StartupRealities

StartupRealities No 143 MetaTextbook is an artificial intelligence (AI)-led content producer which creates visual content for electronic textbooks customised to the interests and hobbies of the reader. For example, if a student likes football, most of the images in the physics or geography textbooks for this particular student will be related to football. PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING The customisation of imagery makes the content easier to understand and internalise thanks to two key factors: 1) The relevance and familiarity with the images creates a shortcut to existing knowledge in the student's mind; 2) The virtuous cycle of reassurance engendered by familiarity gives confidence to the student that the effort required to learn a lesson is minimal. Aristotle described this process in Rhetoric: " To learn easily is naturally pleasant to all people. " PRINCIPLES OF IMAGE SELECTION The company applies the principle of  conceptual metaphors to select or create images ...

StartupRealities No 117 ImagePerfector is a digital imaging company which is developing a voice-recognition driven image-editing algorithm for use by the general public. The AI has the typical features of an image-editing programme, such as Photoshop, but relies on verbal commands and finger contact on a touchscreen to manipulate an image. The algorithm also uses Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) to synthesise elements of images from scratch where stock image databases cannot provide such or where there are copyright restrictions on the use of existing images. CEO QUOTE "Using ImagePerfector is like having a virtual digital assistant. All it takes is give commands and point with your finger on the touchscreen: 'Put an Emirates plane in the sky here. Paintbrush this cloud. Place the Statue of Liberty in the middle of the lake.' And voila! Here is your perfect image." - said company founder and CEO Imogen Perfetto. Image manipulated with Photoshop (image...

StartupRealities No 110 InstaPedia is an online wiki-based encyclopedia which has an Instagram-type reliance on visual information to describe terms and concepts. The images, infographics, charts and simple drawings on InstaPedia are accompanied by brief captions. As in all wiki-projects, volunteers contribute the images, photos and captions to InstaPedia and volunteer editors oversee and improve the content. AUTOMATED IMAGE CREATION In addition to humans, InstaPedia also uses bots to enhance the images and design computer-generated infographics and charts. To circumvent copyright restrictions and increase the availability of images in more conceptual fields in which little concrete imagery exists, InstaPedia's AI algorithms use Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) to create new images from scratch. CEO QUOTE " What Twitter is to Wikipedia, Instragram is to InstaPedia. Social media and online encyclopedias are not directly related but their conceptual models of conve...