AI & RoboticsNews

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 utterances for key phrases and words and that allows them to distinguish people by their intonations and pitches. Perhaps it goes…
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AI & RoboticsNews

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 out of every five products purchased online was counterfeit, according to the U.S. Government of Accountability Office. Perhaps…
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AI & RoboticsNews

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…
AI & RoboticsNews

MIT CSAIL teaches autonomous cars to navigate occluded intersections safely

November 4, 2019
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 and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) say they’ve developed an AI model that can estimate collision risk highly…
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AI & RoboticsNews

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…
AI & RoboticsNews

Facebook’s SlowFast video classifier AI was inspired by primate eyes

November 4, 2019
Primates’ retinal ganglion cells receive visual info from photoreceptors that they then transmit from the eye to the brain. But not all cells are created equal — an estimated 80% operate at low frequency and recognize fine details, while about 20% respond to swift changes. This biological dichotomy inspired scientists at Facebook AI Research to pursue what they call SlowFast. It’s a machine…
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