Facebook has long been using AI to describe photos for the visually impaired, but it’s stepping up its efforts in 2021. The social media giant has detailed a new version of automatic alternative text (AAT) that promises much more information.
Instead of relying on heavily supervised AI learning, Facebook is now using weak supervision based on “billions” of Instagram photos and hashtags. The…
Web browser maker Opera has acquired YoYo Games, the maker of the GameMaker Studio 2 game engine, for $10 million, and it has also launched its Opera Gaming division.
The deal underscores Opera‘s efforts to differentiate its web browser, Opera GX, through a gaming…
AlphaICs raises $8 million for AI-at-the-edge processors
January 20, 2021
AlphaICs has raised $8 million in funding for artificial intelligence processors for edge computing.
The round was led by Emerald Technology Ventures and Endiya Partners.
The Milpitas, California-based company was started in 2016 by Vinod Dham, a former Intel executive…
Google has revoked Ethical AI team leader Margaret “Meg” Mitchell’s employee privileges and is currently investigating her activity, according to a statement provided by a company spokesperson. Should Google fire Mitchell, it will mean the company has effectively chosen to behead its own AI ethics team in under two months. In an interview with VentureBeat last month, former Google AI ethics…
Nikon is Going to be Fine… Probably
January 20, 2021
If you pay any attention to the photography industry, it’s hard to ignore the news of the financial struggle that Nikon has been dealing with since late last year. What were once rumors are now confirmed: the company isn’t in a good place. But that said, Nikon is going…
Canon Exec Suggests the EOS R5 Only Has 8K for Marketing Reasons
January 20, 2021
Canon’s General Manager of the Image Communication Business Division Takeshi Tokura was recently interviewed by Toyo Keizai about the success of the R5 and R6. In it, Tokura seems to suggest that 8K was important to include in the R5 mainly to beat competitors to it.
At…
The use of images to build diagnostic models of diseases has become an active research topic in the AI community. But capturing the patterns in a condition and an image requires exposing a model to a rich variety of medical cases. It’s well-known that images from a source can be biased by demographics, equipment, and means of acquisition, which means training a model on such images would cause…
Canon is preparing for a time when the digital camera market will only ship 10 million units annually, about 8.2% of the number shipped in 2010. With that in mind, the company is slimming down its production, sales, and product lineups going forward.
Toyo Keizai has been…
LG considers leaving the mobile business
January 20, 2021
After nearly six successive loss-making years and a $5 billion commitment, LG may finally be ready to leave the smartphone business. The Korea Herald says that CEO Kwon Bong-seok, in a message to staffers, suggested that change was coming. A company official later told the…
NVIDIA’s Shield TV, the company’s powerful set-top box, can now pair with the Xbox Series X and S gamepads, as well as the PlayStation 5’s DualSense controller. The long awaited feature arrives as part of the Shield 8.2.2 software update, which also includes support for Control 4 home automation systems, as well as Discovery+ and Noggin’s streaming apps. Connecting the controllers works as…
