Kalakshar US

Way back in 2015, Google launched Project Sunroof, an ingenious Maps layer that combined location, sunlight and navigation data to show how much energy solar panels installed on a home’s roof might generate — it could be your house, could be your neighbor’s, didn’t matter because Google mapped it out for virtually every house on the planet. This was a clever way to both help advance the company’s environmental sustainability efforts and show off the platform’s technical capabilities.

On Tuesday at the Google Cloud Next event, the company will officially unveil a suite of new sustainability APIs that leverage the company’s AI ambitions to provide developers with real-time solar potential, air quality and pollen level information. With these tools, “we can work toward our ambition to help individuals, cities, and partners collectively reduce 1 gigaton of their carbon equivalent emissions annually by 2030,” Yael Maguire, VP of Geo Sustainability at Google writes in a forthcoming Maps blog post.

The Solar API builds directly from Project Sunroof’s original work, using modern maps and more advanced computing resources than its predecessor. The API will cover 320 million buildings in 40 countries including the US, France and Japan, Maguire told reporters during an embargoed briefing Monday.

“Demand for solar has been rising a lot in recent years,” Maguire said. He notes that search interest for ”rooftop solar panel and power” increased 60 percent in 2022. “We’ve been seeing this solar transition… and we saw a lot of opportunity to bring this information and technology to businesses around the world.”

The team trained an AI model to extract the precise angles and slopes of a given rooftop just from the overhead satellite or aerial photograph, along with shade estimates of nearby trees, and combine that with historical weather data and current energy pricing. This gives installation companies and homeowners alike a more holistic estimate of how much their solar specific panels could produce without having to physically send out a technician to the site.

Google is also expanding the Air Quality layer, which proved invaluable during the 2021 California Wildfires (and all the subsequent wildfires), into its own API offering for more than 100 countries around the world.

“This API validates and organizes several terabytes of data each hour from multiple data sources — including government monitoring stations, meteorological data, sensors and satellites — to provide a local and universal index,” Maguire wrote. 

The system will even take current traffic conditions and vehicle volume into account to better predict what pollutants will be predominant. “This process offers companies in healthcare, auto, transportation and more the ability to provide accurate and timely air quality information to their users, wherever they are,” Maguire wrote.

In addition to human-generated pollutants, Google is also evolving its current pollen tracking Maps layer into a full API. “The rise in temperatures and greenhouse gas emissions also causes pollen-producing plants to grow in more places and pollen production to increase, creating additional adverse effects for those with seasonal allergies,” Maguire said.

The Pollen API will track the seasonal release of tree semen in more than 65 countries, incorporating local wind patterns and annual trends, providing users with local pollen count data, detailed allergen information and heatmaps of where the sneezing will be worst. Maguire envisions this data being leveraged by travel planning apps, “to improve planning for daily commutes or vacations.” The apps will be available to developers starting August 29th.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/googles-new-sustainability-apis-can-estimate-solar-pollutant-and-pollen-production-231303184.html?src=rss 

Americans have grown more worried about AI in the last nine months. A new survey from the Pew Research Center indicates 52 percent of respondents are more concerned than excited about rising artificial intelligence use, up 14 points since December. Meanwhile, only 10 percent say they’re more excited than worried, while another 36 percent described their views as equally balanced. “Concern about AI outweighs excitement across all major demographic groups,” the Pew Research Center wrote in a blog post today.

It’s been an eventful nine months since the Pew Center last surveyed people about AI. OpenAI’s ChatGPT went from a buzzed-about homework cheating tool to a household name, and the corporate world — including tech’s most prominent companies — raced to prove who was the most invested in generative AI. Microsoft plugged GPT-4 into Office and Windows, and Google launched its Bard chatbot while adding AI components to search. AI writing and generative art have made controversial (and widely covered in the media) entries into journalism, book writing, song production and even some political campaigns.

Although younger Americans are still more concerned than excited, their views tend to be more positive than their older counterparts. Among 18- to 29-year-olds, 42 percent are more concerned about “the growing use of AI in daily life,” and 17 percent are more excited. But among adults 65 and up, 61 percent say they’re primarily concerned, while excitement only outweighs concern for a mere four percent.

Microsoft rolled out its browser-based AI chatbot earlier this year.

Pew Research also polled respondents on awareness of AI, and it appears the more people have heard about its rising adoption, the more uneasy they feel. The polling reports that about 90 percent of adults have heard a lot (33 percent) or a little (56 percent) about artificial intelligence, with the “a lot” group growing by seven points since December. Those who have heard much about AI are more likely to be worried than in December: Anxiety outweighs enthusiasm (47 percent to 15 percent) among that demographic, compared to 31 percent concerned to 23 percent excited last year. Even those who have only heard a little about it describe a more negative view than respondents in the December poll — by 19 points.

When breaking down AI’s impact into categories, results are more mixed. On one hand, 49 percent said it helps more than hurts when finding products and services they’re interested in online (compared to 15 percent that say it hurts more). But 53 percent answered that it hurts more than helps in keeping personal information private, with a mere 10 percent saying it helps more in that area. Other areas where the polled Americans said it helps more include companies making safe vehicles, doctors providing quality care and people taking care of their health. Categories like finding accurate online information, providing quality customer service and police keeping the peace were closer to an even split between positive and negative.

Respondents with and without higher education answered differently. For example, college graduates were more likely to view AI as a positive in finding products and services online and helping doctors provide quality care (60 percent positive among college grads, 44 percent for those without a degree). But people with “some college or less” were less likely to view it as a negative for protecting private information (59 percent among college-educated, 50 percent for those with less). Overall, those polled with a college education were more likely to view AI positively.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/americans-growing-anxious-as-ai-adoption-expands-pew-research-finds-204500137.html?src=rss