Microsoft's new A.I. can read and comprehend documents as accurately as humans

Big news from Microsoft regarding A.I. and Machine Learning. A team at Microsoft Research Asia reached the human parity milestone using the Stanford Question Answering Dataset, known among researchers as SQuAD. It’s a machine reading comprehension dataset that is made up of questions about a set of Wikipedia articles.

According to the SQuAD leaderboard, on Jan. 3, Microsoft submitted a model that reached the score of 82.650 on the exact match portion. The human performance on the same set of questions and answers is 82.304. On Jan. 5, researchers with the Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba submitted a score of 82.440, also about the same as a human.

The two companies are currently tied for first place on the SQuAD “leaderboard,” which lists the results of research organizations’ efforts. 

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Apple CarPlay coming to even more cars and trucks at NAIAS 2018

Apple's CarPlay infotainment and smart app integration platform is one high visibility at the North American Auto Show in Detroit. Toyota and Lexus confirmed all their new models would be CarPlay compatible. Kia has also confirmed CarPlay in its new Forte motor cars and even offers wireless charging and various trucks, which are the strongest category in North America, will be featuring the Apple CarPlay technology as well.

2019 RAM and Ford trucks will also feature CarPlay. In many cases, CarPlay integration is a major feature and not an afterthought.

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Michelin focuses on understanding worn tire performance at NAIAS 2018

Scott Clark, chairman and president of Michelin North America introduced Michelin’s global initiative to improve understanding among dealers, drivers and others about worn tire performance.

Currently, the industry standard is to test performances (especially braking distances) only for new tires. However, those attributes change as tires wear over time and some worn tires deliver braking performance that’s about the same or better than other new tires. Michelin supports testing of worn tires for wet-braking performance to make this insight about “long-lasting performance” more visible to consumers.

"We should help consumers understand worn tires perform differently than new ones. Consumers should have reliable info about worn tires before they make purchase," Clark explained during the press event.

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Toronto launches UPPlift, Canada’s First Urban Pilot Program

UPPlift Toronto is an urban pilot program (UPP) seeking technological innovations aimed at resolving challenges in urban areas and their existing infrastructure. The initiative officially kicks-off Wednesday, at 10 a.m. on January 17, 2018 at Commerce Court West, 199 Bay Street.

With support from major corporations, including Microsoft and QuadReal Property Group, and participation from the City of Toronto, UPPlift: Toronto will operate as a virtual technology accelerator with a goal to help resolve city challenges and increase the city’s livability with the assistance of Internet of Things technologies and other smart innovations.

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