Deep-learning and object recognition technologies coming to Microsoft's Cortana

[dgstorm]

It's been enjoyable to watch Microsoft's Cortana evolve since it was first announced. According to multiple publications Cortana has become more effective than Apple's Siri, and even rivals Google Now in many ways.

If the latest news is any indication, the next stage of evolution for Cortana will take her to an all new level as she inches toward becoming just like her AI personae in the Halo games.

First, as we reported not too long ago, Cortana is powered by Bing. As part of the "Microsoft Academic Search" project the company plans to introduce deep learning to the digital assistant. This will be in the form of a massive volume of academic data. This will be accomplished using a future community portal for academic workers, which will be designed so that researchers can control how much of their personal data is visible. The intended effect is to bring a new level of collaboration to the community and add a wealth of data to Cortana's database.

The second part of Microsoft's master plan to further evolve Cortana involves a new technology called, Project Adam. Here's a quick quote with a few more details of Project Adam,

A new technology, Project Adam, aims at dramatically improving object recognition and deep-learning in the AI, while using up 30 times less resources, compared to today's cutting-edge technologies in the field. Currently, Cortana is able to look at a dog and tell you its breed, but Microsoft's ambitions are aimed at even more complex functions, such as to get the nutrition information of the food you are eating and to diagnose a skin rash, among others, no doubt.

What do you guys think? Is Cortana part of a cool and interesting future or the first step toward Terminator-style world domination? As for this writer, I welcome our attractive AI overlord!

Source: http://www.phonearena.com/news/Micr...g-and-object-recognition-technologies_id58203