Samsung is set to take on Apple, Google and Amazon with a new home speaker using its Bixby AI. The new speaker will go on sale early next year, according to Bloomberg. Samsung has already confirmed it will will'soon' release a smart speaker designed to take on Amazon's Echo, Google's Home and Apple's HomePod. Bloomberg says the speakers will have a'strong focus on audio quality and the management of connected home appliances such as lights and locks.' It will also synchronize with TVs, Galaxy smartphones and other Samsung devices.

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Key sectors of interest include Internet of Things, FinTech, Future of Work, Logis-cs/Transporta-on, eHealth, Security and others. BootstrapLabs is a Venture Capital firm based in Silicon Valley and focused on Applied Ar:ficial Intelligence About Us 3. Community of Founders, Intrapreneurs, AI/ML Experts, Execu-ves, Professors, Researchers, Investors focused on Innova-on, Technology and Entrepreneurship 30K PEOPLE Our Community 200K FOLLOWERS 1K ATTENDEES Our online community between BootstrapLabs core team and its closer advisors has over 200K followers. We see traffic on our website and deal flow referral coming from over 60 countries BootstrapLabs brought together over 1,000 people during 2016. Our community is a key pillar of our success and we organize many exclusive private and public AI centric events each year 4. Applied AI Digest #1 2016 Google's DeepMind Beats a Top Player at the Game of Go Zucks to create AI-Powered Jarvis JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC IBM Watson Head on the Future of AI Read Full Articles 5. Applied AI Digest #2 Artificial Intelligence Deals on the RiseCould AI Solve the World's Biggest Problems? Harvard is building an AI Engine as fast as the Brain Read Full Articles 6. Applied AI Digest #3 Is Big Data Still a Thing?

If you care more about your smart speaker's sound than which digital assistant it employs, the new Google Home Max speaker should be on your holiday short list. After days of pumping an eclectic range of music through Google's $399 speaker -- from AC/DC to the Three Tenors -- it's clear the Google Home Max is in a class by itself when it comes to filling a home or apartment with sounds even an audiophile could appreciate. Admittedly, for many people the decision to purchase this or that voice-activated smart speaker has often boiled down to which AI-infused digital assistant you're most comfortable engaging with in your home, most likely Amazon's Alexa or the Google Assistant. But when music is the priority, different features come into play. Certainly, at $399 there is a high price to pay for such sonic joy.

Google Home and the Amazon Echo Dot both provide a variety of services that can help you out around the house and entertain you. But to accomplish this task, they also keep audio recordings of everything you have ever asked them. It's a little bit creepy, but both companies say this history is important to help the devices learn and serve you better. If this still bothers you, here's how to find the recordings and delete them. Following is a transcript of the video.

Artificial intelligence will change workplaces, transforming how people work, a panel of experts said. The fast-evolving technology could mean pink slips for workers with routine responsibilities -- but not for all workers, the experts said. AI, in the form of robots, virtual assistants and intuitive office machines, will take over repetitive tasks now performed by office staff. This will give them additional time for more important duties. AI "is already transforming a lot of business processes," said Greg Ryan, head of Canon U.S.A.'s information and imaging solutions division.

Astonishingly, Apple's long-delayed HomePod speaker might not be the last to market when it launches early next year. Samsung will release its own smart speaker in the first half of 2018, according to a Bloomberg report. Unsurprisingly, it will reportedly run Bixby, Samsung's personal assistant rivaling Siri and Alexa, and may be priced at $200. The yet-untitled speaker will focus on audio quality and managing smart home devices, sources told Bloomberg. It will also work with the SmartThings service and product network, the company Samsung acquired back in 2014.

Andrew Ng, co-founder of some of Alphabet Inc-owned Google's most prominent artificial intelligence projects, launches a new venture with iPhone assembler Foxconn to bring AI and so-called machine learning onto the factory floor. Consumers now experience AI mostly through image recognition to help categorize digital photographs and speech recognition that helps power digital voice assistants such as Apple Inc's Siri or Amazon.com But at a press briefing in San Francisco two days before Ng's Landing.ai Google Brain founder Andrew Ng said Foxconn has already signed up for his new firm, using AI for visual inspection in a factory's quality control efforts. Pictured, Chinese workers assemble electronic components at the Taiwanese technology giant Foxconn's factory in Shenzhen, in the southern Guangzhou province.

The TP-LINK HS100 smart plug is quite simply a power outlet that you can control from anywhere. Using your smartphone, you can turn devices on & off, set programs to turn them on & off at set times while you're away, or engage a "countdown timer" which powers the switch off after a set amount of time. Installation is simple -- just plug a device into your smart plug and connect to your wifi network. The HS100 is also compatible with Amazon Alexa, for voice control. Buy multiple plugs and get creative.

Google has thrown a lot at marketers in just the last five years. All of these big changes -- from rolling out major algorithm updates to shifting to mobile-first -- have essentially had the same goal: to provide the best possible search experience to users. Google wants to show users the best content at the right time on the right device as quickly as possible. Some marketers have struggled to keep up with and adapt to these huge changes. Meanwhile, other brands are thriving.