Microsoft gives developers more machine learning ammo

The next version of Microsoft's open source machine learning tools arrived today to give developers a hand in creating intelligent systems. The Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit (previously known as CNTK) provides a set of tools to help developers build systems based on deep learning, without requiring PhD-level knowledge. This revision of the Cognitive Toolkit provides a number of new features, including beta support for Keras, a popular high-level Python API for quickly coding up neural networks. TensorFlow and Theano, two other machine learning frameworks, already support Keras, and this update means it would be possible for data scientists to easily port their code between three different backends. The toolkit also includes support for compressing models to run on lower-powered devices, making it easier for companies to roll out machine learning to edge devices.