Blind users can now explore photos by touch with Microsoft’s Seeing AI

Microsoft’s Seeing AI is an app that lets blind and limited-vision folks convert visual data into audio feedback, and it just got a useful new feature. Users can now use touch to explore the objects and people in photos.

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Brodmann17 nabs $11M for its automotive computer vision tech that runs on any CPU

Efficient computer vision systems are a critical component of autonomous and assisted driving vehicles, and now a startup that has developed a way to deliver computer vision technology without relying on costly and bulky hardware — by building deep learning software that can run even on low-end processors — has secured a round of funding […]

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Some self-driving car systems have trouble detecting darker skin, study says

Last year, Microsoft, IBM, and Amazon were called out for using facial recognition technology that was biased against people with dark skin. Well, it looks like self-driving cars could have the same problem.
An analysis from Georgia Tech researchers …

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Sam’s Club to test new Scan & Go system that uses computer vision instead of barcodes

In October, Walmart-owned Sam’s Club opened a test store in Dallas where it planned to trial new technology including mobile checkout, an Amazon Go-like camera system, in-store navigation wayfinding technology, electronic shelf labels, and more. This morning, the retailer announced it will now begin testing a revamped Scan & Go service as well, which leverages […]

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Koala-sensing drone helps keep tabs on drop bear numbers

It’s obviously important to Australians to make sure their koala population is closely tracked — but how can you do so when the suckers live in forests and climb trees all the time? With drones and AI, of course.

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Vision system for autonomous vehicles watches not just where pedestrians walk, but how

The University of Michigan, well known for its efforts in self-driving car tech, has been working on an improved algorithm for predicting the movements of pedestrians that takes into account not just what they’re doing, but how they’re doing it. This body language could be critical to predicting what a person does next.

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Biotech AI startup Sight Diagnostics gets $27.8M to speed up blood tests

Sight Diagnostics, an Israeli medical devices startup that’s using AI technology to speed up blood testing, has closed a  $27.8 million Series C funding round. The company has built a desktop machine, called OLO, that analyzes cartridges manually loaded with drops of the patient’s blood — performing blood counts in situ. The new funding is […]

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Medivis has launched its augmented reality platform for surgical planning

After two years of development, Medivis, a New York-based company developing augmented reality data integration and visualization tools for surgeons, is bringing its first product to market. The company was founded by Osamah Choudhry and Christopher Morley who met as senior residents at NYU Medical Center. Initially a side-project, the two residents roped in some […]

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Xnor’s saltine-sized, solar-powered AI hardware redefines the edge

“If AI is so easy, why isn’t there any in this room?” asks Ali Farhadi, founder and CEO of Xnor, gesturing around the conference room overlooking Lake Union in Seattle. And it’s true — despite a handful of displays, phones, and other gadgets, the only things really capable of doing any kind of AI-type work are the phones each of us have set on the table. Yet we are always hearing about how AI is so accessible now, so flexible, so ubiquitous.

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Facebook picks up retail computer vision outfit GrokStyle

If you’ve ever seen a lamp or chair that you liked and wished you could just take a picture and find it online, well, GrokStyle let you do that — and now the company has been snatched up by Facebook to augment its own growing computer vision department.

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Play Iconary, a simple drawing game that hides a deceptively deep AI

It may not seem like it takes a lot of smarts to play a game like Pictionary, but in fact it involves a lot of subtle and abstract visual and linguistic skills. This AI built to play a game like it is similarly complex, and its interpretations and creations when you play it (as you can now) may seem eerily human — but it’s refreshing to have such an agent working in collaboration rather than trying to beat you.

View More Play Iconary, a simple drawing game that hides a deceptively deep AI