THE 7 GREATEST SOFTWARE INNOVATIONS OF THE YEAR 2016
1.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?
2.Google Daydream Labs, Creating VR in VR
3.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.
4.Snapchat Lenses: AR’s Big Moment
It wasn’t Pokémon Go. It was Snapchat’s Lenses—object recognition and real-time special effects that let you change your on-screen eye color, superimpose faces, wear animal “masks,” and place scenes around an image.
5.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.”
6.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.
7.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.
source:popsci.com
