KOBE, Japan -- The smart speaker comes in the guise of a bright yellow chicken or a brown bear and seems just as smart as Alexa. Sorry folks, the Clova Friends speaker is not for sale in the U.S. Talking Tech just spent eight days in the land that pioneered the Sony Walkman and PlayStation, with much of our time in those mega, multi-story electronics shops that sell everything from cameras and TVs to toilets, LCD home lighting and toys. While much of what we saw was available in the U.S., at similar prices, many products we ogled were not available here. Come walk the showroom floor with us. Line's Clova smart speakers come in the guise of a chicken or bear.

The future is here, and the future is artificial intelligence. A technology that once sounded futuristic is now here, and smart businesses have realized it's not an optional tool in this tech-crazed climate, and begun implementing AI in order to create the easiest possible user experience. Analysts predict that by 2020, 85% of a consumer's relationship with a business will be managed without interacting with a human. The internet provides consumers with an unprecedented amount of information and options, but it also makes conversions harder for businesses, due to abundant options and price matching. With AI, businesses can use algorithms to gain insight into the wants and needs of the consumer.

Ng announced Tuesday that he raised money from venture capital firms New Enterprise Associates, Sequoia Capital and Greylock Partners as well as SoftBank Group Corp. In an interview with Reuters, Ng said his goal was to identify new business ideas around artificial intelligence and be able to put cash into them quickly from the so-called AI Fund, of which he will serve as general partner, so that founders of the portfolio companies will not need to burn time pitching traditional venture capitalists. Ng said he plans to draw on his experience at Baidu, one of China's largest internet companies, where he led the artificial intelligence team to develop a range of new business lines. Under Ng, Baidu released a voice-based operating system that users can talk to - much like Amazon's Alexa voice assistant or Apple's Siri - and also started working on self-driving cars and face recognition technology to open things like transit turnstiles when users approach. "Based on that experience, I have an unusual point of view on the building of AI businesses. I think it's a more systematic, repeatable process than most people think," said Ng, who also taught artificial intelligence courses at Stanford University.

Digital Assistants (sometimes seen as AIs) are becoming ubiquitous in living rooms and smartphones everywhere. Now, these devices are taking the leap to the business world. With Amazon's announcement of the Alexa for Business Platform, AIs may soon be able to assist with everything from conference calls to office supply orders. All that utility may come at the cost of security, however, since these AI devices are vulnerable to potential hacking. Digital Assistants Enter the Business World Digital assistants have exploded in popularity over the last two years.

With all the excitement and hype about AI that's "just around the corner"--self-driving cars, instant machine translation, etc.--it can be difficult to see how AI is affecting the lives of regular people from moment to moment. What are examples of artificial intelligence that you're already using--right now? In the process of navigating to these words on your screen, you almost certainly used AI. You've also likely used AI on your way to work, communicating online with friends, searching on the web, and making online purchases. We distinguish between AI and machine learning (ML) throughout this article when appropriate. At TechEmergence, we've developed concrete definitions of both artificial intelligence and machine learning based on a panel of expert feedback. To simplify the discussion, think of AI as the broader goal of autonomous machine intelligence, and machine learning as the specific scientific methods currently in vogue for building AI.

Controversial vlogger Logan Paul has knocked Zoella off the top spot as UK children's favourite YouTuber, according to a study. Paul was embroiled in a row earlier this year when he posted a video showing the body of an apparent suicide victim. His rise suggested children were seeking "edgier" content, said an analyst for research firm Childwise. It was likely children had been exposed to "shocking content", he added. The Childwise study looked at the media habits of 2,000 children in the UK aged five to 16.

Is Alexa about to get a new voice? In a teaser video posted over the weekend the popular digital assistant appears to have "lost her voice," news that shocks the world as well as Amazon founder/world's richest man/actor Jeff Bezos. "How is that even possible?" The employees try to calm their leader by saying that they have replacements ready, but Bezos, demonstrating his acting range, does not appear convinced. The teaser then fades to the trademark Amazon "smile" and the date "2.4.18" when the full ad, and the answer to this giant question, will be revealed.

Canadian financial services virtual assistant startup Finn.ai has become the latest fintech firm to bring in a Twitter veteran, hiring the social media outfit's former head of global financial data partnerships, Stephen Morse.

Amazon's personal assistant Alexa has lost her voice ahead of the launch of Apple's HomePod smart speaker. However, there's nothing to worry about because the e-commerce company is simply updating Alexa's software in preparation for its rival's new product. Amazon recently released a sneak peek at its upcoming Super Bowl LII commercial. The 30-second clip published over YouTube shows a dramatic turn of events starting with a female user asking Alexa about the weather. The digital assistant manages to start its response, but then it coughs and goes silent, causing the Amazon Echo user to worry. The teaser then cuts to a different scene showing a television reporter announcing, "Amazon's Alexa lost her voice this morning."

A collaborative filtering model leverages similarity between your users to make suggestions rather than focusing on concrete details about a particular item. Typically these systems use rating or purchase history to compare users to each other. The distance between pairs of users is calculated, and a particular user is matched to others that are "close" to him or her (i.e. have similar tastes). For a clothing company employing this model, a user would be shown a Balmain jacket if their transaction history was similar to another user who went on to purchase that jacket. In contrast, with a content-based system, that recommendation would have been made based solely on that user's history, without considering the behavior of others.