Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has been pushing the self-driving car industry forward through its subsidiary Waymo. To date, the company has operated primarily within the US, but a recent acquisition demonstrates its interest in expanding internationally as well. As reported by The Guardian, Waymo has bought the UK-based AI company Latent Logic, which specializes in the testing of…
eBay relaunches Motors app with AI and automation at its core
December 12, 2019
Online commerce giant eBay has relaunched its dedicated mobile app for car sellers and buyers, more than four years after killing the app. The eBay Motors app has been in beta for a few months, and version 1.0 is now live for Android and iOS.
The new incarnation sports a…
If you’re going to throw megabucks at a show about AI, you’d better make sure you’ve got the right host for it — and most would agree that YouTube’s decision to get Robert Downey Jr, aka Iron Man, on board for their multimillion dollar The Age…
Google Assistant's interpreter mode is coming to iOS and Android
December 12, 2019
Early this year, Google brought its real-time translation feature, interpreter mode, to Assistant-enabled smart displays and speakers. Now, the feature is rolling out to Assistant-enabled Android and iOS phones worldwide.
To use interpreter mode, you’ll say something like “Hey Google, be my German translator,” or “Hey Google, help me speak Thai.” Assistant will…
Google Assistant can now interpret 44 languages on smartphones
December 12, 2019
In January during the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Google debuted interpreter mode, a real-time translation feature for Google Home speakers and third-party smart displays like those from JBL, Sony, LG, and Lenovo. The tech giant said at the time that…
Can mechanical abnormalities in a combustion engine, a fan, or a pneumatic press be inferred from the sound they produce alone? As it turns out, yes — and with great precision. Patterns embedded within the noise communicate valuable information, some of which foretell…
Long wait times for patients can be the undoing of a large clinic or a hospital system. According to a recent survey, 84% of patients consider a reasonable wait somewhat or very important to a quality experience, and 30% say they’ve left a medical appointment because of an inordinately long wait. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there’s a strong correlation between offices with longer average wait…
Incorporating AI and machine learning technologies into everyday workflows isn’t as easy as the testimonials would have you believe. That’s the top-level finding from a survey of 750 business decision makers conducted by Algorithmia, which found that while machine…
Microsoft’s FastSpeech AI speeds up realistic voices generation
December 11, 2019
State-of-the-art text-to-speech models can produce snippets that sound nearly human-like on first listen. In point of fact, they underpin the neural voices available through Google Assistant, as well as the newscaster voice that recently came to Alexa and Amazon’s Polly…
Why explainable AI is indispensable to Zillow’s business
December 11, 2019
Zillow, an online marketplace that facilitates the buying, selling, renting, financing, and remodeling of homes, employs lots of AI technologies to do things like estimate home prices. But the output of AI systems like these can be opaque, creating a “black box” problem where practitioners and customers can’t audit the systems properly. Without transparency, serious problems like algorithmic…
