Earlier this week, several owners of Google's new Pixel 2 smartphone reported'clicking and whistling' issues with the £630 ($649) handset. Users complained that the smaller model of the two flagship devices was emitting a series of irritating high pitched sounds and strange clicks. Thankfully, Google has now addressed the issue, and says it is'validating a software update' to address the problem. Earlier this week, several owners of Google's new Pixel 2 smartphone reported'clicking and whistling' issues with the £630 ($649) handset. Thankfully, Google has now addressed the issue, and says it is'validating a software update' to address the problem The problem appears to be related the gadget's near field communication (NFC) chip, which is used to make contactless payments and for other data transfer purposes.

Amazon's latest bid to boost its smart assistant's skill set is centered around kids. Alexa Skills Challenge: Kids wants Alexa tricks aimed at kids under the age of 13, with the best ones claiming cash prizes from a fund of $250,000. The overall winner will claim $25,000, so a farm yard animal noise generator won't cut it. All eligible participants in the challenge will also pick up a limited-edition Echo Dot, and there's dedicated prizes for high school and university student devs. Amazon is looking for educational or fun vocal tricks for its voice assistant profile, having added kids skill functionality back in August.

Former vice-president Joe Biden reads the news on Biden's Briefings, a podcast and connected speaker "skill" (Photo: Chris Ferenzi) LOS ANGELES -- The Creative Artists Agency, one of the most powerful talent agencies in Hollywood, just launched a new "start-up studio" to develop apps for its celebrity clients, initially focused on audio for the connected-speaker market. The agency's Creative Labs has two companies in its portfolio already: Ground Control, which offers daily news updates from former vice president Joe Biden on Amazon's Alexa-activated speakers and Google Home and a trivia game from baseball great Buster Posey of the San Francisco Giants. And it has Belletrist, an arts community aimed at millennial women that was co-founded by actress Emma Roberts. Labs is working with comedian Mike Epps on a new audio game that will be introduced by the end of the year. CAA, which represents such superstars as Tom Hanks and George Clooney, is also a longtime co-founder of tech firms, including the comedy site Funny or Die, and Moonshark, which created apps for celebrities like Hanks and Jennifer Lopez.

It's been a decade since the launch of the industry's leading independent digital advice platforms -- Betterment, Wealthfront and Personal Capital. The question that now remains for all three: who will cross the IPO finish line first? The companies continue to churn the possibility of going public, while raising millions in additional funding. But there are doubts around the market viability of automated advice's aging upstarts. In terms of assets, the trio has kept their positions in the market respectively, with Betterment leading all independents with over $10 billion in AUM, followed by Wealthfront's $7.4 billion and Personal Capital's $4.9 billion.

The world is changing, and it's all about your voice. In my house, there are voicebots everywhere. In the kitchen, I use the Google Home speaker to ask about recipes and the weather. In my office, there's an Amazon Echo connected to a high-end stereo, so I can control my music collection by voice. You'd think that would be enough, except that I have another Echo Dot in my family room, and another Echo in an upstairs room.

The companies that add the trinomial cloud, AI and machine learning will take the lead, by improving their operation with personalized attention and predictive analysis. Everyone is currently talking about how the cloud, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are the perfect trionomial and the trend to follow in the coming months. The promises of the great benefits that could bring all aspects of human life, is what is moving to companies of all sizes turn their expectations to these developments. Efforts are being made to develop machine learning to the point where there will be no necessary human intervention. The area of artificial intelligence, which uses automatic models to learn from data, is seen as the bright future of scientific-mechanical learning, which is the next level of evolution in automation.

IMAGINE a future where you don't have to physically hunt for your hotel light switch. Well, maybe that future is already here. Voice-enabled assistance and voice-assisted devices are gaining momentum in the hotels and hospitality industry, and agents are scrambling to learn about and sell the idea amid growing demand. At the ITB Asia 2017 trade show in Singapore, Rajat Nagpal, vice president of global supply and data aggregation strategy and Asia Pacific sales at Mystifly, said that hotels must keep up to the emerging trend of voice-assisted devices. He predicted that hotels (and potentially, serviced apartments) could see guests using voice assistance – with a combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) – across an entire day's worth of work from the moment they rise from bed.

Amazon announced its earnings for the third quarter of 2017 on Thursday and to nobody's surprise, the internet shopping titan revealed that it has sold a whole bunch of products for unfathomable amounts of money. The company reports that it sold $43.7 billion worth of merchandise in Q3, that's a 34 percent increase over the same period last year. However, if you don't count the $1.3 billion in sales that Whole Foods earned during that time, the company's net sales only increased by a measly 29 percent year-over-year. So where did all this cash come from? Well the Whole Foods acquisition in late August definitely helped, but Amazon also introduced three new Echos (the second-gen Echo, the Echo Plus home hub, and the lightweight Echo Spot) as well as new Fire TV, which supports 4K and integrates with an Echo for voice control.

The Google Home platform keeps getting more capable with each passing week. Now the smart speaker can cast HBO Now to the TV of your choice. According to the Google blog post, you don't need to open the app and pick something to watch first, either. Simply say something like "Okay Google, watch The Deuce" and Assistant will start playing the '70s New York period piece on the TV of your choosing. If you aren't an HBO subscriber, though, you could always use Home to catch up on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Riverdale.

This isn't the first time Google has asked you to spend a grand or more for one of its own cloud and browser-based Chrome OS laptops. The Pixelbook, though, might just be the first pricey Google-branded Chromebook to legitimately tempt you to part with such a lofty sum. Chromebooks are their own breed of computer, of course, distinct from the Mac or Windows PCs. They rely on Google's Chrome operating system and--most of the time-- an Internet connection where the files and apps, several but not all from Google, typically reside. Pixelbook is a beautiful, thin and well-constructed 2 ½ pound aluminum and glass piece of hardware, with a 360-degree hinge that lets you fold the thing into a tablet, prop it up to watch a movie, or use more conventionally like any laptop.