The 7 Greatest Software Innovations Of The Year
These are the Best Of What's New
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Sam Kaplan
Microsoft Skype Translator, The End of the Language Barrier
The Internet connected us all—but what good is that if we can’t understand each other? Skype’s artificial-intelligence-based Translator
is our digital Tower of Babel. It lets us talk to anyone, anywhere,
regardless of mother tongue. Made available on Windows in late 2015,
Translator uses layers of machine-learning algorithms. When a user
speaks, the A.I., drawing on millions of speech examples, analyzes the
words and transcribes them into text. The text is then scrubbed of “ums”
and word repetitions, and run through a translator. The A.I. is
self-learning; the more it “hears” a regional accent or slang, the
smarter it gets and the better it functions. Callers can receive audio
in eight languages and see transcripts in more than 50. Can you hear us
now?
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Google
Google Daydream Labs, Creating VR in VR
Daydream Labs lets developers animate and build virtual reality
not on a flat computer screen, but for the first time inside VR itself.
They can interact, socialize, offer feedback, and use hand controllers
as their virtual creations rise up around them.
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Sam Kaplan
Intelligentx Brewing Company, The First A.I. Brewmaster
Humans have brewed beer
for millennia. Intelligentx Brewing Company thinks artificial
intelligence should take a shot. Its machine-learning algorithm reads
beer recipes like any other brewmaster. But it also learns from you.
After drinking one of the brewery’s four beer styles, you tell a bot on
Facebook Messenger what you like, don’t like, or want more of, and the
A.I. uses your comments to brew the next batch. More data, better brew.
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Courtesy WhatsApp
WhatsApp Encryption, 1 Billion Safer People
In April 2016, more than 1 billion cellphone users gained the
ability to outsmart the NSA or any third-party snoop when Open Whisper
Systems released its WhatsApp end-to-end encryption protocols.
Made for voice calls and texting (including photos, videos, and files),
users verify their communication is encrypted by either scanning a
machine-readable QR code or comparing a 60-digit code with their fellow
security-obsessed communicant.
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Courtesy That Dragon Cancer
Numinous Games' That Dragon, Cancer: A Game That Will Break Your Heart
When game developer Ryan Green’s son, Joel, was diagnosed with
brain cancer at age 1, Green turned to his medium to work through it.
The result is a soul-twisting video game that lets players experience
the ups and downs the Greens went through during Joel’s four-year
battle—the challenge of comforting a child in pain, the joy of story
time, and the grief of dealing with his death. “My favorite moments are
the moments where you can be with Joel,” says Green. “To play with him,
hear him breathe, or hear him laugh, those moments I like the most.”
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Getty Images
Microsoft and Univ. of Washington DNA Storage: The Densest Data
Instead of server farms, the entire Internet may one day be the size of a shoe box.
That’s what researchers at Microsoft and the University of Washington
proved in July, when they encoded 200 megabytes of digital files into
the building blocks of DNA—breaking the previous 20-megabyte record.
They did it using a type of enzyme called polymerase, which makes copies
of DNA in a programmable way and allows any part of the DNA string to
be read.
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