AT&T announced on Thursday it's launching a new skill on Amazon's Alexa-enabled devices that lets you send hands-free text messages. Starting today, Amazon's Alexa-powered device can send messages for you and send them to a list of contacts that have been pre-programmed. To get started, all you need to do is say "Alexa, ask AT&T to text (name), and the assistant will create your message. "Amazon Echo is ahead of the curve in terms of voice recognition technology and functionality," said Jeff Bradley, senior vice president, Device and Network Services Marketing. "AT&T is the first carrier to bring this unique skill to a product already known for innovation.

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. 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. Average in height, with a mop of chestnut hair, he is almost always smiling.

Apple's iPhones and iPads are losing the battle against Android devices. That's according to a new study by mobile diagnostics firms Blancco Technology Group (BTG), which claims that Apple's devices are less reliable and experienced a bigger failure rate than their Android counterpart, driven by bugs in the iOS 10 update. For the purposes of the report the word "failure" refers to any number of problem including instances of apps crashing, connection difficulties and overheating. About 62 per cent of iOS devices suffered performance failures in the third quarter of 2016 compared with 47 per cent of Android devices, the report found. The iPhone 6 was the main culprit with the highest failure rate of 13 per cent.

With the backing of supporters as varied as the CIA, Samsung, Intel, and one of the biggest wireless carriers in the world, MindMeld launched its conversational AI platform today. MindMeld's AI, which has been referred to as "Siri on steroids," is sometimes considered more advanced than other voice-enabled intelligent assistants. The first generation of AI-powered assistants failed to live up to the hype, according to the company. "Deep-Domain Conversational AI promises to power a new generation of AI assistants which can streamline common daily tasks such as placing a take-out order at a local restaurant, booking a flight or hotel reservation, creating a service appointment at an auto repair shop or doctor's office, or finding retail store and product information," the company said in a statement shared with VentureBeat. Voice-enabled intelligent assistants and chatbots made with the platform can go virtually anywhere, from websites, apps, and devices to messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger, Skype, and Slack.

AT&T on Thursday announced customers will be able to send text messages hands-free through Amazon's Alexa voice assistant, beginning on Friday. Alexa is the voice assistant powering Amazon's widely-popular Echo line of speakers. With AT&T's new Alexa skill, customers can ask to send a text, and Alexa will prompt them to speak the text message to send. Customers can add up to ten frequent contacts to the skill. "Amazon Echo is ahead of the curve in terms of voice recognition technology and functionality," Jeff Bradley, SVP of device and network services marketing at AT&T, said.

Trim touts itself as a "fast-learning, software-driven assistant that takes care of your money so you don't have to." Basically, Trim's A.I. looks through your finances (credit card statements, bank statements, etc.) and reminds you of all the recurring payments you're making. You can then send Trim a message through email or Facebook and begin an automated process to cancel those services--and save yourself a few extra bucks each month. Trim's A.I. can also challenge overdraft fees from your bank, which Trim co-founder/CEO Thomas Smyth says works nearly 50 percent of the time. Trim users eventually wanted to know if the A.I. could help with one of the most bothersome cancellations of all: internet from Comcast.

Australian telco customers have been warned to be alert for suspicious activity as police investigate reports that personal contact information is being offered for sale after being leaked by call centre staff in India. Telstra and Vodafone are urging customers to report any fraudulent activity after Fairfax Media reported on Wednesday that personal details of customers are being offered for sale by a Mumbai-based security firm, AI Solutions, which obtained them illegally from call centre operators. Clear-cut definition of de-identified data critical in legislation: Pilgrim Department of Finance to rebuild two-year-old IT system Turnbull's DTA to establish a whole-of-government program management office Vodafone continues losing customers as Telstra, Optus, Amaysim gain: Kantar Both telecommunications companies are aware of allegations AI Solutions is on-selling the contact numbers, addresses, and other private details. The details could potentially be used for identity theft, other privacy breaches or fraudulent activities, and by cold callers. Speaking at Telstra Investor Day on Thursday, Telstra CEO Andy Penn said the telco does not do business with AI Solutions.

The next flagship phone from Samsung, the Galaxy S8, is expected to arrive early next year with a major new feature: a built-in intelligent digital assistant. The artificial intelligence will be made possible by Samsung's acquisition of Viv Labs, which was announced last month. Founded by two of the creators of Siri, Apple's signature digital assistant, Viv Labs said its technology represents a "new paradigm" for how people interact with computers. The Viv AI uses something called dynamic program generation that creates software on the fly based on the intent of the request given to it. In a briefing reported yesterday by Reuters, Samsung said the addition of Viv's technology to the Galaxy S8 will enable a wide variety of new services for its customers.

Hal, Ex-Machina, the Terminator and Matrix movies, and I, Robot all trade on the beloved sci-fi meme of robotized AI and the public's collective psyche when it all goes wrong: fascination and fear. After all, if machines become faster, stronger, and brighter than humanity, why wouldn't they turn on their soft, meaty, and dim creators for either enslavement or a full-on purge?

At the recent Spark & Machine Learning Meetup in Brussels, Koen Dejonghe of Eurocontrol delivered a lightning talk titled "Simulation and processing of data streams in telecommunications." Specifically, Koen discussed the development of a prototype for processing of data coming from cell towers, executed for a telco operator in the Middle East--with the added difficulty that the customer could not provide real data. In the end, Koen developed a data generator in Scala/Akka, a data processor with Spark Streaming, and a visualization front-end with Node.js.