What’s new
Microsoft’s AI tools used to improve eyecare
A new program from Microsoft utilizes machine learning techniques and artificial intelligence to help diagnose and treat eye diseases in India. In the past few months, Microsoft has been working with the not-for-profit LV Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI) in India to have its Azure machine learning and Power BI services analyze patterns among cases and predict the surgical outcome of eye surgery patients. Today the company announced it has partnered with Bascom Palmer – University of Miami, Flaum Eye Institute – University of Rochester (USA), Federal University of Sao Paulo (Brazil), and Brien Holden Vision Institute (Australia). As part of the partnership, Microsoft and institutes will closely work on the diverse datasets of patients across geographies to find predictive models for vision impairment and eye disease.
You can read more here.
Facebook will launch colored backgrounds for status updates
Facebook is trying to make highly personal text statuses as eye-catching as photos with the new test of a colored background option. The feature lets users select a color that appears behind their text status in place of the normally-white background. Facebook is confirming this feature is in testing. Users without access to the test don’t see the colors if they look at the post, but that would likely change to everyone being able to see the colors if Facebook rolls it out more widely.
More info are available here.
New products
Xiaomi will launch a new Mi Notebook Air on December 23
The Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air with a 13.3-inch display full-HD resolution is powered by a sixth generation Intel Core i5 processor, coupled with Nvidia GeForce 940MX GPU with 1GB of GDDR5 VRAM, 8GB of DDR4 RAM, and a 256GB PCIe SSD. Xiaomi is claiming a 9.5 hour battery life, with the battery said to charge 50 percent in 30 mins.
You can read more here.
ZY Optics releases 4.5x macro lens
The new lens is an interesting new 20mm f/2 4.5x Super Macro Lens with a reproduction ratio of 4.5:1. They are weighing only 230 grams with a length of around 6 centimeters. Available for Canon EF, Nikon F, Sony A, Sony E, Pentax K, Micro Four Thirds and Fuji X mounts, the ZY Optics Mitakon 20mm f/2 4.5x Super Macro lens is available for order for around $200.
More info here.
You might want to know about this
BlackBerry creates self-driving vehicle research hub
BlackBerry announced plans to invest about $76 million in its effort to develop software for the operation of driverless cars, hiring up to 600 engineers, as the company forges into new business lines after its retreat from smartphones. A hub will be established in the Canadian capital of Ottawa to focus on software development under BlackBerry’s QNX platform. While the embedded operating system market is likely to grow quickly as autonomous driving takes off, BlackBerry faces numerous competitive threats, including from independent embedded operating system producer Green Hills Software as well as chipmakers such as Intel.
You can read more here.
France will let drones deliver mail
The project has been under testing for about 3 years and now is expected to take off as an experiment on a fixed route in an attempt to demonstrate the usefulness of drones in rural areas that are otherwise hard to reach on foot or by road. It would also be the first attempt to roll out a postal deliver service using just drones. This is still an experiment and the service will only operate on a fixed route and just once a week.
More info can be found here.
Fun stuff
Mark Zuckerberg has finished building his robot butler, Jarvis
Mark Zuckerberg introduced the world to “Jarvis”, an artificial intelligence system the Facebook chief created in his spare time, which can choose and play music, turn on lights, and recognize visitors, deciding whether to open the front door. Jarvis, named after the virtual assistant in the Iron Man movies, could be a step toward a new product, Zuckerberg wrote, although he cautioned that the system he had created in 100 hours over the last year was customized only for his house.
You can read more here.
