Release initially on November 9, 2015, Google’s open source platform for Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Deep Learning called TensorFlow, has had a huge impact on AI research. TensorFlow has helped researchers predict cancer, ease machine translation, enhance image recognition, and speed up speech recognition. In February this year, Google announced that they were “excited to see people using TensorFlow in over 6000 open-source repositories online.“ Today, major companies like Uber, Twitter, Snapchat, Qualcomm, Airbnb, Ebay and several others implement TensorFlow.

The Launch of TensorFlow Lite

Unfortunately, TensorFlow was primarily for computers, until now. In Google’s I/O, Dave Burke, the vice president of engineering for Android, announced the soon-to-be-released TensorFlow Lite for mobile. He said “TensorFlow Lite will leverage a new neural network API to tap into silicate specific accelerators, and over time we expect to see DSPs (Digital Signal Processors) specifically designed for neural network inference and training.” He further added “We think these new capabilities will help power the next generation of on-device speech processing, visual search, augmented reality, and more.”

This new library will allow developers to build Machine Learning apps which run faster while being less expensive on the system. The framework will enable development of deep learning models, and thus bring AI with a greater impact to the mobile platform. We could expect social media apps to become smarter by giving better recommendations. Photo, video or document editing apps could soon have cooler tools, enabling higher customizability and enhancing ease of use. New games could have better Augmented Reality graphics and smoother gameplay. Speech recognition and translation apps would become more user friendly, and way smarter. Most importantly, TensorFlow Lite will enable smaller companies to develop high quality AI apps, thus giving them an opportunity to grow significantly.

Any AI software requires training a huge dataset, which remains a major task, and a task which is computationally too expensive to be handled by smartphones. So in spite of TensorFlow Lite, the training of the models would still have to be performed on the cloud. But as Burke mentioned, Android O will introduce “a new framework” to hardware to enable accelerated neural computations. We can be sure that the future will see several modifications not only in software, but in hardware too. Thus, powered with these new technologies, we can push AI to new limits.

This is exactly how mobile apps are revolutionizing F&B industry right now. Digitalization and specifically – Mobile Apps have a certain amount of control over targets. If the Apps can take F&B Business to a whole new level, then it can certainly help aspiring Musicians and artists grow.

What are the problems aspiring Artists face?

Platform to showcase talent

So why are Reality shows like America’s Got Talent, American Idol, etc. popular? Some young talents find these shows as a platform to showcase their talents. It may be aired on television for the channel’s sake but Artists believe that the media dominance will help them attract potential sponsors or agents to help them find different projects and hop on the expressway to become famous! Now, what if some other medium can provide everything the reality show can provide? Like – Global Fan Base, the medium that potential clients actively engage in? Then the artists see no point in not availing such medium. Mobile Apps have become Indispensable.

Kickstarter is a global community and a creativity platform where several artists, musicians, designers, and filmmakers, etc. pitch their talent and help crowdfund for support and resources to get their project up and running. This App (Website Community) is a blessing in disguise for several artists around the world as this serves as a platform to showcase their talent.

Monetization

How can Mobile Apps make money for Artists? Well, Isn’t that a million-dollar question. While Indiegogo brags that they are Launchpad for the entrepreneurial idea, it is still a great place to start crowdfunding. If an already existing super-famous medium can reach about 10 million people of which, at least a 10 percent are super fan of an artist’s work; given a quarter of those 10 percent are willing to spend relatively less amount of the Conventional Album Release Buy-Out then wouldn’t that be a start for the so-called Monetization? This is exactly how Kickstarter and Indiegogo and several other mediums function.

One might be wondering how a virtual platform could possibly allow talents to get exposure and monetize, they do not know about Oculus. Palmer Luckey, now 23, started out building the prototype for the Oculus Rift in his parents’ garage. When Oculus turned to Kickstarter in 2012 to develop its product, it quickly blew past its $250,000 fundraising goal. The crowdfunding campaign was just the beginning for the nascent VR company: In March 2014, while Oculus was still in the prototype stage, Facebook agreed to acquire it for $2 billion in cash and stock. The deal showed the potential for virtual reality, and for the Oculus Rift, far beyond gaming.

Sustaining Audience

If one wants the crowd to stay loyal then it is only fair the artist stays loyal to the crowd. The Best Thing about a well-planned Campaign is the timing and content that reaches the audience. If your work is called Project A and then the Campaign set for A and the frequency at which your fan base is communicated strategically then that is the key to sustenance.
So what is the one way to ensure crowd stays engaged to the “brand?” To be able to provide content that catches their eye. But of course, even the best of content will escape one’s eye if they do not want to see.

So how do we know when people want to read about us or listen to our artists’ music? This can be done by Intelligent Delivery. It’s a message delivery feature that identifies when each targeted customer is most likely to engage with your outreach and ensures that the messages you send are delivered during that window.

Fame

If an artist can start on an unfamiliar medium, able to Monetize their talent and Sustains Audience that does not bring them fame. Mobile Apps can only take them so far. It is their raw energy and creativity that scores Fame. Musicians need to be recognizable within their specific genre, and each genre has slightly different approaches and methodology to success.

Although the Music Industry has fallen and risen up in the last century, Mobile Apps offer promising features for aspiring musicians and artists to help grow.

Unroll.me

About the Product

Say Good-Bye to the Rookie Marketers who think they can push traffic to their website by spamming your mailbox. Unroll.me is simply brilliant as it lists down all the subscriptions tied to your email and helps you organize. It is a free service that makes you productive as it gets and the best part is it is not just productive for entrepreneurs but for everybody with too many subscription problems.

How Unroll.me Adds Value

1. Easy one-step sign-up that detects all your subscriptions in no time.
2. It allows you to ensure that the required message reaches you through the vast sea of unwanted information.
3. This product also has a roll-up feature that (given that you added those subscriptions under roll-up category) compiles all the news and sends it to you in one email in the evening/morning/afternoon (User-Choice).

Venmo

About the Product

Venmo is like the underdog that people choose to overlook because of the spotlight on Paypal. Venmo is a true definition of a Productive App that helps users to transfer money faster and more secure than Paypal.

How Venmo Adds Value

1. Venmo is a free service that allows you to send money to anybody at any time, in a secure manner.
2. No Long forms to fill in to send money to your colleagues / Friends.
3. No additional charges for transferring money.

Pocket Analytics

About the Product

This again is an iOS app that consolidates access to a wide range of analytics services into a single app, thereby making the process of checking key metrics more efficient and the data more relevant. Users are able to view current, average, maximum, and total values for all metrics, as well as generate trend lines. Additionally, users can compare historical daily values across metrics from different accounts and services by simply tapping on a graph.

How Pocket Analytics Adds Value

1. It reduces the frequency of constantly switching between different apps on your phone, and also from checking various websites.

2. Reduces hassle in checking status – the user doesn’t have to log into Google Analytics / Facebook insights, etc., separately every time they want to check status because Pocket Analytics displays all information on the same screen.

3. The app is extremely flexible in allowing the user to customize how their data is presented – website visitor statistics can be placed next to app store sales data, which in turn can be next to link sharing metrics – each from a different account with a different service.

4. Users can also create their own tabs in the app to construct mini dashboards for related metrics from their accounts. Users then choose the graphs and charts to add to each tab and can arrange them using a simple drag and drop mechanism.

Evernote

About the Product

Despite what the Evernote Corporation has come through, the product is considered to be a “must-have” in every Entrepreneurs arsenal. This is a cross-platform app that can replace the best of Personal Assistants in the world. Speaking of Digitization that cuts people’s jobs -Evernote can act as your digital file cabinet, note-taking tool, daily journal, task or project management system, recipe-keeper, and more.

How Evernote Adds Value

1. Evernote integrates with just about anything.
2. It has browser extensions that allow the user to save a web page for future reference.
3. Evernote cross-platform support (desktop apps, web apps, mobile apps) you can offload all of your reference materials, ideas, to-do tasks, or other digital items without having to worry about where you’ve collected all those random bits of information. It’s one container to store them all.
4. Scans all donations and other important receipts by scanning and emailing.
5. It Digitizes your Physical Notes and backs them up in the Cloud.

Workflow

About the Product

Workflow is an iOS app that executes a series of actions in a single flow. iOS devices have evolved into powerful modern computers, but there are still some areas where users can be slowed down by app limitations, or by the tedious process of performing the same task over and over. Workflow takes care of just that.

How Workflow Adds Value

1. Deep integration with iOS apps that makes the flow quicker and easier.
2. When automating, it saves time on a trivial task that you repeat 10 times a day by helping you save 30 seconds on an impressive workflow you only need once a month.
3. Workflow neatly organizes actions by category and system integrations (documents, Health, Photos, etc.); you can also view suggested actions or search.
4. Users can avail ‘Show Alert’ and ‘Quick Look’ actions to debug what is going on to preview that the correct text or image is being passed to the next action without having to wait until the end for the final output.

Good or bad, we’d love to hear your thoughts. Find us on Twitter (@Bitcot) and check out my website.