The field of Multi-Agent System (MAS) is an active area of research within Artificial Intelligence, with an increasingly important impact in industrial and other real-world applications. Within a MAS, autonomous agents interact to pursue personal interests and/or to achieve common objectives. Distributed Constraint Optimization Problems (DCOPs) have emerged as one of the prominent agent architectures to govern the agents' autonomous behavior, where both algorithms and communication models are driven by the structure of the specific problem. During the last decade, several extensions to the DCOP model have enabled them to support MAS in complex, real-time, and uncertain environments. This survey aims at providing an overview of the DCOP model, giving a classification of its multiple extensions and addressing both resolution methods and applications that find a natural mapping within each class of DCOPs. The proposed classification suggests several future perspectives for DCOP extensions, and identifies challenges in the design of efficient resolution algorithms, possibly through the adaptation of strategies from different areas.

Qualcomm executives called the new Asus Lyra Voice a model for routers going forward: partly a speaker, partly a router, and powered by Amazon's Alexa assistant. The company said it's trying to convince ISPs like Cox and Comcast to move in that direction. Unlike AMD and Intel, you can't buy Qualcomm chips to build your own smartphones and routers. But when company executives take the stage at CES to describe how future products should look, it's worth paying attention. Qualcomm announced three versions of its Smart Audio Platform--complete with a quad-core ARM A53 processor, audio DSP, 802.11ac

Alexa and Google Assistant are appearing on what seems like every single gadget at CES 2018, but Cortana's absence from the party has made it the butt of jokes. Luckily, Qualcomm has announced that it's Smart Audio Platform, which includes microphone, speaker and voice recognition tech, now supports Cortana. That will make it a lot easier for smart speaker manufacturers to build devices around the neglected bot, instead of Google and Amazon's more popular platforms. Microsoft's Cortana has recently landed on Harmon Kardon's Invoke speakers (below) and its own Cortana thermostat. Apart from those wins, however, it's getting badly beaten in its race with Amazon and Google to get voice AI onto gadgets.

Qualcomm has announced a new chipset that the company claims will vastly improve wireless earbuds and solve the device's biggest problem. Called the QCC5100, the new Qualcomm SoC (system-on-chip) will be able to deliver three times the battery life of future wireless earbuds. "This breakthrough single-chip solution is designed to dramatically reduce power consumption and offers enhanced processing capabilities to help our customers build new life-enhancing, feature-rich devices," Qualcomm senior vice president Anthony Murray said. "This will open new possibilities for extended-use hearable applications including virtual assistants, augmented hearing and enhanced listening" The Qualcomm QCC5100 series chipset will be made available to makers of truly wireless earbuds soon. It comes with its own dedicated application processor sub-system, dual DSP architecture and next-gen ADK software.

The Internet of Things is going to get noisier. Qualcomm is launching its Home Hub platform with support for Android Things and Google Assistant. At CES 2018, the big tech trade show in Las Vegas, Qualcomm unveiled its purpose-built platforms and system modules for home devices that are enabled with the artificial intelligence of Google Assistant. The Home Hub platform is based on the Qualcomm SDA624 and SDA212 system on chips (SoCs). The idea is to make it easy for Qualcomm's customers to create devices for the Internet of Things, which makes everyday objects smart and connected.

As part of a series of news announced today by Google, wireless headphones made to work especially with Google Assistant are on the way from brands like JBL, Sony, and LG. Up until today, some of the only headphones optimized for Google Assistant were the Bose QuietComfort 35 II and Pixel Buds, Google's first-ever wireless headphones. Also announced today: Google Assistant is coming to a series of new smart speakers -- including some with visual touchscreen displays -- and Google Assistant will become the assistant for Android Auto. Google Assistant can be accessed through any pair of wired or wireless headphones connected to an Android device, but headphones with this kind of integration allow access the AI assistant without the need to open your phone. With the touch of a button on the side of the headphones, you can speak directly with Google Assistant to do things like create calendar events, make phone calls, and receive auditory push notifications.

Nakul Duggal, Qualcomm's vice president of product management, sticks his head into a Cadillac SUV and points up at a gaping rectangular hole in the ceiling. A hole in this ceiling is hardly remarkable: the whole car looks like a bomb went off inside. Seats face the wrong direction, and wires dangle from places you didn't even know there were wires. A few feet away, two more cars--a Ford and a Maserati--sit in roughly the same condition. Qualcomm made its name, and fortune, in smartphones.

Total Access Communication Public Company Limited (or DTAC) is the third-largest mobile phone provider in Thailand (AIS and True are the biggest). DTAC has some 23.2 million subscribers and a market share of 30 percent. DTAC has won the "Best Mobile Operator of Thailand" award three times. With its focus on being a customer friendly telecom company, DTAC has a program of continuous improvement in place and this includes digital transformation initiatives. This includes artificial intelligence and Internet of Things devices.

When the engineers had at last finished their work, Eugenia Kuyda opened a console on her laptop and began to type. "This is your digital monument." It had been three months since Roman Mazurenko, Kuyda's closest friend, had died. Kuyda had spent that time gathering up his old text messages, setting aside the ones that felt too personal, and feeding the rest into a neural network built by developers at her artificial intelligence startup. She had struggled with whether she was doing the right thing by bringing him back this way. At times it had even given her nightmares. But ever since Mazurenko's death, Kuyda had wanted one more chance to speak with him. A message blinked onto the screen. "You have one of the most interesting puzzles in the world in your hands," it said. Kuyda promised herself that she would. Born in Belarus in 1981, Roman Mazurenko was the only child of Sergei, an engineer, and Victoria, a landscape architect. They remember him as an unusually serious child; when he was 8 he wrote a letter to his descendents declaring his most cherished values: wisdom and justice. In family photos, Mazurenko roller-skates, sails a boat, and climbs trees.

Imagine an artificially-intelligent smartphone so clever that when we point the camera at a beautiful scene, it will guide us to the best spot to snap a picture, ensuring the lighting, composition, and colors are all perfect. It's a feature that in theory is not too far away. Don't worry, this nightmare scenario is nonsense, and a great example of how artificial intelligence and its benefits are still misunderstood. At a recent event in London, Huawei gathered together experts on AI and human behavior to put our minds at rest about how the technology will help free us from mundane decisions, and actually encourage creativity further. Huawei has a vested interest in making us understand the benefits of AI.