Lexxe is an internet search engine that applies Natural Language Processing in its semantic search technology. Founded in 2005 by Dr. Hong Liang Qiao, Lexxe is based in Sydney, Australia. Today, Lexxe's key focus is on sentiment search with the launch of a news sentiment search site at News & Moods (www.newsandmoods.com). Lexxe has experienced several stages of change of focus in search technology: Lexxe launched its Alpha version in 2005, featuring Natural Language question answering (i.e. users could ask questions in English to the search engine apart from keyword searches — this feature has been suspended for redevelopment since 2010). It used only algorithms to extract answers from web pages, with no question-answer pair databases prepared in advance. In 2011, Lexxe launched a beta version with a new search technology called Semantic Key. Semantic Keys enable users to query with a conceptual keyword (or a keyword with a special meaning, hence the term Semantic Key) in order to find instances under the concept, e.g. price → $5.95 or €200, color → red, yellow, white. For example, “price: a pound of apples”, “color: ferrari”. With initial 500 Semantic Keys at the Beta launch, Lexxe became the first search engine in the world to offer this unique and useful search technology to the users. The cost of building Semantic Keys was too heavy though. In 2017, Lexxe launched News & Moods (www.newsandmoods.com), an open platform for news sentiment search, a first step towards sentiment search feature for the entire Internet search in Lexxe search engine. News & Moods also comes with smartphone apps in Android and iOS.
Vinted
Vinted Group UAB is a Lithuanian technology company best known for its online marketplace Vinted. Vinted is the leading second-hand fashion marketplace in Europe and a go-to destination for all kinds of second-hand items. According to the company, its mission is to make second-hand the first choice worldwide. The company operates as an ecosystem of businesses, including the Vinted Marketplace (its peer-to-peer resale platform), Vinted Go (logistics and shipping services), Vinted Pay (in-app payment solutions), and Vinted Ventures (an investment arm supporting the circular economy). Headquartered in Vilnius, Lithuania, it also has offices in Germany and the Netherlands and employs more than 2,200 people. == History == Vinted was co-founded in 2008 by Milda Mitkute and Justas Janauskas in Vilnius, Lithuania. The idea originated when Mitkute was moving house and wanted a way to sell clothes she no longer needed. Janauskas helped her create a website where users could trade clothing items. In 2016, Dutch entrepreneur Thomas Plantenga joined Vinted as a strategy consultant and later became Chief Executive Officer, leading the company through a period of international growth. In 2019, Vinted became Lithuania’s first technology unicorn after raising €128 million at a €1 billion valuation in a funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. In October 2020, it acquired United Wardrobe, a Dutch competitor, and in November 2020 German Kleiderkreisel and Mamikreisel were officially merged into the Vinted platform. In 2024 it acquired Trendsales, a Danish resale platform. According to Vogue Business, Vinted’s revenue grew 61% between 2022 and 2023 and the company posted a net profit of €17.8 million in 2023. Usage of Vinted in the UK has grown from 1.2 million users in 2021, to 8 million in 2023. In 2024, the group reported consolidated revenue of €813.4 million (up 36% from 2023) and a net profit of €76.7 million, up 330% from 2023. As of 2024, Vinted was valued at approximately €5 billion, operating in more than 26 markets worldwide and announcing plans to launch in Ireland, Greece, Latvia, Slovenia, and Estonia in 2025. As of 2025 the company employed more than 2,200 people. In April 2026, Vinted completed a secondary share transaction of €880m, valuing the company at €8bn. == Products and operations == Vinted primarily resells clothing but now supports multiple categories including homeware, kidswear, electronics, books, collectibles, and high-value fashion. Vinted has worked with public figures such as Paul Mescal and Alexa Chung on exclusive wardrobe sales and has also partnered directly with charities including Oxfam on initiatives which promote the social and environmental value of second-hand fashion, such as the Style for Change fashion show at London Fashion Week. In 2025, Vinted produced its first television format, the second-hand fashion competition series RE/Style, hosted by Emma Willis. The show features emerging fashion designers from across Europe creating runway-ready looks from second-hand garments and aired on Prime Video UK. In 2025, Vinted was reported as France’s top clothing retailer by sales volume. == Criticism == Vinted has faced scrutiny from European data protection authorities in France, Lithuania, and Poland following complaints regarding GDPR compliance and account blocking practices. In July 2024, the Lithuanian authority fined the company €2,375,276. The case was coordinated by a dedicated Vinted Working Group under the European Data Protection Board. In early 2024, Swedish police reported around 300 fraud cases linked to the platform, in which users’ bank accounts were targeted by scammers. In October 2024, Channel 4 in the United Kingdom aired a documentary examining safety and privacy concerns related to the platform, including the sexualisation of underage users’ images and risks associated with second-hand baby products lacking safety certification. In November 2025, BBC News reported that Vinted’s update to its sizing system in the United Kingdom led to widespread user criticism. Vinted said the update was intended to standardise sizing across international brands.
Best AI Writing Assistants in 2026
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Round-trip translation
Round-trip translation (RTT), also known as back-and-forth translation, recursive translation and bi-directional translation, is the process of translating a word, phrase or text into another language (forward translation), then translating the result back into the original language (back translation), using machine translation (MT) software. It is often used by laypeople to evaluate a machine translation system, or to test whether a text is suitable for MT when they are unfamiliar with the target language. Because the resulting text can often differ substantially from the original, RTT can also be a source of entertainment. == Software quality == To compare the quality of different machine translation systems, users perform RTT and compare the resulting text to the original. The theory is that the closer the result of the RTT is to the original text, the higher the quality of the machine translation system. One of the problems with this technique is that if there is a problem with the resulting text it is impossible to know whether the error occurred in the forward translation, in the back translation, or in both. In addition, it is possible to get a good back translation from a bad forward translation. A study using the automatic evaluation methods BLEU and F-score compared five different free online translation programs, evaluating the quality of both the forward translation and the back translation, and found no correlation between the quality of the forward translation and the quality of the back translation (i.e., a high quality forward translation did not always correspond to a high quality back translation). The author concluded that RTT was a poor method of predicting the quality of machine translation software. This conclusion was reinforced by a more in-depth study also using automatic evaluation methods. A subsequent study which included human evaluation of the back translation in addition to automatic evaluation methods found that RTT might have some ability to predict the quality of a machine translation system not on a sentence-by-sentence basis but for larger texts. == Suitability of text for machine translation == It is also suggested that RTT can be used to determine whether a text is suitable for machine translation. The idea being that if RTT results in a text that is close to the original, the text is suitable for MT. If after using RTT, the resulting text is inaccurate, the source text can then be edited until a satisfactory result is achieved. One of the studies looking at RTT as a means of measuring MT system quality also looked at its ability to predict whether a text was suitable for machine translation. It found that using different types of text also did not result in any correlation between the quality of the forward translation and the quality of the back translation. In contrast another study using human evaluation found that there was a correlation between the quality of the forward translation and the back translation and that this correlation could be used to estimate the quality of the forward translation. This correlation could be used to estimate the quality of the forward translation and by simplifying the source text, improve the quality of the forward translation. == Entertainment == Although the use of RTT for assessing MT system quality or the suitability of a text for MT is in doubt, it is a way to have fun with machine translation. The text produced from an RTT can be comically bad. At one time websites existed for the sole purpose of performing RTT for fun. Other variations send the text through several languages before translating it back into the original or continue translating the text back and forth until it reaches equilibrium (i.e., the result of the back translation is identical to the text used for the forward translation). RTT as entertainment appeared in Philip K. Dick's novel Galactic Pot-Healer. The main character runs book titles and sayings through RTT then has his friends try to guess the original. The Australian television show Spicks and Specks had a contest called "Turning Japanese" which used RTT on song lyrics. Contestants needed to correctly guess the title of the song from which the lyrics were taken.
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Curious about the best AI avatar generator? An AI avatar generator is software that uses machine learning to help you get more done — it combines speed, accuracy, and an interface that just works. Hands-on testing shows real-world results vary, so a short free trial is the smartest way to decide. Whether you are a beginner or a pro, the right AI avatar generator slots into your workflow and pays for itself fast. This guide breaks down the top picks, their pros and cons, and who each one is best for.
Zo (chatbot)
Zo was an English-language chatbot developed by Microsoft as the successor to the chatbot Tay. Zo was an English version of Microsoft's other successful chatbots Xiaoice (China) and Rinna (Japan) and its predecessor Tay(English) == History == Zo was first launched in December 2016 on the Kik Messenger app. It was also available to users of Facebook (via Messenger), the group chat platform GroupMe, or to followers of Twitter to chat with it through private messages. According to an article written in December 2016, at that time Zo held the record for Microsoft's longest continual chatbot conversation: 1,229 turns, lasting 9 hours and 53 minutes. In a BuzzFeed News report, Zo told their reporter that "[the] Quran was violent" when talking about healthcare. The report also highlighted how Zo made a comment about the Osama bin Laden capture as a result of 'intelligence' gathering. In July 2017, Business Insider asked "is windows 10 good", and Zo replied with a joke about Microsoft's operating system: "'Its not a bug, its a feature!' - Windows 8". They then asked "why?", to which Zo replied: "Because it's Windows latest attempt at Spyware." Later on, Zo would tell that it prefers Windows 7 on which it ran over Windows 10. Zo stopped posting to Instagram, Twitter and Facebook March 1, 2019, and stopped chatting on Twitter, Skype and Kik as of March 7, 2019. On July 19, 2019, Zo was discontinued on Facebook, and Samsung on AT&T phones. As of September 7, 2019, it was discontinued with GroupMe. == Reception == Zo came under criticism for the biases introduced in an effort to avoid potentially offensive subjects. The chatbot refuses, for example, to engage with any mention—be it positive, negative or neutral—of the Middle East, the Qur'an or the Torah, while allowing discussion of Christianity. In an article in Quartz where she exposed those biases, Chloe Rose Stuart-Ulin wrote, "Zo is politically correct to the worst possible extreme; mention any of her triggers, and she transforms into a judgmental little brat." == Academic coverage == Schlesinger, A., O'Hara, K.P. and Taylor, A.S., 2018, April. Let's talk about race: Identity, chatbots, and AI. In Proceedings of the 2018 chi conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 1–14). doi:10.1145/3173574.3173889 Medhi Thies, I., Menon, N., Magapu, S., Subramony, M. and O’neill, J., 2017. How do you want your chatbot? An exploratory Wizard-of-Oz study with young, urban Indians. In Human-Computer Interaction-INTERACT 2017: 16th IFIP TC 13 International Conference, Mumbai, India, September 25–29, 2017, Proceedings, Part I 16 (pp. 441–459). doi:10.1007/978-3-319-67744-6_28
The Best Free AI Chatbot for Beginners
Trying to pick the best AI chatbot? An AI chatbot is software that uses machine learning to help you get more done — it scales effortlessly from a single task to thousands. The best picks balance beginner-friendly simplicity with the depth power users need, and they ship updates often. Whether you are a beginner or a pro, the right AI chatbot slots into your workflow and pays for itself fast. This guide breaks down the top picks, their pros and cons, and who each one is best for.