Humans have always been thrilled with the concept of human-like robots and Artificial Intelligence (A.I.). Hollywood movies and science fiction have perhaps inspired several scientists to start working towards this direction. Although the AI bubble has burst many times, significant developments and breakthroughs are now renewing public interest in this field. In 2017, Gartner placed general AI at the stage of early adoption in its hype cycle. It also placed deep learning and machine learning technologies at the peak of this hype cycle. It is important to realize that AI is an umbrella term for several interlinked technologies.

Join us for a series of talks on how AI is making XR an even more powerful medium. We'll begin with an overview of how to think about artificial intelligence and it's applications in XR, followed by talks that introduce different AI products into the XR ecosystem. Hugh will outline the three ways XR developers, designers and entrepreneurs should be thinking about AI, and give some examples, including an open source Unity plugin Aquinas are developing for data capture & encoding 2. AI Assistants: David Gene Oh, Samsung Bixby. David will talk about AI assistants and what Samsung is doing 3. Conversational Interfaces: Jeff Meador, Portico True Talk. Jeff will talk about how Portico is using their amazing conversational interface for employee training in XR.

At last, you don't have to call out Google Assistant by name every time when you want to issue a command. As promised at I/O, Google has made Assistant's Continued Conversation available for US English speakers using a Home speaker. Enable it in your preferences and you don't have to use "hey Google" or "OK Google" for follow-ups, even if you have multiple requests. Ask if it'll be sunny tomorrow and you can both remind yourself to go the beach and put sunscreen on your shopping list, all without having to start the chat from scratch. The approach works by leaving Assistant active for no more than eight seconds if it doesn't hear speech. It'll stay active as long as it believes that you're talking, and will keep the LEDs lit on your Home speaker as long as it's listening for your voice.

One of the most important things we learn as children is how to communicate with each other. We start with "goo goos and gaa gaas," then on to baby sign language, a few simple words like "momma," and our conversations get more complex from there. For the Google Assistant to have a natural conversation, it should be able to understand when it's being spoken to and should be capable of responding to several requests during an interaction. We're taking another step forward in making your interactions with the Google Assistant more natural with Continued Conversation, available starting today on Google Home, Google Home Mini and Google Home Max. We've heard from a lot of people that adding "Hey Google" before each follow-up question for the Assistant doesn't feel as natural as they'd like.

When you consider the popularity of Amazon's virtual assistant Alexa and the company's Fire TV streamers, it was really just a matter of time before the folks at the Everything Store decided to mash them up. In fact, Amazon already has, sort of: The company started down that path last year by giving Echo devices the ability to pass commands along to a Fire TV or Fire TV Stick. With the new Fire TV Cube, though, Amazon is trying to break down the wall between Alexa and the content you want to see altogether. Now, we've only had our Fire TV Cube for about two days, and that's just not enough time to really put the streaming box through its paces -- instead, read on for our first impressions about Amazon's new hardware and the virtual assistant that will ultimately make or break it. The Fire TV Cube itself is a glossy black box that, aside from the blue ring that lights up when Alexa is listening to you, looks about as nondescript as a bit of home theater kit can be.

If you're thinking of buying the Amazon Fire TV Cube because you're delighted by the idea of having an Amazon Echo and a Fire TV device mashed into one device, let me stop you right there. Alexa on a TV interface demands a level of conversation like no other streaming TV product I've used before. After a few nights of using the Cube, I began to hate the sound of my own voice. Maybe you'll still be delighted by the Cube at first if you buy one. Maybe if you have kids, they'll love shouting at the TV to get their cartoon fix. But there's a good chance you'll end up doing what I did: going back to the fuddy-duddy Fire TV remote, because that's the easiest way to scroll through multiple media options.

Whether Father's Day, Mother's Day, a birthday or simply "just because," buying gifts can feel like counting grains of sand - i.e., it's not easy. Meanwhile, there are 250,ooo--300,000 e-commerce companies in the U.S. all vying for the attention of shoppers. How are consumers possibly expected to decide where to spend their hard-earned money? And how can retailers create a more personalized shopping experience, rather than facing the same demise as the 6,700 retail locations that closed their doors in 2017? In short, the retail sector is in a sticky wicket.

Amazon has announced a new program designed to help hotels deploy Alexa's voice-enabled smarts across their properties. Though Amazon's Alexa-powered Echo speakers are growing in popularity across the domestic realm -- helping users control their doors, lights, and search the web using nothing but their voice -- the internet giant has been targeting the hospitality sector for a while already. High-end hotel firm Wynn Resorts has been placing thousands of Amazon Echo speakers in its hotels since last summer, for example. And as of April, Alexa has been able to make phone calls in hotel rooms. Put simply, Amazon recognizes that hotels are a perfect showcase for its automated AI technologies.

The Season 2 finale of HBO's existential tech-western "Westworld" airs this weekend, but Season 3 probably won't drop until 2020, so fans may be forgiven if they're already beginning to experience withdrawal symptoms. But diehard devotees who can't get enough of the carefully crafted worldbuilding and the layered mysteries now have another way to immerse themselves in the show. HBO and 360i released a new "Westworld" skill for Amazon's voice-activated Alexa assistant today. A 30-second trailer by 360i introduces the concept. Anyone with an Echo or other Alexa-enabled device can play an interactive game set in the universe of the series by asking her to "Open Westworld."

Almost everyone today uses some form of machine learning unintentionally. Several algorithms support the search features of Google, Facebook, or LinkedIn. The same goes for selecting assets on Netflix, Spotify or YouTube. Even when you use your phone for Siri, Okay Google or Amazon Alexa, the voice recognition and search commands are supported by machine learning. Facebook stopped an "Artificial Intelligence Engine" after the developers discovered that the AI had created its own unique language that they could not understand.