How can you distinguish between satire and fake news? It usually comes down to semantic and linguistic differences, but the nuances can be tough to spot. That’s why researchers at George Washington University, Amazon AWS AI, and startup AdVerifai investigated a machine learning approach to classifying misleading speech. They say the AI model they developed, which outperformed the baseline, lays…
Facebook details wav2vec, an AI algorithm that uses raw audio to improve speech recognition
November 5, 2019
Automatic speech recognition, or ASR, is a foundational part of not only assistants like Apple’s Siri, but dictation software such as Nuance’s Dragon and customer support platforms like Google’s Contact Center AI. It’s the thing that enables machines to parse…
HomeLight raises $109 million for AI that matches home buyers with real estate agents
November 5, 2019
San Francisco-based HomeLight, which develops AI-driven software and services for home buyers, sellers, and real estate agents, today announced that it has raised $109 million in funding from a raft of investors, bringing its total raised to over $160 million. Zeev Ventures…
Untether AI, a Toronto-based startup that’s developing high-efficiency, high-performance chips for AI inferencing workloads, this morning announced that it has raised a $20 million series A round, following a small seed investment. Radical Ventures joined Intel Capital and other investors in the round, with Radical Ventures partner Tomi Poutanen joining as a board member.
Newly appointed CEO…
RedMarlin raises $10 million to fight counterfeiting with AI
November 5, 2019
Counterfeiting isn’t a new problem, but it’s a growing one. The global market for fake goods is estimated to exceed $1.2 trillion. Counterfeits take roughly $300 billion worth of revenue away from brands that have to compete with them. In worse news still, roughly two…
Ecobee rolls out Eco+, an AI engine in your thermostat
November 5, 2019
Smart home thermostat company Ecobee today rolled out Eco+, a free suite of machine learning features, to all its thermostats with voice support. Eco+ uses machine learning to tailor temperature settings and cut costs. It also helps you further reduce energy consumption and…
Medopad, a U.K.-based health technology startup that uses machine learning and big data analyses to help predict and manage chronic diseases in patients, has raised $25 million in a series B round of funding led by Leaps by Bayer, the VC arm of German pharmaceutical giant Bayer, with participation from NWS Holdings, Healthbox, among other investors.
Founded out of London in 2011, Medopad connects…
Truly autonomous vehicles — those without human safety drivers at the wheel — must be capable of determining when it’s safe to merge into traffic. Intersections with obstructed views make this somewhat challenging, but researchers at Toyota and MIT’s Computer Science…
Robot bees can crash into walls without taking damage
November 4, 2019
Tiny robotic fliers aren’t exactly durable at present, but they may be tough critters before long. Harvard researchers have developed a RoboBee that uses soft, artificial muscles (really, actuators) to fly without taking damage. The robot can smack into walls…
NVIDIA's RTX GPUs give a speed boost to Adobe's AI features
November 4, 2019
NVIDIA has unveiled a new RTX GPU features that will accelerate a new AI feature in Premiere Pro and speed up Adobe’s 3D apps, Dimension and Substance Alchemist. As Adobe just announced, Premiere has a new feature called Auto Reframe that can analyze content in a regular, 16×9 horizontal video and automatically convert it to a vertical smartphone format. That process can take a long…
