AdaCore announced the start of its 4th annual “Make with Ada programming competition” with the goal to design and implement an embedded software project in which Ada or SPARK are the primary languages used. 

“Many programmers tend to discount Ada and SPARK because of the many myths surrounding Ada, including Ada is too complex to implement and too complex to learn,” said Bill Wong, one of the competition’s judges. “As contestants of this annual programming competition demonstrate, developing embedded software with Ada is a lot easier than you think, and the benefits (cost savings, quality code, fewer bugs, etc.) are many.”

AdaCore was founded in 1994 and since then it has created software development and verification tools to build applications that were used in railway systems, space systems, commercial avionics, military systems, air traffic management/control, medical devices, and financial services. 

The competition runs until January 31, 2020 and offers $8,000 in total prices. The full details are available here.

ARCore updates
Google announces updates that include the Augmented Faces API coming now for iOS, improvements to Cloud Anchors such as persistent Cloud Anchors, and Call for Collaborators. 

The Augmented Faces API offers a high-quality, 468-point 3D mesh that lets users attach effects to their faces without a depth sensor on their smartphone. The Cloud Anchors API lets devices create a 3D feature map from visual data on which anchors can be placed.

Now, more angles across larger areas in the scene can be captured for a more robust 3D feature map when an anchor is created. The visual data used to create the map is deleted and only anchor IDs are shared with other devices to be resolved. 

The full details on the updates are available here.

Element AI raises $151 million for operationalizing AI
Element AI announced that they raised about $151 million in series B funding that it will use to accelerate the deployment and commercialization of solutions that meet customer needs for the operationalization of AI, while continuing to develop AI products.

“Operationalizing AI is currently the industry’s toughest challenge, and few companies have been successful at taking proofs-of-concepts out of the lab, embedding them strategically in their operations, and delivering actual business impact,” said Element AI CEO Jean-François (JF) Gagné. “We are proud to be working with our new partners, who understand this challenge well, and to leverage each other’s expertise in taking AI solutions to market.”

The full details are available here.