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RSS feedSeptember 2020
Azure Communication Services now available in public preview
Build engaging communication experiences with the same secure platform used by Microsoft Teams. Add video, voice, SMS, chat and telephony capabilities into almost any web, mobile or desktop application.
August 2020
Immersive Reader is now generally available
Immersive Reader is an Azure Cognitive Service for developers who want to embed inclusive capabilities into their apps for enhancing text reading and comprehension for users regardless of age or ability.
Public Preview: Cognitive Services Form Recognizer v2.1
Form Recognizer v2.1-preview.1 has been released. It includes support for new languages, checkbox/selection marks, and the submit multiple form types to a single model Id.
July 2020
Neural Text to Speech expands to new languages
Neural Text to Speech is expanding language support, with 15 new natural-sounding voices that feature state-of-the-art neural speech synthesis models:
Text Analytics for health is now available in preview
The health feature of Text Analytics uses natural language processing techniques to find and label valuable information in unstructured clinical documents such as doctor’s notes, discharge summaries, clinical documents, and electronic health records.
Custom Commands is now generally available
Streamline the process for creating task-oriented voice applications with Custom Commands (now generally available).
May 2020
Azure Text Analytics—Opinion mining is now available in preview
Opinion mining is now available in preview. A feature of sentiment analysis, it provides more granular information on the opinions related to aspects of a product or service mentioned in a review.
Azure Text Analytics v3 is now generally available
Azure Text Analytics v3 with sentiment analysis, key phrase extraction, language detection and named entity recognition capabilities, as well as model version controls, is now generally available.
New Cognitive Services capabilities are now available in preview
New Cognitive Services capabilities are now available in preview.
New Cognitive Services capabilities are now generally available
New Cognitive Services capabilities are now generally available.
February 2020
Azure Cognitive Services Computer Vision Read API v3.0 now in preview
Target availability: Q1 2020
Cognitive Services Computer Vision Read API of is now available in v3.0 (in preview). Read features the newest models for optical character recognition (OCR), allowing you to extract text from printed and handwritten documents.
Azure Cognitive Services—New types added to Named Entity Recognition v3
The Named Entity Recognition (NER) v3 service (in preview) of Cognitive Services Text Analytics now has new entity types available, expanding the detection of general and personal information entities found in text.
Azure Cognitive Services Translator Text—Five new languages added
Translator Text now supports five new languages—Irish, Punjabi, Malayalam, Kannada and Portuguese (Portugal).
November 2019
Azure Cognitive Services Translator Text— Maori language now available
Target availability: Q4 2019
Translator Text now supports the Maori language.
Migrate from Bing Speech to Speech Services and the Speech SDK by 14th January , 2020
Target retirement date: January 14, 2020
We’re extending the Bing Speech retirement date to 14th January, 2020.
Azure Cognitive Services Text Analytics—New languages added to sentiment analysis
Target availability: Q4 2019
Cognitive Services Text Analytics' sentiment analysis v3 now supports 10 languages including English, Japanese, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, German, and Dutch.
Azure Cognitive Services capabilities are now in preview
The following Azure Cognitive Services capabilities are now in preview—Custom Neural Voice capability Custom Speech with Office 365 data Text Analytics; Sentiment Analysis 3.0 Text Analytics; Expanded Entity Type Support in Entities 3.0 endpoint Text Analytics; Personally Identifiable Information support in Entities 3.0 endpoint.
October 2019
Twelve Cognitive Services are available for free with an Azure free account
Twelve Cognitive Services are now available for free with an Azure free account. Give your apps, websites and bots the ability to see, understand and interpret people’s needs using natural methods of communication.
September 2019
Public Preview: Computer Vision releasing 'Read' text extraction feature in containers
We are releasing our latest text understanding feature , 'Read', in Docker containers for customers to run locally.
Azure Cognitive Services Text Analytics—New sentiment analysis capability is now available
Cognitive Services Text Analytics has a new sentiment analysis capability supporting Japanese and Simplified Chinese languages in addition to the previously announced English language model.
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