Microsoft unveils Turing Bletchley v3: The AI model taking Bing to the next level

Microsoft is working hard towards proving the 'intelligence' part in artificial intelligence, and has just revealed the latest version of its Turing Bletchley series of machine intelligence models, Turing Bletchley v3.

As explained in an official blog post, Turing Bletchley v3 is a multilingual vision-language foundation model, and will be integrated into many existing Microsoft products. If the name of this model sounds scary, don’t worry – let’s break it down. 

The ‘multilingual' part is self-explanatory – the model helps Microsoft products function better in a range of languages, currently standing at more than ninety. The ‘vision-language' part means that the model has image processing and language capabilities simultaneously, which is why this kind of model is known as ‘multimodal’. Finally, the ‘foundation model’ part refers to the conceptual and technical structure of the actual model. 

The first version of this multimodal model was launched in November 2021, and in 2022, Microsoft started testing the latest version – v3. Turing Bletchley v3 is pretty impressive because making a model that can “understand” one type of input (say, text or images) is already a big undertaking. This model combines both text and image processing to, in the case of Bing, improve search results. 

Incorporating neural networks 

The Turing Bletchley v3 model makes use of the concept of neural networks, which is a way of programming a machine that mimics a human brain. These neural networks allow it to make connections in the following manner, as described by Microsoft itself: 

“Given an image and a caption describing the image, some words in the caption are masked. A neural network is then trained to predict the hidden words conditioned on both the image and the text. The task can also be flipped to mask out pixels instead of words.”

The model is trained over and over in this way, not unlike how we learn. The model is also continuously monitored and improved by Microsoft developers. 

Where else the new model is being used

Bing Search isn’t the only product that’s been revamped with Turing Bletchley v3. It’s also being used for content moderation in Microsoft’s Xbox Live game service. The model helps the Xbox moderation team to identify inappropriate and harmful content uploaded by Xbox users to their profiles. 

Content moderation is a massive job scale-wise and often mentally exhausting, so any assistance that helps moderators actually have to see less upsetting content is a big win in my eyes. I can see Turing Bletchley v3 being deployed in content moderation for Bing Search in a similar manner.

This sounds like a significant improvement for Bing Search. The AI-aided heat is on, especially between Microsoft and Google. Recently, Microsoft brought Bing AI to Google Chrome, and now it’s coming for image search. I don’t see how Google doesn’t see this as direct competition in the most direct manner. Google still enjoys the greatest popularity both in terms of browser and search volume, but nothing is set in stone. Your move, Google. 

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LinkedIn is taking on Zoom and Microsoft Teams with a new audio and video events platform

In order to get users to spend more time on its professional social network, LinkedIn is preparing to launch a new virtual events platform for both audio and video.

As reported by TechCrunch, the company's new events platform will allow creators and organizations to list, host and market interactive virtual events.

LinkedIn actually began looking into events before the pandemic began with the launch of its Events hub back in 2019. However, as more people started working from home, the company added online polls and video events to provide remote workers with access to events. 

Now though with its new virtual events platform, LinkedIn will start out with an audio-only product similar to Clubhouse that will launch in beta this month followed by a video version that will be available in the spring.

Audio and video events

When LinkedIn's new events platform launches in beta later this month, organizers won't have to rely on other third-party software as it will include all of the tools needed to run interactive content from end-to-end.

Hosts will be able to record and run their events straight from LinkedIn as the new platform will include tools for online attendees and hosts to have live conversations  and moderate discussions. However, attendees will also be able to communicate with one another both during and after an event has ended. Promoting these events will be a cinch as well as organizers can do so on LinkedIn.

The platform will start off by targeting individual creators who already rely on the professional social network to connect with a wider audience and cover topics such as career development and recruitment.

Product manager at LinkedIn, Jake Poses provided further details on the company's philosophy when it comes to its new virtual event platform for audio and video in an interview with TechCrunch, saying:

“Our philosophy is to put the organizers in control. We want to make it easier to host virtual round tables, fireside chats, and more. Some may want the event to be more formal, or less formal. Some might want to communicate with their audience, to open up to the floor. We’re giving professionals interactivity and support.”

We'll likely hear more from LinkedIn once the audio-only portion of its new virtual events platform begins rolling out in beta later this month.

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NASA is taking Cisco Webex to space

Lockheed Martin, Amazon and Cisco have announced a new collaboration that will see Cisco Webex and Amazon's Alexa integrated into NASA's Orion spacecraft.

This innovative payload, dubbed Callisto, will fly on board the Orion spacecraft which was built by Lockheed Martin for the US space agency's Artemis 1 uncrewed mission around the Moon. Callisto will use Alexa and Webex to test and demonstrate how commercial technology can be used for deep space voice, video and whiteboarding communications.

According to Lisa Callahan, VP and general manager of Lockheed Martin's Commercial Civil Space division, Callisto will show how these technologies can enable astronauts to be more self-reliant as they explore deep space.

Named after a favorite companion of the Greek goddess Artemis, Callisto features a custom hardware and software integration developed by engineers at all three companies that will allow Alexa to work without an internet connection and Webex to run on a tablet using NASA's Deep Space Network.

Virtual crew experience

As Artemis 1 is an uncrewed mission, Lockheed Martin, Amazon and Cisco have also built a virtual crew experience at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas that will allow operators to interact with Callisto from the Mission Control Center.

Through these remote interactions, Callisto partners and NASA will be able to test and demonstrate how voice and video collaboration technologies can help astronauts improve efficiency and situational awareness during their mission by enabling them to access flight status and telemetry data with the ability to control connected devices onboard Orion.

At the same time, video and audio of these interactions will be transmitted back to Earth throughout the duration of the Artemis 1 mission so that engineers can analyze the performance of onboard systems while also sharing interactions with the public. 

In fact, students, families and space enthusiasts will be able to engage with and virtually “ride along” with the mission on Alexa-enabled devices by saying “Alexa, take me to the Moon” while Webex video collaboration capabilities will provide opportunities for STEM education and remote classroom teaching events.

Artemis 1 is scheduled to launch in the beginning of this year from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida for a multi-week journey around the Moon and back. We'll likely hear more from Cisco and Amazon regarding how their technologies are being used in space once the mission begins.

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Twitter might be taking on Slack by introducing business DMs

Twitter has announced that it has acquired the business messaging service Quill in a move that could enable it to take on Slack.

After raising around $ 16m in funding, Quill exited beta earlier this year as an alternative to Slack available on Windows, macOS, Linus, Android and iOS.

In a new report, TechCrunch points out that the company was founded by the former creative director of Stripe, Ludwig Pettersson who is well known and admired by many in the startup community.

While neither Twitter nor Quill disclosed the terms of the deal, Quill did put out an announcement in which it informed users of its business messaging service that they will have until December 11 to export their team message data. Surprisingly though, Quill has created a Python script that allows users to transform their data into the CSV format so it can be imported into Slack.

Business DMs

As part of the acquisition, Quill's staff will be joining Twitter's Experience organization to help work on the social network's messaging tools and direct messages while Pettersson will become a product manager reporting to the Conversations team.

Since its launch in 2006, Twitter's direct messages or DMs have grown in popularity as a way to communicate quickly with others online and as a result, many have wondered whether the company would try to turn them into a standalone product or even a paid service for businesses.

Online collaboration tools have become essential for businesses during the pandemic as being able to communicate with co-workers is especially important when working from home. Now that Slack is part of Salesforce, organizations may be looking for an alternative business messaging service and by purchasing Quill, Twitter is in the perfect position to offer its own solution.

We'll have to wait and see what happens as a result of Twitter's Quill acquisition but with a new CEO at the helm who is actively trying to diversify its business, business DMs could be a very real possibility.

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