Artifical Intelligence and the cloud were hot topics for Microsoft at Build 2018, and one group of Microsoft Garage interns put their minds together to prove the true value of AI can have for an end user. Indeed, with their Snip Insights utility, the Microsoft Garage team looks to help revolutionize the way you search, increase your productivity, and generate more insights with your screenshots.
The utility is available here on GitHub, and it leverages the power of AI to help convert images to translated text, detect and tag image content and other smart image suggestions. It is powered by Azure Cognitive Services, which the team behind the app hinted wasn’t necessarily an easy task to accomplish. They actually needed to use an arsenal of resources and make a product of their own through brainstorming and mind mapping.
According to Microsoft, this tool had to build off the Windows Snipping Tool and Snip, a retired Microsoft Garage project. Anyway, there are situations where Snip Insights can provide to be valuable, says Microsoft:
Imagine that you have a scan of a textbook or work report. Rather than having to manually type out the information, snipping it will return editable text in just one click. Or maybe you’re scrolling through your social media feed and come across someone wearing a cool pair of shoes, you can simply snip to find out where to purchase them! Snip Insights can show you relevant information based on what you’ve just snipped – including identifying famous people, places, or landmarks.
The team behind this project is hoping that more developers around the world can leverage their knowledge and innovate and improve their efforts. Development was part of the Microsoft Garage Internship Program in Vancouver, where the interns worked on their own teams for four months. You can learn more about that program and its other projects by checking here.
