News

The Interstitium, the Largest Organ We Never Knew We Had

Baidu shows off its instant pocket translator

The Chinese Internet giant has made significant strides improving machine language translation since 2015, using an advanced form of artificial intelligence known as deep learning, said Hua Wu, the company’s chief scientist focused on natural-language processing. On stage, the Internet-connected device was able to almost instantly translate a short conversation between Wu and senior editor Will Knight. It easily rendered Knight’s questions including ’Where can I buy this device?’

Expressive Speech Synthesis with Tacotron

At Google, we’re excited about the recent rapid progress of neural network-based text-to-speech (TTS) research. In particular, end-to-end architectures, such as the Tacotron systems we announced last year, can both simplify voice building pipelines and produce natural-sounding speech. This will help us build better human-computer interfaces, like conversational assistants, audiobook narration, news readers, or voice design software.

China will publicly shame jaywalkers using facial-recognition technology

The AI company behind the billboards, Intellifusion, is in talks with mobile phone networks and local social media platforms to enforce the new system.

Tesla is just months from a total collapse, says hedge-fund manager

Uber Disabled Volvo SUV’s Safety System Before Fatality

Uber Technologies Inc. disabled the standard collision-avoidance technology in the Volvo SUV that struck and killed a woman in Arizona last week, according to the auto-parts maker that supplied the vehicle’s radar and camera.

Origami-Folded Hydrogel Paper Instantly Generates 110 Volts of Electricity

Rows of small hydrogel dots are packed with positively and negatively charged ions that combine together to mimic an electric eel’s cellular structure. Printing and stacking these hydrogels produces the highest amount of voltage, while a connection to a larger contact area produces the highest current. Scientists are hoping that this system could potentially lead to a device that generates power from inside of the human body.

Chemotherapy-free ‘cancer vaccine’ moves from mice to human trials at Stanford

The Department of Energy Figured Out How to 3D Print Structures Made of Water

Lax regulation made it cheaper for China to outsource pork production to the US