Google offers: machine learning made easy

Google offers: machine learning made easy

New York: 2/27/2021

The Google Creative Lab has launched the open-source AI experiment „Alto,“ or „A Little Teachable Object,“ which adds machine learning on the device to hardware projects. The project allows users to explore the basics of machine learning by building what it calls a „teachable object“ that can recognize things in its environment.

Alto lets users learn a „basic approach to machine learning in a way that can be adapted to hardware projects of all kinds,“ according to SlashGear.

Users teach Alto to recognize objects, such as an apple, by pressing a button on its side. Once Alto „sees“ an object it has been taught, it points at it with one of its arms.

The adaptive object uses a Coral USB accelerator that provides an Edge TPU as a co-processor for computers.

Google’s Coral – a collection of hardware and software components for building devices with Edge AI – emerged from beta in October 2019. Other components include a Coral Dev Board mini-computer with an AI chip and a 5-megapixel camera accessory.

The Alto code and template are available on GitHub.