AI News
The latest news and reviews on artificial intelligence software, hardware and AI research.
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Windows 10 Fall Creators Update may arrive on October 17th
We've known that Microsoft planned to release a large Windows 10 update this fall, but the company has been mum on the exact date. The Fall Creators Update is slated to feature some big changes, too, including built-in AI to fight malware, new Cortana features and handwriting recognition. While many expected bi-annual updates for Windows 10 starting in September, PC World reports that hardware partner Lenovo leaked a Windows 10 ship date of October 17th on a since-deleted product page for its upcoming two-in-one PC, the Miix 520.
Astronomers use AI to reduce analysis time from months to seconds
Gravitational lensing is when the image of a distant object in space -- like a galaxy, for example -- is distorted and multiplied by the gravity of a massive object, such as a galaxy cluster, lying in front of the smaller, faraway object. It's a useful phenomenon that has helped scientists discover exoplanets, understand galaxy evolution, spot a super bright galaxy, detect black holes and prove Einstein right. But analyzing images affected by gravitational lensing takes a really long time, requiring researchers to compare real images with simulated ones. Just one lensing effect can take weeks or months to analyze.
Robots learn to understand the context of what you say
It can be frustrating when telling robots what to do, especially if you aren't a programmer. Robots don't really understand context -- when you ask them to "pick it up," they don't usually know what "it" is. MIT's CSAIL team is fixing that. They've developed a system, ComText, that helps robots understand contextual commands. Effectively, researchers are teaching robots the concept of episodic memory, where they remember details about objects that include their position, type and who owns them. If you tell a robot "the box I'm putting down is my snack," it'll know to grab that box if you ask it to fetch your food.
Alexa and Cortana will soon work with each other
Amazon and Microsoft are integrating their digital assistants. Alexa and Cortana will soon be able to communicate with each other, allowing users of one AI to benefit from the other's skills. In the near future, summoning the AI helpers will be as easy as saying "Alexa, open Cortana," or "Cortana, open Alexa." That may sound like an odd fit now, but both Amazon and Microsoft are convinced of its perks.
Drones will watch Australian beaches for sharks with AI help
Humans aren't particularly good at spotting sharks using aerial data. At best, they'll accurately pinpoint sharks 30 percent of the time -- not very helpful for swimmers worried about stepping into the water. Australia, however, is about to get a more reliable way of spotting these undersea predators. As of September, Little Ripper drones will monitor some Australian beaches for signs of sharks, and pass along their imagery to an AI system that can identify sharks in real-time with 90 percent accuracy. Humans will still run the software (someone has to verify the results), but this highly automated system could be quick and reliable enough to save lives.
Polygram is a new social network powered by facial recognition
There's a new social network in town and it's packed with some pretty smart and savvy features. Polygram's main contribution to the hard-to-break-into social media world is its ability to detect facial expressions, allowing users to to respond to messages with an emoji based on their actual expression. And rather than just tallying likes or a selection of reactions that viewers have to choose between and click, Polygram allows users to see the face-based emotional response of those that viewed their post.
YouTube begins isolating offensive videos this week
In June, Google announced that it would begin isolating YouTube videos that weren't directly in violation of its standards but contained "controversial religious or supremacist content." And starting this week, those efforts will begin to take effect.
Google Assistant app now available on iPhones in Europe
If you've been hankering for a chance to play with Google Assistant but don't own an Android phone, Google Home or hate the Allo messaging app, we have good news: Google announced today that the standalone Assistant app has begun rolling out for iOS in the UK, Germany and France, following its US debut back in May.
Microsoft built a hardware platform for real-time AI
In many cases, you want AI to work with info as it happens. That virtual assistant needs to respond within a few seconds at most, and a smart security camera needs to send an alert while intruders are still within sight. Microsoft knows this very well. It just unveiled its own hardware acceleration platform, Project Brainwave, that promises speedy, real-time AI in the cloud. Thanks to Intel's new Stratix 10 field programmable gate array (FPGA) chip, it can crunch a hefty 39.5 teraflops in machine learning tasks with less than 1 millisecond of latency, and without having to batch tasks together. It can handle complex AI tasks as they're received, in other words.
Astro's email app packs a virtual assistant you can talk to
Virtual assistants have been quick to invade our phones and our homes — is it any surprise that they're creeping into our email accounts, too? A startup called Astro built a chatbot (imaginatively named "Astrobot") into its email app earlier this year, and now it's taking things a step further: as part of a new update going live today, users can talk to Astrobot when they want to sift through their emails sans hands.
Google may be readying its own smart headphones
Google might be planning a foil to smarter-than-usual headphones like Apple's AirPods or the Bragi Dash line. After some sleuthing inside the Google app, the team at 9to5Google has found references to headphones that would use Google Assistant to augment the usual physical controls. Nicknamed Bisto, they would let you hear and reply to notifications using your voice -- you wouldn't have to reach for your phone to punch out a reply. Other details are scarce, but a mention of a Google Assistant button on a left earcup suggests these are over-ears (possibly wireless) instead of earbuds.
Disney Research taught AI how to judge short stories
Disney researchers have been coming up with some striking new technology lately, including a method for real-time speech animation, shared augmented reality and some creepy face-projection tech for live performances. Now, researchers at Disney and the University of Massachusetts Boston have been working on neural networks that can evaluate short stories. While these AIs don't (yet) analyze story like a professional literary critic, the software tries to predict which stories will be most popular. "Our neural networks had some success in predicting the popularity of stories," said Disney Research scientist Boyang "Albert" Li in a statement. "You can't yet use them to pick out winners for your local writing competition, but they can be used to guide future research."
Watch Google’s Android O event right here at 2:40PM ET
During today's solar eclipse, Google will be unveiling its latest OS, Android O. The release event and livestream will begin at 2:40 PM Eastern. "Watch the solar eclipse unveil the Android O superhero. Trust us, it'll be extra sweet," said Google.
Elon Musk urges the UN to limit AI weapons
Elon Musk has signed his name alongside more than 100 others to ask the UN to regulate the use of autonomous weapons systems. The group of concerned engineers, many of whom are respected in the field of AI, is asking the global body to "protect civilians" from "misuse" of AI-driven weapons. They believe that smart, self-guided kill bots would become the tool of choice for despots and tyrants.
Prisma hopes to market its AI photo filtering tech
Prisma's machine learning photography app may not be as hot as it was in 2016, but that doesn't mean it's going away. If the developer has its way, you'll see its technology in many places before long. The company tells The Verge that it's shifting its focus from just its in-house app to marketing numerous computer vision tools based on its AI technology, ranging from object recognition to face mapping and detecting the foreground in an image. In theory, you'd see Prisma's clever processing find its way into your next phone or a favorite social photography app.
‘Marjorie Prime’ explores the limits of AI built from memories
Marjorie, 86, is dying. In her final months, she finds solace in an artificially intelligent holographic re-creation of her late husband, Walter, called "Walter Prime." They talk every day, recounting special moments of their life together. But her memory isn't perfect, and Walter Prime can rely only on retellings to piece together what happened. He also talks to other people, including Marjorie's daughter Tess and son-in-law Jon, who move in to take care of her. From all of his exchanges, Walter Prime gathers various bits of information on how to play his part, and pieces together a history shared among all the characters, which he refers to in his conversations.
Google uses machine learning to help journalists track hate
Hate crimes have sadly existed long before last weekend's tragic events in Charlottesville, Virginia but tracking them has been difficult. To help fix that, the Google News Lab has partnered with ProPublica, the New York Times, BuzzFeed News, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the University of Miami's School of Communications on the Documenting Hate News Index. Machine learning is used to pull locations, names and events from some 3.000 news stories published since this February into an easy-to-navigate feed of articles.
The grantees of Engadget’s $500,000 immersive arts program
When we launched the Alternate Realities grant program in May we had no idea what to expect. We saw a need for funding in the arts happening at just the time when new media like AR and VR were starting to go mainstream. So, with support from our parent company, Oath, we set out to fund five immersive art projects that push the limits of storytelling through emerging technologies. The response was overwhelming. Proposals came from as far away as Iran and Australia and ranged in discipline from theater to fashion, documentary to animation. There were multi-million dollar VR productions, animated shorts and escape rooms. (SO. MANY. ESCAPE. ROOMS.)
AI creates fictional scenes out of real-life photos
AI's not quite ready to build photorealistic worlds on its own. But it's getting pretty close.
Start Genesis luxury cars with your voice and Google Assistant
Hyundai definitely isn't limiting Google Assistant support to its mainstream cars. Its upscale Genesis brand has introduced Google Assistant support that gives you voice control over your vehicle as long as it's hooked into Genesis Connected Services. If you need to warm up your car on a winter morning, send a destination for your trip or lock the doors, you just have to talk to Assistant (through Home or your phone) instead of venturing outside.
