Machine learning helps build better applications

New toolkits and training for developers allowing them to create intelligent applications have been launched by machine learning company Dato.

Developers can use Dato Toolkits to build software that uses machine learning technology, combining historical data and real time user interaction to make predictions and decisions to deliver rich and adaptive experiences to their users.

The machine learning tookits include recommendation engines that can be added to applications to personalize user experiences by mining patterns in purchase and activity history, matching common users' tastes, and predicting future purchases or interests.

Image search and feature extraction using deep learning can be used to create more intuitive search experiences, automatically tag photos, and improve other application performance by using features extracted from images. Churn prediction detects which customers are likely to cancel a subscription or service by using advanced analytics to detect specific patterns. It can be added to applications to identify which customers are at risk of leaving.

There's also sentiment analysis which uses natural language processing, text analysis and computational linguistics to identify and extract subjective information in source materials. The technology can be used to discover the tone of a post in support forums or a customer’s opinion of a brand or product in reviews for better targeting.

"Over the next five years, every disruptive business will be differentiated by the intelligence of their applications. Machine learning is the core technology to make such intelligence happen," says Carlos Guestrin, Dato co-founder and CEO, and Amazon Professor of Machine Learning at the University of Washington. "We see a huge number of developers adding machine learning to their applications using the Dato platform, which is really exciting for us. Recommendation engines, sentiment analysis, churn prediction and deep learning are some of the most sought after machine learning technologies that help companies like Pandora, Zillow and StumbleUpon create new personalized customer experiences in real time".

In addition Dato has announced a partnership with Coursera and the University of Washington to deliver a six-course Machine Learning curriculum. Participants will be able to master machine learning fundamentals in six hands-on courses using the Dato platform. The course explains how to apply machine learning techniques to large and complex datasets, build applications that can make predictions from data, and create systems that adapt and improve over time.

You can find out more about Dato toolkits and download a free 30-day trial on the company's website.

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