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Yes, YES, this is what I'm talking about Microsoft. I'm surprised how muted the reaction is from HN here. On the technical side, this is a perfect example of h
by nharada 9y ago
Yes, YES, this is what I'm talking about Microsoft. I'm surprised how muted the reaction is from HN here.
On the technical side, this is a perfect example of how AI can be used effectively, and is a (very obvious in hindsight) application of the cutting edge in scene understanding and HCI. There are quite a few recent and advanced techniques rolled into one product here, and although I haven't tried it out yet it seems fairly polished from the video. A whitepaper of how this works from the technical side would be fascinating, because even though I'm familiar with the relevant papers it's a long jump between the papers and this product.
On the social side, I think this is a commendable effort, and a fairly low hanging fruit to demonstrate the positive power of new ML techniques. On a site where every other AI article is full of comments (somewhat rightfully) despairing about the negative social aspects of AI and the associated large scale data collection, we should be excited about a tool that exists to improve lives most of us don't even realize need improving. This is the kind of thing I hope can inspire more developers to take the reins on beneficial AI applications.
- 52-6F-62 9y agoLow hanging fruit or not, this is the kind of effort that will sway public opinion. This is the direction that needs to be undertaken with as much or more fervour than business automation applications. I'm inspired!
- doomlaser 9y agoThese are all definitely applications of ML we've seen around in different places, but this is the first package I've seen to put them together in an integrated way on a smartphone. I'm also impressed with Microsoft's effort here. It looks pretty nice, especially the different 'channels' metaphor for the various ML processing tasks (Scene, barcode, people, short text etc) for the visually impaired.
- mishurov 9y agoI'd rather say that machine learning is an application of mathematical statistics.
- ezequiel-garzon 9y agoAlso on the technical side, the fact that Microsoft (Microsoft!) is releasing an iOS-only app, even if it comes from its research department, is maybe more shocking than its open-source releases of late. Who are you, Microsoft?!
- taspeotis 9y agoIt makes sense to start with iOS anyway, it's known for having great accessibility. A lot of people with accessibility needs use iOS for that reason.
- reitanqild 9y agoAlso rumours has it that Apple punishes you in the app store if you launch on Android first.
- hacker_9 9y ago> it seems fairly polished from the video Reminder: This is a Microsoft marketing video, they are never like the actual product. See Kinect and Hololens teasers for more.
- icantdrive55 9y agoIt's simply the best app I have ever downloaded. This will help so many people.
- bhnmmhmd 9y agoI have a technical question here: Can this be called a true AI? Because as far as I'm concerned, most companies just use AI and ML interchangeably. I guess these are only applied AI tailored to do a plethora of tasks, but at the end of the day, they're not conscious and aware of their existence.
- NicoJuicy 9y agoPart of the techniques seem to come from 'office lens' app of Microsoft. It takes pictures of documents and positions them