Google's voice-activated assistant can now recognize who's talking to it on Google's Home speaker. An update released Thursday enables Home's built-in assistant to learn the different voices of up to six people, although they can't all be talking to the internet-connected speaker at the same time. Distinguishing voices will allow Home to be more personal in some of its responses, depending on who triggers the assistant with the phrase, "OK Google" or "Hey Google." For instance, once Home is trained to recognize a user named Joe, the assistant will automatically be able to tell him what traffic is like on his commute, list events on his daily calendar or even play his favorite songs. Then another user named Jane could get similar information from Home, but customized for her.

In the future, it'd be nice to expect our smart home will just know when we're on our way home and prepare for our arrival. In the meantime, voice assistants from Google and Amazon let us control our devices without all of that fiddly button pressing. Mercedes Benz, which already pledged to bake Google's platform into its cars, is getting even more committed to our voice-controlled future. Today, the automaker is announcing that both Google Assistant and Alexa will work on all of its 2016 and 2017 models released in the US. All you need to get it working is an active Mercedes Me account and a subscription to mbrace, the Mercedes Benz smartphone platform.

Google Home received a major update to its voice recognition system on Thursday that lets owners set up the smart speaker to recognize multiple account holders. The software update means that up to six people can connect their Google account to one speaker and Google Assistant will be able to distinguish users by the sound of their voice. Amazon is said to be working on a similar feature for its Echo range of devices. The feature works by listening to how individual users say the phrases "Ok Google" and "Hey Google", and then runs the samples through a neural network that can detect certain voice characteristics and match vocal analyses in a matter of milliseconds. Google says the process happens "only on your device" and the samples aren't sent anywhere else.

Insurance executives believe that artificial intelligence (AI) will significantly transform their industry in the next three years, with insurers investing in AI to empower agents, brokers and employees to enhance the customer experience with automated personalized services, faster claims handling and individual risk-based underwriting processes, according to Accenture's Technology Vision for Insurance 2017. At the same time, however, the report found that insurers face challenges integrating AI into their existing technology, citing issues such as data quality, privacy and infrastructure compatibility. Titled "Technology for People," the report is based on the insights of a technology advisory board, interviews with industry technologists and a survey of more than 550 insurance executives across 31 countries. According to the report, three-quarters (75 percent) of insurance executives believe that AI will either significantly alter or completely transform the overall insurance industry in the next three years. One-third (32 percent) believe that their own company will be "completely transformed" by AI within that timeframe, and an additional 39 percent believe that AI will "significantly change" their company.

A few changes are afoot at Engadget, Elon Musk has plans for brain-machine interfaces in a few years, and HTC made a phone that is rumored to be squeezable. Meanwhile, a high-end, WiFi-connected juicer with mountains of funding is also feeling the squeeze. Changes aheadWe're learning from our past to inform our future. It's not the weekend yet, but we have a letter from the new editor-in-chief, Christopher Trout walking down memory lane and laying out what you can expect from Engadget in the future. That's one way to sell more camerasGoPro's Fusion spherical camera is six GoPros in one Facebook, isn't the only one with a new 360-degree camera, as GoPro is announcing its 5.2K VR-capable Fusion camera.

If you want to know how to build great data science-enabled product, you needn't look beyond LinkedIn, now Microsoft-owned. The Mountain View headquartered professional networking company has over 433 million members across 200 countries, allowing data scientists access to structured datasets that spawned cutting-edge data-driven products, most notably "People You May Know"; "Social Graph Visualizations"; " Matching" and "Collaborative Filtering" that drove the company to success. According to Mandar Parikh, VP Product & Engineering, Entytle Inc, "Linkedin is one of the early adopters of data science and is at the forefront of modern day data science. It was one of the first companies to put together a strong data science team. In fact, LinkedIn graph search and recruiter product has got data science behind," he said.

OK Google, how far is it from LA to San Francisco?

The setup process involves adding additional users through the Home app, who then train the device to recognize them by repeating a few key phrases. Google uses a neural network that's actually located on the device itself to differentiate the distinct voices in the household. The system will still respond to requests from random people, like a guest in your home, but it also means that your Home device should only read your more personal information--like what's on your schedule for the day--to you.

Google Home has developed a skill many humans have yet to master – being a better listener. The virtual assistant can now distinguish between different voices and formulate responses that are relevant to a specific user. The update comes as Google adds the ability for up to six people to connect their account to one smart speaker. Google Home can now distinguish between different voices and formulate responses that are relevant to specific users. The first step in linking multiple accounts to one virtual assistant is opening up the card in the app that says'multi-user is available'.

Smart home hubs are continuing to evolve, and Google just added a pretty important feature to its own hub, the Google Home. Previously, Home only linked up to the account of whomever set it up first. Now, the device will be able to handle multiple accounts and tell who's speaking to it, offering personalized answers to some questions. That's a feature that Amazon's Echo doesn't have. And it's important for a voice assistant that's designed to run your household.