reason to investigate and improve the reliability of the feature.

Shopify’s POS Go powers a new kind of retail

(Shopify News, September 27)

As consumers begin to move back into the brick-and-mortar space, Shopify is making sure it remains relevant and growing, especially outside of the e-commerce space. The company’s new hardware offering, POS Go, will give retailers access to analytics, inventory and sales from anywhere — including in-store. The device has a build in card reader and barcode scanner, making it an all-in-one, portable tool that is useful for any shop, anywhere.

Chipotle is moving its tortilla robot to a real restaurant

(Engadget, September 27)

Months ago, Chipotle worked with Miso Robotics to develop an AI, chip-making robot. Come next month, the machine, dubbed Chippy, will be tested in one of the company’s California locations. Based on customer feedback, Chipotle will decide whether to use Chippy across additional locations in other states.

Turn anyone into a Pokémon with this AI art model

(The Verge, September 27)

Game developer Justin Pinkney has created a Text-to-Pokémon tool that is growing in popularity and being used by multiple AI companies. The tool can create an original Pokémon after being prompted with a description, and it has already created over 200,000 designs in less than two weeks. Pinkney’s technology can even create characters outside of the Pokémon realm, such as Sonic the Hedgehog.

Restaurant menu screens are looking at you to decide what you might want to eat

(Quartz, September 27)

Raydiant has created an AI software through which fast food restaurants can boost sales while enhancing the customer experience. The technology scans the shopper’s face for things like age, gender and mood, then suggests various menu items for them to order based on the scan results. All processed data remains anonymous, though some are wary of the fact that the technology may be suggesting items based on stereotypes.