Google Is the First Paying Customer of Wikimedia Enterprise

Wikimedia Enterprise has announced Google and the Internet Archive as its first customers. The Wikimedia Foundation launched the enterprise unit last year as a paid service for clients that source and reuse Wikipedia data at high volume. Google has been using Wikipedia content to fuel its search engine results. Wikimedia Enterprise clients have access to custom APIs that allow it to scrape and utilize data more efficiently and at greater scale. The service also provides guaranteed uptime and real-time content updates, minimizing outdated or inaccurate information. Continue reading Google Is the First Paying Customer of Wikimedia Enterprise

AI Coding Tools Speed Process to Offset Developer Shortage

New AI-powered coding tools such as Amazon’s CodeWhisperer and Copilot from GitHub and OpenAI may be giving some developers the jitters. Following splashy debuts for both programs last week, GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke offered public assurances that Copilot is not designed to replace coders, but to speed the process, alleviating a software developer shortage. Similar to Copilot, CodeWhisperer can autocomplete Java, JavaScript and Python functions based on a comment or some keystrokes. Amazon says it trained the system using billions of lines of open source code, publicly available documentation and its own codebase. Continue reading AI Coding Tools Speed Process to Offset Developer Shortage

Microsoft Pulls AI Analysis Tool Azure Face from Public Use

As part of an overhaul of its AI ethics policies, Microsoft is retiring from the public sphere several AI-powered facial analysis tools, including a controversial algorithm that purports to identify a subject’s emotion from images. Other features Microsoft will excise for new users this week and phase out for existing users within a year include those that claim the ability to identify gender and age. Advocacy groups and academics have expressed concern regarding such facial analysis features, characterizing them as unreliable and invasive as well as subject to bias. Continue reading Microsoft Pulls AI Analysis Tool Azure Face from Public Use

Meta Platforms Will Adjust Ad Tech per Agreement with DOJ

Meta Platforms has agreed to change its advertising technology and pay a $115,054 fine to settle a Justice Department claim of race and gender discrimination by the algorithm used to display its housing ads. “Meta will — for the first time — change its ad delivery system to address algorithmic discrimination,” U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said in a statement. “But if Meta fails to demonstrate that it has sufficiently changed its delivery system to guard against algorithmic bias, this office will proceed with the litigation.” Continue reading Meta Platforms Will Adjust Ad Tech per Agreement with DOJ

Big Tech Taps AI to Advance Data Center Safety, Efficiency

Data centers can be hazardous to the workers that build and maintain them, with exposure to live electrical wires and dangerous chemicals part of the job. Now tech firms including Microsoft and Meta Platforms are exploring how artificial intelligence can be used to make data centers safer for employees. Microsoft is working on an AI system that triggers alerts to prevent or mitigate dangerous incidents, while Meta is also analyzing ways AI can optimize data centers operating under extreme environmental conditions in order to prevent safety hazards. Continue reading Big Tech Taps AI to Advance Data Center Safety, Efficiency

Adobe Debuts ‘Content Credentials’ to Battle Misinformation

Adobe is releasing an open source developer toolkit that aims to prevent the spread of visual misinformation by including additional metadata that Adobe calls Content Credentials. The system is also designed to help content creators indelibly tag authorship to their work. Announced in 2019, the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) project has released a whitepaper introducing the system, which is integrated into Adobe software. The CAI has teamed with hardware manufacturers and newsrooms to help ubiquitize its vision. The Associated Press, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have signed aboard. Continue reading Adobe Debuts ‘Content Credentials’ to Battle Misinformation

Spotify Announces Plan to Acquire AI Voice Startup Sonantic

Spotify will acquire London-based startup Sonantic, a company that creates realistic human voices from text using a proprietary AI engine. Sonantic made a recent high-profile contribution to pop culture by providing the means to simulate actor Val Kilmer’s voice in Paramount’s summer blockbuster “Top Gun: Maverick.” The move expands the music and podcasting streamer to expand into audio technology with broad implications. Spotify vice president of personalization Ziad Sultan says the technology will be integrated into the main platform to allow the company “to engage users in a new and even more personalized way.” Continue reading Spotify Announces Plan to Acquire AI Voice Startup Sonantic

Sony: Smartphone Camera Tech Will Make DSLRs Obsolete

A top Sony executive predicts smartphones will make DSLR cameras obsolete by 2024. Speaking at a business briefing, Sony Semiconductor Solutions president and CEO Terushi Shimizu said the company expects smartphone cameras “will exceed the image quality of single-lens reflex cameras within the next few years,” Nikkei Asia reports. According to the Sony presentation, “still images are expected to exceed interchangeable lens camera (ILC) image quality” within three years. In addition to the older DSLR tech that has fallen by the wayside, the ILC category also includes more modern mirrorless cameras. Continue reading Sony: Smartphone Camera Tech Will Make DSLRs Obsolete

Mintlify Leverages AI to Auto-Generate Code Documentation

A seed round by Ithaca, New York-based software firm Mintlify has raised $2.8 million led by Bain Capital Ventures. The startup uses artificial intelligence to automate software documentation. CEO and co-founder Han Wang says the funds will go to product development and hiring that will increase the company’s small staff. Mintify was launched in 2021 by Wang and Hahnbee Lee, a pair of software engineers who were driven to address a pressing industry need: quality documentation. A 2017 survey by GitHub found that 93 percent of developers listed incomplete or outdated documentation as an industry-wide problem. Continue reading Mintlify Leverages AI to Auto-Generate Code Documentation

Chinese Technology Companies Are Experiencing Slowdowns

China’s tech sector is taking a hit. Revenue for e-commerce giant Alibaba posted what appears to be its most sluggish quarterly increase ever, at 9 percent, with competitor JD.com also paced among its worst performances, with revenue up 18 percent for Q1. The nation’s search engine leader, Baidu, reported 1 percent revenue growth, while Tencent remained flat. Supply chain problems due to the COVID-19 resurgence in conjunction with Beijing’s recent measures to battle back monopolies are cited as causes for the negative market turn. Since late 2020, China has been investigating alleged monopolistic practices among many top corporations. Continue reading Chinese Technology Companies Are Experiencing Slowdowns

AI-Driven Microsoft Power Apps Offers Development Shortcuts

Microsoft is previewing its express design in Power Apps, which can instantly generate low-code apps directly from design files and images. In a few clicks, anyone can now create web and mobile apps from inputs including paper forms, PDFs, sketches on the whiteboard or even assets designed in professional programs like Figma. As part of the Microsoft Power Platform, Power Apps uses advanced AI to accelerate design. “We’re particularly excited about our integration with Figma, the collaborative design platform, where so much software is designed today,” said Microsoft vice president of Power Apps Ryan Cunningham. Continue reading AI-Driven Microsoft Power Apps Offers Development Shortcuts

Google’s Imagen AI Model Makes Advances in Text-to-Image

Google has released a research paper on a new text-to-image generator called Imagen, which combines the power of large transformer language models for text with the capabilities of diffusion models in high-fidelity image generation. “Our key discovery is that generic large language models (e.g. T5), pretrained on text-only corpora, are surprisingly effective at encoding text for image synthesis,” the company said. Simultaneously, Google is introducing DrawBench, a benchmark for text-to-image models it says was used to compare Imagen with other recent technologies including VQGAN+CLIP, latent diffusion models, and OpenAI’s DALL-E 2. Continue reading Google’s Imagen AI Model Makes Advances in Text-to-Image

Biden Visits a Samsung Semiconductor Plant in South Korea

President Biden kicked-off his three-day visit to South Korea with a trip to a Samsung Electronics semiconductor plant, emphasizing an interest in strengthening supply chains and boosting competition with China in the technology sector. Biden remarked that the U.S. wants to shore-up business ties with allies including South Korea to offset the influence of  “countries that don’t share our values.” Located in Pyeongtaek, the plant churns out some of Samsung’s most advanced memory chips and is the largest semiconductor manufacturing facility in the world. South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol was present, marking the pair’s first in-person visit. Continue reading Biden Visits a Samsung Semiconductor Plant in South Korea

NewFronts: Amazon, Peacock Demo Product Placement Tech

Amazon and Peacock both showcased virtual product placement tech solutions at the NewFronts, demonstrating how marketers can substitute new brands into previously produced material. Currently in beta, Amazon’s new VPP tool lends immediacy to marketing decisions that were once locked months, if not years, in advance, placing products directly into existing content streams from Amazon Prime Video and the company’s Freevee streaming service. Peacock takes a slightly different approach with “In-Scene,” which identifies in-show opportunities for message-freshening during post. Both developments tap artificial intelligence to improve on past practices. Continue reading NewFronts: Amazon, Peacock Demo Product Placement Tech

DeepMind’s Gato Moves Toward Artificial General Intelligence

Alphabet-backed research lab DeepMind last week released a new AI system called Gato that takes a step toward artificial general intelligence, or AGI, technology that enables machines to undertake and learn the same tasks as humans. Described by DeepMind as a “general purpose AI, Gato’s debut coincides with LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman securing $225 million to fund Inflection AI, an artificial intelligence company the pair launched earlier this year to simplify communication between humans and computers. Neither investors nor valuation were disclosed. Continue reading DeepMind’s Gato Moves Toward Artificial General Intelligence