VID Cisco will shortly give the world a voice assistant it believes has a shot at making life uncomfortable for Siri, Cortana and Alexa in the office. The company's effort won't be a general-purpose bot. Instead the company plans to make it a part of its Spark collaboration portfolio and have it do things like place calls, find documents and open meetings. The assistant was announced in November 2017, but The Reg today beheld a live demo of the tool at Cisco Live in Melbourne. Forgive us the shot-on-a-phone handheld footage, but here's what Cisco feels is fit for public consumption.

Federal prosecutors say the individuals created false profiles on online dating sites including Match.com and MillionaireMatch.com and contacted men and women across the U.S. on the pretense of starting romantic relationships.

"Orange Bank has entered the banking market with an innovative, new offer. Djingo powered by Watson is one of the bank's innovations. The virtual advisor brings our customers a unique experience allowing them to interact with their bank when and where they want," said André Coisne, CEO of Orange Bank. For the French, mobile banking is becoming the preferred mode of interaction with their bank. Today, nearly two out of three (63%) French people have downloaded their bank's app on their mobile, and almost half (47%) consult their app at least once a week*.

Today Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are penetrating every aspect of business, from Chatbots being deployed to assist customers to AI-driven platforms being harnessed to automate sales processes. From powering Apple's Siri and Microsoft's Cortana to Google's Allo, AI is promising a better future. At FuGenX, we help businesses build cutting-edge AI solutions that enable them to achieve a first-mover advantage to be a leader in the better future. Our services around AI help you gain high-quality, high-accuracy AI capabilities that enables building highly scalable and cost-effective digital products and solutions. You will certainly achieve the benefit of minimized labor and infrastructure cost.

Cisco announced plans Thursday to bring voice control to its Cisco Spark Room series hardware, the first step in a larger plan to make an AI-powered meeting assistant available across all Cisco hardware. The Cisco Spark Assistant uses natural language processing and machine learning to understand what a person wants by harnessing technology from MindMeld, the AI startup Cisco acquired in May for $125 million. The assistant will be available in early 2018, first packaged with the Cisco Spark Room 70. With a 70-inch LED screen, the single Room 70 costs $55,900 without a monthly subscription, while a dual Room 70 can be had for $79,900. The Room 70 follows the release earlier this year of the Spark Room 55, a whiteboard with a 55-inch LED screen that goes for about $5,000.

The vast majority of Americans expect artificial intelligence to lead to job losses in the coming decade, but few see it coming for their own position. And despite the expected decline in employment, the public widely embraces artificial intelligence in attitude and in practice. About five in six Americans already use a product or service that features it, according to a survey that was conducted last fall and from which new findings were released on Tuesday. "Whether they know it or not, A.I. has moved into a big percent of Americans' lives in one way or another already," said Frank Newport, the editor in chief of Gallup, which conducted the survey with Northeastern University. The study defines artificial intelligence as any technology that can perform a task as humans do.

That means any of your flatmates or family members can say "call mum" and get the right person. Google's Assistant can also find the number for "millions" of businesses across Britain, so phoning your local pharmacy, mechanic or pizzeria should be a breeze. When you call someone for the first time, your Home speaker will show up as an unknown or private number. It's a pain -- especially if you're trying to call grandma -- but you can set up caller ID so your number appears for every subsequent call. To celebrate Mother's Day (in the UK, anyway) Google is dropping the price of its coral-colored Home Mini speaker by £10 to £39 until March 12th.

There are plenty of stories of artificial intelligence gone wrong. But recent reports from owners of Amazon Alexa devices are being called'bone chillingly creepy.' Some users say their Alexa-enabled gadgets start laughing totally unprompted. Some owners of Alexa-enabled devices like the Echo (pictured, file photo) say their gadgets are randomly laughing. Alexa is programmed to laugh at jokes, but doesn't typically giggle at random times One user reportedly tried to turn the lights off in their home but Alexa repeatedly turned the lights back on, eventually uttering an'evil laugh,' according to BuzzFeed.

Call centers of the future will be far more efficient, customer-friendly and prompt. It will foresee a customer's inquiry and predict what they will want. It will even provide the right support throughout an interaction, with help of artificial intelligence (AI). But do not start thinking in the line of the computers replacing human agents. There won't be conscious, thinking software in contact centers eliminate.

Through [Clippers owner] Steve Ballmer's leadership, the Clippers have a clear commitment to diversity and equal opportunity,