Given an incomplete ratings data over a set of users and items, the preference completion problem aims to estimate a personalized total preference order over a subset of the items. In practical settings, a ranked list of top-$k$ items from the estimated preference order is recommended to the end user in the decreasing order of preference for final consumption. We analyze this model and observe that such a ranking model results in suboptimal performance when the payoff associated with the recommended items is different. We propose a novel and very efficient algorithm for the preference ranking considering the uncertainty regarding the payoffs of the items. Once the preference scores for the users are obtained using any preference learning algorithm, we show that ranking the items using a risk seeking utility function results in the best ranking performance.

Walt Disney World recently showed the Associated Press what it takes to put their shows together. It's a shift for a resort that hasn't allowed many peeks behind the curtains of the fantasy it creates. Maybe romantic Disney fairy tales come true after all. Data from the popular global online dating site Plenty of Fish reveals that singles who have expressed an interest in Disney are 3.6 times more likely to leave the app in a relationship compared to singles who more generally list interests in music and movies. That was certainly true for Disney fan Abby Schiller.

Amazon's Echo speakers have a broadcast feature that will help you send a message to family members that might be scattered around the house. If you have an Amazon Echo product, you aren't the only person privy to your private conversations. Thousands of people across the globe are employed by Amazon.com to listen to Echo recordings, transcribe and annotate them and feed them back to the software so that Alexa can better grasp human speech, according to a report from Bloomberg. The employees – ranging from Boston to India – signed nondisclosure agreements barring them to speak publicly about the program. According to Bloomberg, they work nine hours per day, with each reviewer going through as many as 1,000 audio clips per shift.

Yes, someone might listen to your Alexa conversations someday. A Bloomberg report has detailed how Amazon employs thousands of full-timers and contractors from around the world to review audio clips from Echo devices. Apparently, these workers transcribe and annotate recordings, which they then feed back into the software to make Alexa smarter than before. The process helps beef up the voice AI's understanding of human speech, especially for non-English-speaking countries or for places with distinctive regional colloquialisms. In French, for instance, an Echo speaker could hear avec sa ("with his" or "with her") as "Alexa" and treat it as a wake word.

Amazon has admitted that employees listen to customer voice recordings from Echo and other Alexa-enabled smart speakers. The online retail giant said its staff "reviewed" a sample of Alexa voice assistant conversations in order to improve speech recognition. "This information helps us train our speech recognition and natural language understanding systems, so Alexa can better understand your requests, and ensure the service works well for everyone," Amazon said in a statement. We'll tell you what's true. You can form your own view.

Tens of millions of people use smart speakers and their voice software to play games, find music or trawl for trivia. Millions more are reluctant to invite the devices and their powerful microphones into their homes out of concern that someone might be listening. Inc. employs thousands of people around the world to help improve the Alexa digital assistant powering its line of Echo speakers. The team listens to voice recordings captured in Echo owners' homes and offices. The recordings are transcribed, annotated and then fed back into the software as part of an effort to eliminate gaps in Alexa's understanding of human speech and help it better respond to commands.

Amazon, Apple and Google all employ staff who listen to customer voice recordings from their smart speakers and voice assistant apps. News site Bloomberg highlighted the topic after speaking to Amazon staff who "reviewed" Alexa recordings. All three companies say voice recordings are occasionally reviewed to improve speech recognition. But the reaction to the Bloomberg article suggests many customers are unaware that humans may be listening. The news site said it had spoken to seven people who reviewed audio from Amazon Echo smart speakers and the Alexa service.

Dealing with devices plugged into outdoor outlets can be challenging, and we don't know of any in-wall smart receptacles rated for the job. Their internal electronics just can't tolerate damp conditions, freezing temperatures, and blistering summertime sun. That's where pig-tail smart plugs like TP-Link's Kasa Smart Wi-Fi Outdoor Plug (model KP400) come in. The bad news is that these types of smart plugs carry premium price tags. The good news is that TP-Link's KP400 is not only more capable than the competing iDevices Outdoor Switch we reviewed last December, it's also a whole dollar cheaper.

Google has been steadily rolling out G Suite updates like AI grammar suggestions in Google Docs, streamlined two-step verification, new Tasks features and shortcuts to make Google Doc and Sheet creation faster. Today, at the Cloud Next '19 event, Google announced its newest batch of G Suite changes. The updates include features like Google Assistant integration. While that's still in beta and primarily works with Calendar, G Suite customers can now ask their Assistant when and where a meeting is. Google Assistant has worked with Calendar for a while, but only on personal accounts.

Forbes' Jillian D'Onfro leads a panel of AI industry experts (left to right) Marco Casalaina, Salesforce, Chuck Ganapathi, Tact.ai, and Lorrissa Horton, Cisco. Today's voice-powered AI assistant has many names--Siri, Alexa, Cortana--but as this developing technology becomes ubiquitous in both consumer and enterprise environments, Chuck Ganapathi has a suggestion for his industry colleagues: "Let's not pretend it's a human," the founder and CEO of Tact said Monday during the Voice AI in the Enterprise panel at the Forbes CIO Summit in Half Moon Bay, California, taking a jab at Google's eerily lifelike Duplex AI system. What's more, he said, the enterprise must be careful not to hark back to the secretary pools of old: Voice assistants at work shouldn't automatically sound like they're women. His company intentionally gave its AI-based customer-relationship management system a gender-free name and gives users multiple voice options at setup. He also commended the work of a European agency called Virtue that launched the first "genderless" digital assistant voice this spring.