Siri, Alexa, Google - we talk to them all today. But who breathed life into them? Speech recognition has gradually spread from IT labs to smart homes and has become a common part of everyday life. Getting information from audio recordings is becoming increasingly important. For the first time in its history, the Czech Republic will host the international conference Interspeech, which will take place in Brno from August 30 to September 3, 2021. Hundreds of world experts will arrive in the Moravian metropolis. More than 1400 will join the event online. Specialists will present news from the field, such as how to start using machine learning with a minimum of training data, or whether coronavirus infection can be recognized from the cough.

Miloš Musil from the Department of Information Systems at FIT created a new web application that helps scientists with ancestral reconstruction. He developed the unique tool in collaboration with scientists from the International Clinical Research Centre of St. Anne's University Hospital and researchers from the Loschmidt Laboratories at Masaryk University. There, they use the application to study molecular evolution and search for ancient proteins that no longer exist today. These can help, for example, in pharmacology, medicine or biotechnology.