Accenture has invested in BehaVR, which is a leading innovator in virtual reality (VR) digital therapeutics and digital wellness experiences.
Recently, BehaVR merged with OxfordVR, which is a leader in science-based VR treatments for severe mental illnesses and a spin-out of Oxford University.
The newly combined entity will provide comprehensive, VR-based cross-acuity therapeutic interventions for mental health. The part of a digital therapeutics market is expected to exceed $13B by 2027, according to Accenture.
Through its proprietary delivery platform for creating, operating, and validating digital therapeutics solutions, the BehaVR platform facilitates personalized experiences that are adapted in real-time based on biometrics, protocols, and machine learning models.
Healthcare leaders expect virtual reality and the metaverse to positively impact the future of care, according to the Accenture Digital Health Technology Vision 2022 report, which explains how more meaningful, tailored experiences can further humanize healthcare.
BehaVR is now part of Accenture Ventures’ Project Spotlight, an engagement and investment program that connects emerging technology startups with the Global 2000 to fill strategic innovation gaps.
A lawsuit accusing Meta Platforms of allowing violent and hateful posts from Ethiopia on Facebook has been filed by two Ethiopian researchers and the Kenyan rights group called the Katiba Institute.
The lawsuit alleges that Facebook’s recommendations systems amplified hateful posts in Ethiopia, including many more before the murder of one of the researchers’ father in 2021.
The plaintiffs are demanding Meta to take emergency steps to remove violent content, create restitution funds of about $2 bn for victims of violence incited on Facebook, and increase moderation staff in Nairobi.
Among the plaintiffs is Abrham Meareg, whose father was killed after Facebook posts were published in October 2021 referring to him using ethnic slurs.
The lawsuit said that Meta failed to exercise reasonable caution in training its algorithms to identify inappropriate posts and in hiring its staff to monitor content for the languages allowed by its regional moderation hub present in Nairobi.
According to Meta spokesperson Erin McPike, the hate speech and incitement to violence were against the rules of Facebook and Instagram.
Microsoft launched a new Industry Data for Society Partnership (IDSP) last week along with seven more companies, including LinkedIn, Github, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Northumbrian Water Group, UK Power Networks, and R2 Factory.
The IDSP partnership consists of the below objectives.
To open private sector data or provide easy access to data to solve social problems inclusively.
To share information and knowledge to use open data for social purposes effectively.
To invest in skilling a large number of professionals to use open data for society effectively.
To protect the privacy of individuals in all of the above objectives.
The IDSP can bring other organizations with expertise in solving social problems. The GovLab’s Data Program and the Open Data Institute will be partnership affiliates to the IDSP for providing its guidance and expertise.
Companies collaborating with IDSP will launch a Data for Local Environments Challenge with the Open Data Institute. In this challenge, the participants can use publicly available datasets, shared datasets, and curated datasets from private sectors. They will learn how experts use these datasets to improve their local environment. Registration for the challenge will be open in 2023.
The IDSP will also strengthen connections between industry and public sectors, which will help researchers and students to improve their work. It will associate with the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and the United States of National Committee for CODATA to organize a summit that will bring together students, government, industry, and non-profit research organizations to work together across disciplines and use the strength of organizations to solve real-world problems.
Andrew Ng, a recognized AI scientist and the founder of deep learning.ai, announces a new math course for machine learning and data science specialization. The course is a beginner-friendly specialization for learners to master the fundamental mathematical toolkit of machine learning, such as linear algebra, calculus, probability, and statistics.
With the course, learners can get a better understanding of machine learning algorithms and learn to tune algorithms for custom implementations. The course will highlight the statistical techniques that can give a better understanding of data and algorithms. Skills in the new course can help learners to solve machine learning interview questions and get their dream jobs.
The course is created in partnership with Luis Serrano, a well-known AI scientist and a YouTuber. He is the author of the book Grokking Machine Learning. With the help of approachable lessons and hands-on exercises, learners will master the mathematical concepts in the course.
The new course is suitable for anyone who wants to learn the basics mathematics skillset required to build machine learning models and data science projects. Learners need to know high school-level mathematics and a basic understanding of machine learning concepts as a prerequisite. The course will be live in January 2023.
According to a new study by an internet and telephone service researcher, Uswitch, the Netherlands is the most metaverse-ready country with the highest hospitable conditions to cater to such technology.
Uswitch looked at several factors, such as fixed broadband speeds, broadband package prices, the prices of high technology exports, and the number of blockchain financial startups, to determine which countries possess the capacity to embrace the metaverse.
According to the study, the Netherlands possesses one of the highest average fixed broadband speeds of 106.51 Mbps. Last year, the country also produced about $6,000 of high-technology exports per capita.
Switzerland, Lithuania, Malta, and France are the countries ranked after The Netherlands. All these five countries are known for growing interest in the emerging Web3 spaces. Malta has been a longtime blockchain and crypto hub.
Two crucial players in the metaverse development space, the United Kingdom and the United States were ranked 7th and 12th, respectively. Despite the recent upheaval in the Web3 space, the development of the metaverse continues to push forward.
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) will soon issue an AI strategy as talent development poses one of the top challenges for DIA and organizations across the Department of Defense (DoD).
DIA Director Scott Berrier is expected to sign the DIA’s strategy soon, said Ramesh Menon, the agency’s chief technology officer, during the annual Department of Defense Intelligence Information System conference.
Menon said that DIA had put together a panel to lead the strategy development last year. The goals are based on the recommendations of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. NSCAI had recommended the DoD and the entire intelligence community to be AI-ready by 2025.
The strategy will also touch on platforms, tools, ethics, explainable AI, and international partnerships. However, the most pressing challenge facing DIA’s plans is likely the talent gaps, according to Menon. “We need the talent. He said that we have to train and upskill our staff to have the digital skills necessary to support us,” he said.
DIA is also looking to partner with other organizations to create “AI labs” for training and education. The agency has already worked with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s Moonshot Lab to conduct joint hackathons and an AI hackathon with Joint Special Operations Command.
A man named Amaar Reshi has created an entire children’s book using artificial intelligence over the weekend. However, several netizens have expressed their disapproval of the same. But social media has accused Reshi of using “stolen” images to create AI-generated art.
In a Twitter thread posted on Saturday, Reshi said he spent the weekend trying out ChatGPT, MidJourney, and other AI tools. He added that by combining all of them, he published a children’s book co-written and illustrated by AI.
I spent the weekend playing with ChatGPT, MidJourney, and other AI tools… and by combining all of them, published a children’s book co-written and illustrated by AI!
“First, the idea: I wanted a story showing the magic of AI to children. I gave ChatGPT a prompt and went back and forth to refine details and get inspiration for the illustrations. It was like having a constant brainstorming partner who I could ping pong ideas off of,” Reshi said in one of his tweets.
First, the idea: I wanted a story showing the magic of AI to children. I gave ChatGPT a prompt and went back and forth with it to refine details and get inspiration for the illustrations. It was like having a constant brainstorming partner who I could ping pong ideas off of. pic.twitter.com/nYsoAF2HzZ
After that, Reshi took those ideas to MidJourney and tried prompt after prompt till he could get a somewhat consistent style. He said this took him a few hours, but it was a fun process dabbling into all different styles.
Reshi then combined all the elements created and put them together in a book format before signing up on Amazon Kindle Publishing. He made the book cover with the help of AI, too.
Accurate search opens the door to more customers and better conversions. Despite this potential, only 15% of companies devote resources to site search optimization, and only 7% report actionable learnings from this data. Zevi.ai is addressing this setback by bridging the gap between what your customers want and what you offer through their AI-driven NLP search, which lets users search in the way that comes most naturally to them.
Zevi.ai
Zevi.ai is a developer of a search engine system with natural language processing (NLP) designed to improve online conversion and engagement for brands. The company’s AI-Search engine, which can be integrated into your website, specializes in truly understanding user queries by comprehending the context of the query and helps to fetch suitable listings for users, enabling stakeholders to enable easy discovery and fulfill business goals with maximum control on search.
At the Inception
“The problem of discovery still persists today, and site search (search bar within site) as a medium to search has been one of the leading contributors to churn,” said Shyam Nallasenapathy, co-founder of Zevi.ai. “We wanted to challenge this end-to-end, and that is one of the primary reasons why we went after the problem. Today, almost 50% of revenue comes from the search bar, but it also contributes to a 70% churn which needs to be fixed.”
Zevi.ai was co-founded by Shyam Nallasenapathy and Anshul Basia. Shyam was working as the senior manager for search, sort, personalization, and storefront at Myntra, and Anshul was working on NLP projects with Microsoft in Redmond when they both decided to initiate their journey with Zevi.ai. “We were a part of Entrepreneur First, and that is how our first cheque came in. After which our investors WEH ventures, Titan capital, Kube VC and Veda VC joined us in our journey,” said Nallasenapathy. Entrepreneur First is an international talent investor, which supports individuals in building technology companies.
AI-driven Search and Discovery Solutions by Zevi.ai
“We are an engine that searches by meaning and not by text, making it near human-like experience to find what a person is looking for and not only that, today we are the only engine that can support multilingual search like (Hindi + English, English + Spanish, etc.,” said Nallasenapathy. Zevi.ai is bridging the gap between what customers want and what you have to offer through its search, analytics, and merchandising solutions.
Smart Neural Site Search
From discovery to engagement to conversion, Neural Search speeds up every step of the sales pipeline with search that’s built for context. It helps understand the semantics behind search queries and provides accurate, business-impacting results that are uninhibited by vague or incorrect inputs. Some perks of Neural Search include:
AI-based search suggestions
Neural Search stays a step ahead of customers, with real-time suggestions to assist them in inputting precise requirements. Zevi’s engine analyzes search query patterns and learns from them continuously, ensuring that your search suggestions are constantly updated based on user behavior.
AI-powered spell check and synonyms
The site search engine resolves inaccuracies with a spell-check layer that automatically corrects misspelled terms across languages. It also corrects spelling errors based on what is relevant to the catalog and the search vertical. The neural-architecture search AI creates its own associations between words, which get more robust based on search usage, discarding the need for a synonym layer.
Context-sensitive search
The engine understands search queries in a more profound manner by matching the context with the right products from Zevi’s database without any need for manual tagging. This is possible for any vertical, and users can always search in their natural way.
Real-time Data and Analytics
Zevi’s search engine system allows users to analyze visitor search journeys and identify bottlenecks to boost conversions. It also leverages real-time data and tools to make intelligent improvements to your visitors’ search experience.
Real-time Data and Analytics by Zevi helps users understand how visitors search and optimize their site for more significant revenue. With visitor search insights, users can always have the most detailed and accurate picture of what their customers are searching for, how often, and whether they get what they are looking for. The growth-oriented metrics allow one to understand visitor search behavior deeply and translate it into more conversions and fewer dead-end searches. Users can use data on visitor behavior to set up hard pins, redirections, and new content.
Smart Merchandising
Zevi makes online merchandising more effective by focusing on your business goals, guiding your customers toward the most beneficial and relevant search results, and showing your customers the specific search results that you want them to see.
By integrating Zevi.ai into their websites, users can promote specific search results based on several performance-oriented parameters, including engagement rate, revenue generated, and customer ratings. It also allows owners to meet their business goals by pinning specific search results so that they always appear at the top of the search rankings when a user searches for a given query.
Towards the Future
Zevi.ai is all set to rise up in the industry. “We have been able to deliver ~20+% jump in conversion rates and ~30+% jump in average order value for our users. All of these were over and above leading e-commerce site search engines,” said Nallasenapathy. When asked about the future plans for the company, Nallasenapathy said, “We want to rethink the search and discovery experience, and that’s what we are after. As more and more content gets boarded onto the digital mediums, the need for a good search engine becomes imperative, and we want Zevi to be a frontier in the new age site search tech.”
Audi uses AI technology for the first time, called FelGAN to design new wheels for its vehicles. FelGAN combines the German word ‘rim,’ which is a wheel (felge), and GAN, which stands for Generative Adversarial Networks. GANs are a type of deep learning method that uses two algorithms to compete as opponents during the training stage.
However, Audi is not replacing their wheel designers with machines but using an AI-enabled tech, FelGAN, to take inspiration from the wheels designed by the AI technology and later build wheels in plastic or aluminum, using a high-tech milling machine. Audi will not be changing the shape of the rim. They will keep rims in a circular shape but change their design by using AI.
In the FelGAN, one of the algorithms acts like a generator that creates AI images of the vehicle’s rim. In comparison, another algorithm works like a discriminator that analyzes real and AI-generated images of the vehicle’s rim. This process is repeated continuously till the training phase is completed. After the training phase, the generator’s images are so real that even a human eye can hardly distinguish them from real images.
Head of Machine Learning and Data Science at Audi, Thomas Knispel, stated that data brings immense value for companies and their employees in the modern age. Audi is committed to becoming a data-driven company and using AI technology in many departments. An AI rating system is currently being developed at Audi, which can check the carbon balance of each rim generated by FelGAN.
On Tuesday, Meta announced the launch of its open-source tool, HMA, which helps platforms to identify copies of images or videos promoting terrorism. It also announced a collaboration with GIFCT (Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism), an NGO that brings organizations together to detect terrorism content online with the help of research, technical collaboration, and knowledge sharing in January 2023.
Several companies can use the new tool called, Hasher-Matcher-Actioner (HMA) to stop spreading terror content on their platforms. HMA is built on meta’s earlier open-source and video-matching software and will be used for violating content.
Meta is one of the members who founded the GIFCT organization in 2017. GIFCT includes companies, technical experts, and government and civil society organizations to address terrorism online.
The launch of the HMA tool and Meta’s collaboration in GIFCT is a part of Meta’s commitment to detecting terrorist content and protecting users from harmful content online. Meta has been working with AI to remove harmful online content generated at scale. It has also blocked millions of fake accounts daily to avoid spreading misleading information. Since 2017, Meta has taken down 150 networks of malicious accounts worldwide.
