Home BlogWeekly News 10 Bits: The Data News Hotlist

10 Bits: The Data News Hotlist

by Martin Makaryan
by

This week’s list of top data news highlights covers September 21, 2024 to September 27, 2024, and includes articles on using a new supercomputer for more accurate weather forecasts and South Korea’s first nighttime autonomous taxi service.

1. Automating Caption Generation

Warner Bros. Discovery, a U.S.-based multinational entertainment company, has partnered with Google Cloud to automatically create captions for media content using a generative AI tool called Caption AI. The company plans to use Caption AI to cut the time it takes to generate captions manually by 80 percent and decrease content production costs by 50 percent.

2. Tracking Population Changes

The State of Connecticut has launched a new data dashboard that includes statewide and city-specific information about population changes, new housing units, health care, and education, using data from federal and state sources. The dashboard can also help researchers and policymakers examine regional changes within the state by tracking migration flows, births, and deaths.

3. Practicing Language Skills

Duolingo has launched a new tool that uses generative AI to help users practice their foreign language speaking skills by having realistic conversations with an AI companion adapted to a user’s language level.

4. Informing Voters

Candidates running for state legislative offices in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania have used ChatGPT to better articulate their policy positions to voters. One candidate uploaded her past writing samples and policy positions in a ChatGPT prompt and edited the answers to ensure they reflected her distinct voice as a candidate. Another candidate used ChatGPT to craft an informative answer to a question about health policy, while the third candidate used ChatGPT to edit campaign materials for grammar and clarity.

5. Uncovering Archaeological Sites

Researchers at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE) have developed a machine learning algorithm that can help scientists discover and study archeological sites in the desert areas of the Arabian Peninsula. The algorithm, trained on data from a 5,000-year-old archaeological site near Dubai, learns to recognize patterns of buried structures from satellite images. It then actively scans new images to pinpoint hidden archaeological sites, helping researchers uncover previously unknown locations beneath the desert sands.

6. Improving Weather Forecasting

The meteorological services of Ireland, Denmark, Iceland, and the Netherlands have partnered to use a new supercomputer based in Iceland called Aurora to run a more accurate and timely common weathercasting model. Aurora, which can process 10 million daily observations and perform 4,000 trillion calculations per second, will increase the resolution of satellite images analyzed and will produce predictions every hour instead of every three hours.

7. Recruiting New Soldiers

The U.S. Army has launched a new tool that can help recruiters better target new recruits by using AI to analyze potential applicant files. The tool, called Recruit 360, analyzes 1,700 variables, such as education level and age, to identify prospective recruits. Recruit 360 can help reduce the Army’s reliance on cold calls and address recent recruiting shortfalls by reaching out to a narrower pool of interested applicants.

8. Enhancing Augmented Reality

Meta has unveiled new lightweight smart glasses called Orion that can overlay 2D and 3D content over the real world and use AI to analyze the surrounding environment and provide suggestions to the users in Orion’s display. For example, Orion can scan a user’s pantry and recommend recipes in the glasses’ display.

9. Providing Late-Night Rides

The City of Seoul in South Korea has launched the country’s first autonomous taxi service that will operate between 11:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. in a specially designated area of the city. Passengers can request these self-driving taxis, which will be free until the end of the year, through a mobile application, and each taxi can accommodate up to three passengers.

10. Diagnosing Heart Disease

A hospital in Omaha, Nebraska is employing a tool called HeartFlow that uses AI to create a custom visual model of each patient’s heart, which shows how narrow their arteries are and how much blood is flowing. Doctors can use the model to analyze artery blockages and their level of severity to diagnose and treat heart disease.

Image credit: Joe Mania

 

You may also like

Show Buttons
Hide Buttons