Artificial intelligence barely left the headlines last year. If you believe everything said about AI, you'd probably be kept awake at night, worrying about impending job losses thanks to automation and perhaps even the robot apocalypse. The reality is perhaps a little less Hollywood blockbuster. Ultimately, jobs are going to change, however, instead of sweeping unemployment in all industries, there will be a shift in the way we work and the types of jobs that people will undertake. Instead of focussing on AI, businesses should be looking at augmented intelligence instead.

When it comes to standards wars, Jasco isn't taking any chances. The manufacturer builds in-wall dimmers and plug-in lamp controllers based on both the Z-Wave and ZigBee platforms, marketing them with GE branding under a licensing agreement. Both classes can be controlled with voice commands via Alexa or Google Assistant, but the Z-Wave products require a third-party hub. The ZigBee products require a third-party hub, too, unless you're connecting them to an Amazon Echo Plus (that smart speaker has a ZigBee controller built in). You'll need to look elsewhere if you're interested in Apple HomeKit compatibility.

That's what PCWorld wanted to know when we spoke with Microsoft's recently-minted Cortana czar, Javier Soltero, late last week. The digital assistant who made a splash in Windows 10 with her snappy comebacks and silly knock-knock jokes is still offering to help you with your calendar and search. But Cortana hasn't talked her way into our homes like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant have, making her staying power look uncertain. That's where Soltero comes in. We sat down with Cortana's new chief in the wake of a significant management shakeup that will see senior executive Terry Myerson leave, as well as the creation of a new "Experiences and Devices" team that seemingly downplays Windows.

If you've read any sort of science fiction, it's likely you've heard about subvocalization, the practice of silently saying words in your head. It's common when we read (though it does slow you down), but it's only recently begun to be used as a way to interact with our computers and mobile devices. To that end, MIT researchers have created a device you wear on your face that can measure neuromuscular signals that get triggered when you subvocalize. While the white gadget now looks like some weird medical device strapped to your face, it's easy to see future applications getting smaller and less obvious, as well as useful with our mobile lives (including Hey Siri and OK Google situations). The MIT system has electrodes that pick up the signals when you verbalize internally as well as bone-conduction headphones, which use vibrations delivered to the bones of your inner ear without obstructing your ear canal.

Xiaomi is no longer just a smartphone manufacturer. It offers a wide range of products including Mi TV, Mi Box, Mi Air Purifier, Mi Electric Fan, Mi smart lamps you name it. Well, last year Xiaomi introduced the Mi AI Speaker. Xiaomi is now getting serious with the virtual assistants. So, here's everything you need to know about the new assistant.

Due to popularity in texting and messaging, a recent advancement of deep learning technologies, a conversation-based interaction becomes an emerging user interface. While today’s conversation platforms offer basic conversation capabilities such as natural language understanding, entity extraction and simple dialogue management, there are still challenges in developing practical applications to support complex use cases using a dialogue system. In this paper, we highlight such challenges and share practical knowledge learned from our experiences on developing a leisure travel shopping application that combines a personalized recommendation system and a conversation system. Such efforts include a conversation design, extraction of user intents, communication of variables between a dialogue system and analytics engines, and dynamic user interface designs. In particular, we introduce our approach to overcome the unique challenges, understanding user's intent, when dialogue system met personalized recommendation system. Furthermore, we propose a semantic mapping as a novel method to utilize undefined user's preferences when producing recommended items. Finally, examples of recommendations based on natural language conversations are provided in order to exhibit how components in the overall architecture are seamlessly orchestrated. In general, our framework provides guiding principles and best practices on the implementation of task-oriented dialogue system connected with other components in the overall architecture.

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. If you're looking for a smart speaker and like Google's search ecosystem, this is a good opportunity to save some cash. At $90, it's a nice drop on the Google Home speaker, bringing it within $10 of the deals we saw during Black Friday and other holiday sales.

Amazon has Alexa, Apple has Siri, Microsoft has Cortana, Google has Google Assistant. As a member of the general public, you could ask any of those AI interfaces a question, depending on what device you owned -- iPhone, Echo, PC, or Android -- and most of the time get a coherent answer. These digital assistants have become the emerging user interface. IBM Watson is also an AI platform that can answer questions, but it has always been in a different category. Sure, it's been known to the general public, probably first through its triumph over Jeopardy champ Ken Jennings.

A new mind-reading device means people can silently type on their computer using nothing but thoughts - and it's accurate 90 per cent of the time. Instead of communicating with smart devices by saying'Ok Google' or'Hey Siri', the headset silently interprets what users are thinking, giving them'superpowers', researchers say. When people think about verbalising something, the brain sends signals to facial muscles - even if nothing is said aloud. The device has sensors that pick up seven key areas along the cheek, jaw and chin that can recognise words and can even talk back once it has processed them. Other companies, such as Elon Musk's Neuralink, are also developing'Matrix' style computer-brain interfaces to give people advanced mental abilities.

Apple Inc has hired a prominent artificial intelligence executive who recently left Google in a bid to boost its Siri voice assistant and other offerings powered by the technology. Apple confirmed that John Giannandrea, who previously served as Google's top artificial intelligence executive, will join the company later this month as its chief of machine learning and AI strategy, reporting to Chief Executive Tim Cook. The New York Times reported the move earlier. The hiring of Giannandrea is important because the Cupertino-based company is widely viewed as lagging its rivals in key areas of artificial intelligence. Though Siri made its debut in 2011 well before other voice assistants, Amazon.com