Microsoft’s new speech recognition system reaches human parity

A team of researchers and engineers in Microsoft AI and Research created a speech recognition system that makes the same or fewer errors than professional transcriptionists

In a major breakthrough in speech recognition, researchers at Microsoft claim to have developed the first technology that recognises the words in a conversation as well as humans do. A team of researchers and engineers in Microsoft Artificial Intelligence and Research created a speech recognition system that makes the same or fewer errors than professional transcriptionists. They reported a word error rate (WER) of 5.9 per cent, down from the 6.3 per cent WER the team reported just last month. The 5.9 per cent error rate is about equal to that of people who were asked to transcribe the same conversation, and it is the lowest ever recorded against the industry standard Switchboard speech recognition task.

“We’ve reached human parity. This is a historic achievement,” Xuedong Huang, the company’s chief speech scientist said in a blog post.

The milestone means that, for the first time, a computer can recognise the words in a conversation as well as a person would. In doing so, the team beat a goal they set less than a year ago – and greatly exceeded everyone else’s expectations as well. The research milestone comes after decades of research in speech recognition, beginning in the early 1970s with DARPA, the US agency tasked with making technology breakthroughs. Over the decades, most major technology companies and many research organisations joined in the pursuit.

“This accomplishment is the culmination of over twenty years of effort,” said Geoffrey Zweig, who manages the Speech and Dialog research group.

The milestone will have broad implications for consumer and business products that can be significantly augmented by speech recognition. That includes consumer entertainment devices like the Xbox, accessibility tools such as instant speech-to-text transcription and personal digital assistants such as Cortana.

“This will make Cortana more powerful, making a truly intelligent assistant possible,” Shum said.

The research milestone does not mean the computer recognised every word perfectly. In fact, humans do not do that, either. Instead, it means that the error rate – or the rate at which the computer misheard a word like “have” for “is” or “a” for “the” – is the same as you would expect from a person hearing the same conversation.

Zweig attributed the accomplishment to the systematic use of the latest neural network technology in all aspects of the system. The push that got the researchers over the top was the use of neural language models in which words are represented as continuous vectors in space, and words like “fast” and “quick” are close together. “This lets the models generalise very well from word to word,” Zweig said.

Flipkart, Amazon use offline play to expand business

 At a time when some TV and white goods brands have objected to deep discounting on e-commerce sites during the festive season, Flipkart and Amazon are rushing into the online-to-offline (O2O) channel by tying up with the likes of Samsung to address a wider range of prospective shoppers.

Both these companies have started building their omni-channel network in tier I cities in partnership with consumer durables and electronics manufacturers to cater to a set of buyers who want to get a 'touch and feel' experience before making online purchases.

Flipkart has partnered with Samsung for its appliances business across 50 stores and is expected to expand this alliance. "O2O model brings the best of both worlds to the customer where convenience of e-commerce is backed by quick deliveries from next-door retail stores. The brand store becoming a seller on Flipkart is a massive testimony to the fact that people are doing their research and discovery of consumer electronics and appliances on Flipkart," said Sandeep Karwa, head (consumer electronics and appliances) at Flipkart. "We are aggressively focusing on expanding this with other key brands," he said.

Like Flipkart, Amazon, too, has entered into a partnership with Samsung. The initiative is live in 41 Samsung brand stores across 25 cities for large appliances, smartphones and electronics, a company spokesperson said in an emailed response.

The Seattle-headquartered online retailer already has a pilot running with telecom operator Vodafone where customers can try out various aspects of a smartphone and make their purchase online from the store itself.. Under project Udaan,Amazon's been pushing assisted retail in tier II and tier III towns to get consumers used to the idea of buying online. When contacted, Samsung did not respond to a query on these tie-up with online retailers.

While it is still early days for e-commerce companies adopting an omni-channel play, it is yet another attempt being made by these e-tailers who are striving hard to broaden the digital shopping universe which has been stagnant at about 50-60 million. Other vertical online retailers such as eye-wear firm Lenskart , furniture e-tailer Pepperfry, and baby products seller Firstcry, have all been building their offline presence.

Flipkart owned fashion focused e-tailer Myntra is also expected to open its offline store by end of the year in Bengaluru as it looks to push its private brands through these outlets. The omni-channel strategy is also being druven by a wave of traditional retailers like Arvind group's Nnnow.com.

Samsung Galaxy C9 China launch date revealed, specifications tipped

NEW DELHI: While Samsung may be about to launch a new Galaxy On series device in India on October 20, it seems there's another smartphone launch from the company on the cards.

As per a leaked image shared by the Tech Update website, Samsung will launch its Galaxy C9 smartphone in China on October 21. The image further reveals the upper half of the front and back panels of the device.

It is worth adding that the Galaxy C9 has been already listed on Chinese certification website Tenaa, complete with specifications and images. As per the listing, the smartphone is expected to come with a 6-inch Full HD Amoled display of 1080x1920 pixel resolution. It'll be powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 processor paired with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of in-built storage, expandable via microSD cards of up to 128GB in size.

The Android 6.0 Marshmallow-based Galaxy C9 is also likely to have a 16MP rear camera and a 16MP front-facing shooter. With around 6.9mm thickness, it'll weigh 185g.

Samsung has also used a different antenna band design for the Galaxy C9. It is said to be same as the design used in the Oppo R9s.

The company is also planning to launch its next Galaxy On smartphone in India on Thursday. Although the exact model name of the device is not yet known, Samsung has referred to it as Galaxy On Nxt in its tweets. The smartphone will be exclusively available on Flipkart.

Samsung has also mentioned that the new Galaxy On handset will feature a full metal unibody design and an octa-core processor.

The company recently launched its Galaxy On8 smartphone in India priced at Rs 15,900.

Skype chats can be hacked using how loud you click the keyboard: Study

Those worried about their personal information leaking over the internet may already fear keystroke logging software, but a new study cautions against typing while Skyping. By analyzing the acoustic signals of key presses, hackers may be able to untangle typed text through the clickety-clack of a keyboard itself, with an alarming accuracy of over 90%.

Anyone who uses a keyboard regularly knows that the sounds produced by typing differ by device brand and style, but to a tuned ear, individual keys on the same keyboard produce unique acoustic signals. With the help of some machine learning algorithms and an understanding of the user's typing style, these sounds can be enough for a hacker to recreate large sections of text, passwords and all.

"It's possible to build a profile of the acoustic emanation generated by each key on a given keyboard," says Gene Tsudik, co-author of the study. "For example, the T on a MacBook Pro 'sounds' different from the same letter on another manufacturer's product. It also sounds different from the R on the same keyboard, which is right next to T."

Historically, though, that kind of eavesdropping required the attacker to physically place a microphone within earshot of the victim's keyboard, rendering the method largely impractical. Now, the study suggests, voice-over-IP software like Skype or Google Hangouts potentially makes things much easier. If users on a voice call happen to type during the conversation, the keystroke acoustics can be recorded by other call participants for later analysis.

Those who use Skype to chat with friends or grandma from overseas might not be too worried, but that's not the only use of the application.

"The interesting thing is that people who talk on Skype are not always friends and do not always have mutual trust," says Tsudik. "Imagine a call between lawyers on opposite sides of a legal case, or business competitors or diplomats representing different countries."


Armed with knowledge of the victim's typing style and brand of keyboard, the study found a hacker could determine individual key presses with 91.7% accuracy. But perhaps more worrying is the finding that even when they don't have thatinformation, keystrokes can still be figured out almost 42% of the time, thanks to the frequency distribution of letters in the English language.

Thankfully, only clunky physical and mechanical keyboards are at risk. Since they don't produce sound, touchscreen keyboards of mobile devices, and laser projection keyboards may be a safer option.

"Our work is yet another nail in the coffin of traditional physical keyboards that are common in modern laptop and desktop computers," says Tsudik. "It clearly shows previously unnoticed privacy dangers of using popular VoIP technologies in conjunction with such keyboards."

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Google hires Lazard to explore Twitter purchase

SAN FRANCISCO – Google it talking with Lazard Ltd to explore a possible Twitter purchase,Bloomberg reports.

The company reached out to San Francisco-based financial advisors Lazard Ltd. to aid in a potential deal, the news service reported Friday.

Twitter (TWTR) was up 5.81% to $24.39 in after hours trading Friday evening.

The purchase could unlock a trove of data for Alphabet's Google, data that it has been walled off from with the rise of Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat.

The company already partners with Twitter to include tweets in search results. It has also included Twitter in its DoubleClick advertising service.

Former Google executive Omid Kordestani joined Twitter's board as executive chairman last year.

Twitter declined to comment on the rumor. Google did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

Twitter had previously hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to aid it as it explores potential deals, according to reports.

A pioneer in social media, Twitter has stagnated and experienced severe management turmoil recently. Rivals such as Facebook, Instagram,WhatsApp and Messenger and Snapchat have outpaced it in the past few years.

Review - Canon 5D Mark IV for serious video makers

MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. The Canon 5D series of camera ushered in the DSLR video revolution and made it easier than anyone to be a working photographer.

That's how good the cameras were.

The new 5D Mark IV, aimed at serious photographers and videographers is even better.

It's not cheap--$3,500 for the body only, without a lens, but the two weak spots the new edition addresses are pretty major. So if you have a previous 5D, you will want to upgrade. Here's why:

--Autofocus for video. The previous two models as good as killed the pro video camera. The full-frame image sensor is 20 times the size of those found in consumer video cameras, and the video seen has a high-end, dreamy cinema quality. The only problem was the struggle to focus for video. You could use the autofocus to compose your shot--but once you started recording, if you moved the camera, or the subject did the same, you went out of focus.

Newer cameras from Canon, the 70d and 80D, fixed that, with a follow focus that worked flawlessly. Now those same tools come to the 5D Mark IV, and it’s most welcome. I tested the 5D Mark IV focus by bringing it to Venice Beach, and following folks walking down the street, where folks came in and out of our shot, as well as a skate park. The focus was flawless.

I did a test shot the other night at 9 p.m., in virtual darkness, and tried a video shot where I walked in and out of the camera. Amazingly, I was somehow sharp.

Beyond focus for video, the new 5D does a better job of quickly finding focus for stills as well.

LOW LIGHT PERFORMANCE: 

The Mark IV has another big plus--the ability to shoot in lower light, with vastly improved quality over the previous model.

To shoot in low light, you need to crank up what’s called the ISO settings--ISO measures the sensitivity of the image sensor to the light. The lower the ISO, generally, the higher quality the image. Once you start going up the ISO dial, you let in more light, but it can also become ultra grainy, with visible artifacts in the image.

Most cameras start at 100 ISO, and the rule of thumb is not go higher than 800 or 1600 before the quality falls off.

I own the Mark III and Mark II, and have been shooting with both cameras for over ten years, for portraits, weddings and events and video journalism.

I have tried not go higher than 3200 in a pinch on the 5D Mark III--but on Mark IV, I got results at 3,200 that looked as good as 1,600 on the Mark III.

I also went out in early morning and late night, and shot at 10,000 and above. Some of the results look fabulous--as with these two accompanying shots of morning in Manhattan Beach.

Yes, the image is noisy, and you can see the artifacts. But it was taken at 250,000! I'll live with the noise. I'm amazed at how good the shot is.

The new Mark IV has a 30 megapixel sensor, up from 22 on the previous model, and touts faster operation (I didn't see it) from an improved processor, built-in Wifi for connecting to a Canon app, using it as a remote and transferring photos and videos to a smartphone.

The new Mark IV is a substantial upgrade for owners of the previous models. But when compared to other recent cameras however, most notably, the Sony A7SII, you can get a lot of the low-light performance in the Sony, for instance, in a camera that's half-the weight of the 5D, with the added bonus of fantastic image stabilization, which goes a long way for video.

Photographers--have you checked out the 5D Mark IV yet? Let's chat about it on Twitter, where I'm @jeffersongraham and listen to the daily podcast on Stitcher and iTunes. 

You can get similar results on the Sony A7SII camera, but the focus isn’t as stellar. That said, it has built-in image stabilization and is about half the size and weight of the 5D Mar IV.

Netflix down for about 2.5 hours Saturday

SAN FRANCISCO — Netflix went down Saturday afternoon for about 2½ hours, unleashing a flood of tweets and posts as fans found themselves unable to get to their favorite shows.

The interruption appeared to have begun around 3:00 p.m. ET. The site came back online about 5:30 p.m.The cause of the outage was not immediately known.

The company tweeted at 3:25 p.m.that it was "aware of streaming issues and we are working quickly to solve them. We will update you when they are solved."

During the outage the streaming service continued to work on smartphones and tablets.

Based on the languages in which the tweets anguishing over the Netflix blackout were written, it appeared the service was down across much of the globe, including South America, France, Italy, Portugal and Germany.

Others were able to get to the main Netflix entry page, but when they attempted to click on a show to watch, the message "Whoops, something went wrong..." came up, followed by "There was an unexpected error. Please reload the page and try again."

Netflix is the nation's largest streaming video provider, accounting for 53% of all subscriptions, followed by Amazon (25%), Hulu (13%) and HBO (1%), according to research firm Strategy Analytics.

The company's automated email service continued to function, sending out updates for movies newly available for streaming even as the movies themselves were unobtainable.

Netflix is extremely popular among those who stream media. Its penetration among all U.S. monthly streaming video users is at about 68%, according to research firm eMarketer.

Netflix had 126.9 million users in 2016, eMarketer estimates.

The service previously had a long-term outage on Christmas Eve 2012, when a problem with Amazon Web Services knocked many users off for about 10 hours.

Report: EU warns Google of fine over antitrust issues

The European Union reportedly warned tech giant Alphabet of a large fine tied to what they claim are anticompetitive practices involving its Android mobile operating software.

According to Reuters, the EU wants Alphabet's Google to stop paying smartphone makers to pre-install Google Search on their devices. They also don't want Google to "punish of threaten" smartphone makers who use competing versions of Android.

Google could face a fine if the EU determines the company's is continuing with these arrangements involving smartphone makers, says the report.

Alphabet could not be immediately reached for comment.

The clash over Android is the latest in a series of antitrust disputes between the EU and Alphabet. In July, the group levied charges against Google related to its search advertising business. The EU claimed Google restricted competition by limiting the ability of rivals to place search ads on third-party sites.

The EU is also looking into Google's Shopping service, which they claim Google favors over similar services from competitors.