Tag: computing system
Ask a Techspert: How does Lens turn images to text?Ask a Techspert: How does Lens turn images to text?Keyword Contributor
When I was on holiday recently, I wanted to take notes from an ebook I was reading. But instead of taking audio notes or scribbling things down in a notebook, I used Lens to select a section of the book, copy it and paste it into a document. That got me curious: How did all that just happen on my phone? How does a camera recognize words in all their fonts and languages?
I decided to get to the root of the question and speak to Ana Manasovska, a Zurich-based software engineer who is one of the Googlers on the front line of converting an image into text.
Ana, tell us about your work in Lens.
I’m involved with the text aspect, so making sure that the app can discern text and copy it for a search or translate it — with no typing needed. For example, if you point your phone’s camera at a poster in a foreign language, the app can translate the text on it. And for people who are blind or have low vision, it can read the text out loud. It’s pretty impressive.
So part of what my team does is get Lens to recognize not just the text, but also the structure of the text. We humans automatically understand writing that is separated into sentences and paragraphs, or blocks and columns, and know what goes together. It’s very difficult for a machine to distinguish that, though.
Is this machine learning?
Yes. In other words, it uses systems (we call them models) that we’ve trained to discern characters and structure in images. A traditional computing system would have only a limited ability to do this. But our machine learning model has been built to “teach itself” on enormous datasets and is learning to distinguish text structures the same way a human would.
Can the system work with different languages?
Yes, it can recognize 30 scripts, including Cyrillic, Devanagari, Chinese and Arabic. It’s most accurate in Latin-alphabet languages at the moment, but even there, the many different types of fonts present challenges. Japanese and Chinese are tricky because they have lots of nuances in the characters. What seems like a small variation to the untrained eye can completely change the meaning.
What’s the most challenging part of your job?
There’s lots of complexity and ambiguity, which are challenging, so I’ve had to learn to navigate that. And it’s very fast paced; things are moving constantly and you have to ask a lot of questions and talk to a lot of people to get the answers you need.
When it comes to actual coding, what does that involve?
Mostly I use a programming language called C++, which enables you to run processing steps needed to take you from an image to a representation of words and structure.
Hmmm, I sort of understand. What does it look like?
This is what C++ looks like.
The code above shows the processing for extracting only the German from a section of text. So say the image showed German, French and Italian — only the German would be extracted for translation. Does that make sense?
Kind of! Tell me what you love about your job.
It boils down to my lifelong love of solving problems. But I also really like that I’m building something I can use in my everyday life. I’m based in Zurich but don’t speak German well, so I use Lens for translation into English daily.
2022’s First SPAC and Metaverse Investment Opportunities Virtual Investment Conference in Hong Kong
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Over 20 industry leaders and professional institutional investors analysed the listing overview and options of Special Purpose Acquisition Companies ("SPACs") in the United States, Hong Kong, and Singapore, and explored the winning strategy of digital asset investment in Metaverse via a virtual forum and exhibition booths. The forum was supported by Futu as the platform partner and Economic Digest as media partner.
LBS invited a number of speakers to tap into the two hottest topics in the capital market - SPAC and the market development of Metaverse through multiple subdivided presentations. In the morning session, Mr. Claudius Tsang, CEO at A SPAC (Holdings) Group Corp., Mr. Robson Lee, Partner at Gibson Dunn, Mr. Gordon Tsang, Partner at Stevenson Wong & Co. analysed the listing mechanism and risk factors of SPAC in the United States, Hong Kong and Singapore, and Mr. Yiu Ting Tsoi, the CEO of HB Ventures to explain the successful IR strategy in SPAC and De-SPAC process as well as the successful positioning and investment strategy of SPAC.
In the afternoon session which focuses on Metaverse investment, Mr. James Lei, Chief Technical Adviser of Joint Labs in Asia at Ether Data explained the effective strategies for the real economy to master the wave of virtual reality; Mr. Gilbert Ng, Founder at Mura Capital described the compliance trend and regulatory direction of the virtual market; Mr. Robert Luo, Co-founder at NVC Media introduced GameFi, the most advanced virtual development trend and Mr. Evan Auyang, the Group President of Animoca Brands unveiled the unique investment strategies of Animoca Brands which is not only limited to the hottest metaverse - Sandbox.
In addition, the forum included two panel discussions, during which panelists explained to participants the composition of SPAC and De-SPAC, the key strategies to maximizing the return on investment of investors and start-ups, and the winning strategy of investing in Metaverse. The panelists actively shared their own experiences and unique insights in a welcoming and inquisitive meeting atmosphere. More than 300 professional investors, institutional investors, executives of listed companies and representatives of start-ups attended the virtual forum, and many of the participants gathered in the virtual lounge area afterwards to further exchange their thoughts and experiences in these important subject areas.
Ms. Joanne Chan, Managing Director at LBS Communications Consulting Limited stated: "The Metaverse has inevitably become a hot topic in the investment community, as it's a new field that Big Tech and gaming companies are competing to develop. Even international renowned sports brands have taken the opportunity to acquire virtual shoe brand companies to tap into the market. At the same time, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange has formally implemented the SPAC listing mechanism. In other words, many emerging and innovative companies may become targets of mergers and acquisitions, providing an additional financing channel for start-ups that are interested to enter the Metaverse."
Taking advantage of this market trend, LBS held the first online forum on Metaverse in Hong Kong and invited many senior experts and investors to share their own experience and first-hand industry insights from a forward-looking perspective. This created an effective communication platform for the capital market and disseminated investment information that keeps pace with the times, gaining high recognition from the industry. In the era of diversified development of capital markets, we are happy to see more opportunities relating to the development of the market and enterprises. We are also glad to see that potential start-ups or enterprises in emerging industries can gain more sustainable development momentum and achieve a win-win situation.
"As the organizer of this Metaverse investment forum, LBS will continue to leverage on its objective and original aspiration of "Leverage Big Strategy" after 11 years of development. LBS will bolster its traditional financial communications and investor relations services by aligning with clients' strategies and maximizing results, so that investors around the world can keep abreast of the latest developments of their clients and be apprised of market trends to continuously expand business coverage and services. For example, ESG helps companies to explore and take advantage of exploring new opportunities beyond traditional investment areas in the field of sustainable development and to create more opportunities for customers to communicate with investors. With the rapid recovery of the global economy in the post-pandemic era, LBS also hopes that, apart from Greater China, this forum will also look ahead to other international markets and develop diversified information dissemination channels," she said.
List of honorable speakers in the SPAC session
-- Mr. Claudius Tsang, CEO, A SPAC (Holdings) Group Corp.
-- Mr. Robson Lee, Partner, Gibson Dunn (Leading law firm in Singapore)
-- Mr. Gordon Tsang, Partner, Stevenson, Wong & Co. (Leading law firm in Hong Kong)
-- Mr. Yiu Ting Tsoi, CEO of HB Ventures
-- Mr. Gary Chan, CEO - Greater China, The CFO Centre
List of honorable speakers in the Metaverse Digital Asset Allocation Strategy
-- Mr. Evan Auyang, Group President, Animoca Brands
-- Mr. Ben Caselin, Head of Research & Strategy, Atom Asset Exchange (AAX)
-- Mr. Wuszt Wu, Head of Huobi Key Account, Asia Pacific, Huobi Global
-- Mr. Fred Wong, Founder and CIO, eFusion Capital
-- Dr. James Lei, Chief Technical Adviser of Joint Labs in Asia, Ether Data
-- Mr. Kenneth Wang, CPO and Investment Manager, New Vision
-- Mr. Gilbert Ng, Founder, Mura Capital (Experienced legal consultant on crypto)
-- Mr. Robert Luo, Co-Founder, NVC Media
Featured HK Unicorn and Startups
-- Avalon Biomedical Management - Public health and infection control
-- RV Auto Tech - Automation robotics technologies and SaaS platform for global
-- Prenetics - A major global diagnostics and genetic testing company with a team of over 700 employees and operations across 9 locations and will list on Nasdaq following merger with Artisan Acquisition, a SPAC founded by Adrian Cheng.
-- iRecycle - AI and big data analysis to maximize coverage and efficiency in recycling business.
-- ESG Growth - First of its kind in HK for in-house ESG data management SaaS platform
-- Neufast - multi-lingual AI Video Interview cloud solution provider with 50 years in data science, recruitment & I/O Psychol
-- Digit Sense - digitial transformation total solutions provider with global presense
Featured Digital Assets Investment
-- New Vision - One-stop digital asset platform encompassing brokerage, fund management, fintech trading solu tions and VC investment opportunities
-- NVC - GameFi Investment
-- Animoca Brands - Well-known globally as Sandbox's parent company, it owns a broad portfolio of blockchain games and is a prolific investor with over 150 investments in NFT-related blockchain companies
-- Huobi Global - World-leading cryptocurrency exchanges & digital asset management services for tens of millions of users in over 170 countries and regions
-- Huobi Tech - Leading provider of compliant, safe and reliable virtual asset services for professional individuals and institutional investors around the world.
-- AAX - A borderless exchange that caters to a global audienceand the first exchnage to be powered by LSEG technology, and offer high-yield savings packages, 100 spot pairs, deeply liquid futures markets, regular discounts on major tokens and a range of on-ramps.
-- Ether Data - A decentralized all-purpose computing system based on the technology of the Ethereum Smart Contract and Disk Storage Banking (DSB) distributive storage.
For more information about the conference, please visit www.lbs-forum.com
About LBS Communications Consulting Limited
LBS Leverage Big Strategies - Sustainability Investor Relations is a strategy-based consulting company based in Hong Kong with offices in Shenzhen and Shanghai. We are also the exclusive partner of PRGN (www.prgn.com) in Hong Kong and the Greater China. Our talent is to drive change for our clients. With over two decades of experiences in investor and financial communications, we endeavour to stretch our expertise to sustainability investor relations that join hand with our clients in making a better world. Our strategies and services are tailor-made to bridge and foster the relationships between our clients and their multiple stakeholders. Our clientele spans across different industries such as power and utilities, medicare, telecommunications and IT, retail and consumer, metal and resources, education and training, hospitality and travel. We care and manage the value and brands of our clients.
Copyright 2022 ACN Newswire. All rights reserved. www.acnnewswire.comLBS (Leverage Big Strategies) Communications Consulting Limited ("LBS"), a professional strategy-based investor relations consulting firm based the Greater China region with global presence, today successfully organized the first Virtual Investment Conference
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