Azure Cognitive Services

Introduction

Azure Cognitive Services is a set of APIs and services available on Microsoft Azure that enables developers to integrate AI into their applications. These services are designed to help developers easily add capabilities such as vision, speech, language understanding, and decision-making into their solutions.

Key Services

Getting Started

To start using Azure Cognitive Services, follow these steps:

1. Create an Azure account.
2. Navigate to the Azure portal.
3. Search for "Cognitive Services" and create a new resource.
4. Choose the service you want to use.
5. Obtain your API key and endpoint URL.

Here is a code sample to call the Text Analytics API:

import Foundation

let key = "YOUR_API_KEY"
let endpoint = "YOUR_ENDPOINT_URL"
let text = "Azure Cognitive Services are great!"

guard let url = URL(string: "\(endpoint)/text/analytics/v3.0/sentiment") else { return }

var request = URLRequest(url: url)
request.httpMethod = "POST"
request.addValue("application/json", forHTTPHeaderField: "Content-Type")
request.addValue("Bearer \(key)", forHTTPHeaderField: "Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key")

let body: [String: Any] = [
    "documents": [
        ["language": "en", "id": "1", "text": text]
    ]
]
request.httpBody = try? JSONSerialization.data(withJSONObject: body)

let task = URLSession.shared.dataTask(with: request) { data, response, error in
    if let data = data {
        let json = try? JSONSerialization.jsonObject(with: data, options: [])
        print(json)
    }
}
task.resume()

Best Practices

When using Azure Cognitive Services, keep the following best practices in mind:

• Always handle errors gracefully to provide feedback to users.
• Monitor your usage to avoid unexpected charges.
• Utilize caching for repeated API calls to improve performance.
• Read the documentation for best integration techniques.

FAQ