Dating through apps has several ongoing problems. The glaring privacy breaches seem to mount up day by day. For instance, cyber-security researchers realized that hackers could create a creepy Chrome plugin allowing a Tinder user to find the precise location of their Facebook friends who were also on Tinder. A journalist asked Tinder for the data it had on her and got back 800 pages of detailed information which, if hacked, could have exposed her most private life. And last month a young mother killed herself after malicious trolls set up a fake Tinder account in her name.

Artificial intelligence took center stage at today's #MadeByGoogle launch event. The company unveiled a plethora of products aimed at an AI-focused future, including enhanced voice and visual search features in the Pixel 2 smartphone and Google Home device, as well as a beefed up virtual reality headset, to name a few. In his opening remarks, Google CEO Sundar Pichai highlighted the company's "shift from mobile-first to an AI-first world," and AI and machine learning were weaved throughout the day's announcements as the driving forces behind Google's devices. Google staffers demonstrated daily applications for the voice-activated, AI-powered Google Assistant, including automated driving directions for commuters and "broadcast," a Google Home-powered public address system for streamlining morning routines. "Parents are going to love this feature...kids are going to hate this feature," joked Rishi Chandra, Google's vice president of home products.

The battle for smart-speaker supremacy in Japan has begun, with major firms announcing the launches Thursday of new products armed with high-tech voice-controlled features. With the aim of taking the lead in the AI powered smart-speaker market, which many observers believe will become the next major trend, Line Corp. and Google both debuted their new products for the Japanese market the same day. "The smartphone era began 10 years ago, but we are about to enter a new era where everything will be connected to the internet and optimized by AI," said Jun Masuda, chief strategy and marketing officer at Line, during a news conference Thursday at the firm's headquarters in Tokyo. Line said its Clova Wave speaker is now available online for ¥14,000. Masuda said the critical aspect of the coming era will be gadgets equipped with AI voice agents allowing voice control. Tech firms have been gearing up to develop AI smart-speaker platforms, which are expected to create a new secondary market similar to how smartphones created a huge market for apps.

It took other tech giants years to catch up: Amazon's Alexa assistant appeared in 2014 as part of the Echo home speaker, and the unimaginatively named Google assistant appeared only last summer. Google assistant was positioned as central to nearly all products the company unveiled: wireless earphones; two new smartphones; two new home speakers; and a laptop computer. An April study by marketer Stone Temple that asked 5,000 general knowledge questions to virtual assistants reported that Google's got 91 percent correct, compared to Alexa's 87 percent, and Siri's 62 percent. Another job posted last month asks for candidates who want to help improve Siri's general knowledge, citing queries such as "Why are fire trucks red?"

An upgraded virtual reality headset. A pair of wireless earbuds that can translate a conversation in real-time, like a Babel Fish. Most of them seem to exist for one simple reason: If you want something done right, do it yourself. That something, in this case, is Google Assistant. The company's pragmatically named AI helper already lives on Google Home, last year's Pixels, and lots of other smartphones--including the iPhone.

This story was delivered to BI Intelligence Apps and Platforms Briefing subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here. Google's artificial intelligence (AI) is much smarter than Apple's Siri, according to a report from three Chinese researchers. The report, which aimed to compare the intelligence of various AI systems, found that in 2016, Google's AI had an IQ of 47.3, ahead of Chinese search engine Baidu (33), Microsoft's Bing (32), and Siri (24). But while Google's AI leads the tech pack, it has a long way to go before it comes close to human intelligence; the average 6-year-old has an IQ of 55.5, according to the report. AI is becoming an important segment for companies that use the technology to power an increasingly large portion of their offerings.

You name it, and Google launched it. Two sizes, almost the same phone.Google introduces the Pixel 2 series -- and it's really proud of the camera After all those leaks, the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL are now a reality, and both ditch the headphone jack. They're both (a little) squeezable, which will coax the phones to launch Google Assistant for your questions and search queries, while also packing water resistance and a camera that's apparently better than last year's well-regarded Pixel phone. Google was keen to sidestep the tech spec nitty-gritty and talk about the AI smarts it's stitching into its phones. You might recall Google's Lens visual search from earlier in the year -- well that's coming to these phones before the end of 2017.

SAN FRANCISCO – Google on Wednesday introduced new Pixel ear buds that the company says are capable of real-time translation of conversations in different languages. A demonstration given as Google unveiled a host of new products infused with its digital Assistant smarts got people playfully referring to Pixel Buds as an internet-Age version of the alien "Babel Fish" depicted in famed science fiction work "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." In the literature, inserting a Babel Fish in an ear enabled a person to understand anything spoken in any language. Pixel Buds, synced to freshly introduced second-generation Pixel smartphones, promise real-time translations of conversations involving any of 40 languages. However, on Android phones, the Google Assistant currently is available in only five languages: English, French, German, Japanese and Portuguese.

The Internet of Things is set to disrupt the way we live and work. Imagine that you're cooking dinner, and you ask Alexa, voice assistant on Amazon Echo, to read you today's news so that you can focus on chopping vegetables.

Artificial Intelligence and machine learning is progressing rapidly, with key advancements ranging from virtual assistants (such as Apple's Siri and Microsoft Cortana) to fraud detection. This emerging tech now plays a part in everyday life. Podcasts are a great medium for learning about, well, almost anything. Episodes from this show can take a different format from mini shows that describe a technique to interview shows. Husband and wife presenters Kyle and Linh Da does a great job of making complex topics easy to understand in the mini episodes.