Quantic’s Weekly Roundup – December 2020 (3)

Quantic’s Weekly Roundup is a satisfying mix of the latest breaking news, business, STEM and social science stories. Here are your headlines for this week: 

From being on mute to overusing the adjective “unprecedented,” here’s a roundup of  lessons we all learned in 2020. One key takeaway? Apparently, people are generally better off when their leaders are emotionally intelligent, humble, and ethical. Want to better your emotional and cultural intelligence skill set? Make sure to try our new Cultural Intelligence course. 

Can innovation be learned? The answer is yes, according to Elon Musk, one of the most innovative entrepreneurs of the modern era. During a candid interview with Wall Street Journal, Musk argued that creating innovative products is “absolutely learnable.” It all comes down to answering three simple questions. 

A whole new meaning for greenhouse: AI technology can now help fight the climate problem that may be hiding inside buildings. From HVAC systems to water chillers, almost 40% of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions comes from the construction and operation of buildings. A new startup called Carbon Lighthouse is using hundreds of sensors combined with AI to dramatically lower carbon emissions.

No more language barrier: The UK-based startup, Papercup, has developed speech technology that translates people’s voices into other languages. Papercup is building out an AI and machine learning-based system that it says is capable of translating a person’s voice and expressiveness into other languages. Unlike a lot of text-to-speech, the startup claims the resulting voice translation is “indistinguishable” from human speech, and, perhaps uniquely, it attempts to retain the characteristics of the original speaker’s voice. The company has already raised £8 million in funding and is being used in the video and television industry.