Since introducing the Google News Initiative in 2018, the company has used the $300 million journalism project to fight disinformation and help publishers make money. Now, Google is also investing in journalism-specific software with Journalist Studio, a suite of free tools available to reporters and media organizations.
The company says the new tools will aid investigative journalism and other…
Infiot emerged from stealth today with $15 million to develop its access platform for internet of things devices. The company says it will put the funds toward product R&D and accelerating its go-to-market efforts.
Parag Thakore, who has held product management jobs at…
If you’re not done with presentations after Apple’s iPhone 12 launch earlier, set some time aside on Thursday afternoon to find out what’s new in search. Google just sent out invites for a live stream event on October 15th at 12 PM PT / 3 PM ET where “you’ll hear…
Spotify open-sources Klio, a framework for AI audio research
October 13, 2020
This week at the 2020 International Society for Music Information Retrieval Conference, Spotify open-sourced Klio, an ecosystem that allows data scientists to process audio files (or any binary files) easily and at scale. It was built to run Spotify’s large-scale audio intelligence systems and is leveraged by the company’s engineers and audio scentists to help develop and deploy…
Google's Duplex AI can book your haircut appointments
October 13, 2020
Google first showed off Duplex by having the AI book haircut appointments, but the Assistant feature was unexpectedly left by the wayside in favor of making restaurant reservations. It appears to have come roaring back, though. VentureBeat has discovered that Duplex is now…
Nearly two years after first demonstrating it onstage at Google I/O 2018, Google has quietly rolled out haircut appointment booking for Google Duplex, its AI chat agent. Now, VentureBeat has discovered that users with supported devices can have Google Assistant call…
When AI hurts people, who is held responsible?
October 13, 2020
Following a Maricopa County Grand Jury decision, last month the woman behind the wheel of a semi-autonomous Uber vehicle was charged with negligent homicide for the 2018 killing of Elaine Herzberg. The backup driver being charged following the first autonomous vehicle fatality appears to be a first, and it promises to be a landmark case with the power to shape the future of artificial…
Real estate tech company Snapdocs today closed a $60 million funding round. According to a spokesperson, the proceeds will be put toward product development and expanding the company’s workforce. (Snapdocs plans to double its 225-employee headcount within the next 9…
Will AI power video chats of the future? That’s what Nvidia implied this week with the unveiling of Maxine, a platform that provides developers with a suite of GPU-accelerated AI conferencing software. Maxine brings AI effects including gaze correction, super-resolution…
Google Assistant finally works with some third-party apps
October 8, 2020
Before today, if you ask Siri or the Google Assistant to “check the news on Twitter,” you’ll either be shown the @CHEK_News account on the Twitter website or articles about the social network on Apple News. For Android users, voice commands are about to get a lot smarter. Google just announced that the Assistant will be able to search and control your third-party apps when you ask it to. So…
