Hi, I'm, uh, calling to make a reservation. I'm Google's automated booking service, so I'll record the call." Google announced its futuristic feature called Duplex at its I/O 2018 developer's conference back in May. Duplex is essentially a Google Assistant service that calls a business, such as a hair salon or restaurant, to make a reservation on your behalf. The tech world went gaga for it. Aficionados said the new tool would usher in "a new era of AI" with its uncanny ability to trick an unsuspecting person into thinking it was a human on the other end. But there were some serious ethical concerns, too. Is the person who's being called ever made aware of the fact they are talking to an AI? Is the AI taking advantage of the person it's calling? And does it even work? Roughly two months later, Google has some answers. It's revealed a sleek new demo to show off to the world, "uh's" and "uhms" included. A Recode writer even received a call from the AI. At first glance, Google seems to have hammered out some of the issues with the May demo. One clear difference: Google's Assistant announced itself as being an "automated booking service." That should appease those ethics-minded naysayers. And, yes, it does appear to actually work. Google also announced that Duplex will be rolling out to a limited number of businesses that Google is already partnered with, and a number of "trusted tester users," though details about which businesses these are specifically are still scant. But there's another question Google has to answer before Duplex can become commonplace: what problem does it really solve? Are people too busy with their lives to spend just two minutes on the phone to book an appointment? In an age when many businesses are opting for online solutions, isn't a phone calling robot a bit unnecessary? Perhaps we've been blinded by the marvel of Google's technological achievement not to question why it's pouring resources into this. And if it does find a convincing enough reason to exist, will Duplex ever stand a chance? There are plenty of examples of technologies that were around for a while before they were actually accepted by the general public. Take Amazon's Echo devices -- they were released back in November 2014 to a lukewarm reception until 2017, when it became widespread, selling 22 million devices. Some technologies, like smart glasses, never even found any success at all. The Google Glass project never won over people's hearts, and Snapchat's Goggles are still desperately trying to convince the public of their purpose (Intel never even tried to release the smart glasses it had developed). But Google is still going full steam ahead with project Duplex. It's trying very hard to make its AI sound indistinguishable from a normal human being. When the voice sounded too robotic, as Scott Huffman, VP of engineering for Google Assistant, tells The Verge, "it didn't work.

Google devices and apps have experienced serious outages that lasted for more than 12 hours and affected millions of users. The issue affected Google Home and Google Home Mini – speakers that respond to voice commands – as well as Chromecast – a device that plugs into a television and allows people to watch video content. Users were angry at both the length of the outage and the lack of information from Google about it, once it had been identified. Google has not given a reason why these devices went down, only apologising for the service problems and identifying a fix for the issues. The bug meant that when some Google Home owners asked a question of their speaker, it responded: "There was a glitch, try again in a few seconds." If they tried to reset the device, it would sometimes fail to reboot.

An Easy Introduction To Python Get Confident with Programming's Most Versatile Language

IBM's Watson Education, an artificial intelligence platform that uses data trends to provide insights to teachers and students, is partnering with Edmodo and Scholastic in an effort meant to personalize learning. With Edmodo, a K-12 network for students, teachers, administrators and parents, IBM is collaborating to develop a personalized content recommendation engine that can be integrated within Edmodo's existing social education platform. For Scholastic, a children's publishing, education and media company, the plan is to use the Watson platform to recommend nonfiction content that aligns with curriculum standards and has multiple articles and media for students' skill and interest levels. "Our goal is to use AI to improve learning outcomes," and to personalize content for learners, said Chalapathy Neti, vice president of IBM Watson Education, in an interview. He explained that he refers to AI as "augmented intelligence" rather than the more typical "artificial intelligence," because the way people are thinking about the abbreviated "AI" has produced "a little bit of angst in terms of machines replacing humans."

Facing stiff competition from Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant, Samsung had to try something to get people to use its own Bixby voice assistant instead. Its solution was to reward users with background color options for the Bixby interface and Samsung Pay points for discounts and contest entries just for using Bixby. But the freebies are coming to an end, as the My Bixby Level program is shutting down August 10th, according to The Verge. It's not totally clear why Samsung is ending the rewards scheme. Perhaps it was just so successful in getting people to use Bixby that it wasn't necessary anymore, but probably not. A more likely scenario is that people were finding ways to game the system, rack up a ton of Samsung Pay points and use those to grab a bunch of gift cards.

Google Home is down globally for at least some of its users. The problem might be a glitched Google update for its assistant that was intended to increase privacy. Try again in a few seconds." Alternatively, Google says: "There was a glitch. Try again in a few seconds."

Google Vice President Nick Fox discussed the company's Duplex AI at a press event in Mountain View, California. Google is moving ahead with Duplex, the stunningly human-sounding artificial intelligence software behind its new automated system that places phone calls on your behalf with a natural-sounding voice instead of a robotic one. The search giant said Wednesday it's beginning public testing of the software, which debuted in May and which is designed to make calls to businesses and book appointments. Duplex instantly raised questions over the ethics and privacy implications of using an AI assistant to hold lifelike conversations for you. Google says its plan is to start its public trial with a small group of "trusted testers" and businesses that have opted into receiving calls from Duplex.

Google has confirmed that many Home speaker and Chromecast users around the world are unable to use their devices, even after a reboot. The company didn't say why, and didn't have an estimated time of repair as of this writing. However, the issue has been inconsistent -- my Home Mini could respond to commands, while TechCrunch colleagues received an error. There are claims that the outage may have stemmed from an unsuccessful update, but there isn't any firm evidence of this at the moment. One thing's clear: this is bound to be frustrating if you rely heavily on Google's ecosystem to power your smart home.

Add one more digital voice assistant iPhone users can control with just their voice. Amazon rolled out an update to its Alexa app, allowing users to make requests from its digital assistant using voice commands. The update is available on both iPhones and iPads. The feature isn't as elegant as Apple's Siri, where users can just speak "Hey, Siri" to wake the assistant without ever touching their phone. To trigger voice commands on Alexa, users open the app and then tap the icon at the bottom to start asking for things like the weather or sports scores.

Silicon Valley's quest for artificial intelligence has led it to build self-driving cars, drones, and robots that can do backflips. But often that journey has come down to something much more prosaic, such as ordering a pizza -- or booking a restaurant reservation. Duplex is the company's next-generation virtual helper. When the company first showcased it at its developer conference in May, it engaged in conversation so lifelike -- complete with humanlike "ums" and pauses -- that the person on the other end of the call couldn't tell that the speaker was just software. Some asked whether the interaction was fake.