Product reviews provide insights in to real user experiences which can benefit others when making their purchasing decisions. Text-mining and NLP may be used to extract features and content that could influence a new user. Additionally, recommender systems and filtering interfaces rely on manufacturer reported data in order to support user preferences. In many instances this data may be absent or inaccurate. In this paper we focus on age related features mentioned in user reviews of baby and child related products in order to recommend the appropriate age range of a product. We demonstrate that manufacturer related information is frequently absent and when manufacturer specifications are available, we find they may not reflect real user experiences which could assist a buyer in their decision making process. As a result, we present a simple user interface to allow users assess the age appropriateness of the product.

If you're planning to buy the new Amazon Echo Show, why not pre-order two and save $100? (Photo: Amazon) If you make a purchase by clicking one of our links, we may earn a small share of the revenue. Our picks and opinions are independent from any business incentives. The Amazon Echo family just grew to include the brand new Echo Show (available for pre-order now at $229.99 and shipping in late June). This new Alexa device does everything the Echo and Alexa can do, but it also has a 7-inch touchscreen and front-facing 5MP camera for a new twist on my favorite smart home device. Not only can you ask Alexa to display everything from the weather and news to your to-do lists, photos and videos, but you can use the Echo Show to video chat with your loved ones.

For decades, artificial intelligence (AI) researchers have sought to enable computers to perform a wide range of tasks once thought to be reserved for humans. In recent years, the technology has moved from science fiction into real life: AI programs can play games, recognize faces and speech, learn, and make informed decisions. As striking as AI programs may be (and as potentially unsettling to filmgoers suffering periodic nightmares about robots becoming self-aware and malevolent), the cognitive technologies behind artificial intelligence are already having a real impact on many people's lives and work. AI-based technologies include machine learning, computer vision, speech recognition, natural language processing, and robotics;1 they are powerful, scalable, and improving at an exponential rate. Developers are working on implementing AI solutions in everything from self-driving cars to swarms of autonomous drones, from "intelligent" robots to stunningly accurate speech translation.2 And the public sector is seeking--and finding--applications to improve services; indeed, cognitive technologies could eventually revolutionize every facet of government operations. For instance, the Department of Homeland Security's Citizenship and Immigration and Services has created a virtual assistant, EMMA, that can respond accurately to human language. EMMA uses its intelligence simply, showing relevant answers to questions--almost a half-million questions per month at present. Learning from her own experiences, the virtual assistant gets smarter as she answers more questions. Customer feedback tells EMMA which answers helped, honing her grasp of the data in a process called "supervised learning."3 While EMMA is a relatively simple application, developers are thinking bigger as well: Today's cognitive technologies can track the course, speed, and destination of nearly 2,000 airliners at a time, allowing them to fly safely.4

Seattle (AFP) - Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella said Wednesday tech developers have a responsibility to prevent a dystopian "1984" future as the US technology titan unveiled a fresh initiative to bring artificial intelligence into the mainstream. At the start of its annual Build Conference, Microsoft sought to showcase applications with artificial intelligence that could tap into services in the internet "cloud" and even take advantage of computing power in nearby machines. Nadella spent time on stage at the Seattle conference stressing a need to build trust in technology, saying new applications must avoid dystopian futures feared by some. Nadella's presentation included images from George Orwell's "1984" and Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" to underscore the issue of responsibility of those creating new technologies. "What Orwell prophesied in '1984,' where technology was being used to monitor, control, dictate, or what Huxley imagined we may do just by distracting ourselves without any meaning or purpose -- neither of these futures is something that we want," he said "The future of computing is going to be defined by the choices that you as developers make and the impact of those choices on the world."

Taste in movies is idiosyncratic, and not linked to the demographic traits that film studios target, a study has found. It also shows that moviegoers' ratings don't always match those of film critics. The survey of more more than 3,000 people found that the best predictor of a non-critics' response to a film was the aggregated evaluations of other non-critics, such as those on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb). The results of a study revealed that there were generally low levels of correlation in movie preferences among non-film critics - in other words, their movie tastes were highly individualistic. 'What we find enjoyable in movies is strikingly subjective - so much so that the industry's targeting of film goers by broad demographic categories seems off the mark,' says Dr Pascal Wallisch, a clinical assistant professor in New York University's Department of Psychology and the senior author of the study.

Microsoft showed off its latest developments and projects for developers early Wednesday as it kicked off day one of its Build conference in Seattle. Here are several of the biggest takeaways from the conference's inaugural day: Artificial intelligence has been popularized with consumers through products like Microsoft's Cortana and Amazon's Alexa home assistants, but Microsoft showcased a more in-depth and commercial application for the technology with a live demo. During the demo, Microsoft set up a mock construction workplace onstage to demonstrate how AI could be used to help encourage workplace safety. Using AI and augmented cameras, the system automatically detected where people and individual power tools were within the workspace. Microsoft said instances where the technology could be used include helping employees find tools and ensuring workers aren't using tools for which they haven't been trained.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella used his company's annual developers conference Wednesday to caution developers that they use their powers for good and build systems that avoid the dystopian predictions of authors George Orwell and Aldous Huxley. "The opportunity for developers to have broad impact on all parts of society has never been greater," Nadella, a former Microsoft engineer, told 5,500 developers assembled in the city's convention center hall. "But with this opportunity comes enormous responsibility." The CEO added that he considered himself "a tech optimist, (but) there are unintended consequences of technology," consequences that won't be solved by technology itself, but only by its creators. Microsoft's new smart speaker looks exactly like the Amazon Echo (Photo: Reviewed.com)

Riding on a recent surge in share price, Amazon sent another shock wave through the tech world on Tuesday by launching a smart Wi-Fi speaker that not only hears what you say, but also shows you what it sees. This 7-inch touchscreen-equipped digital assistant -- Echo Show -- is the latest addition to the Alexa family, which began as a simple voice-controlled alarm clock and is fast becoming the central hub of digitally connected homes. All your home appliances and accessories, including your vehicle, will soon be connected to the Internet and voice controlled. Someday in the future, when the milk is running low, your fridge will text you a shopping list while routing your Volkswagen to the closest Walmart on the way home. This vision is not new. For years, smart home automation has been touted by IT giants like and Microsoft, as well as by upstarts like Nest and Canary.

It was always a long shot. As I wrote last week, the dating app Feeld recently released a bot for the work-chat platform Slack, which alerts users who mutually expressed romantic interest that they liked each other. Despite Feeld's grandiose claims that using this bot would "make your organization more human" by encouraging people not to hide their crushes at work, it seemed unlikely that workplaces would really want to install this. Slack, apparently, didn't think so either. The company has decided not to list Feeld's bot in its app directory.

By now, we've grown accustomed to our devices listening to us. Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa, Bixby, Cortana, and every other disembodied virtual taskrabbit has been hearing our commands--and who knows what else--for years. But, with its last two smart hub devices, Amazon has pushed one step beyond the microphone, asking users to install cameras in their homes. Yesterday, with the announcement of the Echo Show, Amazon reaffirmed its plan to have Alexa see you in addition to hear you. It's a small step forward in terms of usability, but a major can of worms when it comes to our security and privacy.