Binge-watching videos teaches computers to recognise sounds

Now machines are going on internet-watching sprees too – but with something to show for it. After viewing a year's worth of online videos, a computer model has learned to distinguish between sounds such as bird chirps, door knocks, snoring and fireworks. Such technology could transform how we interact with machines and make it easier for our cellphones, smart homes and robot assistants to understand the world around them. Computer vision has dramatically improved over the past few years thanks to the wealth of labelled data machines can tap into online. They can now recognise faces or cats as accurately as a human can.