Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has announced the launch of an AI suite for speech translation. The new translation model, SeamlessM4T, aims to streamline translations across approximately 100 languages to text and 36 languages to speech. Meta is enhancing the tool with an advanced v2 architecture to improve the spontaneity and expressiveness of conversational translations, which is crucial for authentic cross-language communication.
The primary addition to the suite is SeamlessExpressive, a feature that incorporates expressive elements into translated speech. These elements include pitch, volume, emotional tone, speaking rate, and pauses, enabling more natural and nuanced communication. However, Meta acknowledges the challenge of diverse sentence structures across languages and has developed an algorithm specifically tailored to analyze incomplete audio inputs.
In other news, Kenyan climate-tech startup Amini has secured $4 million in a seed funding round. The investment was led by Salesforce Ventures and the Female Founders Fund, with contributions from Climate-tech VC Satgana, Pale Blue Dot, and Superorganism. Amini leverages satellite data and integrates it with various datasets, including sensors, research, and ground truthing, to provide valuable insights into biodiversity, soil and crop health, and farming practices. The platform supports real-time monitoring tools and machine learning models, empowering actions such as flood detection. The CEO, Kate Kallot, emphasized the vital role of artificial intelligence and space technologies in ensuring easy access to environmental data in Africa.
Additionally, UAE Fin-Tech startup Flow48 has raised $25 million in pre-Series A funding. Flow48 specializes in providing upfront financing to SMEs (small and medium enterprises) in the UAE. The platform integrates with enterprise resource planning (ERP) providers, payment gateways, and e-commerce platforms to conduct precise and efficient credit assessments through its proprietary risk engine. With the new capital infusion, Flow48 aims to expand globally, focusing on the robust SME lending market in South Africa, supported by its advanced fintech ecosystem.
In a trivia question, the feature not supported by RCS messaging is the capability to send and receive text messaging on smartphones, an extension of older SMS text messaging technology that increases message length and adds modern features such as delivery receipts and high-resolution media. While most mobile phone carriers and Android smartphones can use RCS messaging, iPhones still lack support for this communication technology.
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