InfiNet Wireless to showcase high performing mining solutions at Mining Week Kazakhstan
Launch of the digital service EVE: automated live captions with artificial intelligence
KISO Released the Results of Its Survey on User Awareness of Naver’s Search Word Service
NCsoft AI Media Talk
Google AI Forum 10th Round: AI Innovation and Computational Photography
Shutterstock Held Press Conference for Strategy Announcement
Google AI Forum 8th Round: AI Innovation and Natural Language Processing
Platform Meetup from Facebook Media Briefing Session
Chinese Great Firewall Tightens, While NordVPN Plans to Continue Operating in China
Google AI Forum 6th Round: AI Innovation and Cloud
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LINE FRIENDS Globally Launches New 'BT21' Characters Inspired by K-Pop Boy Band BTS
BT21 characters, created by global character brand LINE FRIENDS in collaboration with K-Pop Boy Band BTS, are finally unveiled and are already a sensation. LINE FRIENDS revealed a total of eight new BT21 characters, inspired by each individual BTS member with characteristics including personality, values and taste, through its LINE STORE and official BT21 social media channels. Only 10 days after being released on September 26, the characters have already recorded more than 8 million downloads and 71 million Twitter exposures. Moreover, the official social media channels for BT21 including Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube have reached over 420,000 users, demonstrating its rapid growth in popularity. In fact, a number of fans from around the world have on their own created fan art pieces using BT21 characters, creating even more buzz. The BT21 line of characters is the first output from LINE FRIENDS's new 'FRIENDS CREATORS' project, which focuses on creating new Intellectual Property (IP) with global artists. 'FRIENDS CREATORS' is LINE FRIENDS's long-term unique and creative strategy to create a new kind of character IP business with the company's capabilities and assets in the character business, based on the creativity of global artists from different fields. The launch of the BT21 cast of characters is significant in that it marks the first time in the character industry that all of the members of a group have actively participated in the entire process of creating unique characters. BT21 members drew sketches and detailed the characteristics, preferences and values of each character in close collaboration with LINE FRIENDS, rather than simply creating characters with the physical appearance of the artists. Based on the great popularity of the BT21 characters, LINE FRIENDS will release a behind-the-scenes video featuring BTS creating their BT21 characters and introduce a wide variety of BT21 merchandise and games later. In particular, LINE FRIENDS will showcase its BT21 products at its LINE FRIENDS flagship store in New York and a famous Korean luxury boutique 'Boon The Shop' in Seoul this coming December. The products will be available in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Thailand as well. "BTS, the first artist to join the 'FRIENDS CREATORS' Project, clearly embodies the key LINE FRIENDS' philosophies - Global, Millennial and Trend. BTS is a modern storyteller who can share the story about the development of its characters and how they reflect each member's characteristics," said LINE FRIENDS. The company added, "LINE FRIENDS will continue to put its full efforts into collaborating with leading global artists to create new IP and content that will be loved by existing fans and even the younger generation in their teens and 20s. A total of 14 episodes of behind-the-scenes clips about the development of BT21 characters will be released on October 17 through the official BT21 YouTube channel and official website.
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Google AI Forum 1st Round: AI Overview & Inside Google Translate Technology
On the morning of the February 9th, Google hosted 'Google AI Forum 1st Round: AI Overview & Inside Google Translation Technology' at Google Campus Seoul in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. 'Google AI Forum' is an event organized by Google to provide an opportunity to more deeply study artificial intelligence and machine learning in AI-First age with more clear descriptions and examples. This event will take place on a monthly basis. ▲ Google AI Forum 1st Round is opened. ▲ Park Yeong-chan introduced about the overview of AI and machine learning. ▲ A research scientist Mike Schuster introduced about technology of 'Google Neural Machine Translation.' The first step of the lecture was Park Yeong-chan, a Google Tech Leader and software engineer, who gave an overview of AI and machine learning. To begin with, artificial intelligence (AI) is a science technology that makes things smarter through a combination of various computer science technologies. Park Yeong-chan said that this is like a future dream that will take hundreds of years to come, while others talk about solving tiresome duties instead of humans. And its sub-concept, Machine Intelligence, is a machine-assisted technique for solving problems on specific topics. It is characterized by the fact that it is specialized on a small number of subjects, just as 'Alpha Go' acts only on ‘Go(Baduk)’. Machine Learning is a technique that allows a machine to train itself through examples instead of typing each of its operations into a single program. Many development methods of machine learning were developed for 3~40years. Through neural networks, which mimic the actual cranial nerves, millions or billions of neurons extend knowledge by transferring information entered by each of them to different neurons. In this process, the neurons form several layers and learn information that they transmit from each layer, and this is called Deep Learning. Through this process, the neuron network of the highest layer learns a very abstract pattern since the pattern input by each layer continues to be learned. On the other hand, there are currently three methods used for machine learning. First, Supervised Learning, which is the most commonly used method, is a way of repeating the learning process until the answer is settled when the data about the specific situation is entered. This method is highly accurate and is a good way to learn. Since it requires a lot of data, the better results will be obtained with the more data on a particular situation. Next, Unsupervised Learning is a way of getting answers by connecting similar things while continuing to check all data without any data or samples. This learning method is used mainly in the experimental part that humans do not yet understand, or in the area where it is difficult to obtain samples. Finally, Reinforcement Learning is slightly different from the above two learning methods. It is a way to learn by itself by providing results from repeating random acts without giving specific information. This method is the most difficult method and its actual use is small, but the research about it is the most advanced. Park Yeong-chan introduced that Google is currently using machine learning on Gmail Spam Search, Speech Recognition, Photo Search, Image Recognition and Automatic Translation, and explained about the reason that artificial intelligence is recently receiving a lot of attention while its research has been done for decades by saying, “It is because the research has progressed at a faster pace and the results of research conducted on machine learning have emerged through rapidly developing computing infrastructure, cheaper storage space and the emergence of new deep-running models.” Also, even if the same researches are done, those with more data, better research model, or higher computation are superior. So, AI technology is expected to grow at a faster pace than it has ever been in the near future and show results one by one. ▲ Machine intelligence and machine learning are the sub-concepts of artificial intelligence. ▲ Deep learning allows neurons to make multiple layers to learn information delivered from each layer. ▲ There are currently three major ways to use machine learning. ▲ Google is applying machine learning to a variety of services. In the second step, Mike Schuster, Google Research Scientist, introduced ‘Google Neural Machine Translation’ technology where AI technology is applied through video lecturing. Schuster explained about the reason why Google has been focusing its efforts on translation services that 50% of the content on the Internet is in English, but only 20% of the world's population can speak English. In other words, to make information more accessible and to resolve cross-country communications, translation needs to be improved, so Google is paying lots of attention to translation services. Today, Google translates over 140 billion words and more than one billion sentences are translated through this service. There are about 500 million people who actively use Google translation services on a monthly basis, covering 99% of all online users with 103 languages. In particular, 'Google Neural Machine Translation', which was released in September of 2016 and applied to 8 language combinations in November, is different from conventional phrase-based machine translation in that the sentence is divided into words and phrases. It translates the whole sentence at once, understand and rearrange the most appropriate translation according to the context, and provide translations that are close to natural sentences according to grammatical rules. It includes an end-to-end learning system that improves translation quality by learning from millions of cases, and it was confirmed that the translation quality of some language combinations applied for demonstration was improved through the introduction of ‘Google Neural Machine Translation’. When translating English sentences into Korean and then translating them into English, the accuracy of conventional phrase-based machine translation was not high. However, after using 'Google Neural Machine Translation,’ it was possible to get a translation result with a high degree of accuracy. In fact, when comparing improvements of translation quality, it showed high accuracy improvement in English translation from Korean, Turkish, or Chinese. Under its influence, the traffic of English-Korean translation in the Android environment has risen up to 50% in the past two months. At the same time, 'Google Neural Machine Translation' has adopted 'Zero Shot Translation' which enables translation between multiple languages in a single system, so that the translation quality has improved as well as enabling translation of a combination of multiple languages that are not tested through multi-language training. For example, the translation knowledge between English and Korean, English and Japanese has enabled the translation of a combination of Korean and Japanese that has not been trained. Moreover, the research about common languages that present sentences with the same meaning in similar ways regardless of language revealed that sentence data of similar meaning are gathered in cluster unit. As a result of this learning, Schuster said that the translation speed, which took an average of about 10 seconds per sentence, was reduced to an average of 0.2 seconds in about two months. On the other hand, he talked about the prospects that there is still room for improvement in 'Google Neural Machine Translation' in the future. He said, "Humans can easily translate numbers and dates that are not translated correctly through mechanical translations. Mechanical translations also sometimes mistranslate short and infrequently used sentences, and proper nouns such as names and brand names. However, you will be able to meet steadily developing ‘Google Neural Machine Translation’ as the research group of experts is working day and night to solve them." ▲ More than one billion sentences are translated daily through Google Translate. ▲ 'Google Neural Machine Translation' shows relatively more natural translation results than the existing translations ▲ 'Zero Shot Translation' allows translation of untested combinations of languages ▲ There is still a shortage in the future, and improvements will be made steadily.
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The Fifth Anniversary Press Conference of Facebook Korea
Facebook Korea held a press conference celebrating the fifth anniversary of Korean branch at its office building on December 14, 2015. Facebook runned the event under the mission, ‘more opened and connect world’, with the theme, ‘connect, connect, and connect’ Yong-Beom Jo, Facebook Korea branch manager, explained “When Facebook is listed on the US stock market, the submission document starts with the sentence ‘Facebook is not created to be a company. It is started for social responsibility. The responsibility is for connecting the world, and realizing the world‘”, and delivered recent news. Now, Facebook has been setting Oculus’s VR technology, being invested under the expectation that it will be the next generation platform to enrich human’s lives in aspects of ‘internet.org’ project, started from the statement that internet accesss should be a right, and movie/education/meical and etc, artificial intelligence(AI), using data to consider how to enhance human’s communication or life, and etc as the three principal investment items. Apart from this, it is developing several products which provide benefits as a service at home and abroad. Next, Hyeon-Ho Son director introduced about branding and creative business strategy, Yeong-Jun Jo director introduced performance marketing platform business strategy, Hyeon-Seok Park director introduced agency partnership, and Gi-Yeong Kim director introduced business supports for small businesses. ▲ Facebook Korea Yong-Beom Jo branch manager ▲ Facebook Korea Hyeon-Ho Son director ▲ Facebook Korea Yong-Jun Jo director ▲ Facebook Korea Hyeon-Seok Part director ▲ Facebook Korea Gi-Yeong Kim director Q1. What do you think about the comment that the advertisement is excessive? User’s experience is the most important. Though a business goal is already set, Facebook Korea is also investigating if use experience gets better. By making use of this index, it is trying not to be like that. Q2. How is Instant Article partnership policy going? A media channel partnership is done through Facebook. It is in trial service with Subusu News. It is planned to extend to most of the press in the next year. The plans will be delivered to most of the press as soon as they are confirmed. Q3. What is the reason that the blind’s cases realated to AI are introduced? Generally, AI is mostly maximize the ability that humans have. The video played earlier provides data needed for recognizing things after it is collected. After studying puppy images a lot, make AI recognize them. This is because it becomes possible to be explained with audio. Computer, machine and etc maximize the ability, catch the meaning of factors of the image, and tell them with audio. Q4. It was an issue that the founder made domination. Does Korean branch also have any plan of social contribution for Korea? In this year, missing child warning campaign is representative. If a missing child occurs, noted warnings through Facebook. Facebook Korea is considering products that can be brought as a social enterprise in the next year. Q5. Please arrange the development for the last 5 years. How is the further outlook? Korean branch started with 4 people at the original office, but now increased a lot. The number of Korean users are steadily increasing. I think the number of Korean users will continuously increase. Though I talked about a story related to Korean market, the inside may not know the fact that living in Korea means living in the future. There is no any other country that smartphone users, mobile video consume, and etc are spread this many. Korea ranks top in video consume for digital. Looking at the trends, it is very future-oriented market. Q6. To talk about news platform, Naver is unrivaled, but recently Facebook has become popular. What is a competition strategy for vs. Naver in the next year? Also, I wonder a differentiation from Naver, and Koreanizing policy in the future. Our policy is not to answer the question of comparison to a competitior. Besides, we try localizing as best as we can, but emphasize a global standard as 1.5 billion people are using so that country-specific might disperse them. Localize only a few main things. We wonder between local and global, but its answer turns to a company’s mission. First do things as humanity work, and if the work is for a specific region, it will be pushed back on the priority list. Q7. A video advertisement is that Facebook Korea didn’t do until now. What is a plan about this? A video advertisement displayed visits at the platform itself since the end of the last year. Recently, Facebook Korea held a customer event focusing on the video called Facebook play. After that, a video advertisement is generally growing very fast. Apart from comparison to a specific platform, customers who prefer play to link are increasing. Products not released yet will come out one after another. The representative is 360 degree video, and some advertisers are launching it abroad. Q8. Will you extend a personal user upload? Please explain about startup supporting plan. In the past, a text message was main, and abroad was mainly a photo. As internet is fast, and people use smartphones, Korea goes to a video. Facebook Korea sees a 360 degree video the middle stage of a video and virtual reality. A virtual reality is experience with glass, but if provide this experience by cellphones, people will experience more sense of reality. In Facebook Korea, there is an organization kept by tightly attaching one to one. For startup which will be marketed globally, it directly attaches to consider a target with a country it wants. About the country wanting to newly inroad, Facebook Korea tightly manages services wondered before inroading, and provides them through branch manager in the country. Startup shows a successful case through Facebook. Also many inquiries are about the startup. In 2015, it progressed a marketing semiar with more than 200 businesses. Also progresses a marketing seminar cooperating with VC such as D.CAMP. Facebook Korea has some thoughts of increasing size in the next year. Increase VC partnerships, and finding a position to lead. Q9. In an aspect of e-commerce, which can be directly saled at Facebook, what is possibility of increasing business about? There is no such thing about it. Korean companies are continuously releasing products making positive results through e-commerce, and Facebook is supporting it. It will support to make results from mobile commerce part. For example, 2-3 years back, there were services of listening to music in Facebook. This was a service lauching by companies coming into a Facebook platform. Likewise, mainly works on making eco-system, and coming in to develop business. Q10. When talking about a targeting type advertisement, the concern is about precedents of misusing personal information. If a target becomes more accurate, there will be more using of users’ information. Facebook attaches great importance on personal privacy. Protecting information is the most significant part in business decisions. In users’ position, it is not bad that an appropriate advertisement comes when use something. If you don’t like the advertisement, it’s possible to express your intention at the right side. The concern about marketers making a proper message will bigger than the misuse. Not selling information to outside, for instance, Facebook provides grouped information such as people living in Seoul and people graduated from a specific college, not a person’s information such as Yong-Beom Jo. Facebook doesn’t let advertisers check executed information. They only can understand which group they executed. Q11. (Acrofan) As Facebook is internet serive, its service quality is fluid depending on the conditions of communication network. Yesterday, there was a trouble on a particular communication network line. Please introduce what a monitoring and countermeasure of this part. User experience is the most significant. Through continuously monitoring, Facebook is trying to improve environment with operators and cable operators. Though, the service improved a lot compared to 2-3 years back. What’s so interesting, in aspects of speed, Korea is very fast when compared to the US. However, in Korea, users feel it slow. Based on the US or global standard, it is excelled. But Facebok will still invest as user experience in Korea is important. For monitoring, installed a beta version on the employees’ smartphones, and they can report right away if shakes cellphones. This figure is also very high. If a problem occurs, it is active to employees shake and report. Problems such as a bug, wrong translation, and an image uploaded strangely are also reported thorugh shaking cellphones. ▲ As having instant article service open ahead, there were many participants than ever before.
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