Artificial Intelligence makes life better 
2019-08-30
GRANDPA Jiang, a 73-year-old man suffering from lumbar diseases, found “a best friend and assistant” in a new senior care center in the Pudong New Area.
It’s a robot called UFU that looks like a normal wheelchair initially. But it can be adjusted to a standing position and moved with a control stick, and is specifically designed for elderly people and those recovering from surgery.
“I can walk and move like normal people with the best friend UFU. Therefore my daughter needn’t to come to look after me every day,” said Jiang, who hasn’t been able to stand or move by himself for more than a decade.
The robot is now in use at the new center in the Zhoujiadu Community in Pudong, and can also be leased to local residents at a reasonable price.
The center is an example of integrating AI or artificial intelligence in daily life in Pudong, home to the main venue of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference between Thursday and Saturday.
More than 380 AI-related firms are now in Pudong, or one third of the city’s total. With strong advanced manufacturing, chip and 5G industries, Pudong has advantages in its ecosystem and talent to develop AI, local officials said.
During the conference, many AI applications will be shown, including health care, smart driving, building design and management and smart retail stores.
In the Zhoujiadu Center, technologies such as big data, 5G, online diagnosis (with doctors) and robots are adopted. For example, a database of aged people in the community has been established, based on their ages and health conditions, to offer various health care services.
“AI Doctor,” an AI-featured inquiry and diagnosis system, will attract visitors to the WAIC exhibition site in Pudong. The system, covering 3,000 diseases, is used in both online healthcare services and assisting human doctors in hospitals, said its developer, Shanghai-based PingAn Good Doctor.
More than 20 companies, including Tesla, Red Flag, Weltmeister, DeepBlue and Nullmax are showing smart driving cars in an outdoor space at the conference.
In the River Mall, a nearby shopping mall, AI-featured retailers and restaurants can be found.
With a “Magic Mirror” virtual system, consumers can try on various clothes in seconds, just waving hands to switch. They don’t need to wait for fitting rooms anymore in the outlets of brands such as Puma, Esprit and Mindbridge.
In several restaurants in the mall, robot waiters are ready to serve consumers.
In the lobby of the Shanghai Pudong Front Beach World Trade Organization, a cleaning robot is working round the clock in the 2,000-square-meter space. The whole building is designed and managed by BIM (Building Information Modeling).
Reading can be hard for many children, but artificial can make it easier and more interesting.
Shanghai-based Hong Year Information Technology is dedicated to making reading more interesting for young children by offering tailored content, creating a network and letting kids share their reading experience.
As an exhibitor at this year’s World Artificial Intelligence Conference, Hong Year expects to expand coverage of its application, which has been sourced by more than 100 schools in Shanghai to help children read books.
“Different from other software that focuses on the number of books to be read, we put more emphasis on performance,” said Zhang Yan, CEO of the company.
With artificial intelligence technology, Hong Year’s software can design a suitable book list, let children read either online or offline, and encourage them to share using text or even voice-recording function.
One advantage of Hong Year is its close ties with schools. With the partnership, a natural network involving teachers and students is created to drive children’s interest in reading. Such a network also makes it easier to organize events for a sharing reading experience.
Established three years ago, Hong Year has started to make a profit, Zhang said.
The company is considering the addition of news into its online library to offer children a better content portfolio.
