The AI-enabled commentary boy uses real-time tracking of players on the field to generate meaningful commentary.
Sports commentators are a lucky lot. Few people get paid to watch football, let alone from the best seats in the house. The men and women behind the mic are household names around the world, thanks in part, to the witticisms and insights that they expound on air while the action unfolds on the turf. However, the tribe of football commentators could soon be unseated by disruptive technologies.
IBM has developed an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered application that can monitor live video streams and deliver commentary in real time. While the program is yet to perfect text-to-voice output as yet, it is capable of parsing through millions of statistics from previous matches to deliver intelligent commentary in real time.
The program is based uses an automated highlight system that extracts passage of play from a game and turns them into highlight clips. The AI-enabled commentary boy uses real-time tracking of players on the field to generate meaningful commentary. It tracks the spatial orientation of players on the field and compares it with the coordinates of the ball is it is passed on from player to player.
IBM has previously partnered with sports events, and currently provides the underlying technology used for video-based analysis at the Masters PGA golf tournament and Wimbledon. Like all AI application, the IBM bot was trained by making it analyses fifty video clips accompanied by high-quality commentary. It uses an end-to-end system, whereby video is fed as input and textual commentary is generated as output based on predictions made by the AI program.
AI tracks the spatial orientation of players on the field and compares it with the coordinates of the ball is it is passed on from player to player. Fans of the beautiful game know that it is impossible to predict what can happen – within a matter of seconds, the ball might be released from the hands of the keeper following a corner and released up-field, only for the ensuing counterattack to result in a goal at the other end. Individual actions, however, are easier to predict, giving the system greater accuracy overall.
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The competency of the software was tested at the Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) artificial intelligence conference which began on December 8 in Vancouver, Canada. The results were promising. The AI-powered bot performed well, although it did repeat a few catchphrases.
This aberration could be sorted out by training the algorithm with more clips, and adding a wider array of options for the AI to choose as output. During the demonstration, the system misjudged a short pass as a cross-field ball, but with time, it may be able to anticipate intricate maneuvers better.
However, AI is still a fair distance away from replicating the match day feels generated by the emotive, insightful and - often - partisan banter exchanged by human commentators.
AI Driven Cars, E-Pianos And Flying Brooms: 7 Tech Prototypes That Redefine The Future
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Our most-loved tech prototypes don’t always make their way into our lives. But they are attractive, have practical applications and are limited only by the designer’s imagination. Here are a few smarts from top companies.
Our most-loved tech prototypes don’t always make their way into our lives. But they are attractive, have practical applications and are limited only by the designer’s imagination. Here are a few smar..
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Xiaomi’s new smartphone concept has a screen that wraps almost all the way around the phone’s body, and it makes even new smartphones look old-fashioned. The company says the screen would be made of sapphire glass, which is scratch-resistant. The Mi Mix Alpha’s frame would be made of ‘TC4 aerospace-grade titanium alloy’ that is reportedly three times as strong as steel.
Xiaomi’s new smartphone concept has a screen that wraps almost all the way around the phone’s body, and it makes even new smartphones look old-fashioned. The company says the screen would be made of ..
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The bird-like conceptual airliner design by Airbus is aimed to encourage engineers on the possibilities of hybrid-electric propulsion, active control systems and advanced composite structures. Inspired by the mechanics of a bird, it has wing and tail structures that mimic those of a ‘bird of prey’, while featuring individually controlled feathers that provide active flight control.
The bird-like conceptual airliner design by Airbus is aimed to encourage engineers on the possibilities of hybrid-electric propulsion, active control systems and advanced composite structures. Inspir..
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The EXP 100 GT explores how grand touring could look in 2035. It offers fully autonomous electric driving and artificial intelligence to curate your journey. Inside, the use of light creates a wellness-enriching environment and ‘adaptable biometric seating’ to add the feeling of well-being. It also uses air curation to bring in fragrances from the natural world while keeping city pollution out.
The EXP 100 GT explores how grand touring could look in 2035. It offers fully autonomous electric driving and artificial intelligence to curate your journey. Inside, the use of light creates a wellne..
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Hailing from Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 family, the foldable PC concept dons a ‘never-before-seen form factor’ to offer new user experiences. This is not a phone, tablet, or familiar hybrid; this is a full-fledged laptop with a foldable screen. It has a single OLED 2K display that can fold in half and reduce its width by 50 per cent.
Hailing from Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 family, the foldable PC concept dons a ‘never-before-seen form factor’ to offer new user experiences. This is not a phone, tablet, or familiar hybrid; this is a full..
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Does the e-broom fly through the air? You can ride it with rollerblades on, but we don’t know yet if it can take off with you. Modelled after a broom used by a witch to fly through the air, this mobility platform is an attempt to integrate people and machines, allowing users to enjoy a different kind of mobility.
Does the e-broom fly through the air? You can ride it with rollerblades on, but we don’t know yet if it can take off with you. Modelled after a broom used by a witch to fly through the air, this mobi..
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This e-piano by Studio F. A. Porsche features 97 keys instead of the usual 88. Besides ebony, a material called Taran is used for the key surfaces. It is equipped with the mechanical system of a grand piano and its Senor Technology enables a high data density, which results in a differentiated sound composition.
This e-piano by Studio F. A. Porsche features 97 keys instead of the usual 88. Besides ebony, a material called Taran is used for the key surfaces. It is equipped with the mechanical system of a gran..
