Most people still don't know who or what Teenage Engineering is. But, those that do probably think of them as a music company -- the iconic OP-1 synthesizer, OD-11 speaker and line of tiny Pocket Operator synths have earned Teenage Engineering that reputation. But more than that, the company is made of of people who love getting weird with hardware design; pushing the boundaries of what can be created is in Teenage Engineering's DNA. The two new products Teenage Engineering just unveiled at the Baidu World conference in Beijing, China most definitely fit with that ethos. Simply referred to by the single letters "H" and "R," the easiest way to identify devices is to call them smart speakers.

Sure, Facebook has "M", Google has "Google Now", and Siri's voice isn't always that of a woman. But it does feel worth noting that (typically male-dominated) engineering groups routinely give women's names to the things you issue commands to. Is artificial intelligence work about Adams making Eves? The response to this critique is usually about the voices people trust and find easy to understand. Adrienne LaFrance over at The Atlantic does a good job discussing those points, so go read her article.

When the passionate heroine of DH Lawrence's infamous 1928 novel Lady Chatterley's Lover was looking for romance, she turned to her gamekeeper. Now, she's joined dating app Tinder - with the help of artist Libby Heaney. "There's lots of good fish in the sea... maybe," Lawrence wrote in Lady Chatterley's Lover. "But the vast masses seem to be mackerel or herring, and if you're not mackerel or herring yourself you are likely to find very few good fish in the sea." If only Lady Chatterley, in her search for the perfect catch, had been on Tinder.

It seems like everyone is building in Alexa or Google Assistant smarts to their speakers, thermostats and cars these days. If you haven't yet had enough of devices you can talk to, the Olie lamp over at Indiegogo might interest you. It's a cute little desk, floor or table lamp that will have a voice assistant from Amazon or Google and a neat little Qi wireless charging station built right in (to the table-sized Olie). Sure, this is Indiegogo, so don't get your hopes up. If the project is funded and the lamp is produced, though, you'll get an lamp made of aluminum in one of two finishes, black or chrome, that you can talk to.

Artificial Intelligence is the future of growth. There is sure to be at least one article in the newspaper/internet/blogs daily on the revolutionary advancements made in the field of Artificial Intelligence or its subfield disrupting standard industries like Fintech, Banking, Law, or any other. In banking domain digital banking teams of all modern banks planning to transform the customer experience with their AI based chat-driven intelligent virtual assistant i.e. bots. Amalgamating the latest technology of artificial intelligence, predictive analytics and cognitive messaging to serve millions of customers is now a new winning strategy? AI and regulation are paving the way for Fintech.

Back in September, Bluetooth-connected device owners got a little scare when security firm Armis disclosed a new hack exploit known as BlueBorne. In theory, bad actors could target smartphones, tablets and such using specific vectors in Bluetooth connectivity. Armis had informed Apple, Microsoft and Google months before and they patched up the vulnerabilities ahead of the news release. But today the firm disclosed that it wasn't just handheld devices that might have been affected -- Amazon's Echo and Google Home were vulnerable, too. Once again, Armis notified the companies in question long enough for them to patch out the vulnerabilities, so updated devices should be safe.

Google Assistant already has its share of third-party apps, but that experience doesn't usually leave the device where it starts. You can't make a request on your Home speaker that needs an answer on your phone. Thankfully, Google is about to fix that. It's introducing a slew of developer upgrades that include a new framework for passing third-party app experiences from Assistant-equipped speakers like Home to your phone. If you're ordering food, you can start the request by asking your speaker and review the details on your handset.

Google has set out to make its mark on the headphone world with Pixel Buds -- wireless headphones that can control your phone and that claim to translate conversations in real time. But how do they stack up? Google sent us a pair to review to find out. The most important thing you should know about Pixel Buds is that their full features only work with Google's newest smartphone, the Pixel 2. While they'll function with other phones, you must have a Google Pixel phone -- last year's Pixels, the Pixel 2 or Pixel 2 XL (which, buyer beware, have had some early quality-control issues) -- to access the Pixel Buds' marquee feature: real-time translation. To be honest, it's not exactly real-time.

As AI-powered automated personal assistants have increasingly found their way into our lives, their tremendous power at certain tasks has often been undermined by their inability to fuse the data available to them into a comprehensive view of our lives and, perhaps most importantly, their inability to actively anticipate our needs rather than merely passively respond to queries posted to them. How might adding proactive anticipatory reasoning and the ability to look across data allow our future AI assistants to be far more useful in our day-to-day lives? As I was taking a cab to the airport this past Friday, I noticed everywhere around me preparations for the Marine Corp Marathon, which I had completely forgotten was this weekend and which meant that when I returned early Sunday morning I was going to have difficulty getting home given all of the road closures in my neighborhood. Yet, despite having access to my calendar, which clearly noted my return flight arrival on Sunday, and being able to tell me that there was a giant marathon running directly through my neighborhood on Sunday with road closures all around my home, my AI assistant was unable to connect the two and anticipate that I might have trouble getting home via my usual route on Sunday. Heading to a meeting a week ago, my assistant could tell me there was a huge traffic delay along the way when I explicitly asked for a traffic update, but was unable on its own to connect that to my next calendar appointment and proactively suggest 30 minutes earlier that I leave half an hour early to avoid being late.

The absence of Amazon's Alexa and Prime Music services in Canada has been a strange oversight, given that the nation's share a border and (one of two) common languages. That has now been corrected, as Amazon has finally launched the Echo family, Prime Music and Alexa Voice services and skills in the land of hockey and poutine. "We're excited to bring [Alexa] to Canada with an experienced designed from the ground up for our Canadian customers," said Amazon Senior VP Tom Taylor in a statement. Amazon has introduced a new English voice for Alexa with a Canadian accent, though even we Canadians aren't exactly sure what that is. However, Alexa doesn't seem to be available yet in French, which is bit surprising considering that it's one of Canada's two official languages (Engadget has reached out for more information).