👂️ Inaudible watermarks

🗞️ Your Weekly Round-Up

1️⃣ AI chips galore

AI chips are improving at a rapid rate.

Nvidia recently announced its new H200 Tensor Core GPU, which incorporates 141 GB of memory and offers 60% to 90% performance improvements versus its current H100 model.

Across the seas, Sapeon, a startup backed by South Korea's SK Group, revealed the Sapeon X330 chip, which offers roughly 2x the computational performance and 1.3x better power efficiency than competitors' products launched this year. 

Read more: Barrons | Yahoo Finance

2️⃣ Spotify aims to improve podcast and audiobook discovery

Spotify is partnering with Google Cloud's AI to enhance content discovery and personalized recommendations for podcasts and audiobooks. 

Spotify aims to tackle the industry's infamous "discovery problem" by leveraging Google Cloud's LLMs to analyze its vast library of 5 million podcasts and 350,000 audiobooks - allowing it to understand patterns behind users’ favorite spoken content and provide more tailored recommendations.

Spotify also plans to "augment" metadata, enhancing elements like titles, hosts' names, show notes, and other details crucial for search results.

Read more: The Verge

3️⃣ OpenAI gets more of Microsoft’s money

​​OpenAI is set to receive more financial backing from Microsoft as CEO Sam Altman drives toward his vision of AGI - software as intelligent as humans. 

Why do they need more money? Despite strong revenue growth, OpenAI remains unprofitable due to high training costs. Their dreams to achieve AGI will only skyrocket their expenses, and getting this additional funding from Microsoft will help relieve some of the financial burden. 

OpenAI is also actively working on GPT-5 and is seeking large-scale data sets while dealing with supply shortages of Nvidia chips. Altman sees language models as a key component for AGI, distinguishing OpenAI from competitors. 

Read more: Financial Times

4️⃣ Inaudible watermarks

Google is improving its AI-generated music game by embedding SynthID watermarks into audio created using DeepMind's AI Lyria model.

This innovation allows users to identify tracks produced with Google's AI tech and is designed to be inaudible to the human ear, leaving the listening experience intact.

SynthID is a timely innovation, given the call to create safeguards against the potential misuse of generative AI.

If you recall, Google had already released SynthID in beta for image watermarking, so this innovation takes the protection of art and creatives to the next level. 

Read more: The Verge

5️⃣ Google to invest in Character.AI

Google is diversifying its AI portfolio. 

After their recent $2 billion splurge on Anthropic, Google is in talks to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into Character.AI, an AI startup specializing in developing chatbots that mimic the personalities of historical figures.

The partnership, initiated in May 2023, saw Character.AI leverage Google's cloud services and tensor processing units.

If the deal goes through, users are in for deeper collaboration and the launch of new, innovative chatbot models.

Read more: Reuters

6️⃣ Create AI music that sounds like Charli XCX

YouTube has granted creators the power to craft personalized AI-generated music by launching "Dream Tracks," a tool that allows users to generate unique songs in the style of their chosen artist, all with the artists' consent.

To create a Dream Track, users input song ideas into the creation prompt and select one of the participating artists. The AI then weaves the artist's voice into the track, offering a fascinating glimpse into the creative possibilities of AI in music. 

YouTube also plans to release more music AI tools through its Music AI Incubator, aiming to make music creation more seamless.

Read more: Mashable

7️⃣ AI-powered doctor’s office

Forward Health is taking healthcare to the next level with the launch of CarePods. 

What is it? It’s a standalone medical station equipped with cutting-edge technology and custom AI to allow users to undergo diagnostic tests - from blood draws to throat swabs - without needing a doctor or nurse.

For a monthly subscription of $99, users can access the CarePod's array of tests and features, making healthcare more accessible and scalable.

The platform combines AI diagnosis with real-time prescription services to improve the healthcare experience.

Read more: Techcrunch

8️⃣ Brain research with AI and ML

New groundbreaking research showcases how machine learning is revolutionizing our understanding of the brain. 

Discoveries include:

• Identifying brain activity linked to depression.

• Predicting the progression from mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer's disease using patient data and innovative PCA analysis. 

In a leap for clinical treatments, machine learning models applied to deep brain recordings aid in predicting targets for deep brain stimulation, offering hope for treating dystonia in children. 

Read more: News Medical

9️⃣ Can AI help fight against Ovarian Cancer?

Ovarian cancer's elusive nature and high heterogeneity make accurate predictions challenging, affecting ~20,000 women annually in the US.

To help fight against ovarian cancer, researchers have developed an AI model named IRON that has achieved an impressive 80% accuracy in predicting therapy outcomes. 

IRON taps into data ranging from liquid biopsies to CT scan images, providing a reasonably accurate forecast for treatment success.

The recent study involved 134 high-grade ovarian cancer patients, showcasing IRON's prowess in surpassing current clinical prediction methods. 

Read more: Mirage News

🔟 Is AI the answer to sustainable farming?

Agricultural startup Zordi is revolutionizing sustainable farming by employing robots to manage everything from planting to harvesting a unique variety of strawberries imported from Japan and Korea. 

Zordi’s vision extends beyond strawberries, seeing controlled environment agriculture as a sustainable solution to feed the world with fresh produce. 

Experts, however, emphasized that AI isn't a replacement for farmers but a powerful enabler, augmenting their knowledge with data. Integrating AI and machine learning in farming addresses critical issues like resource optimization, reducing waste, and navigating climate challenges.

Read more: The Verge

🎙️ BWAI Triple-Header

Hey team! ICYMI, our latest BWAI episodes featuring Yana Welinder, Co-founder and CEO at Kraftful, Ryan Alshak, CEO at Laurel, and Omar Shaya, Founder of Multion, are out now!

Catch them on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts today!

🤑 AI Fundraising News

• Aether Biomedical raises $5.8M in Series A funding to build human-inspired machines, starting with intelligent prosthetic hands.

• Databricks raises Series I Funding at a $43B valuation to continue developing a platform that unifies data, analytics, and AI on a single platform used by over 10,000 organizations worldwide.

• Radiant Security raises $15M in Series A funding to help Security Operations Centers automate tasks like alert triage and incident investigation, boosting analyst productivity and response times.

• Heali raises $3M in Seed funding to develop and commercialize Heali AI that analyzes the compatibility of foods with an individual's personalized nutrition requirements.

• Atlas raises $6M in Seed funding to revolutionize virtual worldbuilding.

• Urbanic raises $150M in Series C funding to expand the company's technology-driven and socially responsible fashion designs to a wider global audience.

• Lynx raises $18.5M/€17M in Series A funding to expand its global reach and develop its AI-integrated fraud and AML platform.

• Urbanic raises $150M in Series C funding to transform the fashion industry using its proprietary AI and socially responsible approach throughout the value chain.

🛠️ AI Tools to Check Out

• PatentPal: Unlocks GenAI for IP by automating mechanical writing in your patent applications. Check them out!

• Blaze: Produce blog posts, social media content, ad copy, and marketing briefs - all in your brand voice. Check them out!
  

🐦 Tweet Post of the Day

The personal use cases for AI grow exponentially every day… take a look at this video!