A Portland, Oregon family has claimed that their Amazon Echo recorded a conversation and then sent it to a random person on their contact list. Two weeks ago, the person -- an employee of the husband -- sent them audio files of their chats that he'd received from their smart speaker. The family had set up a household of Alexa-equipped devices to control heat, lights and security. When the incident happened, the family unplugged them all and contacted Amazon. "They said'our engineers went through your logs, and they saw exactly what you told us, they saw exactly what you said happened, and we're sorry.' He apologized like 15 times in a matter of 30 minutes and he said we really appreciate you bringing this to our attention, this is something we need to fix!" the wife told KIRO 7. When reached for comment, the tech giant provided the following statement to KIRO 7; "Amazon takes privacy very seriously. We investigated what happened and determined this was an extremely rare occurrence. We are taking steps to avoid this from happening in the future."

A family in Portland, Oregon, claims that their Alexa, a voice-controlled smart speaker by Amazon, eavesdropped on their conversation and then shared it. They called the company to investigate the issue and vowed never to use the device again. "My husband and I would joke and say I'd bet these devices are listening to what we're saying," Danielle, who did not give her last name, told KIRO-TV on Thursday. She said her family was shocked to find out that a talk they had in their home was sent to one of their contacts hundreds of miles away in Seattle, Washington. The family has the voice-controlled smart devices installed in every room, which they use to control the heat, lights, and security system in their home.

A family in Portland, Ore., received a nightmarish phone call two weeks ago. "Unplug your Alexa devices right now," a voice on the other line said. Alexa-powered Echo devices in their house had silently sent recordings to the caller without the family's permission. The person, who happened to be an employee of the husband, was in the family's contact list. "My husband and I would joke and say, 'I'd bet these devices are listening to what we're saying,' " a woman who identified herself only by her first name, Danielle, told KIRO 7, a news station covering Seattle and western Washington state.

Artificial intelligence: Since the term was first coined in 1955 by the late Stanford computer scientist John McCarthy, AI has steadily moved out of the realm of science fiction and now has significant impact on our everyday lives. Related: Is Artificial Intelligence Replacing Your Intelligence? Voice assistants such as Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant utilize voice recognition to transform the way we search for information and interact with our devices. Innovations such as self-driving cars and wearable tech are positioned to transform transportation and healthcare in the foreseeable future. The Harvard Business Review has predicted that AI will affect the economy and our lives on a magnitude similar to that of the steam engine, electricity and the industrial combustion engine.

CAMPBELL, Calif., May 24, 2018 – Building on its strategy to develop innovations that drive retail transformation for brands, retailers and manufacturers, PLM leader Centric Software announces the unveiling of its first artificial intelligence-based PLM module. Centric Software provides the most innovative enterprise solutions to fashion, retail, footwear, outdoor, luxury and consumer goods companies to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals. The term'artificial intelligence' dates back to the 1950's when computer scientist John McCarthy coined the phrase to describe the potential'thinking machines' of the future. Today, artificial intelligence (AI) tools are systems modeled on the problem-solving abilities of the human brain, breaking complex problems down into different layers of information comprised of many smaller problems. Applications vary considerably ranging from virtual assistants like'Alexa' and'Siri' to Netflix viewing recommendations to Amazon recommending things we might like to buy.

CAMPBELL, CA, USA, May 24, 2018 – Building on its strategy to develop innovations that drive retail transformation for brands, retailers and manufacturers, PLM leader Centric Software announces the unveiling of its first artificial intelligence-based PLM module. Centric Software provides the most innovative enterprise solutions to fashion, retail, footwear, outdoor, luxury and consumer goods companies to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals. The term'artificial intelligence' dates back to the 1950's when computer scientist John McCarthy coined the phrase to describe the potential'thinking machines' of the future. Today, artificial intelligence (AI) tools are systems modeled on the problem-solving abilities of the human brain, breaking complex problems down into different layers of information comprised of many smaller problems. Applications vary considerably ranging from virtual assistants like'Alexa' and'Siri' to Netflix viewing recommendations to Amazon recommending things we might like to buy.

As part of our guest blog series, Accenture Nordic Banking Practice Lead Satu Pulkkinen explores how banks can take the next step in evolving customer relations. First came online and mobile banks, with Nordic banks leading the way. The conversational bank that operates within messaging applications. Technology that can see and hear us, continuously growing ecosystems around increasingly popular messaging applications, as well as the amazing progress of artificial intelligence (AI), are enabling personalized, fully digital banking assistants that you can talk to anytime, anyplace. Technology is an integral part of our daily lives. Increasingly, devices that used to simply respond to our commands and actions can now also hear and see us.

Tinder is testing a new location-sharing feature to connect lonely hearts. Dubbed Places, the tool aims to match users who are in the same specific location, like the cinema, or local coffee shop. Places is completely separate from the usual swipe-based feed Tinder users are accustomed to. Tinder users need to tap the newly-added pin icon, which lives at the top of the main app window, to access a map which shows all the locations you have visited within the last month. Tinder Places lets users view potential matches who have visited the same locations.

Ricardo Baeza-Yates ([email protected]) is Chief Technology Officer of NTENT, a search technology company based in Carlsbad, CA, USA, and Director of Computer Science Programs at Northeastern University, Silicon Valley campus, San Jose, CA, USA.

Planning, designing and executing marketing campaigns to get users to download your app take a heavy toll on your resources. On top of that, 24% of users abandon an app after just one use. The reason is quite simple, if your app is not indispensable, they'll abandon/uninstall it and move on. Considering the fact that your existing customers are much more profitable than the new ones, retention should be on the top of your mind. If you manage to lower your churn rate by 5%, you can increase your profitability by 25-125%!