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Sep '22 Tech Events

User Groups Sep 15: GLUG.Net ( https://www.meetup.com/GLUGnet / )   Sep 15: DotNet Lasi ( https://www.meetup.com/DotNetIasi ) Sep 21: .Net Study Group ( https://www.meetup.com/net-study-group/ ) Sep 22: Cleveland C#/VB.Net User Group ( https://www.meetup.com/Cleveland-C-VB-Net-User-Group ) Sep 28: Cloud Data Platform Virtual Group ( https://www.meetup.com/cloud-data-platform-virtual-group / )    Conferences Sep 17: Monthly Azure Data Platform ( https://www.meetup.com/techforum-technical-community/events/287964309/ ) Nov 8-11: TechBash 2022 ( https://www.techbash.com/ )  

May '22 Tech Events

User Groups May 4: “Machine Learning in .Net” ( https://www.meetup.com/Roanoke-Valley-NET-User-Group/events/285301621/ ) May 11: Azure Cleveland ( https://www.meetup.com/Azure-Cleveland-Meetup/ ) May 19: GLUG.Net ( https://www.meetup.com/GLUGnet/events/ ) May 26: Cleveland C#/VB.Net User Group ( https://www.meetup.com/Cleveland-C-VB-Net-User-Group )   Conferences May 5-7: Global Azure 2022 ( https://globalazure.net / )  May 6: StirTrek ( https://stirtrek.com / )  

Mar/Apr '22 Tech Events

Virtual User Group Meetings for Mar/Apr ‘22   Mar 24: “Predicting Flights with Azure Databricks” - https://www.meetup.com/NWVDNUG/events/284074689/ Mar 29: “Machine Learning in .Net” - https://www.meetup.com/Edmonton-NET-User-Group/events/284389088/ Apr 4: Ohio North Database Training- https://www.meetup.com/ohio-north-database-training/events/ Apr 13: Azure Cleveland - https://www.meetup.com/Azure-Cleveland-Meetup/ Apr 21: GLUG.Net - https://www.meetup.com/GLUGnet/events/ Apr 28: Cleveland C#/VB.Net User Group - https://www.meetup.com/Cleveland-C-VB-Net-User-Group  

Mar '22 Technical Events

Virtual User Group Meetings Mar 1: Ohio North Database Training ( https://www.meetup.com/ohio-north-database-training/events/ )  Mar 9: Azure Cleveland ( https://www.meetup.com/Azure-Cleveland-Meetup/ ) Mar 17: GLUG.Net ( https://www.meetup.com/GLUGnet/events/ ) Mar 24: Cleveland C#/VB.Net User Group ( https://www.meetup.com/Cleveland-C-VB-Net-User-Group )  

Overview of Cognitive Services

Microsoft’s Azure offers a great deal of features and capabilities.  One of them is Cognitive Services, where users can access a variety of APIs to help mimic a human response.  Some features include converting text to spoken speech, speech to text, and even the equivalent human understanding of a spoken phrase.  These services are divided into 4 major categories, as seen below.  Please note “Computer Vision” and “Custom Vision” sound very similar but their capabilities are different, as outlined in the “Vision” section below.   Decision Anomaly Detector: Identify potential problems in time series data. Content Moderator: Detect potentially offensive or unwanted content. Personalizer: Create rich, personalized experiences for every user.   Language LUIS (Language Understanding Intelligent Service) QnA Maker: Create a conversational question and answer layer over your data. Text Anal...

How (and Why) You Should Use Speech-to-text

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Overview Speech-to-text is one of the many cognitive services offered by Azure.  All Azure cognitive services can be classified into one of four primary categories: Decision Language Speech Vision Each category contains a variety of services, with Speech-to-text categorized in the “Speech” category.  It converts spoken language to text using either an SDK or web API call.  Both methods will require a subscription key, obtained by a brief resource setup in the Azure portal.  Speech-to-text can be configured to recognize a variety of languages as displayed at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cognitive-services/speech-service/language-support . In addition, the source of the speech could be either live spoken words, or a recording.   How to Use Speech-to-text Project Setup (using SDK) Setup the Speech-to-text resource in Azure.  Simply specify “speech services” in the search bar, and all speech resources in Azure marketplace wi...

AI Document Processing Workflows Q&A

Recently Vinod Kurpad delivered a presentation on using AI to build document processing workflows.  The presentation s lides can be found at  https://on24static.akamaized.net/event/34/60/86/0/rt/1/documents/resourceList1636579433122/useaitobuilddocumentprocessingworkflows1636579401517.pdf   By using AI, several boxed fields (i.e. SSN) on a forma can be treated as 1 field.  It allows dynamic entities, like tables, to recognize multiple rows in a single table with various column types.   Listed below are questions and answers discussed during the presentation:   Could the Form Recognizer be used in Power Apps for receipt processing? Instead of using the AI Builder SKU that comes with Power Apps at an additional licensing cost Form Recognizer is available in Power Apps and has a receipt processing app in Power Apps. Licensing model in this scenario is via Power Apps.  https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/process-receipts-with-a...