Alexa can now modulate its voice beyond whispering in hushed tones. Amazon has introduced a'newscaster' voice in the US that kicks in when Alexa reads the day's news or recites Wikipedia information. It's not going to replace the news anchor for your favorite media outlet, but the speaking style is more authoritative and doesn't sound quite so out-of-place as Alexa's standard voice. The trick, Amazon said, is the use of Neutral Text-To-Speech (NTTS) technology that relies on deep learning to create the speech signal. The AI-based system learns to both intonate more effectively and emphasize the right words in a sentence.

I recently discovered it's possible for someone in their 20s to feel old--just mention Microsoft's Clippy to anyone born after the late 90s. Weirdly, there is an entire generation of people who never experienced that dancing wide-eyed paper-clip interrupting a Word doc writing project. For readers who never knew him, Clippy was an interactive virtual assistant that took the form of an animated paperclip designed to be helpful in guiding users through Microsoft Word. As an iconic symbol of its decade, Clippy was also famously terrible. Worldwide consensus decided that Clippy was annoying, intrusive, and Time magazine even named it among the 50 worst inventions of all time (squeezed between'New Coke' and Agent Orange.

A good remote can make all the difference with a streaming device, adding control and convenience to the cornucopia of content options available. Now, Amazon's Fire TV lineup is adding much more power to its viewing experience with a slick new remote, and you can grab one today for just $15, a unheard-of 50 percent drop from its list price of $30. This remote is easy to use but comes with plenty of bells and whistles, including Amazon's Alexa digital assistant built-in for voice control. To take that even further, you can also connect this remote to an Amazon Echo. If you use it to control a Fire TV Stick (note that it won't work with the 1st-gen edition), you'll finally be able to manage volume and power from your remote, with an infrared emitter that allows it to control your TV, A/V receiver, or soundbar.

Recently, numerous changes have taken place in the digital world. Almost all the conventional and human interpreted tasks are replaced with automated devices. Thanks to AI-based techniques, particularly machine learning and IoT based devices with its capability to grow, learn from previous experiences, thereby providing accurate results with enhanced operational efficiency and minimizing unplanned downtime. In a nutshell, it is hoped that almost every practical item will have a way to connect to the internet and communicate with other devices. The proliferation of AI-powered personal assistants such as Google Home and Amazon Alexa also indicates a general trend in IoT.

Recent advances in the field of artificial intelligence are gaining widespread attention from the world because of the impact that they can have on our lives. From speech recognition, virtual home assistants to learning platforms, things have gotten very interesting in the tech industry. Tech-giants have been racing against each other to incorporate AI aspects into their newest creations so as to make the human experience much more comfortable. By adding characteristics that understand children, empathy and work routines, artificial intelligence technology is set to become a revolution. Here are some of the recent advances in the field of artificial intelligence, in terms of research and technology.

More and more people are wearing headphones as they go about their daily lives. These mainstays of personal audio have evolved over the years, becoming untethered by wires while improving their sound quality and adding new and useful features. The JBL Everest 710GA is a perfect case in point, promising exceptional sound quality and a host of features--including Google Assistant--all without cumbersome cables. The JBL Everest 710GA over-ear headphones use 40mm full-range drivers to reproduce frequencies from 10Hz to 22kHz with a maximum SPL (sound pressure level) of 111dB. The padded earcups and headband are designed for maximum comfort, and the earcups fold flat into the headband for storage in the included hard-shell case.

Amazon's Alexa has gone down and is ignoring user's requests, according to numerous reports from customers. Alexa is the name given to the artificial intelligence (AI) system that powers the Echo device range. The smart assistant has been down since early this morning but users say that the device either won't switch off or is switching itself off. Outage tracker Down Detector– the website that tracks outages – received hundreds of complaints about Alexa not working at around 8am this morning UK time. Amazon's Alexa has gone down and is ignoring user's requests, according to reports from frustrated customers.

As people increasingly use their mobile phones and other devices to shop, it has become imperative for vendors to improve the shopping experience, making it as simple as possible, given the small footprint. One way to do that is using artificial intelligence. Today, Salesforce announced some AI-enhanced APIs designed to keep us engaged as shoppers. For starters, the company wants to keep you shopping. That means providing an intelligent recommendation engine.

In an article published by Customer Think (http://bit.ly/2w3vhGy), Amrita Bhattacharyya writes: "Conversational Commerce refers to using natural language within a messenger application (Messenger, WhatsApp, WeChat, and others) or using voice assistants (Siri, Amazon Alexa, and others) to interact with a business for an inquiry, purchase, or customer service." Conversational Commerce enables a person to, quite literally, message their refrigerator! For example, you would text your refrigerator "Do we have milk?" Using a combination of artificial intelligence and natural language processing (NLP), your refrigerator would text you back "Yes, but at your current rate of consumption, it will be gone tomorrow. Would you like me to place an order with Peapod?"

At CES this year both Amazon Echo and Google Assistant take center stage as voice assistants grow in popularity. Artificial intelligence is definitely the hot topic at CES this year. With significant investments from companies such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Apple, AI in 2019 is off to the races. Amazon recently confirmed it has sold 100 million Echos. In addition, Google Assistant comes preinstalled on the Pixel, and it's been estimated that Google Assistant will be on one billion devices devices by the end of January. But how smart is AI?