Year in Review

To say 2017 was an interesting year would be quite the understatement.

We saw everything from the explosion of Bitcoin, blockchain and crypto-currencies. Too bad if you didn't get in on the crypto craze before the wave.

We also witnessed the growth and maturity of a several  Deep Learning frameworks:

• Facebook - PyTorch
• Apple -  CoreML
• Uber - Pyro and Michelangelo
• Amazon - Gluon + MXNet
• Google - Tensorflow 
• DeepMind -  Sonnet

We were wowed once again with the Model 3 launch and Tesla Semi / Roadster v2 unveil. And, we got more insights on Model Y and Falcon Heavy launch.

We also witnessed more products and services powered by Deep Learning / AI and more maturity in the different DL / ML frameworks out there. I really do feel a lot of the worthwhile things in the space going forward will be applying these tools and techniques to solving real problems that have real impacts on our lives vs things that just end up in research papers (even though that's important too) and making these tools more accessible.

I'll leave you with a summary of the awesome things other folks did in 2017

• A Year in Computer Vision by M Tank
• Deep Learning Achievements Over the past Year by Eduard Tyantov
• AI and Deep Learning in 2017 – A Year in Review by WILDML
• A non-comprehensive list of awesome things other people did in 2017 by Jeff Leek
• Interesting ML projects from 2017
• NIPS 2017 notes 

Book Review : Elon Musk - Tesla, SpaceX and the Quest for a Fantastic future

This book gives you a glimpse into the man and the machines and companies he has built and the trials you'll face as an enterprenuer. While reading you'll experience occasional bursts of laughter. This is quite an interesting read.

This is the second biography I've bought and read ( the first was of Robert Oppenheimer, one of the principal architects of the Manhattan Project )

Elon Musk was born in South Africa and moved to Canada when he was 17 to attend college. He eventually transferred to the University of Pennsylvania to continue his studies.

I just keep wondering, assuming he wasn't able to make it to the US. The companies he founded and is/was involved with at a high level -  Paypal, SolarCity, Tesla, SpaceX which collectively employ tens of thousands of people may never have happened. I guess we'll never know.

This guy is transforming three multi - billion dollar industries and their derivatives at the same time. Truly a modern day Renaissance man.

Just imagine.. in our lifetimes (in 20 or 30 years or maybe even less), humans will have boots on the ground in Mars and Elon Musk is leading the vanguard here.

On a recent visit to the Tesla Factory in Fremont, he seems to be owning the whole Iron Man / Tony Stark comparison .