Google's former head of artificial intelligence John Giannandrea is joining Apple in an effort to improve the firm's voice assistant. Mr Giannandrea, a machine learning expert who joined Google in 2010, will report directly to CEO Tim Cook, it has emerged. The Scottish born specialist announced that he would be stepping down from his role at the search engine earlier this week. It is hoped his expertise can be used to make Siri smarter, as the pioneering software continues to lag behind newcomers from rivals Google and Amazon. Google's former head of artificial intelligence John Giannandrea (pictured) is joining Apple in an effort to improve the firm's voice assistant.

How do you interact with your customers? Given the predominance of mobile devices and messaging apps, many experts believe the next era of customer interaction will belong to "the conversational layer" -- both text- and voice-driven -- that will use chat, messaging, or natural language interfaces to interact with people, brands, services, and bots. In this webinar, Babson College's Bala Iyer, author of the MIT SMR article "Do You Have a Conversational Interface?," Using industry examples and findings from his research, he offers strategies for capitalizing on conversational interfaces to capture customer loyalty.

Microsoft today said it has developed a new way for its most popular AI-powered bots to speak and analyze human voices at the same time, a skill engineers believe leads to more naturalistic conversations. The bots are empowered to predict what a person will say next, when to pause, and when it's appropriate to interrupt someone. Major virtual assistants have gained more expressive, human-like voices and are being trained to understand human emotion through voice analysis. But despite heavy investment by tech giants, exchanges between virtual assistants and people today can still be rather rudimentary, requiring the use of a wake word to carry out each command and falling short of the casual speech patterns that define human interaction. The new way to talk debuts with Microsoft's Xiaoice in China and Rinna in Japan.

Hey Siri, meet your new boss. In a surprise development that is sure to have huge implications across the AI landscape, Apple announced yesterday that it has hired John Giannandrea, the architect behind Google Assistant, mere hours after he announced he was stepping down from his lofty position at the Mountain View headquarters. Giannandrea joined Google in 2010 as part of its research and development team and quickly rose through the ranks as AI took on a central role in the company. In 2016, his job duties expanded to search as well upon Amit Singhal's retirement, and Giannandrea has since integrated AI and machine learning into all aspects of Google's ecosystem with Google Assistant. Now Apple is hoping he can do the same thing with Siri.

Apple has hired Google's former head of search and artificial intelligence to lead its machine learning and AI strategy. John Giannandrea will report directly to chief executive Tim Cook, the New York Times reported on Tuesday. The appointment comes at the same time that the tech giant looks to develop its Siri digital assistant. It was reported last week that Apple was looking for more than 150 engineers to work on the platform. Mr Giannandrea joined Google in 2010 after it acquired the search start-up Metaweb, where he had served as chief technology officer.

Mr. Rain's HAL has become the default reference, not just for the voice, but also for the humanesque qualities of what a sentient machine's personality should be. Just ask Amazon's Alexa or Google Home -- the cadence, the friendly formality, the pleasant intelligence and sense of calm control in their voices evoke Mr. Rain's unforgettable performance. As we warily eye a future utterly transformed by A.I. incursions into all aspects of our lives, HAL has been lurking. To Scott Brave, the co-author of "Wired for Speech: How Voice Activates and Advances the Human-Computer Relationship," HAL 9000 is a mix between a butler and a psychoanalyst. "He has a sense of deference and of detachment," Mr. Brave said, adding that he saw a ripple effect on, for example, the iPhone's virtual assistant.

Were you lucky enough to get a new iPhone for the holidays? Well, here are some things you should know about your new Apple phone. You've come to grips with the fact that Apple removed the standard headphone jack on recent iPhone models and bought the company's branded $159 wireless AirPods. Or maybe you received these Bluetooth headphones as a gift. Either way, you'll want to make the most out of these small earbuds, which I frequently use and like a lot.

Chinese phone makers are in a tough spot if they want to use voice assistants. Google is largely a no-show in the country, Siri is limited to Apple devices and services like Alexa or Cortana don't have nearly as much influence as they do elsewhere. Xiaomi has a straightforward solution to that problem: create its own AI companion. The company has posted a video showing off Xiao Ai, an assistant designed with China in mind. The functionality is familiar: you can play music, check the weather, control smart home devices and translate foreign languages.

If you make a purchase by clicking one of our links, we may earn a small share of the revenue. However, our picks and opinions are independent from USA TODAY's newsroom and any business incentives. If you don't have a smart speaker yet, you're still living in the past. Smart assistants make life a little bit easier by checking the weather, connecting to smart home devices, and answering every little question your heart desires, all with nothing more than a simple voice command. If you're ready to take a leap into the future, you can get the Google Home, Google's answer to the Amazon Echo, for a price nearly as good as we saw on Black Friday. Typically, the Google Home goes for $129.00,

An error on the dating app Grindr allowed third party sites to access personal information. Tony Spitz has the details. Dating app Grindr, which serves many LGBTQ users, admits it has been sharing users' HIV status with third-party companies. Grindr says it will stop sharing user data, including HIV status, to two other companies, after concerns the disclosures violated consumer privacy and undermined public health efforts. The gay dating and social networking app, which counts over 3 million daily active users, said Tuesday it would no longer share users' HIV status with app optimization company Apptimize and is discussing how to remove data from Localytics.