This week’s list of top data news highlights covers January 4, 2025 to January 10, 2025, and includes articles on using AI to streamline litigation preparation and the U.S. Navy’s new data dashboard to monitor its fleet in real-time.
1. Assisting Writers and Researchers
GPTZero, a Virginia-based company offering AI detection software for universities, has introduced Source Finder, a tool that can help writers verify how accurate their claims are in real-time and find supporting evidence. The tool uses AI to scan text for assertions that may require evidence, providing links to relevant sources and making suggestions from a database of over 220 million scholarly and news articles. The tool can improve factual integrity in writing and address inaccuracies in academic and professional contexts.
McAfee, a San Jose-based computer security company, has created a new tool to help users identify text, email, and video scams. The tool uses AI to automatically monitor inboxes for suspicious messages, detect deepfake videos, and flag risky communications, while providing clear explanations of why these scams are dangerous.
3. Enabling Smart Housekeeping
Roborock, a Chinese robotics company, has unveiled a robot vacuum with a folding arm that can remove small obstacles like socks and tissues. This feature allows the vacuum to detect and physically move small obstacles—such as socks, tissues, and sandals weighing less than 300 grams—out of its cleaning path.
A doctoral student at Manchester Metropolitan University has developed an app that uses virtual reality (VR) to teach biomedical scientists how to perform blood transfusion crossmatching. This process involves testing donated blood to ensure it is safe and compatible for a patient, which can be complex and detailed. The VR app simulates a laboratory environment where users interact with patient cases, test blood samples for compatibility, and see the results of their decisions—whether correct or incorrect—in a realistic and interactive way.
5. Streamlining Litigation Preparation
Toronto-based legal technology company Alexi has launched an advanced legal reasoning tool to help litigators analyze complex cases using AI. The tool can process up to 10,000 documents, extract key legal insights, build chronologies, and suggest tailored case strategies. By answering nuanced legal questions and referencing relevant case law and statutes, it helps streamline litigation preparation and provides Alexi’s subscribers with enhanced analytical tools.
6. Enhancing the Consumer Experience
Harman, a Connecticut-based audio electronics company, has unveiled Ready Engage, an AI system to enhance in-vehicle interactions. The system features an AI assistant named Luna, which personalizes interactions with drivers using friendly visuals and voice and integrates with Harman’s augmented reality windshield display.
The U.S. Navy has developed a data dashboard to streamline fleet monitoring and provide up-to-date readiness data for the Chief of Naval Operations. The dashboard aggregates data from across the fleet into a user-friendly interface with clickable graphics, search functionality, and automated updates, eliminating the need for multiple manual reports. The dashboard can enhance decision-making by offering real-time insights into fleet readiness and facilitate clearer reporting to government officials.
8. Issuing Effective Prescriptions
The Cleveland Clinic in Ohio has developed quantum machine learning algorithms to improve the speed and accuracy of antibiotic prescriptions. The algorithms, which the researchers trained on roughly five million antibiotic susceptibility classifications, analyze patient demographics, hospital resistance patterns, and medical histories to predict effective treatments in real-time, outperforming physicians in accuracy. The team is now exploring quantum computing to further enhance these algorithms, focusing on improving performance with smaller datasets.
9. Controlling Devices Hands-Free
Finnish startup Doublepoint has launched an Apple Watch app that enables users to control devices like their laptops using hand gestures. The app uses the Apple Watch’s motion sensors to detect specific hand movements, allowing users to interact with their devices without touching the screen. By providing a hands-free control method, the app enhances accessibility and convenience for users in various situations.
Tel Aviv-based startup Fermata has created software that uses AI and computer vision to diagnose greenhouse crops with diseases or pests and monitor them. Fermata’s software captures daily images of crops, analyzes them using AI, and sends alerts about infestations or diseases to farmers through an app.
Image credit: Scott Graham
