Canada's two largest airlines say artificial intelligence can be a game-changer for aviation by helping to boost revenues, pare costs and provide passengers with a more personalized travel experience. Air Canada and WestJet are joining airlines around the world by spending undisclosed amounts of money on AI in an effort to harness technology that promises revolutionary advantages for both carriers and passengers. Several large airlines in the U.S. and Europe have deployed AI in chatbots that respond to common passenger questions, machine learning algorithms to help automate airline operations and facial recognition to verify identification for luggage and boarding. "It's really an untouched area for the airline industry that we need to develop very fast," new WestJet CEO Ed Sims said in an interview, adding he'd like to use the technology to create a "virtual concierge service" similar to Amazon Alexa or Google Home. The aviation sector's investment in AI is expected to grow from US$152 million this year to US$2.22 billion by 2025, for a compounded annual growth rate of more than 46 per cent, according to a report from research firm Markets and Markets.

Voice is being predicted as the next big thing in the computer interaction and perhaps why both Amazon and Google are fighting to take control over our lives with their AI-driven virtual assistants -- Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. These voice-based assistants can do a lot of things with just one command: play music, crack jokes; give the weather forecasts; send text messages; set up alarms and reminders; read out the latest news; and control "smart" devices in the home such as thermostats, door locks and bulbs. Interestingly, these virtual assistants become better over time and get to know your habits as you use them more often. I decided to ask Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant 12 questions on the Echo Dot and Home Mini, to determine their intelligence level. What are the best Hindi songs of 2018?

On Saturday, iPhone users around the world began testing and confirming what is arguably Siri's most bizarre response to a question yet. Before grabbing your own phone to test this out, however, be mindful of anybody else around. The randy robo-response was apparently first reported on Reddit's Apple community, where a user by the name "thatwasabaddecision" suggested that people ask Siri to "define the word mother," wait for the assistant to ask for an additional definition, and say "yes." What the Reddit user didn't point out, which readers learned by doing the test themselves, was that the second definition Siri offers is succinct and seemingly inaccurate. "As a noun," the computer-generated voice says as of press time, "it means, short for'motherfucker.'"

Over the last couple years, multiple changes within the technology space (most notably – artificial intelligence in hospitality) have brought forward a paradigm shift and disrupted a myriad of industries, leaving some players behind while simultaneously adding more value for the end users. The adoption of new emerging technologies has gone on to become quite the trend after receiving inspiration from successful use cases. In case of hotels, the real boost of artificial intelligence in hospitality sprung from the fact that it has the power to impact and transform the industry completely. Given the rising need for smart automation of existing processes, AI has entered the traditional hospitality landscape with a promise to enhance hotel reputation, drive revenue and take customer experience to the next level. Like many industrial systems, the world of hotels revolves around a handful of solutions all driven by intelligent chatbots and voice-enabled services.

Think about how much time you spend in your home. Then consider how much of that time you are in the kitchen: cooking, eating, entertaining, and so on. Artificial intelligence has made its way into the kitchen to tackle tasks from serving up recipes to reordering groceries, and new technologies are being developed at a rapid pace. Staying up to date on the latest developments in kitchen AI will enable you to experience the shift firsthand. A kitchen remodel can return anywhere from 70 to 120 percent at resale of the home.

What do you do when you're a 14-year-old who wants a computer but doesn't have one? Most of us would beg and plead with parents, the more industrious among us may attempt to save up money, but Kriti Sharma did what seemed obvious to her: she devoured tech tomes and built herself one. The 30-year-old is essentially a problem solver. Problem No 1 on her list right now is sexism in tech. Frustrated by the reinforcement of sexist ideas by bots, she created Pegg, a gender-neutral personal finance assistant.

Amazon's Alexa is great for many things. I love walking through my door saying "Alexa, turn on all lights." I like asking Alexa for the weather and telling it to play music. I really appreciate how Amazon is constantly improving its capabilities with new skills. But what I don't want is to have any kind of extended conversation with Alexa.

Amazon is about to make its Alexa voice assistant smarter. It has also killed off a bug that allowed Echo smart speakers to eavesdrop even when the devices have been switched off. Earlier this week, the head of the Alexa Machine Learning team, Ruhi Sarikaya, wrote a blog post about the e-commerce giant's plan of making Alexa more friction-free. According to Sarikaya, friction refers to any variable that impedes progress toward a goal and Amazon is "obsessively focused" on eliminating friction from the interactions of customers with the physical and digital world. "[We're] focused on making Alexa smarter and more natural to engage with," Sarikaya said.

Amazon, YouTube and Facebook had a message for parents this week. Kids want to watch hours of YouTube, but many parents feel conflicted about non-kid friendly videos showing up in their feeds. They also have an issue with the Amazon Echo speaker and the Alexa personal assistant. And what youngster doesn't want to join a social network, which often have a minimum age requirement of 13? A look at the revamped YouTube Kids app.

Your message has been sent. There was an error emailing this page. The Windows 10 April 2018 Update is coming April 30, and we've already tried the most important new features through recent Insider builds. Check out what's coming in these detailed stories: For the big-picture perspective, catch up on the drama around the recent executive shakeup within Microsoft's executive ranks, which could mean big changes for future versions of Windows. One exec who just started is Cortana's new boss, Javier Soltero, who's eager to see Microsoft's digital assistant branch out far beyond Windows.