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Google Assistant now understands Indonesian

#artificialintelligence

About a month ago, Google announced that 30 more languages would be coming to Google Assistant "over the next few months." The languages mentioned there included Hindi, Indonesian, Norwegian, Swedish, among others. Of those, the only one that has arrived thus far is Hindi, but Indonesian is now taking second place. Language support is pretty confusing in Google-land. Allo is the only Google voice service that already supported Indonesian, but the newly-added Assistant is the most important one since it's what people will be using from their phones and tablets.


Security flaw in dating app may have revealed personal info

USATODAY - Tech Top Stories

An error on the dating app Grindr allowed third party sites to access personal information. Tony Spitz has the details. A link has been sent to your friend's email address. A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. An error on the dating app Grindr allowed third party sites to access personal information.


How to listen to live baseball games on an Amazon Echo

PCWorld

Now that baseball season is underway, one of the easiest ways to listen to the games is on an Amazon Echo or another Alexa device. With TuneIn Live or MLB At Bat, you can stream live broadcasts from any Major League Baseball game using voice commands. TuneIn's service costs $3 per month for Amazon Prime subscribers (or $4 per month for non-subscribers) and also includes news and live sports from other leagues. MLB's Gameday Audio service costs a one-time payment of $20 for the entire 2018 season. Audio streams are also included with an MLB TV Premium subscription, which offers live video broadcasts for out-of-market games and costs $25 per month or $116 for the season.


Wirecutter's best deals: Save $70 on an Amazon Echo Show

Engadget

This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter's independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read their continuously updated list of deals here. We've seen the Echo Show as low as $150 on one rare occasion, but this drop to $160 is still a very nice discount from the typical $230 street price. We saw a similar deal last week and it's good to see it back, confirming a trend that has seen the Show drop below $200 with greater frequency this year.


Google Home can control any Bluetooth speaker connected to its app

Daily Mail - Science & tech

Google's Home speaker range can now connect to any Bluetooth speaker in your house. The addition means Google Home users can turn any speaker into a voice-controlled sound system - though they will have to bark all commands through the AI-assistant. In a blog post on the update Google said the extra connectivity allows Home users to'amp up the sound' of the compact gadgets. Google's Home speaker range, including its Home Mini (pictured), can now connect to any Bluetooth speaker in your house. 'We brought this feature to life after hearing how much you wanted to amp up the sound with your Google Home Mini,' the company said.


Google Home Devices Can Now Play Music To Bluetooth Speakers

International Business Times

Google has released an update to its Google Home devices and it now lets users connect their smart speakers to Bluetooth speakers. The update is great for Google Home Mini users who may want a better listening experience, or for those who want to use their smart speakers for multi-room listening. "We brought this feature to life after hearing how much you wanted to amp up the sound with your Google Home Mini," Google said on its blog. "Now any of your Google Home devices can connect to other Bluetooth speakers so you can control your entertainment experience simply using the sound of your voice." To pair a Google Home device to a Bluetooth speaker, users must first open the Google Home app on their mobile device.


Hybrid content-based and collaborative filtering recommendations with {ordinal} logistic regression (2): Recommendation as discrete choice

@machinelearnbot

In this continuation of "Hybrid content-based and collaborative filtering recommendations wi..." I will describe the application of the {ordinal} clm() function to test a new, hybrid content-based, collaborative filtering approach to recommender engines by fitting a class of ordinal logistic (aka ordered logit) models to ratings data from the MovieLens 100K dataset. All R code used in this project can be obtained from the respective GitHub repository; the chunks of code present in the body of the post illustrate the essential steps only. The MovieLens 100K dataset can be obtained from the GroupLens research laboratory of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota. This second part of the study relies on the R code in OrdinalRecommenders_3.R and presents the model training, cross-validation, and the analyses. But before we proceed to approach the recommendation problem from a viewpoint of discrete choice modeling, let me briefly remind you of the results of the feature engineering phase and explain what happens in OrdinalRecommenders_2.R which prepares the data frames that are passed to clm().


Google Home's multi-room audio now works with Bluetooth speakers

Engadget

Google Home is getting a long-awaited feature: Bluetooth. Previously, only Google Cast-enabled speakers could be looped in to a network of Home-commanded devices. Now users can pair their speaker of choice with the dedicated Home app and voice command it to play your tunes or podcasts. You don't even have to specify the speaker: By making it the default audio projector, just use the Home-standard "Hey Google" prompt and voice-command away. Users can even add a Bluetooth speaker to a group, if they have one set up.


You can now stream music from Google Home to a Bluetooth speaker. Here's how

PCWorld

Google Home and Google Home Mini might be good at finding songs you want to hear, but they're not the best at playing them. Compared to higher-priced speakers such as Google Home Max and Apple's HomePod, Google's diminutive devices sound exactly as you'd expect: small, tinny, and muddled. Google has heard your complaints. Starting today, you can hook up a Bluetooth speaker to your Google Home without needing to purchase a separate Chromecast dongle. Once you pair a compatible Bluetooth speaker with one of your Homes, you can make it the default for playing music, so you won't have to fiddle with controls or tell your Home where to send your favorite songs.


Customer Loyalty - Marketing Automation

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With AI-powered solutions, you can engage customers and exceed their expectations. Watson Marketing can connect your data, give you actionable insights, and predict and personalize your customers' journey.