
TensorFlow 1.0 Released - plexicle
https://developers.googleblog.com/2017/02/announcing-tensorflow-10.html
======
timanglade
Been using Tensorflow embedded in a mobile app for a few months and honestly,
I’m constantly surprised at how well thought-out the tooling is, and how
quickly you can get results. Conversely, I think a few things are still
unnecessarily dense (installing dependencies, optimizing hyper-parameters, and
some of the embedded/XLA stuff is very raw). Kudos to the team though. It
sounds like they’re on the right track with TF overall, and focusing on
performance (including the XLA stuff) + ease of use (high-level, Keras API) is
absolutely what I want as a user right now. Keep up the great work, y’all.

~~~
syntaxing
Would you happen to know if it requires additional code to support the Hexagon
digital signal processor (DS)from Qualcomm Or is it automatic (kinda like
switching between Tensorflow-CPU and Tensorflow-GPU)? I mainly work with
Tensorflow on a PC so I'm not too familiar with the embedded variants of
Tensorflow. Thanks!

~~~
timanglade
I don’t have any experience with that unfortunately. I’ve seen a couple of
talks/demos/announcements about it and it sounds like it’s automatic, but I
haven’t been able to find the SDK or any tutorial for it, so I’m not 100%
sure. The Qualcomm speaker this morning said there would be more details about
it later today but I don’t see anything on the Agenda [0]. Maybe Pete’s
session at 12:40 will cover it?

[0]: [https://events.withgoogle.com/tensorflow-dev-
summit/agenda/#...](https://events.withgoogle.com/tensorflow-dev-
summit/agenda/#content)

~~~
petewarden
I'm not going to cover it in detail in my talk, but the code with some
barebones documentation is available at
[https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/tree/master/tensorf...](https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/tree/master/tensorflow/contrib/hvx)

One thing to note is that this isn't available on production phones yet,
because we need a signed driver to run within Android. You should be able to
run this on a Dragonboard 820 development board though, using the instructions
in the README.

This is all very new though, so apologies in advance for any hiccups getting
up and running. My email's petewarden at google.com if you are trying this and
hit problems.

~~~
syntaxing
Thanks Tim and Pete!

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andy_ppp
Amazing work; it makes using AI and Deep Learning accessible for everyone here
really. If you haven't seen it check this out for an intro:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq2nnJ4g6N0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq2nnJ4g6N0)

I wish AMD graphics cards were supported fully. I really think AMD should find
a way to work with the Tensor Flow team on this...

~~~
cityhall
It's worth pointing out Tensorflow is basically Google's clone of Theano,
including a lot of the same design decisions. They've improved some things but
it's not like Google handed us the secret to fire here. It's just a good
implementation of the same things a lot of people have been working on for
years.

~~~
p1esk
TensorFlow is not a clone of Theano. It's based on the earlier Google's
platform DistBelief, mostly known outside of Google as the engine behind 2012
Youtube cat videos paper. Like DistBelief, TensorFlow was designed from the
ground up to be scalable across multiple nodes.

Theano, on the other hand, seems to be focused on the optimizations for the
single machine, single GPU code. It only recently got the ability to run each
function on a different GPU.

~~~
andy_ppp
To be truthfully honest it doesn't matter either way or even if there is
something "better" out there (if Theranos was...).

TensorFlow has already become the winner from my reading around it so I'm
going to continue learning it rather than another framework until I've become
fairly proficient. By which time why change?

~~~
p1esk
TensorFlow does not make AI or DL "more accessible". It's not easier to use
than Theano. Both have good documentation, and both have lots of code
examples/model implementations.

If you're looking for something that would make it easier for you to learn DL,
you should try Keras - it's a higher level library, which can use both Theano
and TF as a backend.

------
plexicle
For anyone updating to 1.0--

There are quite a few breaking changes but there is a very helpful conversion
script here:
[https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/tree/r1.0/tensorflo...](https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/tree/r1.0/tensorflow/tools/compatibility).

You can find the breaking changes in the 1.0 release here:
[https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/releases/tag/v1.0.0](https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/releases/tag/v1.0.0)

~~~
cityhall
This is good, the argument order and axis handling was inconsistent.

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taliesinb
> Plus, soon Google will open-source code that will multiply the speed of
> TensorFlow — specifically version three of Google’s Inception neural network
> model — by 58.

Uh, nope, that was speedup on 64 GPUs (or CPU cores, can't remember). i.e. it
scales linearly, something that TF hasn't always been good at v other
frameworks. I'm amazed a journalist with (I assume) basic technical competence
could make this mistake.

------
plexicle
TensorFlow 1.0 was just announced during the TensorFlow Dev Summit keynote.

[https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/releases/tag/v1.0.0](https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/releases/tag/v1.0.0)

You can follow the Summit live here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqLyrl-
agOw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqLyrl-agOw)

------
cstuder
How do I get started with machine learning?

I have a couple of applications in mind, mostly time series predictions. But
the machine learning field seems to be vast and I don't know where to start.

~~~
syntaxing
[http://cs231n.github.io/](http://cs231n.github.io/) is a great site for
beginners. I've been following the site along the Udacity Self Driving Car
nanodegree. The CS231 material has helped me understand the concepts
significantly.

Edit: I should mention that the class mainly focuses on neural networks and
image recognition. However, once you have the foundation, you can apply your
skillset to a vast range of applications.

~~~
timdorr
The Udacity ML course is gradual enough to avoid overwhelming you, but really
in-depth: [https://www.udacity.com/course/machine-learning--
ud262](https://www.udacity.com/course/machine-learning--ud262)

Definitely recommend that as a good starting point. Isbell and Littman can be
a bit cheesy at points, but they're very clear and thorough.

------
jamesblonde
I am looking at the Martin Wicke talk. The Estimator API is very reminiscent
of SparkML. Nice to see that the tensorflow crew are flexible enough to take
good ideas from projects such as SparkML and Keras (now included natively in
the TF stack). Other highlights include the hotspot compiler (I was not that
impressed so far, but it's early days for them), and embedded visualizations
(looked quite cool) for visually inspecting learnt manifolds.

------
drakonka
I stumbled across a three-chapter preview of the upcoming book Learning
TensorFlow on Safari Books Online and went through them in a sitting. It was
so accessible - both the book and TensorFlow itself - and inspired me to start
learning math so that when the rest of the book comes out I will be better
prepared to go deeper. I love learning in general, but haven't been this
excited about learning something totally new (for me) in a long time.

~~~
Omnipresent
Do you have a link to the said book?

~~~
emmelaich
Must be [https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/learning-
tens...](https://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/learning-
tensorflow/9781491978504/)

To be released in June.

~~~
drakonka
Yes, that's the one.

------
fest
Does anyone use Tensorflow models in C++ applications? Is it possible to build
Tensorflow as static or shared lib?

------
jjuel
Not necessarily about the article so may get downvoted, but is there a good
book for TensorFlow/Machine Learning?

~~~
whorleater
[http://www.deeplearningbook.org/](http://www.deeplearningbook.org/)

~~~
ogrisel
Good book to learn the deep learning concepts. The official tensorflow
tutorials are also good to learn the programming part which is not covered in
the book.

------
sixbrx
Kudos to the team. Anybody know if we can we train in languages other than
Python yet (or do I have that wrong)?

~~~
vomjom
I'll discuss this a bit during my talk at the dev summit.

The short answer is no.

The long answer is yes, but only if you create the model in Python, export it,
and then feed training data in other languages. There are some people doing
exactly that.

Long term, I'd like to give all languages equal footing, but there's quite a
bit of work left.

~~~
VeejayRampay
Forgive my ignorance, but why is it that it is Python-only?

Does Python have intrinsic qualities that other languages don't possess or is
it that the huge initial investment in creating TensorFlow was based on Python
and duplicating that effort somewhere else would require too much work?

~~~
jamesblonde
Traditionally, most neural network architectures have been implemented in
C/C++ - for performance reasons. But ML researchers are not hackers, for the
most part, and Python has the lowest impedence mismatch for interfacing with
C/C++ of all the major languages. Julia was popular for a bit, but now Python
is dominant. Programs tend to be very small, and not modular - so static type
checking is less important than it would be in picking up errors in larger
systems.

~~~
mattnewton
It's not just the lowest impedance mismatch, but it's also a framework coming
out of google, where python and Java were really the only two language choices
for a high level interface, and of the two python is the clear winner in
prototyping / scientific community acceptance. I think it's because of the
ease in experimentation and expressiveness of the language.

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mrcabada
Could MacBook Pros (with Intel HD Graphics 3000 384 MB, to be more specific)
train with GPU? I've always wanted to train algorithms but without using the
GPU it is really slow.

~~~
govg
I doubt the integrated Intel Card would be supported, even if it is, using the
CPU would be just as good if not better. A lot of the high performance you see
on GPUs are because of very highly optimized libraries available for Nvidia
cards (like CuDNN) and so on.

------
jamesblonde
The tensorflow developer summit is being streamed live right now on youtube:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqLyrl-
agOw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqLyrl-agOw)

------
mark_l_watson
Great news. I have several TensorFlow examples in a new book I am writing. I
need to read up on the new higher level APIs, and can hopefully shorten the
book example prob-grams.

------
alvivar
I wish so much for experimental APIs compatible with .Net stuff. Mostly
because I want to use it with F#.

I really like Python, but F# <3

------
ndesaulniers
Even if you don't care about machine learning, TensorFlow's XLA is amazing for
farming code out to the GPU. GPGPU has never been easier.

------
shmageggy
Ahh, so _that 's_ why the 1.0rc docs started to 404 an hour ago. Had me
cursing under my breath :)

------
120bits
For a complete beginner. What kind of applications I can work on using
TensorFlow?

~~~
chrisra
One of the "Hello, World" applications would be learning to classify MNIST
digits. They have a tutorial on their site.

------
amelius
Is there a good birds-eye overview of what people are creating with TF or ML
in general?

~~~
anonfunction
[https://github.com/jtoy/awesome-tensorflow](https://github.com/jtoy/awesome-
tensorflow)

------
dang
We changed the URL from
[https://www.tensorflow.org/](https://www.tensorflow.org/), which doesn't say
anything about 1.0, to an article which gives a bit of background. If someone
suggests a better URL we can change it again.

~~~
runesoerensen
The announcement post was just published:
[https://research.googleblog.com/2017/02/announcing-
tensorflo...](https://research.googleblog.com/2017/02/announcing-
tensorflow-10.html)

~~~
dang
Changed from [http://venturebeat.com/2017/02/15/google-releases-
tensorflow...](http://venturebeat.com/2017/02/15/google-releases-
tensorflow-1-0-with-new-machine-learning-tools/). Thanks!

