AI & Robotics

Adobe today announced an update for Acrobat Reader that leverages Sensei, the company’s machine learning platform, to make it easier to read whole documents on smartphones and tablets. Beginning with iOS, Android, and ChromeOS ahead of desktop and browser support in the coming months, Reader will gain a viewing option called Liquid Mode that automatically reformats text, images, tables, and more…

Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs urban tech division today detailed a commercial building kit dubbed Mesa that uses real-time data and automation to optimize energy usage. Sidewalk claims it’s able to cut waste and cost while simplifying installation and management. Commercial buildings have an outsized environmental impact, Sidewalk Labs notes, making up for nearly 30% of greenhouse emissions from…

DeepCube, a startup developing a platform that reduces the computational requirements of AI algorithms on existing hardware, today raised $7 million. A spokesperson told VentureBeat the funds will be put toward research, commercialization, and growth of the DeepCube team at its offices in Tel Aviv and New York. Machine learning deployments have historically been constrained by the size and speed…

Over 111.8 million people in the U.S. talk to voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant every month, eMarketer estimates. Tens of millions of those people use assistants as data-finding tools, with the Global Web Index reporting that 25% of adults regularly perform voice searches on smartphones. But while voice assistants can answer questions about pop culture and world events like a…