Singer, songwriter, producer, and Icelandic artist Björk teamed up with New York’s Sister City hotel as well as Microsoft to create Kórsafn, an AI-powered composition that builds on the generative soundscape concept. In other words, this is a living and evolving soundscape, thanks to Microsoft AI, while the images in the installation are powered by a camera perched on the roof of Sister City. Read more for a video and additional information.
Remember the laser-projected keyboards that were very popular a few years ago? Well, think of Samsung’s SelfieType as the evolution of that invention. Making its debut at CES 2020 in Las Vegas, this AI-powered virtual keyboard uses a smartphone’s front-facing camera to track your hands’ movements as you type. The fingers movements are then converted into QWERTY keyboard inputs. Read more for a video demonstration and additional information.
Photo credit: Pranav Mistry
Samsung “Neon” project leader Pranav Mistry has confirmed that the project aims to create lifelike avatars using artificial intelligence. These virtual humans are based on captured data, but can generate their own expressions, movements and dialog in multiple languages. Mistry belives that one day soon a digital human could extend its role to become a part of our everyday lives, whether it be a virtual news anchor, virtual receptionist, or even an AI-generated film star. Read more for the leaked video and additional information.
We’re just days away from Samsung officially unveiling Neon at CES 2020, and for those who don’t know what it is, the project is supposedly about an “Artificial Human”. A recently uncovered patent filing describes Neon as used for entertainment services, namely, production of special effects including model-making services, computer-generated imagery as well as computer-generated graphics for the production of motion pictures. Read more for a video, a picture of the filing and additional information.
Developed by Nick Walton, AI Dungeon 2 is based on an open-source text-generating algorithm created by OpenAI. The AI was trained by feeding it choose-your-own-adventure stories from the Choose Your Story website. Think of AI Dungeon 2 as a Zork-inspired text adventure game (TAG), but rather than limiting players to only going in specific directions, it responds to pretty much anything the player types. Read more for two videos and a link to the game.
Let’s face it, LEGO sets are fun to put together, but when it comes time to clean everything up, sorting the leftover pieces definitely isn’t the most enjoyable task. Inventor Daniel West has just the solution. This LEGO enthusiast put his engineering skills to work by building the world’s first universal LEGO sorting machine that uses an AI-powered neural network to identify, classify and organize the pieces more efficiently than a human ever could. Read more to see it in-action.
Television fanatics most certainly know that The X-Files series revolved around Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny), and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who investigate X-Files: marginalized, unsolved cases involving paranormal phenomena. What better way to merge the 1997 film Men in Black with the series than with deepfake technology. Read more to see the clip that ensued.
Google announced today that DeepMind AI is the first artificial intelligence to reach the Grandmaster level in StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. For those who don’t know how to play the game, two players basically compete against each other after choosing which alien race to be – Zerg, Protoss and Terran – with each having different abilities. To train the AI, DeepMind used three separate neural networks – one for each race of aliens it played as. Read more for a video and additional information.
NVIDIA researchers continue to explore the possibilities of artificial intelligence, and their latest project bridges photography and machine learning into an app, called GANimal. Simply put, it can instantly transform your pet into completely different animals. The team defined new AI techniques that give computers enough data to see a picture of one animal and recreate its expression and pose on the face of any other creature. Read more for a video and additional information.
Global technology company Bosch is launching a new sensor system powered by artificial intelligence, called the SoundSee, to the International Space Station. This module comes equipped with microphones and uses machine learning to detect and analyze sounds it hears. It then uses these sounds to establish a baseline, and continuously compares new audio to be able to immediately discover potential mechanical issues that could cause problems. It will also be used to provide information about the current performance of the ISS systems, and when they need maintenance or repair. Read more for a video and additional information.