Apple's Phil Schiller just shared his honest thoughts about the Amazon Echo and Google Home smart speakers. He also indirectly pointed out what he thinks is lacking in these devices. Gadgets 360 has finally published its interview with Apple's Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing when he was in Bengaluru, India last March. When Schiller was asked to comment on the famous smart speakers Amazon Echo and Google Home, he responded that he won't give specific comments on each device. He then candidly added, "My mother used to have a saying that if you don't have something nice to say, say nothing at all." Schiller continued by saying that he'll just tackle the general concepts.

THE ASSET management industry in this part of the world is ripe for a disruption with the advent of quantitative-styled investing methods. Quantitative or quant funds employ artificial intelligence (AI) through specialised computer software or algorithms that study patterns and asset prices to use this information to execute trading strategies. Such softwares reduce or totally eliminate the need for human intervention in the investing or trading process that is present in the traditional human discretional approach through fund managers and brokers. "There are hardly any quant funds in the region now. Traditionally, people want a track record of investing. "As most quant funds are new, they are usually assessed on their back-tested results," AmInvest's chief executive officer (CEO) Datin Maznah Mahbob tells StarBizWeek. The emergence of such funds as an alternative to the active or discretional approach will further add to competition and pressure fund management fees downwards. "Fund management fees for active funds have been under pressure for the past ten years, as most have struggled to outperform index funds and exchange traded funds, which are cheaper alternatives.

HOUSTON – An arriving passenger uses a biometric scanner at George H. W. Bush Intercontinental Airport February 1, 2008 in Houston, Texas. Under President Donald Trump, technology companies have started cashing in on a little-noticed government push to ramp up the use of biometric tools -- such as fingerprinting and iris scanners -- to track people who enter and exit the country. Silicon Valley firms that specialize in data collection are taking advantage of a provision tucked into Mr. Trump's executive order on immigration, which included his controversial travel ban, that called for the completion of a "Biometric Entry-Exit Tracking System" for screening travelers entering and leaving the United States. The tracking system was mandated in a 1996 immigration law passed by Congress but never fully implemented by Trump's past three predecessors. In Trump's first months in office, federal courts blocked the sections of his original and revised immigration orders that called for a temporary travel ban on visitors from seven majority Muslim countries.

Inventec has reportedly scored a deal to build Apple's Amazon Echo-like Siri speaker device. Apple hasn't confirmed its personal assistant appliance is a real thing yet, but evidence keeps surfacing that seems to support it's on the way. The latest report comes via Taiwan's Economic Daily News. According to their supply chain sources, Inventec is either assembling components or building the entire device. The company builds Apple's AirPods, so a working relationship is already in place.

When IBM supercomputer Deep Blue defeated chess champion Garry Kasparov in May 1997, it was considered a monumental achievement for artificial intelligence. But in his new book, Deep Thinking, Kasparov shows how this discovery only set up a number of new hurdles for the artificial intelligence world to overcome. "We realized after 1997 that it's very much back to square one because beating the world champion and making it to the top of Mount Everest in chess - we just discovered at that point that there are many, many high peaks ahead of us," Kasparov told NBC News' Chuck Todd in the latest edition of 1947: The Meet the Press Podcast. "The question of artificial intelligence still remained unanswered." Kasparov, who has been a vocal critic of Vladimir Putin's regime in Russia, notes that there is an intersection between his interests in computing and democracy.

From Wall Street to politics, quantitative analysts (or quants) are revolutionizing much of the world. Nowadays, that even includes horse racing. By using computers to identify hidden patterns in past racing data and arcane mathematics to optimize every aspect of their betting strategies, horse racing quants can confidently wager staggering amounts. At first, that may seem good: more money in the pot means the house and the winners take more home. Still, their trades have been blamed for (among other things) driving away other bettors and shrinking prizes for everyone over time.

After its stock price reached a record high in Hong Kong earlier this week, Chinese internet giant Tencent, now valued at more than $300 billion, made the list of the 10 most-valuable companies in the world. The company is best known for its popular social messaging platform WeChat, mobile payment solutions and fast-growing mobile gaming segment. During Tencent's 2016 annual results announcement, management reiterated "Connection" as its strategy for 2017--which means WeChat will remain at the core of Tencent's business development strategy, and with good justification. Within just six years, the social messaging platform has grown to become one of the largest communication platforms in the world, rivaling other popular apps such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. The core value of WeChat is in the conversation data generated by the enormous user base, which Tencent monetizes through advertisements and additional offerings such as mobile games and payments.

Given the ubiquity of fakes among re-sellers, buyers often examine pre-owned fashion to deduce authenticity, often analyzing the stitching, font size and interior labels. But sometimes, a copy is just so well-made that the human eye can't tell it from the original. Entrupy is a portable scanning device that instantly detects imitation designer bags by taking microscopic pictures that take into account details of the material, processing, workmanship, serial number, and wear/tear. It then employs the technique of deep learning to compare the images against a vast database that includes top luxury brands and if the bag is deemed authentic, users immediately get a Certificate of Authenticity. After launching as a paid service in September 2016, the New York-based venture now has over 130 paid customers, almost all of whom are American businesses drawn to the 97.1 percent accuracy rate, explained Entrupy CEO Vidyuth Srinivasan.

Every person on Earth got the equivalent of an extra x-ray from the Fukushima nuclear disaster, a new study claims. Researchers have carried out the first global survey of radiation exposure caused by the meltdown of three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan after a tsunami struck in 2011. They concluded that people need not panic about the dosage. Every person on Earth got the equivalent of an extra x-ray from the Fukushima nuclear disaster, a new study claims. 'We don't need to worry,' Nikolaos Evangeliou at the Norwegian Institute for Air Research, whose team conducted the tests, told the annual meeting of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna, Austria, last month, according to New Scientist.

With the advent of Chatbots, personal assistants and robo-advisors, it may not be too hard to imagine that the next wave of technology could revolutionize the traditional style of banking. An Accenture report recently indicated that within the next three years, banks will deploy Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) as their primary method to interact with customers. In early 2016, Swedish-speaking Amelia became the first non-English deployment of IPsoft's AI platform at SEB, one of Sweden's largest bank. The bank adopted "digital employee" Amelia to integrate into its front-office. The cognitive agent solves problems just like humans "but in a fraction of the time", interacts just like humans and even senses emotions.