Deep Learning for Consumer Devices and Services: Pushing the limits for machine learning, artificial intelligence, and computer vision

In the last few years, we have witnessed an exponential growth in research activity into the advanced training of convolutional neural networks (CNNs), a field that has become known as deep learning. This has been triggered by a combination of the availability of significantly larger data sets, thanks in part to a corresponding growth in big data, and the arrival of new graphics-processing-unit (GPU)-based hardware that enables these large data sets to be processed in reasonable timescales. Suddenly, a wide variety of long-standing problems in machine learning, artificial intelligence, and computer vision have seen significant improvements, often sufficient to break through long-standing performance barriers. Across multiple fields, these achievements have inspired the development of improved tools and methodologies leading to even broader applicability of deep learning. The new generation of smart assistants, such as Alexa, Hello Google, and others, have their roots and learning algorithms tied to deep learning. In this article, we review the current state of deep learning, explain what it is, why it has managed to improve on the long-standing techniques of conventional neural networks, and, most importantly, how you can get started with adopting deep learning into your own research activities to solve both new and old problems and build better, smarter consumer devices and services.