Apple will release its brand new HomePod in just a couple of weeks, it has announced. The smart speaker will go on sale on 9 February. Pre-orders will open this Friday, 26 January, it said in a statement. The 7-inch speaker will cost £319 in the UK, as well as similar prices in the US and Australia when it goes on sale at the end of this week. It will go on sale in France and Germany in spring, Apple said – voice assistants often roll out slower than other products, since they rely on having local data and languages.

Apple's own vision for the future of home audio, the HomePod smart speaker, will begin shipping on February 9th. Pre-orders for the device open this Friday, January 26th, and are open to users in the US, UK and Australia, while those in France and Germany will be waiting until the "spring." It will, as expected, be priced at $349 / £319, and is available in either White or Space Grey. HomePod is Apple's own weapon in the fight against Amazon and Google in the war of smart speakers with voice assistants. Like its rivals, the device can listen to commands, via Siri, allowing you to control your smart home and music playback.

Where you can swipe right or left for hours looking or should we say shopping, for your soulmate. Susana Victoria Perez (@susana_vp) has more. To connect on Tinder, users are supposed to swipe right. A student at Missouri State University swiped left by mistake, but not wanting to lose the opportunity, he emailed all the Claudias on campus Saturday, Jan. 20, 2018. He found her. (Photo: Leon Neal, Leon Neal, Getty Images) A Missouri State University freshman says he recently made the clumsy mistake while scrolling through his Tinder dating app.

For most businesses, machine learning seems close to rocket science, appearing expensive and talent demanding. And, if you're aiming at building another Netflix recommendation system, it really is. But the trend of making everything-as-a-service has affected this sophisticated sphere, too. You can jump-start an ML initiative without much investment, which would be the right move if you are new to data science and just want to grab the low hanging fruit. One of Machine Learning most inspiring stories is the one about a Japanese farmer who decided to sort cucumbers automatically to help his parents with this painstaking operation.

Consumers are increasingly making voice capabilities a central part of their mobile and home-based interactions. As a result, it is time for organizations to integrate voice-first technologies into consumer acquisition, sales, service and digital customer experience strategies. Subscribe to The Financial Brand via email for FREE!Based on the sales results of the past 18 months, there appears to be an almost insatiable appetite for voice devices by consumers. The demand and utilization of these digital assistants, coupled with the significant advancements in the underlying technology, indicate that voice-first devices are on the cusp of transforming commerce and marketing in virtually every industry. According to a recent study from CapGemini, "Voice assistants such as Google Assistant, Amazon's Alexa, and Apple's Siri, will revolutionize how consumers and brands interact in ways not witnessed since the dawn of e-Commerce. It is so much more than a new interface or an additional channel in an omni-channel world. It promises to be a curator of services and experiences that intelligently meet needs and engage consumers emotionally--anytime, anywhere."

DURBAN - I was happily experimenting with the speech mode and Personal Assistants (PA) with my devices, when my wife, much to the mirth of my children, exclaimed "Your father is still trying to make friends with his computers. After his 30 years with computers they still haven't found each other!"

Artificial intelligence assistants such as Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant have been a major topic of discussion over the past few months. From the release of the Google Home smart speaker to huge sales of Amazon Echo devices over Christmas, there's been a buzz in the air for months -- and that buzz is still building in 2018. Rumor has it Apple will release the HomePod smart speaker soon. This has prompted a flurry of speculation about how it's too little, too late for the company to jump into the AI-enabled smart speaker sector. Meanwhile, experts point to these assistants as the next big boom in consumer tech and AI.

More and more details about Apple's highly anticipated HomePod smart speaker have been popping up lately. The latest of which comes from early testers of the device who, thankfully, shared some screenshots of the device's customizable settings online. On Monday, Apple Insider spotted several screenshots showing what appears to be the different settings users can adjust when they use the HomePod speaker. The settings can be configured through the iOS Home app, and users need to head to this app if they want to apply changes to how the smart speaker works. According to Apple Insider, the leak that was first shared by French website iGeneration gives a detailed look at the HomePod settings. The screenshots reveal that users are given the option to disable the "Hey Siri" voice command and the manual way to summon the digital assistant.

Netflix's long list of suggested movies and TV shows is a fantastic example of a personalized user experience. In fact, about 70 percent of everything users watch is a personalized recommendation, according to the company. Getting to that point hasn't been easy, and improving on its recommendation system is an ongoing process. Netflix has spent well over a decade developing and refining its recommendations. In 2006, it launched the Netflix Prize to search for machine learning experts who could improve its previous algorithm.

This post comes from the perspective of Montserrat Corominas and Dave Darsch. These terms have become buzzwords, thrown around to describe every new app or digital offering. Some key digitization landmarks might seem like little more than fun gimmicks - like Pokémon Go, or kitsch Snapchat/Instagram masks. But these examples, and many more, show that we are actually in a phenomenally exciting moment for virtual transformation: and it's here to stay. Digitization is shifting the vast majority of our everyday processes into the virtual arena.