News production becomes automatic – meta editors are coming

News production is changing as the routine parts of editorial work are being automated. The University of Helsinki and VTT will explore how interesting and high-quality news can be produced automatically, as well as what kind of new user experiences can be offered.

In order to serve the increasingly demanding audiences in multiple digital channels, media houses are trying to automate the most routine editorial work. This way, the editors can concentrate on writing more challenging special stories and giving their audiences opportunities to immerse themselves in increasingly personalized news experiences.

The University of Helsinki and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd will research automatic news production where a personalised news experience is enabled by data and machine learning. Hyper locality and audience participation are the key elements here.

“Semi-automatic solutions will be the common practice: the editor will finalise the automatically produced text and define templates for automatic news generating programs. In the future, all editors will be, to some extent, meta editors”, believes VTT’s research professor Caj Södergård.

The degree of automation rises gradually

So far, automation has been trialed in news production by big actors, such as the American press agency AP (Associated Press), with writing analyses of financial statements for example. In addition to financial news, sports news is already automatically produced around the world.

“One can expect that producing other types of news can be automated up to a certain point depending on the availability of data. More demanding journalism – such as leading articles and in-depth articles – will remain the task of human journalists,” states the journalism researcher Carl-Gustav Lindén from Swedish School of Social Science, part of the University of Helsinki. 

“The University of Helsinki studies how data science can be applied to news production and its automation. We develop tools based on data mining and machine learning for journalists to streamline their work,” tells professor Hannu Toivonen from the department of computer science at University of Helsinki.

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd studies how automatically produced content affects the audience and what promotes and prevents an immersive experience. VTT is also responsible for the demonstration of a news ecosystem and studies new ways to distribute content in cooperation with the technology companies participating in the project.

The main financier of the Immersive Automation project is Tekes through their Media remake program. Other financiers of the project are Media Industry Research Foundation of Finland, The Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland, Sanoma, Alma Media, Conmio, Keski-Pohjanmaan Kirjapaino, and KSF Media as well as the research institutions.

 

Immersive Automation project website: immersiveautomation.com

 

Photo: Cata Portin

 

 

Created date

07.02.2017 - 18:29

Cold Aisle Containment in our server room

On Thursday 10 March 2011, we installed a so-called Cold Aisle Containment in the server room shared by the Department of Computer Science and HIIT. This is a rustic contraption made from transparent PE plastic, air-conditioning tubes, and a great deal of duct tape. It cuts back on the need to cool the server room very efficiently, as the air-tight plastic stops the intake and exhaust air from the servers from mixing.

HIIT study: Servers run well around zero degrees

Lots of energy can be saved by using outside air directly for cooling in data centers in the north. In a study by researchers of Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT and the University of Helsinki, computers functioned correctly over extended periods of time when run in harsh winter temperatures. Commercial, off-the-shelf computers ran well even when the outside temperature was -22C (-8F).

Master's degree studies in computer science popular among international applicants

Master's degree programmes in computer science at the University of Helsinki were very popular among international applicants in spring 2010. This academic year the department of computer science at the University of Helsinki decided to offer two of its Master's degree sub-programmes, namely the programme on Algorithms and Machine Learning and the programme on Networking and Services, completely in English from the beginning of Autumn term 2010.

Esko Ukkonen’s birthday coffee

The head of the department, Esko Ukkonen, celebrated his 60th birthday. The celebration was held in Exactum at the end of January. The party was attended by employees of the Department of Computer Science and invited guests. The programme included both congratulatory speeches and songs, with a quartet from Wiipurilaisen Osakunnan Laulajat (the Viipuri students’ association singers) singing a song for a former active member. Esko was inspector in Kymenlaakson Osakunta (the Kymenlaakso students’ association) for over ten years.