Artificial Intelligence Pushes the Boundaries of What’s Possible

Emerging Tech Roundup — March 12

The Quantious team’s top picks for timely trending news in the tech world.

This week in tech: Adobe Photoshop can help you quadruple photo size thanks to AI, human-computer interaction pushes the boundaries of what’s possible, artificial intelligence identifies COVID-19 by the sound of a person’s cough, facial detection AI can assess how hard a person is concentrating, hundreds of sewage leaks detected with the help of artificial intelligence, Waymo demonstrates how its autonomous cars can avoid fatal crashes, and big companies get innovative with AI.

Adobe Photoshop Uses AI to Quadruple Your Photo’s Size

(CNET, March 10)

A new Adobe Photoshop feature, Super Resolution, will let you quadruple the number of pixels in a photo using artificial intelligence technology. To create this feature, Adobe trained its AI system on pairs of images, one at full resolution and one at half resolution to try to teach it how it should expand photos. “We focused our training efforts on challenging examples: image areas with lots of texture and tiny details, which are often susceptible to artifacts after being resized,” programmer Eric Chan said. The feature is built into Photoshop’s Adobe Camera Raw tool, and it uses graphics chip technology that can boost AI tasks on personal computers like CoreML on Apple Macs and Windows ML for Windows systems. A better graphics chip can speed the image enhancement process from minutes to seconds.

Inside Facebook Reality Labs: The Next Era of Human-Computer Interaction

(Tech@FB, March 9)

Facebook Reality Labs Chief Scientist, Michael Abrash, has called AR interaction “one of the hardest and most interesting multi-disciplinary problems around.” This is because the AR interface will require a complete rethinking of how humans and computers interact, and it will transform our relationship with the digital world every bit as much as the graphical user interface has. All-day wearable AR glasses will need to be able to do what you want them to do, and tell you what you want to know when you want to know it, similarly to the way your mind works. For example, you might gesture with your hand, make voice commands, or select items from a menu by looking at them. This AR interface will seamlessly turn intention into action, allowing us to stay present with those around us. Most importantly, it will need to be socially acceptable in every respect — secure, private, unobtrusive, easy to learn, easy to use, comfortable, effortless, and reliable. In summary,

New AI Tool Accurately Diagnoses COVID-19 Just by the Sound of Your Coughs

(The Next Web, March 10)

Scientists at Essex University have created a COVID-19 screening tool that can accurately diagnose the virus by analyzing the sound of a person’s cough. Easily accessible in a smartphone app, it will serve as an alternative to the nose swab tests, providing a more comforting form of detecting the virus. The tool, DeepCough3D, uses AI to analyze audio samples of coughs in frequencies that humans can’t hear. Researchers have tested it in over 8,000 hospital patients across Spain and Mexico since last April, and DeepCough3D proved to be 98% accurate at identifying whether the samples were positive or negative for COVID-19. The researchers also used the tool to classify coughs into three severity levels, which could help healthcare professionals designate resources like ventilators. Now, they plan to conduct interventional studies with the technology, working toward a larger release and certification of the tool.

Fujitsu Develops Facial Detection AI to Quantify Concentration Levels of People

(ZDNet, March 11)

With its new AI model, Fujitsu claimed that it can detect a person’s concentration when performing tasks by identifying common features and separating analysis by muscle group. This means it will not be easily influenced by facial expressions or behavior, which differ between cultural backgrounds. While building the AI model, Fujitsu collected data from 650 people across China, Japan, and the U.S. as part of its dataset, which included information focused on people engaging in tasks like memorization and searching. With the newly-developed AI model, it was possible to estimate the degree of concentration with more than 85% accuracy. Fujitsu hopes the latest AI model can be applied in various services such as virtual classes, online meetings, and sales activities, which have expanded due to the increase in remote working and learning.

Hundreds of Sewage Leaks Detected Thanks to AI

(BBC, March 11)

Thanks to AI, Scientists were able to identify 926 unreported spill events from two wastewater treatment plants in the UK over an 11-year period. Researchers spent years gathering data about flow rates in two treatment plants, teaching the algorithm to recognize the shape of the flow when a plant was operating normally compared to when it was spilling untreated wastewater. The researchers say that water companies around the UK could put a similar approach in place at any plant to help detect spills that appear to be going unnoticed and unreported. In response, the industry body, Water UK, told BBC News it will continue investing in “improving storm overflows and wastewater treatment works” over the next five years. A Water UK spokesperson added, “Many companies are already employing AI techniques in order to manage their assets, we will continue to explore new and innovative techniques to enhance the health of rivers further.”

Replaying Real Life: How the Waymo Driver Avoids Fatal Human Crashes

(Waymo, March 8)

As 94% of crashes involve human error, Waymo believes they have an opportunity to improve road safety by replacing the human driver with the “Waymo Driver” — Waymo’s autonomous driving technology. Waymo believes improved driving technology is the key to reducing needless accidents, and their recent study shows how the Waymo Driver would have likely performed in the majority of fatal crashes that occured on the same roads over a 10 year period. In total, their study shows that the simulated autonomous Waymo Driver completely avoided or mitigated 100% of crashes, aside from the crashes in which it was struck from behind, including every instance that involved a pedestrian or cyclist. This is the first time an autonomous technology company has shared its evaluation for how the system might perform in real-world fatal crash scenarios.

The 10 Most Innovative Companies in Artificial Intelligence

(Fast Company, March 9)

As AI becomes a more central aspect of companies’ strategies to further business processes, we have continued to see a wide diversification of where the technology is being applied in businesses. The most innovative companies in AI have been able to predict carbon capture, mimic human speech, fight misinformation, optimize data storage, and build a dedicated AI supercomputer. During the pandemic, companies like Walmart, Logically, and Cerebras Systems have been able to use AI to do everything from enhancing shopper experience, to identifying COVID-19 misinformation threats, and studying COVID-19 therapeutics, black holes, and nuclear fusion. AI’s potential applications are limitless, view the full list of Fast Company’s top 10 most innovative companies in AI.