5 Microsoft-led Machine Learning Innovations Changing the Future

Machine learning has improved significantly in recent years, and it is at the forefront of current technology and development. It is increasingly becoming such a business need and a consumer demand, particularly in this new normal economy we are currently experiencing due to the pandemic.

Robert Schapire, one of Microsoft’s leading AI experts, said in a blog post that they’ve been working on machine learning by a little bit, starting with simple problems. He claims that their goal is to develop the field from the bottom up to apply machine learning to a wider range of issues.

Machine learning uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to learn and improve based on experience without explicit programming automatically. The goal is to develop computer software that gathers data and learns from it to make more intelligent choices.

The more data that is collected and analyzed, the more accurate the decisions will be. It is feasible for computers to learn on their own, with little or no human intervention. Increasingly efficient tools can expand on what human analysts are capable of doing with their knowledge. The human workforce can delegate routine tasks to machines and focuses on other high-value duties.

Microsoft is more than a provider of business, office, and home solutions; it has also made significant advances in technological solutions, including Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

Microsoft engineers are now trying to standardize machine learning and make it more accessible to engineers and programmers. It allows collaborative communication between experts and non-experts, enabling the benefits of machine learning systems to be widely used.

Let us have a look at some of Microsoft researchers’ Machine Learning breakthroughs:

 

Major Machine Learning Breakthroughs led by Microsoft Researchers

 

1.  Better AI translators

Machine learning has made real-time speech translation feasible. Microsoft’s goal is to enhance AI translators. Microsoft won 8-19 language translation challenges at the 2019 Conference on Machine Translation (WMT). The Microsoft Research teams used ground-breaking methods to enhance the quality of machine translation results.

According to Alexander Waibel of Carnegie Mellon University’s Language Technologies Institute, machine translation will reach and even surpass human-level performance in our lifetime. The technology of AI translation is rapidly evolving.

Some experts say that translation technology is helpful, but it should not use in terms of real language learning. Machine learning-based translators have a long way to go, but AI and machine learning have significantly improved translation accuracy.

Linguists also remind us all that meanings of words do not always match between languages. Since the context changes, what is stated will not be translated with the same meaning or context.

Nonverbal signals are also ignored in translation. Hand gestures are the most basic and important examples for most people in a normal conversation. There is no such thing as reading between the lines, which frequently says more than spoken. These judgments are difficult to address in machine translation since context varies between speakers and cultures.

So, this is a significant advancement in machine translation. Technology is intended to enhance people’s abilities and make their lives easier.

There are many applications where machine translation can be beneficial, including the following listed below.

• creative writing (grammar and readability accuracy)
• medical science
• international relations (processing refugees, for instance)
• The creation of a global, multicultural, multinational language 

 

2.  Better Facial Expression Recognition

Image Source: Microsoft

Experts at Microsoft research leveraging AI and machine learning to create smarter applications that detect noises, texts, pictures, and facial expressions. Microsoft Project Oxford is improving research so that machines can identify Chris Bishop‘s emotions, who presented the emotion tool at the Microsoft Conference Future Decoded.

Furthermore, Microsoft provides no machine learning or artificial intelligence expertise tools for developers to benefit from and apply the technology to their work. They can still include voice, vision, and language understanding in their applications this way. Watch this video:

Video Source: Microsoft Research

Microsoft Azure is one of Microsoft’s advanced touchless solutions for businesses, providing powerful facial recognition based on various attributes.

It is easy to use; therefore, developers with no prior experience with machine learning can quickly include this into their apps with a single API call. Since it is a cloud-based solution, installation is flexible.

Programmers can choose between cloud computing and edge computing, which both provide enterprise-level privacy and protection for your data and trained models.

 

3.  Holo Lens 2

Walgreens is collaborating with Microsoft to educate retail employees in the United States using one of the company’s most recent product innovations, the Microsoft HoloLens 2. Employees are educated on proper product restocking, performing quality checks on perishable goods, and dealing with difficult customer service scenarios using Holo Lens 2 and their stores’ 3D mixed-reality model.

Altoura, a Microsoft partner, aims to familiarize employees with the store chain’s new layouts after renovations throughout the supply chain. The training is comprehensive and engaging, involving the employee in the physical atmosphere of the newly renovated store even before they set foot within.

Walgreens will also collaborate with Acuity, another Microsoft partner, to develop an anonymous shopping route system. Bluetooth-enabled carts and baskets gather data on how often customers visit their renovated store chains. Microsoft then analyzes the data using Power BI to evaluate if the new layouts are user-friendly and efficient.

 

4.  Health Technology

Image Source: Microsoft

Can diseases can cure using computers and algorithms rather than beakers and test tubes?

Technological health trends are on increasing. Indeed, Microsoft scientists, engineers, and programmers are focusing on computer science applications to fight cancer.

Different teams are doing different strategies:

• Cancer patients benefit from intuitive, accurate, and progressive cancer treatment if doctors use machine learning with natural language processing.
• Combining machine learning and computer vision provides radiologists with more accurate scans and insights into cancer patients’ progressing tumors.
• The use of complex algorithms to help scientists understand how tumors develop and identify the best treatments to eliminate cancer in patients.
• Scientists can now program and control cells to fight diseases like cancer, thanks to technological advancements.

5.  Continuity in Times of Crisis

In the middle of the pandemic, Microsoft helps to maintain continuity and aid in the world’s efforts to fight back and recover by doing the following:

• Covid-19 Health Bot: A conversational AI platform that enables healthcare companies to provide reliable and relevant healthcare services and information. In a crisis, the immediate release of information is critical. This technology is currently in use at over 1,500 healthcare facilities in 23 countries across the globe. The Covid-19 Health Bot has assisted 32 million people in doing a self-evaluation of their symptoms.
• Computing power to health organizations: Microsoft provides massive amounts of computer power to health organizations and excellent research groups across the globe. As the world works together to discover the best possible ways to fight the pandemic, this is extremely useful.
• Remote working: Microsoft solutions enable remote working faster than expected, helping businesses and enterprises globally. It allows businesses to immediately shift to remote operations and distributed teams to maintain service and operations continuity.

As part of Microsoft’s touchless solutions and other server and cloud-based storage solutions, Microsoft 365 leads the fleet of Microsoft’s cloud-based products.

Conclusion

Over the years, Microsoft has brought many technological advances to the digital world. Its innovations continually push the limits of design while also directing these advances in the direction of the bigger market.

Microsoft exhibits Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). That is why Microsoft has become a household brand and has a powerful impact on today’s technology, particularly Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.