Zoom has caused a stir following reports that it is working on an AI system for detecting emotions. Protocol first reported on the system, which claims to scan users’ faces and speech to determine their emotions. Zoom went into greater detail about the system in a blog post last month. According to the company, ‘Zoom IQ’ will be especially useful for assisting salespeople in improving their pitches based on the emotions of call participants. Naturally, the system is viewed as dystopian and has received considerable criticism. over 25 rights groups…
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Meta’s new AI model to improve translation quality
Meta has unveiled NLLB-200, a new AI model that can translate 200 languages and improves quality by 44 percent on average. For a long time, translation apps have been fairly adept at the most common languages. Even if they do not provide an exact translation, it is usually close enough for the native speaker to understand. However, hundreds of millions of people in multilingual regions such as Africa and Asia continue to be underserved by translation services. In a press release, Meta wrote: “To help people connect better today and…
Read MoreGoogle Bans Several Malicious India-linked Domains
More than a dozen malicious India-linked domains and websites that were being used in hack-for-hire attacks targeting users worldwide have now been banned by Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG). To alert users to the threat, the company recently published a blog post in which they listed the banned domain links that were used to inject spying tools into users’ PCs/laptops by masquerading as fake login pages for websites or apps. The blog post read, “As part of TAG’s mission to counter serious threats to Google and our users, we’ve published…
Read MoreSportstech startup Hudle raises $1M in funding
Hudle, a sports tech startup based in Delhi, has raised $1 million in a Series A round led by Inflection Point Ventures, with participation from existing investors Survam Partners and Indian Angel Network. Hudle, which debuted in 2018, is a mobile app that allows sports enthusiasts to discover and book sports activities. The startup currently allows users to book a variety of 30+ sports at 700+ venues across the country, as well as All Access Passes, which are sport-specific subscriptions that allow players to play their preferred sport across India…
Read MoreGoogle India Adds 5 New Languages to Its Training Network For Journalists
Tech giant Google on Tuesday expanded its News Initiative Training Network to include five new languages: Punjabi, Assamese, Gujarati, Odia and Malayalam. Google has also launched the Fact-Check Academy in partnership with DataLeads, the tech giant said in a statement. About a 100 new trainers have been inducted to help newsrooms and journalists build capacity to tackle climate misinformation and verify misleading data and claims that include false numbers, it added. The Google News Initiative India Training Network was launched in 2018, and it includes 39,000+ journalists, media educators, fact-checkers,…
Read MoreUST announces ‘strategic investment’ in Israeli health-tech start-up
UST, a leading provider of digital transformation solutions, has announced a strategic investment in Well-Beat, an Israeli start-up focused on patient-centered behavioral artificial intelligence (AI). This will hasten UST’s adoption of emerging tech solutions in healthcare and the transformation of lives through the power of technology, according to a company spokesperson. UST and Well-Beat collaborated to develop a digital patient engagement Software as a Service (SaaS) solution that dynamically adapts to each patient over time, provides personalized conversational guidelines to clinicians, provides customized prompts shaped by the patient profile, and…
Read MoreVodafone and Google launch AI Booster platform
Vodafone and Google launched a new AI Booster platform that aims to handle thousands of ML models per day across 18+ countries. AI Booster is the result of 18 months of development and is based on Google’s Vertex AI platform, as well as Vodafone’s Neuron platform. When Vodafone began working on AI Booster, Vertex AI, among other Google technologies, had not yet been officially announced. Cornelia Schaurecker, Vodafone’s Global Group Director for Big Data & AI, stated: “To maximise business value at pace and scale, our vision was to enable fast…
Read MoreDesigning next generation analog chipsets for AI applications
The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has developed a design framework for next-generation analog computing chipsets that could be quicker and use less power than the digital chips found in most electronic gadgets. The team developed a prototype of an analog chipset dubbed ARYABHAT-1 using their new design methodology (Analog Reconfigurable Technology And Bias-scalable Hardware for AI Tasks). This type of chipset is very useful for AI-based applications such as object or speech recognition (think Alexa or Siri) or those that demand enormous parallel computing operations at fast speeds. Since…
Read MoreAI-powered app to boost smartphone batteries
A cutting-edge AI invention will be disclosed to technology titans, with the potential to increase smartphone battery life by 30% and save countless kilowatts on energy expenses. The groundbreaking work produced by the University of Essex has been included in an app called EOptomizer, which will be exhibited to specialist researchers and designers, as well as large manufacturing businesses such as Nokia and Huawei. It is hoped that the EOptomizer app would be used across the industry and help reduce carbon emissions by extending the life of consumer items. It…
Read MoreBig tech could be forced to reveal their algorithms
A landmark case in Japan may force tech giant to reveal the inner workings of their algorithms. A Tokyo court ruled in favour of Hanryumura, the operator of a BBQ restaurant chain, in an antitrust case brought against Kakaku.com, the operator of Tabelog, Japan’s largest restaurant review platform, last month. Hanryumura claimed that Kakaku changed the way user scores were calculated, which harmed sales at its restaurants. The restaurant owner was awarded $284,000 in damages, but that’s not the most interesting aspect of the case. In an unprecedented move, the…
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