This week’s list of top data news highlights covers October 5, 2024 to October 11, 2024, and includes articles on a deep learning tool to discover new viruses and a tool measuring artists’ level of public influence.
1. Streamlining Healthcare Services
Microsoft has launched a suite of multimodal AI models that healthcare providers can use to build custom AI tools to assist doctors and nurses with tasks like analyzing medical scans, completing administrative tasks, and building chatbots. The suite can help doctors and nurses save up to 40 percent of time they currently spend on routine and administrative functions.
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have developed RoVi-Aug, an algorithm that facilitates skill transfer across robots with different physical forms and structures to train them on completing new tasks. The researchers use generative AI models to create synthetic visual demonstrations of robots performing tasks from different viewpoints, which helps diversify the training data.
The U.S. military has deployed a smart tool originally designed for military use that helps responders manage Hurricane Helene relief efforts. The system aggregates data like mapping, environmental sensor data, and resource logistics from multiple sources and uses AI to analyze it and to create comprehensive visualizations and insights, enabling first responders and the military to identify where people need help most and how to distribute resources effectively.
Researchers in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Australia have developed a deep learning tool that helped identify roughly 160,000 new types of viruses by analyzing protein structures in genetic data from public datasets. The tool can help identify viruses that could proliferate into epidemics and pandemics.
Hugging Face, a platform that provides tools to build machine learning applications, has launched a new tool that helps developers create AI-powered web applications faster using OpenAI’s large language models with only a few lines of code. The tool makes it easier to build web apps that use generative AI without needing a big cloud infrastructure or complicated backend engineering.
6. Enabling Scientific Breakthroughs
Researchers at the California Institute of Technology have developed a new device, which enables scientists to make new breakthroughs in physics and explore laws of nature, by integrating atomic clocks—precise devices that measure time based on the oscillations of atoms—into a quantum computer. The device can help measure time extremely precisely, enabling further research into gravitational waves and dark matter.
A construction company in Massachusetts is using a virtual reality (VR) program to train workers in construction site safety. The VR system simulates dangerous scenarios, allowing workers to experience hazardous situations and make critical decisions in such scenarios without real-world risks.
Ring, a company producing smart home security devices, has launched a new feature in its app that uses AI to allow users to easily search specific moments in videos that their home cameras recorded. Users can type queries directly into the app, and the tool quickly renders the right moment.
Anduril Industries, a California-based defense manufacturer, has unveiled a new autonomous drone that can help human operators strike military targets with high precision by identifying targets, tracking adversaries’ movements, and autonomously deciding the right time and manner of striking. The drone uses AI to process real-time data, such as target movements and ground conditions, which helps it choose and engage targets precisely.
10. Enabling Brand Partnerships
Luminate, a Los Angeles-based entertainment data analytics provider, has launched a new tool that assigns an influence score to musical artists based on several key metrics, such as how well the public knows them and their social media footprint. The tool can help brands make data-driven decisions on partnering with artists for marketing campaigns.
Image credit: Glenov Brankovic
