The Download: monkey names, and smart masks for health monitoring
Technology tamfitronics Plus: Silicon Valley is shaken by what's happening to Telegram's founder This is today's edition of The Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. How machine learning is helping us probe the secret names of animals The news: Do animals have names? It seems so, after new research appears to have discovered that small monkeys called marmosets “vocally label” their monkey friends with specific sounds. How they did it: The team used audio recorders and pattern-recognition software to analyze the animals’ high-pitched chirps and twitters. To prove they’d cracked the monkey code—and learned the secret names—the team played recordings at the marmosets through a speaker and found they responded more often when their label, or name, was in the recording.Why it...
