Tag: alexa

Lina Khan is coming for Amazon, armed with an FTC antitrust suit
Technology

Lina Khan is coming for Amazon, armed with an FTC antitrust suit

[ad_1] Lina Khan's Federal Trade Commission has already filed three cases against Amazon.com Inc. Now she's gearing up for the Big One.In the coming weeks, the agency plans to file a far-reaching antitrust suit focused on Amazon's core online marketplace, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg and three people familiar with the case. The main allegation is expected to be that Amazon leverages its power to reward online merchants that use its logistics services and punish those who don't. FTC investigators and Khan's office have been honing the complaint for several months, two of the people said, and finalizing key details such as where to file suit. Khan and her colleagues are keen to file before personnel changes in August, according to the people, who cautioned that the timing ...
Kiljoy! No more ‘Hey Siri’! Apple set to make massive change
Technology

Kiljoy! No more ‘Hey Siri’! Apple set to make massive change

[ad_1] The phrase 'Hey Siri' has become an iconic feature introduced by Apple in 2014 to activate Siri, the virtual assistant. Over the years, it has gained popularity due to its references in popular culture. However, recent reports suggest that Apple might announce the removal of support for this trigger phrase at WWDC 2023, as indicated by Mark Gurman of Bloomberg. Gurman tweeted today, "I'd look out for that possibility next week."This potential change was first reported in November of the previous year when Gurman mentioned that Apple has been working on an initiative to eliminate the 'Hey' from the trigger phrase. Instead, users would only need to say 'Siri' along with a command to activate the virtual assistant. Bloomberg also stated that Apple has been working on implementing th...
Amazon Unveils New Gadgets as AI Race Heats Up
Technology

Amazon Unveils New Gadgets as AI Race Heats Up

[ad_1] Amazon.com Inc. introduced an updated slate of Echo devices and pledged to bring ChatGPT-style artificial intelligence to Alexa-powered gadgets.For more than a year the digital assistant has been using a home-built set of large language models — the foundational networks that enable ChatGPT and rival technologies — to help summarize text gathered from the web and make Alexa more conversant in various languages, Dave Limp, Amazon's senior vice president of Devices & Services, said in an interview. New, more conversational capabilities will “roll out incrementally,” he said. “It's not years away, but there are some things that we have to solve.” Amazon on Wednesday announced four updated Alexa devices:The Echo Pop, which takes the company's spherical, fabric-covered Echo Dot sm...
Kids judge Alexa more human than Roomba: Study
Technology

Kids judge Alexa more human than Roomba: Study

[ad_1] A new study from Duke developmental psychologists asked kids just that, as well as how smart and sensitive they thought the smart speaker Alexa was compared to its floor-dwelling cousin Roomba, an autonomous robotic vacuum cleaner.Four- to eleven-year-olds judged Alexa to have more human-like thoughts and emotions than Roomba. But despite the perceived difference in intelligence, kids felt neither the Roomba nor the Alexa deserve to be yelled at or harmed. That feeling dwindled as kids advanced towards adolescence, however. The findings appeared online April 10 in the journal Developmental Psychology. The research was inspired in part by lead author Teresa Flanagan, seeing how Hollywood depicts human-robot interactions in shows like HBO's "Westworld.""In Westworld and the movie E...
Social impact at scale with thoughtful APIs groomed with good design
Technology

Social impact at scale with thoughtful APIs groomed with good design

[ad_1] Navanwita Bora Sachdev is a freelance contributor and the Editor of The Tech Panda.The consequences of using Application Programming Interfaces (API) are undoubtedly far reaching, something that could be heaven sent for dispersing information and services on a large scale. Groomed with good design, thoughtful APIs for Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) could transform a society into a well-informed entity. APIs are often called the unsung heroes a user doesn't know about. Few users know just how many APIs are serving their needs in even the simplest of digital contractions, whether it's hailing an Uber, making a peer-to-peer payment, or communicating with a company via WhatsApp. APIs even drive streaming services like Netflix. In each of these, the customer-facing compa...
5 AI chatbot trends to look out for in 2023: Specialized Chatbots, Voice assistants, and more
Technology

5 AI chatbot trends to look out for in 2023: Specialized Chatbots, Voice assistants, and more

[ad_1] According to research, over 800 million people in more than 190 countries will be using chatbots to accomplish various tasks by 2023. Here are the 5 AI chatbot trends to look out for this year. Conversational AI has long passed the hype stage and evolved into a profitable technology for organizations, from voice assistants like Siri or Alexa to intelligent chatbots in customer care. The past ten years have seen tremendous progress in the conversational AI sector. This expansion was amplified by the pandemic. In essence, chatbots are essential for surviving and thriving, providing plenty of chances for businesses to improve their productivity and flexibility in the face of constantly shifting consumer demands. According to research, over 800 million people in more tha...
Apple might change its ‘Hey Siri’ voice assistant trigger phrase
Technology

Apple might change its ‘Hey Siri’ voice assistant trigger phrase

[ad_1] Switching to a single wake phrase might help Siri compete with Amazon's Alexa. American tech giant Apple is looking to change Siri's trigger phrase from 'Hey Siri', to just 'Siri', suggests a new report. According to The Verge, the said report was shared by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman and this change would mean that users would just need to say 'Siri' followed by a command to activate the smart assistant. Gurman noted that Apple's been working on this feature for the past several months and is expected to roll it out next year or in 2024. However, in order for the functionality to work effectively, Apple would need to invest a "significant amount of AI training and underlying engineering work," since the smart assistant will need to grasp the single wake word in numerous acc...