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10 Bits: The Data News Hotlist

by Martin Makaryan
by

This week’s list of top data news highlights covers September 14, 2024 to September 20, 2024, and includes articles on Indiana’s new state government chatbot and how a Canadian hospital uses AI to save lives.

1. Measuring Urban Growth

Google has released a tool that uses AI to track how buildings and infrastructure have changed from 2016 to 2023 in urban areas across Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia using data from satellite images. The tool can help governments, international organizations, and nonprofits use up-to-date data to measure urban growth, plan neighborhoods, and respond to natural disasters.

2. Estimating Disaster Risks

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has released a digital tool that provides insights based on physical risks from natural disasters using data on housing and the mortgage market and damages from past disasters. The tool can help property owners, financial institutions, and policymakers better anticipate which areas of the United States are most likely to suffer damages from wildfires, hurricanes, and other disasters.

3. Upgrading Telecommunications Infrastructure

Nvidia has launched AI Aerial, a suite of software and hardware solutions for telecommunications providers to design and deploy AI-enabled radio access network technologies. The suite includes simulation tools that use AI, software libraries, and a digital twin system that can help optimize networks and develop new services, such as providing wireless connectivity for robot manufacturing and autonomous vehicles. One software solution, Sionna, will help providers train network-based 5G and 6G radio algorithms.

4. Revamping State Services

The State of Indiana has deployed a generative AI chatbot on its official website that can assist residents by answering questions about the various services that state agencies provide. The chatbot cites official sources in each answer to direct residents to the specific agency depending on the type of request.

5. Studying Quantum Phenomena

An international group of researchers has developed a new algorithm that improves how scientists simulate quantum systems using external forces, such as periodic microwave pulses, which are necessary to overcome current limitations in quantum computing. The team accurately simulated a complex 20-qubit quantum model on a quantum computer, using fewer resources than traditional methods. The new algorithm can help scientists study intricate phenomena in quantum physics by simulating quantum hardware more effectively.

6. Studying Archeology

A professor at Sam Houston State University in Texas has developed a deep learning model that analyzes large amounts of archeological features in Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize to study ancient Mayan civilization using aerial images of caves and landscapes.

7. Improving Student Performance

A teacher at Point Loma High School in San Diego uses ChatGPT to help students improve their writing and use an AI chatbot for a class ethically. The teacher instructs students to prompt ChatGPT to create an outline for an essay comparing two pieces of art in the school. The class then reviews the outline, and the teacher shows them how to ask ChatGPT for a plan to manage their writing time.

8. Enhancing Augmented Reality

Snap has unveiled an upgraded version of Spectacles, the company’s augmented reality (AR) glasses, that uses a new operating system called Snap OS to respond to the wearer’s hands and voice and better understand the user’s surroundings when rendering AR effects. The new glasses, which are currently available to AR developers, have a larger field of vision than previous generations and automatically tint in sunlight.

9. Saving Lives

Chartwatch, an early warning system that uses AI to analyze medical records and make hourly predictions about patients’ health status, has reduced unexpected deaths at a Toronto hospital by 26 percent since 2020. Chartwatch measures about 100 inputs from medical records, such as blood pressure and heart rate, and sends an alert to doctors when a patient’s situation deteriorates.

10. Improving Robots

Researchers at Arizona State University have developed a new system that allows users to continually train robots on new tasks through dialogues, which can help make more adaptable household robots that personalize their skills based on user needs. A large language model helps the robot obtain information from users through questions, and a skill mapping system that the researchers trained on a library of robot skills helps the robot determine whether it possesses the required skill or not. The researchers achieved 100 percent accuracy in a robot learning new skills after five demonstrations.

Image credits: Sincerely Media

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