Big banks and financial companies have started to offer banking through virtual assistants -- Amazon's Alexa, Apple's Siri, and Google's Assistant -- in a way that will allow customers to check their balances, pay bills and, in the near future, send money just with their voice. And with the rapid adoption of Zelle, a bank-to-bank transfer system, it soon could be possible to send money to friends or family instantly with voice commands.

While you are busy giving Alexa commands to play your favourite song or book an Uber, the intelligent virtual assistant from Amazon is helping the US space agency organise daily tasks while making sense of intrinsic data-sets. According to Tom Soderstrom, IT Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), voice as a platform will become the next big thing once we learn to talk to digital assistants and chatbots in a fashion we do with friends and family. "If you have Alexa-controlled Amazon Echo smart speaker at home, tell her to enable the'NASA Mars' app. Once done, ask Alexa anything about the Red Planet and she will come back with all the right answers," Soderstrom said during the Amazon Web Services' (AWS) public sector summit in Washington. "This enables serverless computing where we don't need to build for scale but for real-life work cases and get the desired results in a much cheaper way. Remember that voice as a platform is poised to give 10 times faster results," Soderstrom noted on the inaugural "Earth and Space Day".

Mumbai: If you think that your artificial intelligence (AI)-powered virtual assistant like Apple's Siri, Google Assistant, Samsung's Bixby or Microsoft's Cortana are smart just because they can respond to your "wake" messages and answer your questions, you may want to think again. On 18 June, an artificial intelligence (AI) system engaged in the first ever live, public debates with humans. At an event held at International Business Machines Corp.'s (IBM) Watson West site in San Francisco, a champion debater and IBM's AI system, Project Debater, began by preparing arguments for and against the statement: "We should subsidize space exploration." Both sides then delivered a four-minute opening statement, a four-minute rebuttal, and a two-minute summary. "Just think about that for a moment. An AI system engaged with an expert human debater, listened to her argument, and responded convincingly with its own, unscripted reasoning to persuade an audience to consider its position on a controversial topic," said Arvind Krishna, director at IBM Research, in an 18 June blog.

The search giant is building alliances as it races Amazon to develop new ways for people to shop, from voice-enabled smart speakers to faster and more convenient home grocery delivery. Google last year teamed up with Walmart Inc. WMT 0.73% to let users order a selection of the retailer's products on Google's virtual assistant and speakers, a challenge to Amazon's Alexa service. Earlier this month, Google joined with Carrefour SA, Europe's largest retailer, to offer same-day delivery of perishable groceries to people's homes in France. The deal announced Monday also could help Google boost advertising revenue, which has been threatened by Amazon recently as businesses increasingly shift ads to the internet shopping site. The JD investment comes as Google seeks to strengthen its connections in China.

There is no doubt that the artificial intelligence (AI) phenomenon will have a profound impact on businesses large and small this year; that part is easy to predict. What impact it will have, and whether this is a good or a bad thing, is harder to tell. Let's start with the basics of AI. "In our broad definition, AI is a collective term for computer systems that can sense their environment, think, learn, and take action in response to what they're sensing and their objectives. Forms of AI in use today include, among others, digital assistants, chatbots and machine learning. AI is already at work in industry (from sport and manufacturing to investing and healthcare). Here, we take a closer look at the AI trends and predictions for the coming year. There's always a tendency to think of AI as represented by emotionless robots. But humans are, well, humans, and we will continue to interact with AI in our very human way. Facial recognition software might have been developed with ...

Amazon's Alexa has infiltrated our homes, offices, bathrooms, and cars. It was only a matter of time before it expanded to other places we spend time, too--like our hotel rooms. While some enterprising chains and establishments had begun introducing Echos and Echo Dots into their guest quarters, Amazon on Tuesday announced Alexa for Hospitality, a hotel-specific version of its assistant software. The announcement included a partnership with Marriott Hotels, where Alexa for Hospitality will debut at select Marriott, Aloft, Westin, Autograph Collection, and St. Regis hotels and resorts this summer. It'll come to other hotels and vacation rental facilities on an invite-only basis.

We've got some simple tips you can take to keep Amazon's Alexa from eavesdropping into your conversations and potentially sharing them. The new Amazon Echo is on display on Sept. 27, 2017, in Seattle. Beginning this summer, Amazon will make a new version of the Echo available to some Marriott International hotels. SAN FRANCISCO -- Alexa, what time is checkout? This summer, guests staying in some Marriott International hotel rooms will have access to a new virtual concierge.

A security researcher found a potential privacy leak in the two devices. Google is preparing to plug a potential privacy leak with its Google Home smart speakers and Chromecast television devices that could reveal your location. The vulnerability was discovered by the Tripwire security firm. Researcher Craig Young blogged that the problem stems from fundamental design choices that he says are prevalent among Internet of Things devices. One such issue, Young writes, is that such "devices rarely require authentication for connections received on a local network."

Before now, smart-home-as-a-service provider Vivint was happy to sell you a smart speaker--either an Amazon Echo or a Google Home--on top of its other offerings. Today, the company announced that it has partnered with Google to include two Google Home Minis in all its starter packages. Amazon had a long head start with Vivint, a Utah-based company that sells and services custom-installed smart home systems. Customers could use Amazon's Alexa digital assistant and Echo devices with Vivint Smart Home for months and months before they were able to do the same with Google Assistant and Google Home hardware. I know, because there's a Vivint system in my own home.

In the early days of Android, Google launched a podcast app called Listen. However, it quickly fell into disrepair and was killed off in 2012. For most of the intervening time, Google pretended podcasts didn't exist. Then, it added podcasts to Play Music and Google Assistant over the last year. Google was still missing a straightforward podcast app, though.