Microsoft Adds Personalization and Handwriting APIs to Cognitive Services
Microsoft expands its Cognitive Services platform ahead of the Build developer conference with new machine learning tools, including a reinforcement learning-based Personalizer. The new APIs also bring handwriting recognition and conversation transcription capabilities to third-party developers.
Microsoft announces a range of new pre-built machine learning models for its Cognitive Services platform just ahead of its Build developer conference. The most notable addition is the Personalizer API, which uses reinforcement learning to help applications deliver tailored content to users without needing labeled training data. Microsoft reports that its own internal testing on Xbox shows a 40 percent increase in user engagement when utilizing this service.
The new Ink Recognizer API brings Microsoft's existing Windows 10 handwriting capabilities to third-party developers by automatically detecting handwritten text, common shapes, and document layouts. This is the same robust system that currently powers inking features inside Microsoft Office 365 and Windows. Developers can now easily integrate these proven optical recognition tools into their own applications.
Additionally, Microsoft introduces Conversation Transcription to handle real-time speech-to-text tasks that involve multiple speakers and crosstalk, a feature already integrated into Microsoft Teams. The company also unveils the Form Recognizer API to automate data entry by extracting text and structured information from business documents with as few as five sample forms.