Now, A Tech That Recognises Words Like Humans Do

Researchers at Microsoft claimed to have developed the first technology that recognizes the words in a conversation as well as humans do. A team in Microsoft Artificial Intelligence and Research created a speech recognition system that makes the same or fewer errors than professional transcriptionists. The system had a word error rate (WER) of 5.9% - the lowest ever recorded against the industry standard Switchboard speech recognition task. The research milestone does not mean the computer recognized every word perfectly. In fact, humans do not do that, either. Instead, it means that the error rate – or the rate at which the computer misheard a word like “have” for “is” or “a” for “the” – is the same as you would expect from a person hearing the same conversation. The milestone means that, for the first time, a computer can recognize the words in a conversation as well as a person would. The milestone comes after decades of research in speech recognition, beginning in the early 1970s with DARPA, the US agency tasked with making technology breakthroughs. This accomplishment is the culmination of over twenty years of effort. The milestone will have broad implications for consumer and business products that can be significantly augmented by speech recognition. That includes entertainment devices like the Xbox, accessibility tools such as instant speech to text transcription and personal digital assistants such as Cortana.

This Lab In A Smartphone Detects Cancer Instantly

Scientists at Washington State University have developed a new low-cost, portable laboratory on a smartphone that can analyse several samples at once to catch a cancer biomarker with 99% accuracy, producing lab-quality results. At a time when patients and medical professionals expect faster results, researchers are trying to translate bio-detection technologies used in laboratories to the field and clinics, so patients can get instant diagnoses in a physician’s office, an ambulance or the emergency room. The researchers created an eight-channel smartphone spectrometer that can detect human interleukin-6 (IL-6), a known biomarker for lung, prostate, liver, beast and epithelial cancers. A spectrometer analyses the amount and type of chemicals in a sample by measuring the light spectrum. Although smartphone spectrometer exist, they only monitor or measure a single sample at a time, making them inefficient for real world applications. The new multichannel spectrometer can measure up to eight different samples at once using a common test called Elisa, or colorimetric test enzyme linked immunosorbent assay, that identifies antibodies and color change as disease markers. Although researchers only used the smartphone spectrometer with standard lab-controlled samples, their device has been 99% accurate. The researchers are now using the portable spectrometer in real world situations. With this eight channel spectrometer, researchers can put eight different samples to do the same test, or one sample in eight different wells to do eight different tests; this increases this device’s efficiency. The spectrometer would be especially useful in clinics and hospitals that have a large number of samples without onsite labs, or for doctors who practice abroad or in remote areas. Those can’t carry a whole lab with them. They need a portable and efficient device.

Now, A Tattoo To Detect Alcohol Level In Real Time

Scientists have developed a wearable skin tattoo that detects alcohol levels in sweat and transmits the information t a smartphone, allowing users to monitor their drinking in real time. The device could help reduce unsafe drinking that can lead to vehicle crashes, violence and the degeneration of the health of heavy drinkers. It resembles a temporary tattoo, but is actually a biosensor patch that is embedded with several flexible wireless components. One component releases a chemical that stimulated perspiration on the skin below the patch. Another component senses changes in the electrical current flowing through the generated sweat, which measures alcohol levels and sends them to the user’s cell phone. About 88,000 people in the US die from alcohol related causes including driving fatalities, which accounted for nearly 10,000 deaths in 2014. This significant problem has been addressed by the use of blood tests or breathalyzers by law enforcement. The new wearable monitor has the advantage of being non-invasive and unseen by others.

A Smartwatch That Identifies Gestures And Objects

Scientists have developed a technology that enables smart watches to recognize gestures such as taps and flicks as well as identify objects held in the user’s hand, making possible new types of interactions with wearable devices. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in the US discovered that a software upgrade that repurposes the smartwatch’s existing accelerometer enables the device to detect and distinguish a variety of taps, flicks and scratches by the hands and fingers. This function makes possible new applications that use common gestures to control the smartwatch and other objects connected through the internet of things. By monitoring vibrations that occur when people hold objects or use tools, the smartwatch would be capable of recognizing objects and activities. It could even be used to help tune a guitar, with the smartwatch displaying the note transmitted. The technology has been developed by PhD students at the Human Computer Interaction Institute (HCII).