Personal Assistant Systems
HTC U11 Announced: Comes With Amazon's Alexa, Squeezable Frame & 12MP Camera
The HTC U11, the successor to the HTC 10, has officially been announced. The 5.5-inch flagship Android smartphone features Amazon's Alexa voice assistant, a squeezable metal frame and a camera that has a DxOMark rating of 90. HTC officially unveiled its flagship smartphone for 2017 during a special press event in Taipei, Taiwan. The HTC U11 comes with a 5.5-inch Quad HD Super LCD 5 display layered with Gorilla Glass 5. Its body comes with what the company calls a "liquid glass" design that's been refined from the HTC U Ultra and the HTC U Play. Like the front panel, the back is also covered with the Gorilla Glass 5.
Google Assistant Will Reportedly Launch For iOS Devices In The US
A new rumor is circulating that the Google Assistant, Google's own voice assistant, will be heading to Apple's iPhones. It is currently believed that Google will announce its plans during its I/O conference this week. Google will announce Google Assistant for Apple's iOS devices as a standalone app, a "trusted source" told Android Police. The app could be announced at Google's I/O conference which takes place in the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California from May 17 to May 19. Android Police's report states that Google Assistant on iOS will blend the "chat" style functionality that's currently available on Google's smart messaging app, Allo, and the voice-controlled version of the Assistant that's on Android Nougat smartphones.
HTC unveils the U11, a gorgeous 5.5-inch flagship phone with Amazon Alexa support
Gut reaction: You won't want to hide the HTC U11 in a protective case. HTC's new flagship phone is just too stunning to conceal behind a chintzy polycarb shell. Imbued with HTC's new "liquid" design aesthetic, the U11 has an impossibly glossy finish, evoking the T-1000 Terminator for those old enough to remember that robot assassin. From a basic specs perspective, the U11 is a solid but not remarkable Android 7.1 phone. It includes a state-of-the-silicon-art Snapdragon 835 processor running up to 2.45 GHz, a 3,000 mAh battery, and a 5.5-inch quad HD (2560x1440) display.
HTC's squeezable U11 is its true 2017 flagship phone
Trekkies used to (and might still) believe that only every other Star Trek movie was actually good, and I'd argue that applies to HTC's flagship releases, too. The M9 was an improvement over its predecessor, but the A9 didn't thrill. HTC hit its stride with 2016's 10 while the subsequent U Ultra... well, it was kind of a mess. Thankfully, we didn't have to wait too long before the Taiwanese phone maker took another stab at a flagship. Say hello to the $649/£649 HTC U11, a smartphone that blends high-end power with a striking aesthetic, a slew of pressure sensors and a truly awful name.
HTC unveils 'squeezable' flagship U11 phone
HTC has revealed its newest smartphone, which can be squeezed in order to take selfies and launch other apps. The tech giant's new U11 device houses technology called Edge Sense, based around sensors built into the side of the device that respond to being squeezed. The Taiwanese manufacturer has also become the first to include support for both the Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa smart virtual assistants. The tech giant's new U11 device houses technology called Edge Sense, based around sensors built into the side of the device that respond to being squeezed The HTC U11, which will cost £649 / $649, was unveiled during a live event in Taiwan and is the tech giant's challenger to the new Samsung Galaxy S8 and the iPhone 7. The Edge Sense technology can be used to open the camera and take selfies, as well as launch certain apps and trigger voice control features. It also works when the phone is wet and if the user if wearing gloves, HTC said, and it will also support voice dictation for messages.
Apple quietly buys Lattice Data as arms race against other tech giants continues
Apple (AAPL) is looking to stay ahead of the artificial intelligence development curve with the purchase of Lattice Data, a company that uses AI technology to turn so-called "dark" data into more usable data sets The deal closed a couple of weeks ago at $200 million, according to a report from TechCrunch. On Sunday, Apple issued a generic statement on the deal that said it "buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans." Founded in 2015, Lattice Data claims that its work is "human-caliber quality at machine-caliber scale." As part of the deal, about 20 engineers from Lattice Data are now working at Apple. This is a common practice in the tech sphere.
[session] Great #FinTech Software @CloudExpo @MichalRoza #AI #ML #DL #DX
While presenting own advanced Robo-Advisory Platform, Micha? Ró?a?ski, Managing Partner at EARP and CEO at Empirica, will illustrate the most important issues of building tailored FinTech software in his session at 20th Cloud Expo. He will share experiences we have gained for over 6 years of developing solutions for financial institutions and FinTech companies, including robo-advisors. We welcome all FinTech innovators interested in how properly implemented technology can move their businesses forward.
Investigating Personalized Search in E-Commerce
Jannach, Dietmar (TU Dortmund) | Ludewig, Malte (TU Dortmund)
Personalized recommendations have become a common feature of many modern online services. In particular on e-commerce sites, one value of such recommendations is that they help consumers find items of interest in large product assortments more quickly. Many of today's sites take advantage of modern recommendation technologies to create personalized item suggestions for consumers navigating the site. However, limited research exists on the use of personalization and recommendation technology when consumers rely on the site's catalog search functionality to discover relevant items. In this work we explore the value of personalizing search results on e-commerce sites using recommendation technology. We design and evaluate different personalization strategies using log data of an online retail site. Our results show that considering several item relevance signals within the recommendation process in parallel leads to the best ranking of the search results. Specifically, the factors taken into account include the users' general interests, their most recent browsing behavior, as well as the consideration of current sales trends.
Interaction Semantics versus Interaction Syntax in Data Visualization and Exploration: Design, Implementation and Utilization of Meme Media
Fujima, Jun (ADICOM Software) | Jantke, Klaus P. (ADICOM Software) | Arnold, Oksana (Erfurt University of Applied Sciences) | Schmidt, Bernd (Erfurt University of Applied Sciences)
Humans do not interact with digital systems for the pleasure of clicking buttons. Interactions, in particular those that are quite complex, time-consuming, and sometimes tedious aim at problem solving. Wicked problems are particularly tough. They are characterized by the phenomenon that they tend to change when being tackled. One may see the interaction’s semantics as the outcome which–in the case of those wicked problems, at least–is initially unforseeable. The treatment of wicked problems motivates a certain paradigmatic shift from conventional tools to intelligent assistant systems. However intelligent the digital assistant system, the syntax of human system interaction may be formally represented and is comparably simple in structure. How does such a simple interaction syntax lead to the emergence of intelligent solutions? To what extent do very high expectations of functionality and service impose requirements on the syntax behind? Original concepts of meme media lead both to theoretical insights and to some practical solutions to wicked problems. Data analysis, visualization, and exploration is an attractive application domain. Concepts of interactions scenarios, a meme media implementation, and an application case study are presented.