AI Art Tool Free

AI Art Tool Free — independent reviews, comparisons, pricing and step-by-step guides on Aizhi.

  • Microsoft Azure

    Microsoft Azure

    Microsoft Azure, sometimes stylized Azure, and formerly Windows Azure, is the cloud computing platform developed by Microsoft. It offers management, access and development of applications and services to individuals, companies, and governments through its global infrastructure. Microsoft Azure supports many programming languages, tools, and frameworks, including Microsoft-specific and third-party software and systems. Azure was first introduced at the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in October 2008 under the codename "Project Red Dog". It was officially launched as Windows Azure in February 2010 and later renamed to Microsoft Azure on March 25, 2014. == Services == Microsoft Azure uses large-scale virtualization at Microsoft data centers worldwide and offers more than 600 services. Microsoft Azure offers a service level agreement (SLA) that guarantees 99.9% availability for applications and data hosted on its platform, subject to specific terms and conditions outlined in the SLA documentation. === Computer services === Virtual machines, infrastructure as a service (IaaS), allowing users to launch general-purpose Microsoft Windows and Linux virtual machines, software as a service (SaaS), as well as preconfigured machine images for popular software packages. Starting in 2022, these virtual machines are now powered by Ampere Cloud-native processors. Most users run Linux on Azure, some of the many Linux distributions offered, including Microsoft's own Linux-based Azure Sphere. App services, platform as a service (PaaS) environment, letting developers easily publish and manage websites. Azure Web Sites allows developers to build sites using ASP.NET, PHP, Node.js, Java, or Python, which can be deployed using FTP, Git, Mercurial, Azure DevOps, or uploaded through the user portal. This feature was announced in preview form in June 2012 at the Meet Microsoft Azure event. Customers can create websites in PHP, ASP.NET, Node.js, or Python, or select from several open-source applications from a gallery to deploy. This comprises one aspect of the platform as a service (PaaS) offerings for the Microsoft Azure Platform. It was renamed Web Apps in April 2015. Web Jobs are applications that can be deployed to an App Service environment to implement background processing that can be invoked on a schedule, on-demand, or run continuously. The Blob, Table, and Queue services can be used to communicate between Web Apps and Web Jobs and to provide state. Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) provides the capability to deploy production-ready Kubernetes clusters in Azure. In July 2023, watermarking support on Azure Virtual Desktop was announced as an optional feature of Screen Capture to provide additional security against data leakage. === Identity === Entra ID connect is used to synchronize on-premises directories and enable SSO (Single Sign On). Entra ID B2C allows the use of consumer identity and access management in the cloud. Entra Domain Services is used to join Azure virtual machines to a domain without domain controllers. Azure information protection can be used to protect sensitive information. Entra ID External Identities is a set of capabilities that allow organizations to collaborate with external users, including customers and partners. On July 11, 2023, Microsoft announced the renaming of Azure AD to Microsoft Entra ID. The name change took place four days later. === Mobile services === Mobile Engagement collects real-time analytics that highlight users' behavior. It also provides push notifications to mobile devices. HockeyApp can be used to develop, distribute, and beta-test mobile apps. === Storage services === Storage Services provides REST and SDK APIs for storing and accessing data on the cloud. Table Service lets programs store structured text in partitioned collections of entities that are accessed by the partition key and primary key. Azure Table Service is a NoSQL non-relational database. Blob Service allows programs to store unstructured text and binary data as object storage blobs that can be accessed by an HTTP(S) path. Blob service also provides security mechanisms to control access to data. Queue Service lets programs communicate asynchronously by message using queues. File Service allows storing and access of data on the cloud using the REST APIs or the SMB protocol. === Communication services === Azure Communication Services offers an SDK for creating web and mobile communications applications that include SMS, video calling, VOIP and PSTN calling, and web-based chat. === Data management === Azure Data Explorer provides big data analytics and data-exploration capabilities. Azure Search provides text search and a subset of OData's structured filters using REST or SDK APIs. Cosmos DB is a NoSQL database service that implements a subset of the SQL SELECT statement on JSON documents. Azure Cache for Redis is a managed implementation of Redis. StorSimple manages storage tasks between on-premises devices and cloud storage. Azure SQL Database works to create, scale, and extend applications into the cloud using Microsoft SQL Server technology. It also integrates with Active Directory, Microsoft System Center, and Hadoop. Azure Synapse Analytics is a fully managed cloud data warehouse. Azure Data Factory is a data integration service that allows creation of data-driven workflows in the cloud for orchestrating and automating data movement and data transformation. Azure Data Lake is a scalable data storage and analytic service for big data analytics workloads that require developers to run massively parallel queries. Azure HDInsight is a big data-relevant service that deploys Hortonworks Hadoop on Microsoft Azure and supports the creation of Hadoop clusters using Linux with Ubuntu. Azure Stream Analytics is a Serverless scalable event-processing engine that enables users to develop and run real-time analytics on multiple streams of data from sources such as devices, sensors, websites, social media, and other applications. === Messaging === The Microsoft Azure Service Bus allows applications running on Azure premises or off-premises devices to communicate with Azure. This helps to build scalable and reliable applications in a service-oriented architecture (SOA). The Azure service bus supports four different types of communication mechanisms: Event Hubs, which provides event and telemetry ingress to the cloud at a massive scale, with low latency and high reliability. For example, an event hub can be used to track data from cell phones such as coordinating with a GPS in real time. Queues, which allows one-directional communication. A sender application would send the message to the service bus queue and a receiver would read from the queue. Though there can be multiple readers for the queue, only one would process a single message. Topics, which provides one-directional communication using a subscriber pattern. It is similar to a queue; however, each subscriber will receive a copy of the message sent to a Topic. Optionally, the subscriber can filter out messages based on specific criteria defined by the subscriber. Relays, which provides bi-directional communication. Unlike queues and topics, a relay does not store in-flight messages in its memory; instead, it just passes them on to the destination application. === Media services === A PaaS offering that can be used for encoding, content protection, streaming, or analytics. === CDN === Azure has a worldwide content delivery network (CDN) designed to efficiently deliver audio, video, applications, images, and other static files. It improves the performance of websites by caching static files closer to users, based on their geographic location. Users can manage the network using a REST-based HTTP API. Azure has 118 point-of-presence locations across 100 cities worldwide (also known as Edge locations) as of January 2023. === Developer === Application Insights Azure DevOps === Management === With Azure Automation, users can easily automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks, often prone to cloud or enterprise setting errors. They can accomplish it using runbooks or desired state configurations for process automation. Microsoft SMA === Azure AI === Microsoft Azure Machine Learning (Azure ML) provides tools and frameworks for developers to create their own machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) services. Azure AI Services by Microsoft comprises prebuilt APIs, SDKs, and services developers can customize. These services encompass perceptual and cognitive intelligence features such as speech recognition, speaker recognition, neural speech synthesis, face recognition, computer vision, OCR/form understanding, natural language processing, machine translation, and business decision services. Many AI characteristics in Microsoft's products and services, namely Bing, Office, Teams, Xbox, and Windows, are driven by Azure AI Services. Microsoft Foundry (formerly known as Azure AI Studio)

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  • Is an AI Text-to-image Tool Worth It in 2026?

    Is an AI Text-to-image Tool Worth It in 2026?

    Trying to pick the best AI text-to-image tool? An AI text-to-image tool is software that uses machine learning to help you get more done — it scales effortlessly from a single task to thousands. The best picks balance beginner-friendly simplicity with the depth power users need, and they ship updates often. Whether you are a beginner or a pro, the right AI text-to-image tool slots into your workflow and pays for itself fast. Read on for hands-on impressions, pricing tiers, and the standout features that matter.

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  • The Best Free AI Subtitle Generator for Beginners

    The Best Free AI Subtitle Generator for Beginners

    In search of the best AI subtitle generator? An AI subtitle generator is software that uses machine learning to help you get more done — it turns a rough idea into a polished result in seconds. When choosing one, weigh output quality, pricing, export formats, and how well it fits the tools you already use. Whether you are a beginner or a pro, the right AI subtitle generator slots into your workflow and pays for itself fast. Below we compare features, pricing, and real output so you can choose with confidence.

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  • Best AI Website Builders in 2026

    Best AI Website Builders in 2026

    Comparing the best AI website builder? An AI website builder is software that uses machine learning to help you get more done — it lowers the barrier so anyone can produce professional output. Privacy matters too: check whether your data trains the model and whether a no-log or enterprise tier is available. Whether you are a beginner or a pro, the right AI website builder slots into your workflow and pays for itself fast. Below we compare features, pricing, and real output so you can choose with confidence.

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  • Static program analysis

    Static program analysis

    In computer science, static program analysis (also known as static analysis or static simulation) is the analysis of computer programs performed without executing them, in contrast with dynamic program analysis, which is performed on programs during their execution in the integrated environment. The term is usually applied to analysis performed by an automated tool, with human analysis typically being called "program understanding", program comprehension, or code review. In the last of these, software inspection and software walkthroughs are also used. In most cases the analysis is performed on some version of a program's source code, and, in other cases, on some form of its object code. Two leading approaches to resource certification have been Static Analysis (SA) and Implicit Computational Complexity (ICC). SA is algorithmic in nature: it focuses on a broad programming language of choice, and seeks to determine by syntactic means whether given programs in that language are feasible. In contrast, ICC attempts to create from the outset specialized programming languages or methods that delineate a complexity class. Thus, SA's focus is on compile time, making no demand on the programmer; whereas ICC is a language-design discipline." The discipline of static analysis should not be confused with linting, which is the process of checking for coding style mistakes. == Rationale == The sophistication of the analysis performed by tools varies from those that only consider the behaviour of individual statements and declarations, to those that include the complete source code of a program in their analysis. The uses of the information obtained from the analysis vary from highlighting possible coding errors (e.g., the lint tool) to formal methods that mathematically prove properties about a given program (e.g., its behaviour matches that of its specification). Software metrics and reverse engineering can be described as forms of static analysis. Deriving software metrics and static analysis are increasingly deployed together, especially in creation of embedded systems, by defining so-called software quality objectives. A growing commercial use of static analysis is in the verification of properties of software used in safety-critical computer systems and locating potentially vulnerable code. For example, the following industries have identified the use of static code analysis as a means of improving the quality of increasingly sophisticated and complex software: Medical software: The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has identified the use of static analysis for medical devices. Nuclear software: In the UK the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) recommends the use of static analysis on reactor protection systems. Aviation software (in combination with dynamic analysis). Automotive & Machines (functional safety features form an integral part of each automotive product development phase, ISO 26262, section 8). A study in 2012 by VDC Research reported that 28.7% of the embedded software engineers surveyed use static analysis tools and 39.7% expect to use them within 2 years. A study from 2010 found that 60% of the interviewed developers in European research projects made at least use of their basic IDE built-in static analyzers. However, only about 10% employed an additional other (and perhaps more advanced) analysis tool. In the application security industry the name static application security testing (SAST) is also used. SAST is an important part of Security Development Lifecycles (SDLs) such as the SDL defined by Microsoft and a common practice in software companies. == Tool types == The OMG (Object Management Group) published a study regarding the types of software analysis required for software quality measurement and assessment. This document on "How to Deliver Resilient, Secure, Efficient, and Easily Changed IT Systems in Line with CISQ Recommendations" describes three levels of software analysis. Unit Level Analysis that takes place within a specific program or subroutine, without connecting to the context of that program. Technology Level Analysis that takes into account interactions between unit programs to get a more holistic and semantic view of the overall program in order to find issues and avoid obvious false positives. System Level Analysis that takes into account the interactions between unit programs, but without being limited to one specific technology or programming language. A further level of software analysis can be defined. Mission/Business Level Analysis that takes into account the business/mission layer terms, rules and processes that are implemented within the software system for its operation as part of enterprise or program/mission layer activities. These elements are implemented without being limited to one specific technology or programming language and in many cases are distributed across multiple languages, but are statically extracted and analyzed for system understanding for mission assurance. == Formal methods == Formal methods is the term applied to the analysis of software (and computer hardware) whose results are obtained purely through the use of rigorous mathematical methods. The mathematical techniques used include denotational semantics, axiomatic semantics, operational semantics, and abstract interpretation. By a straightforward reduction to the halting problem, it is possible to prove that (for any Turing complete language), finding all possible run-time errors in an arbitrary program (or more generally any kind of violation of a specification on the final result of a program) is undecidable: there is no mechanical method that can always answer truthfully whether an arbitrary program may or may not exhibit runtime errors. This result dates from the works of Church, Gödel and Turing in the 1930s (see: Halting problem and Rice's theorem). As with many undecidable questions, one can still attempt to give useful approximate solutions. Some of the implementation techniques of formal static analysis include: Abstract interpretation, to model the effect that every statement has on the state of an abstract machine (i.e., it 'executes' the software based on the mathematical properties of each statement and declaration). This abstract machine over-approximates the behaviours of the system: the abstract system is thus made simpler to analyze, at the expense of incompleteness (not every property true of the original system is true of the abstract system). If properly done, though, abstract interpretation is sound (every property true of the abstract system can be mapped to a true property of the original system). Data-flow analysis, a lattice-based technique for gathering information about the possible set of values; Hoare logic, a formal system with a set of logical rules for reasoning rigorously about the correctness of computer programs. There is tool support for some programming languages (e.g., the SPARK programming language (a subset of Ada) and the Java Modeling Language—JML—using ESC/Java and ESC/Java2, Frama-C WP (weakest precondition) plugin for the C language extended with ACSL (ANSI/ISO C Specification Language) ). Model checking, considers systems that have finite state or may be reduced to finite state by abstraction; Symbolic execution, as used to derive mathematical expressions representing the value of mutated variables at particular points in the code. Nullable reference analysis == Data-driven static analysis == Data-driven static analysis leverages extensive codebases to infer coding rules and improve the accuracy of the analysis. For instance, one can use all Java open-source packages available on GitHub to learn good analysis strategies. The rule inference can use machine learning techniques. It is also possible to learn from a large amount of past fixes and warnings. == Remediation == Static analyzers produce warnings. For certain types of warnings, it is possible to design and implement automated remediation techniques. For example, Logozzo and Ball have proposed automated remediations for C# cccheck.

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  • Nick Frosst

    Nick Frosst

    Nicholas M. W. Frosst is a Canadian computer scientist and musician. He co-founded Cohere, a Toronto-based artificial intelligence company. He is also the lead singer in the indie rock band Good Kid. == Early life and education == Frosst was born on January 5, 1993. Frosst earned a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science and cognitive science from the University of Toronto in 2015. He was a student of Geoffrey Hinton, who also hired Frosst at Google Brain. == Career == Frosst was among Geoffrey Hinton's earliest hires at Google Brain in Toronto, working as a machine learning researcher on deep learning and neural network architectures. He worked there from 2016 to 2020. Frosst co-founded Cohere with Aidan Gomez and Ivan Zhang in 2019. The company builds large language models and enterprise AI tools. Frosst has publicly explained Cohere's focus on industries like finance and health, where there are privacy and other regulatory considerations. Frosst has also spoken openly about his belief that artificial intelligence will not replace humans, but rather streamline and automate mundane tasks, and his belief that AGI is less "imminent" than many in the field claim. Frosst and the other Cohere co-founders were listed first on Maclean's AI Trailblazers Power List and The Logic's Innovation Leaders. == Music == After spending time in a prior band which played "weird" music featuring a glockenspiel, Frosst and fellow computer science students at the University of Toronto formed the indie rock band Good Kid in 2015. Frosst is the lead vocalist for the band. While on tour with the band, Frosst continues his work in the tech industry remotely. Frosst has described the band as way for him to relax and not constantly think about tech. His vocals have been compared to that of Kele Okereke. As of 2026, the band, which has performed at Lollapalooza, has 3.1 million monthly Spotify listeners. In 2024, the band was nominated for the Juno Awards Breakthrough Group of the Year. == Discography == === Good Kid === Can We Hang Out Sometime? (2026)

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  • Hartmut Neven

    Hartmut Neven

    Hartmut Neven (born 1964) is a German American scientist working in quantum computing, computer vision, robotics and computational neuroscience. He is best known for his work in face and object recognition and his contributions to quantum machine learning. He is currently Vice President of Engineering at Google where he leads the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab, which he founded in 2012. == Education == Hartmut Neven studied Physics and Economics in Brazil, Köln, Paris, Tübingen and Jerusalem. He wrote his Master thesis on a neuronal model of object recognition at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics under Valentino Braitenberg. In 1996 he received his Ph.D. in Physics from the Institute for Neuroinformatics at the Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany, for a thesis on "Dynamics for vision-guided autonomous mobile robots" written under the tutelage of Christoph von der Malsburg. He received a scholarship from the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes, Germany's most prestigious scholarship foundation. == Work == In 1998 Neven became research professor of computer science at the University of Southern California at the Laboratory for Biological and Computational Vision. In 2003 he returned as the head of the Laboratory for Human-Machine Interfaces at USC's Information Sciences Institute. === Face recognition, avatars and face filters === Neven co-founded two companies, Eyematic for which he served as CTO and Neven Vision which he initially led as CEO. At Eyematic he developed face recognition technology and real-time facial feature analysis for avatar animation. Teams led by Neven have repeatedly won top scores in government sponsored tests designed to determine the most accurate face recognition software. Face filters, now ubiquitous on mobile phones, were launched for the first time by Neven Vision on the networks of NTT DoCoMo and Vodafone Japan in 2003. Neven Vision also pioneered mobile visual search for camera phones. Neven Vision was acquired by Google in 2006. === Object recognition and adversarial images === At Google he managed teams responsible for advancing Google's visual search technologies. His team launched Google Goggles now Google Lens. The concept of adversarial patterns originated in his group when he tasked Christian Szegedy with a project to modify the pixel inputs of a deep neural network to lower the activity of select output nodes. The motivation was to use this technique for object localization which did not work out. But the idea gave rise to the fields of adversarial learning and DeepDream art. In 2013 his optical character recognition team won the ICDAR Robust Reading Competition by a wide margin and in 2014 the object recognition team won the ImageNet challenge. === Google Glass === Neven was a co-founder of the Google Glass project. His team completed the first prototype, codenamed Ant, in 2011. === Quantum Artificial Intelligence === In 2006 Neven started to explore the application of quantum computing to hard combinatorial problems arising in machine learning. In collaboration with D-Wave Systems he developed the first image recognition system based on quantum algorithms. It was demonstrated at SuperComputing07. At NIPS 2009 his team demonstrated the first binary classifier trained on a quantum processor. In 2012 together with Pete Worden at NASA Ames he founded the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. In 2014 he invited John M. Martinis and his group at UC Santa Barbara to join the lab to start a fabrication facility for superconducting quantum processors. The Quantum Artificial Intelligence team performed the first experimental demonstration of a scalable simulation of a molecule. In 2016 the team formulated an experiment to demonstrate quantum supremacy. Quantum supremacy was then declared by Google in October 2019. In 2023 Quantum AI researchers demonstrated that quantum error correction works in practice by showing for the first time that the error of a logical qubit decreases when increasing the number of physical qubits it is composed of. Google's quantum processors have been used to study the physics of quantum many body states that otherwise are challenging to prepare in a laboratory such as time crystals, traversable wormholes and non-Abelian anyons. ==== Neven's law ==== Neven's law states that the performance of quantum computers improves at a doubly exponential rate.

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  • METEO System

    METEO System

    The METEO System is a machine translation system specifically designed for the translation of the weather forecasts issued daily by Environment Canada. The system was used from 1981 to 30 September 2001 by Environment Canada to translate forecasts issued in French in the province of Quebec into English and those issued in English in other Canadian provinces into French. Since then, a competitor program has replaced METEO System after an open governmental bid. The system was developed by John Chandioux and was often mentioned as one of the few success stories in the field of machine translation. == History == The METEO System was in operational use at Environment Canada from 1982 to 2001. It stems from a prototype developed in 1975–76 by the TAUM Group, known as TAUM-METEO. The initial motivation to develop that prototype was that a junior translator came to TAUM to ask for help in translating weather bulletins at Environment Canada. Since all official communications emanating from the Canadian government must be available in French and English, because of the Official Languages Act of 1969, and weather bulletins represent a large amount of translation in real time, junior translators had to spend several months producing first draft translations, which were then revised by seniors. That was a difficult and tedious job, because of the specificities of the English and French sublanguages used, and not very rewarding, as the lifetime of a bulletin is only 4 hours. TAUM proposed to build a prototype MT system, and Environment Canada agreed to fund the project. A prototype was ready after a few months, with basic integration in the workflow of translation (source and target bulletins travelled over telex lines at the time and MT happened on a mainframe computer). The first version of the system (METEO 1) went into operation on a Control Data CDC 7600 supercomputer in March 1977. Chandioux then left the TAUM group to manage its operation and improve it, while the TAUM group embarked on a different project (TAUM-aviation, 1977–81). Benoit Thouin made improvements to the initial prototype over the subsequent year, and turned it into an operational system. After three years, METEO 1 had demonstrated the feasibility of microcomputer-based machine translation to the satisfaction of the Canadian government's Translation Bureau of Public Works and Government Services Canada. METEO 1 was formally adopted in 1981, replacing the junior translators in the workflow. Because of the need for high-quality translation, the revision step, done by senior translators, was maintained. The quality, measured as the percentage of edit operations (inserting or deleting a word counts as 1, replacing as 2) on the MT results, reached 85% in 1985. Until that time, the MT part was still implemented as a sequence of Q-systems. The Q-systems formalism is a rule-based SLLP (Specialized Language for Linguistic Programming) invented by Alain Colmerauer in 1967 as he was a postdoc coopérant at the TAUM group. He later invented the Prolog language in 1972 after returning to France and becoming a university professor in Marseille-Luminy. As the engine of the Q-systems is highly non-deterministic, and the manipulated data structures are in some ways too simple, without any types such as string or number, Chandioux encountered limitations in his efforts to raise translation quality and lower computation time to the point he could run it on microcomputers. In 1981, Chandioux created a new SLLP, or metalanguage for linguistic applications, based on the same basic algorithmic ideas as the Q-systems, but more deterministic, and offering typed labels on tree nodes. Following the advice of Bernard Vauquois and Colmerauer, he created GramR, and developed it for microcomputers. In 1982, he could start developing in GramR a new system for translating the weather bulletins on a high-end Cromemco microcomputer. METEO 2 went into operation in 1983. The software then ran in 48Kb of central memory with a 5Mb hard disk for paging. METEO 2 was the first MT application to run on a microcomputer. In 1985, the system had nothing left of the initial prototype, and was officially renamed METEO. It translated about 20 million words per year from English into French, and 10 million words from French into English, with a quality of 97%. Typically, it took 4 minutes for a bulletin in English to be sent from Winnipeg and come back in French after MT and human revision. In 1996, Chandioux developed a special version of his system (METEO 96) which was used to translate the weather forecasts (different kinds of bulletins) issued by the US National Weather Service during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. The last known version of the system, METEO 5, dates from 1997 and ran on an IBM PC network under Windows NT. It translated 10 pages per second, but was able to fit into a 1.44Mb floppy disk.

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  • Color picker

    Color picker

    A color picker (also color chooser or color tool) is a graphical user interface widget, usually found within graphics software or online, used to select colors and, in some cases, to create color schemes (the color picker might be more sophisticated than the palette included with the program). Operating systems such as Microsoft Windows or macOS have a system color picker, which can be used by third-party programs (e.g., Adobe Photoshop). == History == The concept of color pickers dates back to the early days of computer graphics and digital design. Early versions were rudimentary, often featuring basic color palettes and limited functionality. One of the first drawing programs to include a color picker was SketchPad (also referred to as LisaSketch), designed by Bill Atkinson in 1983 to showcase LisaGraf's capabilities. It used a black and white pattern system, using dithering to create the illusion of color depth. With the increased popularity of personal computers with color graphics, there soon came software similar to SketchPad that supported more than two colors, like Broderbund's Dazzle Draw for the Apple II or Electronic Arts' Deluxe Paint. However, the color pickers present in those programs relied on indexed colors. Color pickers, resembling ones used in modern software with support for direct, 24-bit color, appeared soon after the release of the Macintosh II, with the release of programs like Adobe Photoshop and Corel Painter. As the increase of color depth allowed the choice of significantly more colors, the shape and form of color pickers started to diverge. For example, Adobe Photoshop used a hue-saturation color wheel with a slider for brightness in version 0.63, later on switching to a rectangular design accompanied by a hue slider. Corel Painter pioneered the triangular saturation and brightness picker with a hue ring around it, aiming to better represent the continuity of the hue spectrum and the relationship between saturation and brightness. == Purpose == A color picker is used to select and adjust color values. In graphic design and image editing, users typically choose colors via an interface with a visual representation of a color—organized with quasi-perceptually-relevant hue, saturation and lightness dimensions (HSL) – instead of keying in alphanumeric text values. Because color appearance depends on comparison of neighboring colors (see color vision), many interfaces attempt to clarify the relationships between colors. == Interface == Color tools can vary in their interface. Some may use sliders, buttons, text boxes for color values, or direct manipulation. Often a two-dimensional square is used to create a range of color values (such as lightness and saturation) that can be clicked on or selected in some other manner. Drag and drop, color droppers, and various other forms of interfaces are commonly used as well. Usually, color values are also displayed numerically, so they can be precisely remembered and keyed-in later, such as three values of 0-255 representing red, green, and blue, respectively. === Eyedropper === The eyedropper is a tool present in most color pickers and graphics software that allows a user to read a color at a specific point in an image, or position on a display. This enables the color to be transferred to other applications particularly quickly. Modern implementations of eyedropper tools are also available as browser extensions, allowing users to pick colors directly from web pages, such as in Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge. == Working == A color picker has two main parts, first a color slider and second a color canvas. The color slider has a linear or radial gradient of the seven rainbow colors i.e. Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and Red. It allows one to choose any of the seven primary colors. The color value chosen from the color slider instantly reflects in the color canvas. The color canvas is a mixture of two linear color gradients. First a linear gradient of the current chosen color and second a linear gradient of the black color. This mixture of color gradients lets one choose a lighter and darker version of the current chosen color from the color slider.

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  • Linguistic Systems

    Linguistic Systems

    Linguistic Systems, Inc., also known as LSI, provides language translation services (conversion) for all media in over 115 languages. LSI focuses on the translation of legal, medical, business, institutional, academic, government and personal documents. LSI is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. == About LSI == Linguistic Systems, Inc. (LSI) was founded in 1967 by Martin Roberts. LSI's translates to/from 115 languages, DTP, audio-visual conversions, software localization, consecutive and simultaneous interpreting services, foreign brand name analysis, and machine translation with post-editing. LSI has provided translation services to over half of the Fortune 500 companies and most of the Fortune 100. Among its clients are AT&T, Boeing, Citigroup, Coca-Cola, DuPont, Exxon-Mobil, General Electric, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, Simon & Schuster, Time Warner, Verizon, and Walmart. As of 2013, LSI had a network of more than 7,000 translators who translate into their native languages; These include lawyers, scientists, engineers, and other bilingual professionals.

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  • Is an AI Copywriting Tool Worth It in 2026?

    Is an AI Copywriting Tool Worth It in 2026?

    Looking for the best AI copywriting tool? An AI copywriting tool is software that uses machine learning to help you get more done — it can save you hours every week by automating repetitive work. Most options offer a generous free tier, with paid plans unlocking higher limits, faster processing, and team features. Whether you are a beginner or a pro, the right AI copywriting tool slots into your workflow and pays for itself fast. Read on for hands-on impressions, pricing tiers, and the standout features that matter.

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  • Lorien Pratt

    Lorien Pratt

    Lorien Pratt is an American computer scientist known for contributions to transfer learning and for her work in promoting and developing the concept of decision intelligence. She is chief scientist and founder of Quantellia. Since 1988, she has conducted research on the use of machine learning as an academic, professor, industry analyst, and practicing data scientist. Pratt received her AB degree in computer science from Dartmouth College and her master's and doctorate degrees in computer science from Rutgers University. == Learning to Learn == She is best known for her book "Learning to Learn," co-edited with Sebastian Thrun, which provided an overview on how to use machine learning to better understand bias and generalization of discrete subjects. This approach, still largely theoretical when the book was published in 1998, is also called metalearning and is now a foundational underpinning of machine learning algorithms such as GPT-3 and DALL-E. == Research == === Transfer learning === Pratt's research includes early work in transfer learning where she developed the discriminability-based transfer (DBT) algorithm in 1993 during her tenure as a professor of computer science at Colorado School of Mines. This paper is considered one of the earliest academic works referring to the use of transfer in machine learning and has been cited over 400 times as foundational research for deep neural networks. === Decision intelligence === Since then, Pratt's research has continued to explore the relationships between machine learning and human cognition with the concept of decision intelligence, an emerging field of machine learning guided analytics designed to support human decision. Pratt introduced this concept in 2008, and this term has since been used by a number of vendors providing machine learning-guided analytics including Diwo, Peak AI, Sisu, and Tellius as the technologies used to support machine learning at scale have become easier to deploy, manage, and embed into software platforms. Pratt's work is cited as a core starting point for defining modern aspects of decision intelligence. Pratt's work at Quantellia since 2020 has focused on the use of decision intelligence to improve COVID-19-based outcomes.

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  • Voice user interface

    Voice user interface

    A voice user interface (VUI) enables spoken human interaction with computers, using speech recognition to understand spoken commands and answer questions, and typically text to speech to play a reply. A voice command device is a device controlled with a voice user interface. Voice user interfaces have been added to automobiles, home automation systems, computer operating systems, home appliances like washing machines and microwave ovens, and television remote controls. They are the primary way of interacting with virtual assistants on smartphones and smart speakers. Older automated attendants (which route phone calls to the correct extension) and interactive voice response systems (which conduct more complicated transactions over the phone) can respond to the pressing of keypad buttons via DTMF tones, but those with a full voice user interface allow callers to speak requests and responses without having to press any buttons. Newer voice command devices are speaker-independent, so they can respond to multiple voices, regardless of accent or dialectal influences. They are also capable of responding to several commands at once, separating vocal messages, and providing appropriate feedback, accurately imitating a natural conversation. == Overview == A VUI is the interface to any speech application. Only a short time ago, controlling a machine by simply talking to it was only possible in science fiction. Until recently, this area was considered to be artificial intelligence. However, advances in technologies like text-to-speech, speech-to-text, natural language processing, and cloud services contributed to the mass adoption of these types of interfaces. VUIs have become more commonplace, and people are taking advantage of the value that these hands-free, eyes-free interfaces provide in many situations. VUIs rely on the ability to process input reliably, inconsistent performance often leads to decreased user engagement and negative feedback. Designing a good VUI requires interdisciplinary talents of computer science, linguistics and human factors such as psychology. Even with advanced development tools, constructing an effective VUI requires understanding of both the tasks to be performed, as well as the target audience that will use the final system. The closer the VUI matches the user's mental model of the task, the easier it will be to use with little or no training, resulting in both higher efficiency and higher user satisfaction. A VUI designed for the general public should emphasize ease of use and provide a lot of help and guidance for first-time callers. In contrast, a VUI designed for a small group of power users (including field service workers), should focus more on productivity and less on help and guidance. Such applications should streamline the call flows, minimize prompts, eliminate unnecessary iterations and allow elaborate "mixed initiative dialogs", which enable callers to enter several pieces of information in a single utterance and in any order or combination. In short, speech applications have to be carefully crafted for the specific business process that is being automated. Not all business processes render themselves equally well for speech automation. In general, the more complex the inquiries and transactions are, the more challenging they will be to automate, and the more likely they will be to fail with the general public. In some scenarios, automation is simply not applicable, so live agent assistance is the only option. A legal advice hotline, for example, would be very difficult to automate. On the flip side, speech is perfect for handling quick and routine transactions, like changing the status of a work order, completing a time or expense entry, or transferring funds between accounts. == History == Early applications for VUI included voice-activated dialing of phones, either directly or through a (typically Bluetooth) headset or vehicle audio system. In 2007, a CNN business article reported that voice command was over a billion dollar industry and that companies like Google and Apple were trying to create speech recognition features. In the years since the article was published, the world has witnessed a variety of voice command devices. Additionally, Google has created a speech recognition engine called Pico TTS and Apple released Siri. Voice command devices are becoming more widely available, and innovative ways for using the human voice are always being created. For example, Business Week suggests that the future remote controller is going to be the human voice. Currently Xbox Live allows such features and Jobs hinted at such a feature on the new Apple TV. == Voice command software products on computing devices == Both Apple Mac and Windows PC provide built in speech recognition features for their latest operating systems. === Microsoft Windows === Two Microsoft operating systems, Windows 7 and Windows Vista, provide speech recognition capabilities. Microsoft integrated voice commands into their operating systems to provide a mechanism for people who want to limit their use of the mouse and keyboard, but still want to maintain or increase their overall productivity. ==== Windows Vista ==== With Windows Vista voice control, a user may dictate documents and emails in mainstream applications, start and switch between applications, control the operating system, format documents, save documents, edit files, efficiently correct errors, and fill out forms on the Web. The speech recognition software learns automatically every time a user uses it, and speech recognition is available in English (U.S.), English (U.K.), German (Germany), French (France), Spanish (Spain), Japanese, Chinese (Traditional), and Chinese (Simplified). In addition, the software comes with an interactive tutorial, which can be used to train both the user and the speech recognition engine. ==== Windows 7 ==== In addition to all the features provided in Windows Vista, Windows 7 provides a wizard for setting up the microphone and a tutorial on how to use the feature. ==== Mac OS X ==== All Mac OS X computers come pre-installed with the speech recognition software. The software is user-independent, and it allows for a user to, "navigate menus and enter keyboard shortcuts; speak checkbox names, radio button names, list items, and button names; and open, close, control, and switch among applications." However, the Apple website recommends a user buy a commercial product called Dictate. === Commercial products === If a user is not satisfied with the built in speech recognition software or a user does not have a built speech recognition software for their OS, then a user may experiment with a commercial product such as Braina Pro or DragonNaturallySpeaking for Windows PCs, and Dictate, the name of the same software for Mac OS. == Voice command mobile devices == Any mobile device running Android OS, Microsoft Windows Phone, iOS 9 or later, or Blackberry OS provides voice command capabilities. In addition to the built-in speech recognition software for each mobile phone's operating system, a user may download third party voice command applications from each operating system's application store: Apple App store, Google Play, Windows Phone Marketplace (initially Windows Marketplace for Mobile), or BlackBerry App World. === Android OS === Google has developed an open source operating system called Android, which allows a user to perform voice commands such as: send text messages, listen to music, get directions, call businesses, call contacts, send email, view a map, go to websites, write a note, and search Google. The speech recognition software is available for all devices since Android 2.2 "Froyo", but the settings must be set to English. Google allows for the user to change the language, and the user is prompted when he or she first uses the speech recognition feature if he or she would like their voice data to be attached to their Google account. If a user decides to opt into this service, it allows Google to train the software to the user's voice. Google introduced the Google Assistant with Android 7.0 "Nougat". It is much more advanced than the older version. Amazon.com has the Echo that uses Amazon's custom version of Android to provide a voice interface. === Microsoft Windows === Windows Phone is Microsoft's mobile device's operating system. On Windows Phone 7.5, the speech app is user independent and can be used to: call someone from your contact list, call any phone number, redial the last number, send a text message, call your voice mail, open an application, read appointments, query phone status, and search the web. In addition, speech can also be used during a phone call, and the following actions are possible during a phone call: press a number, turn the speaker phone on, or call someone, which puts the current call on hold. Windows 10 introduces Cortana, a voice control system that replaces the formerly used voice control on Windows

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  • Alberto Broggi

    Alberto Broggi

    Alberto Broggi is General Manager at VisLab srl (spinoff of the University of Parma acquired by Silicon-Valley company Ambarella Inc. in June 2015) and a professor of Computer Engineering at the University of Parma in Italy. == Research in computer vision, hardware, and AV == Broggi's research activities started in 1991–1994. His group together with the Dipartimento di Elettronica, Politecnico di Torino, Italy, built their own hardware architecture (named PAPRICA, for PArallel PRocessor for Image Checking and Analysis, based on 256 single-bit processing elements working in SIMD fashion) and installed it on board of a mobile laboratory (Mob-Lab) to develop and test some initial concepts in the field of intelligent vehicles. In 1996, Broggi's group worked to develop a real vehicle prototype (named ARGO, a Lancia Thema passenger car which was equipped with vision sensors, processing systems, and vehicle actuators) and developed the necessary software and hardware that made it able to drive autonomously on standard roads. Broggi's research group (called VisLab from then on) gathered all their findings in a book, which was then also translated in Chinese. When Broggi was with the University of Pavia, his research was extended and applied to extreme conditions (automatic driving on snow and ice): in 2001, VisLab led the research effort of providing a vehicle (RAS, Robot Antartico di Superficie) with sensing capabilities so that it was able to automatically follow the vehicle in front. In 2010 Broggi's group embarked on driving 4 vehicles autonomously from Italy to China with no human intervention. This challenge is called VIAC, for VisLab Intercontinental Autonomous Challenge . Soon after this, Broggi was awarded a second ERC grant (Proof of concept) to industrialize some of the results obtained and successfully tested on the VIAC vehicles. On July 12, 2013, VisLab tested the BRAiVE vehicle in downtown Parma, negotiating two-way narrow rural roads, pedestrian crossings, traffic lights, artificial bumps, pedestrian areas, and tight roundabouts. The vehicle traveled from Parma University Campus up to Piazza della Pilotta (downtown Parma): a 20 minutes run in a real environment, together with real traffic at 11am on a working day, that required absolutely no human intervention. Part of this test was driven with nobody in the driver seat, for the first time ever on public roads.

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  • Arthur Zimek

    Arthur Zimek

    Arthur Zimek is a professor in data mining, data science and machine learning at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense, Denmark. He graduated from LMU Munich in Germany, where he worked with Prof. Hans-Peter Kriegel. His dissertation on "Correlation Clustering" was awarded the "SIGKDD Doctoral Dissertation Award 2009 Runner-up" by the Association for Computing Machinery. He is well known for his work on outlier detection, density-based clustering, correlation clustering, and the curse of dimensionality. He is one of the founders and core developers of the open-source ELKI data mining framework.

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