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Corona is everywhere. What was once commonly known as drunk from the bottle with a wedge of lemon (i.e. the Mexican beer) mutated to a household name filled with horror. News – fake, real, it does not matter – do not help as the only fact is “scio nescire”, in other words, we know that we know nothing (or at least nothing 100% concrete) about the virus. To change this, the EU allocated research funds with the focus on COVID-19: To help reach the objectives of the Coronavirus Global Response, €1 billion will be mobilised under the EU’s flagship programme for research and innovation, Horizon 2020. The website “Coronavirus research & innovation” provides in depth information on the activities.

Already in January, the European Commission launched an emergency call for proposal to combat the virus. 18 projects have been selected, in four main areas: Preparedness & Response, Diagnostics, Treatment, Vaccines. Let’s hope that they contain the “crown jewels” that will eventually produce effective weapons against the virus.

Horizon 2020 is in its final stage – but there is still sufficient budget to give it a try. All calls are available at “Funding & Tenders” website of the EC. Deadlines for most open ICT calls are either 16 January 2020 or 22 April 2020.

Augmented/Virtual reality Call for mini-projects:
The XR4ALL  project launched its call for mini-projects in the area of interactive technologies, i.e. AR/VR. There are 4 cut-off dates, the first on 31/10/2019
More info: XR4ALL Call page

Digital Europe, the upcoming programme that focuses on building the strategic digital capacities of the EU and on facilitating the wide deployment of digital technologies, to be used by Europe’s citizens and businesses, opened a stakeholders consultation online. If you wish to shape the programme, participate in the consultation until 25 October 2019!

How Language Intelligence Helps Combat Disinformation and Supports Reliable News Journalism

Language in its written, spoken and visual form is the key medium of news content. The tools and technologies that have been developed to create and manage this content can therefore be called collectively “language intelligence (LI)”, a term that may be applied in a more general context and which is not confined to the media alone. The application of LI provides a critical mechanism across the digital world, where speed, data
volume, trust, cost and quality of knowledge all need to be carefully handled and balanced to deliver reliable products to networked customers on a global scale.

This report (“Orientation Paper”) attempts to characterize the various roles that language intelligence plays in the News value chain by asking the following three questions and providing answers to them:

•    Are there reliable automatic decision procedures for identifying the truth/falsity of news and similar content in general or in specific cases? Problem solution technologies.
•    Which available LI technologies can help news producers most to accelerate processes while lowering risk and complexity? Technologies along the News value chain.
•    What kinds of language solutions are needed and likely to emerge? The way forward.

At a workshop on 29-30 November 2018 in Vienna, Austria, co-organised by LT-Innovate, EUROSINT and SAIL LABS, various use cases that addressed the fake news problem were presented, and discussions into how Language Intelligence can extend its applicability within the news and intelligence industries in their effort to track down fake information were held.

This report is the result of the workshop, with contributions from all speakers and co-organisers. Editors-in-chief: Andrew Joscelyne, LT-Innovate; Margaretha Mazura, EMFS. Supported by the Vienna Business Agency.

Interested to join the debate? Come to the 8th LT Industry Summit  in Brussels, 24/25 June 2019, and discuss the topic in our session on: “Language Intelligence: Informing and re-tooling the media”. For more information, contact us!

DOWNLOAD THE REPORT

This year’s Language Technology Summit, the 8th since 2012, is all about intelligence: human, artificial, language, and augmented (my preferred way of spelling AI).  In two days, the programme features the best of language technology (with the LTI awards at the end), vertical sectors (automotive, banking), looks into other interactive technologies like AR/VR – augmented and virtual reality, and showcases latest language intelligence developments for business needs.

The Summit is Europe’s major event showcasing the latest developments in multilingual ambient intelligence: speech interaction, deep meaning processing and multilingual communication & cognition. It is the ideal meeting point between technology providers, users & integrators, business leaders, leading-edge developers & researchers, investors & analysts. It is a unique place to learn, exchange, network, forge new partnerships, find new clients and get tuned to the multilingual intelligent future.

Join us on 24/25 June 2019 in Brussels !
Check out the programme & speakers: LT Industry Summit
Registration
Any Questions? Contact us!

Once upon a time, when we were dreaming of frontier-less information sources, we suddenly saw our dreams come true: The Internet emerged and with it, virtually border-less opportunities. It was paradise for creative souls but those who know their bible must have known: it will not last long.

The latest of proposed restrictions deals with the hotly contested Copyright Directive, or more precise, Art. 11 and 13 thereof. Art. 11 limits references to published news articles to “single words or very short extracts” otherwise a license will be required. First of all, it is not at all clear how short “very short extracts” are. Interpretation of these three words may vary considerably. But what is more, there may be a danger that “snippet” services as run by many associations as a service to their members (by their nature often not-for-profit) will have to be discontinued: It is impossible to get licenses (paying or not) from all news services that one may or may not refer to.

 Art. 13, though, is worse. Because it is definitely a restriction of free expression. It declares that commercial sites and apps where users can post material must make “best efforts” to pre-emptively buy licenses for anything that users may possibly upload – that is: all copyrighted content in the world.[Source: Blog of Julia Reda, MEP that is a MUST to read and to act upon!]

Example: You see the picture that I used for this blog entry. Who knows whether I am the copyright holder? Worse: How can I prove that I am the copyright holder? Even worse: Who cares for me, tiny little star in the Internet universe, to ask me for a license?

Consequence: There is a high potential that my uploads are blocked by a filter, just in case…much better to have problems with me (if I complain at all) than with the regulatory authority! [To reassure the reader: I am the copyright owner of both, object and photo, and the original artist is more than 70 years dead].

Therefore: Set a sign, join the 4+ million signatures and contact your MEP. Because it is not too late! All MEPs have to vote in the plenary (March or April, BEFORE elections). Maybe they get it right, eventually.

The digital revolution is increasing its tools portfolio every year. But one concern is how to make the Internet and related technology areas more human-centric. That is: how to adapt and develop technology to become intuitive for human users. Human – machine interaction is on the forefront (think of chat bots, info bots or “Alexa” & Co.). Typing is still the main way to ask and communicate, but voice interaction in multiple languages will soon be taking over. Language Intelligence (Artificial Intelligence combined with Language Technologies) will solve accessibility problems (e.g. from minority language speakers), scale up data analytics and support the combat against ubiquitous disinformation (“fake news”).

Augmented Reality (AR), the enhanced real-world environments augmented with superimposed computer-generated images thus transforming and mixing real and virtual worlds, found its way into airports (e.g. Gatwick) and shops (e.g. IKEA). Its potential for entertainment is already well known, but work place AR is the future, soon to come.

2018 paved the way to raise awareness of these technologies and soon they will be  mainstream tools for the daily life. EMFS is proud to be at the core of these developments having facilitated the following activities:

Combat Disinformation: Check out the presentations of the “Fake news and other AI Challenges for News Media” – and watch this blog for the study paper that will be released soon!

XR4ALL – a Horizon2020 project that will develop immersive/XR (virtual, augmented and mixed reality) networks and platforms, and issue calls for sub-projects. Sign into their website and get timely information on how to participate!

The Sound of Intelligence: The 8^th Language Technology Industry Summit, to be held from 24-26 June 2019 in Brussels, will feature latest developments of speech technology supported by AI, vertical challenges and cross-over sections, with participants from industry, research and clients/users. The Call for Speakers is open!

For more information, please contact us!

When Marie Antoinette went to the scaffold, she was not so much condemned for what she did to the French “citoyens” but for what she allegedly did, based on calumnious pamphlets: emptying the coffers of France for her whims and lustful, immoral entertainment thus committing high treason. Nobody believed her truthful protestations.
Rumours, misleading information are as old as mankind. For the purpose of profit, propaganda, advertising or simply upsetting the established order, fake news were propagated in an unashamed way throughout centuries. A comparatively harmless hoax in 1835, describing fantastic fauna and flora on the moon with some scientific claims, made the New York Sun the worldwide bestselling newspaper, overtaking the London Times. Anti-Jewish allegations had often disastrous effects, from medieval “Christian baby slaughtering” that caused pogroms all over Europe to the “Stürmer”’s caricatures and overt incitement to hatred.

That fake news appeared on the top 10 Issues to watch during 2018 (Disinformation & cybersecurity) does not come as a surprise, given the nowadays lightning speed of viral propagation of fake news on social media channels. This makes combating fake news more difficult. Researchers at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University noted: “The difficulty in distinguishing fabricated fake news occurs when partisan organizations publish these stories, providing some semblance of objectivity and balanced reporting,” [Source]

Claire Wardle of First Draft News identifies seven types of fake news: [Source: Wikipedia]

1. satire or parody (“no intention to cause harm but has potential to fool”)
2. false connection (“when headlines, visuals or captions don’t support the content”)
3. misleading content (“misleading use of information to frame an issue or an individual”)
4. false context (“when genuine content is shared with false contextual information”)
5. imposter content (“when genuine sources are impersonated” with false, made-up sources)
6. manipulated content (“when genuine information or imagery is manipulated to deceive”, as with a “doctored” photo)
7. fabricated content (“new content is 100% false, designed to deceive and do harm”)

But how to find out? European governments are quick in proposing rules and laws, but they will easier curtail the freedom of press and speech than efficiently combat the originators of fake news (the German example of its law against hate speech shows it, see e.g. article on Digiday ]

As Tom Standage of The Economist correctly stated: Media organisations and technology companies are struggling to determine how best to respond. Perhaps more overt fact-checking or improved media literacy will help.

One step in the right direction is the publication of the leaflet of the International Federation of Libraries Associations and Institutions IFLA:

To raise awareness about the challenges posed by fake news but also about the technical solutions to detect and combat them, LT-Innovate, Sail Labs and Eurosint organise a conference on “Fake News and other AI Challenges – News Media in the 21st Century” in Vienna, Austria, on 29/30 November 2018.

Join us in Vienna: Registration
More info or comments: contact

The 7th edition of the Language Technology Industry Summit will be held on 28/29 May 2018 in Brussels. Target attendance is 150+, a mix of techies, CEOs, marketing people and business users, with special sessions involving the most recent insights into multilingual Artificial Intelligence, chatbots, hearables, emotional analytics etc. LTI18 is the place to be for LT providers and users, business leaders, technology developers, investors and analysts to forge new partnerships, find new clients and get tuned to the multilingual intelligent future.  “As a company we are regular participants and have benefited tremendously from participating both in terms of learning about latest developments in the language field, networking and meeting business partners” says Andrzej Zydron of XTM International.
Past speaker companies shows the exciting mix:

Join LTI2018 in May – hot tip: Why not join LT-Innovate? The yearly membership fee is less than a full ticket and gives you many more benefits!
Not yet sure? Check out the past LTI2017 event or enjoy the happy faces on the photo gallery.