Its upscale Genesis brand has introduced Google Assistant support that gives you voice control over your vehicle as long as it's hooked into Genesis Connected Services. If you need to warm up your car on a winter morning, send a destination for your trip or lock the doors, you just have to talk to Assistant (through Home or your phone) instead of venturing outside. The Assistant app is ready to use today. There's a good chance that using this won't come at any extra cost, since all Genesis cars come with 3 years of free Connected Services access. Just remember that you'll have to pay after that -- otherwise, you might have to control your car the old-fashioned way.

Using your voice to control things around your home is one of the cooler aspects of the future we live in. But, unless you have the right phone or smart speaker, that functionality can be crippled or nonexistent. Platform-agnostic devices for smart homes are all too rare, which is why iDevices' dimmer switch is so intriguing. The company's hardware works with Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri right out of the box. No, I never thought I'd say a dimmer switch would be interesting either, but here we are.

Dating apps have been slow to adopt video functionality. Big shot Tinder bought a video service in February but hasn't announced plans to add its functionality, while Hinge just included user-made movie clips for profiles -- a feature that Badoo launched last year. Today, the UK-based dating service is taking another step forward and adding video chat straight into the app, so users can move past text and talk in real-time. You'll have to exchange at least one message each before video chats become available, so at least users won't get spammed with calls from randos they haven't chatted with. Badoo is pitching it as an added layer of security, giving folks the opportunity to see if anybody sets off their creep alarms before meeting in person.

First announced at I/O in May, Google is ready to launch hands-free calling via its voice-activated Home speaker, letting you get in touch with anyone in the U.S. or Canada without lifting a finger--and for free. Starting Wednesday, you'll be able to use your Home speaker to place a call to virtually any person in your contacts or business across the U.S. or Canada, but there's a catch: The recipient won't know who's calling. Since Google Home uses its own number to place the call, the recipient will see "Unknown" or "No Caller ID" on their end. Google says it hopes to allow users to link their mobile numbers by the end of the year. Once the feature becomes available on your device, you won't have to do much to get it to work.

Google Home is getting a big upgrade today: The smart speaker can now place voice calls, no cellphone needed. This feature was first announced back at Google I/O in May, but it's now ready to roll out to users in the US and Canada. It's yet another feature that helps keep the Home competitive with Amazon's Echo family, which added calling back in May. We haven't gotten to try it out yet, but it sounds like it should be pretty straightforward to get your Home working as a speakerphone. But there are a few things you'll want to know before you give it a shot.

You probably don't have a landline phone, because it's not 1995. But you miss it sometimes, don't you? Knowing where the phone was all the time, having something anyone could pick up and use, avoiding the rock-paper-scissors over who has to waste their cell phone battery calling Dominos. Earlier this year at its developer conference, Google promised to turn its Home smart speaker into a sort of futuristic landline. You can now call any business or person in your contacts, as long as they live in the US or Canada, just by asking Google to do so.

Amazon today announced a new program that gives developers a way to earn money for their Alexa skills – the voice apps that run on smart speakers like the Echo, and other Alexa-powered devices. According to the company, developers will be compensated for top-performing and "engaging" voice apps across over a half-dozen categories, including games, which were previously being compensated through a similar program. This program had first begun in May, when Amazon quietly introduced direct cash payouts to Alexa developers with popular games. Now, Amazon will begin to reward voice apps in other categories, including Education & Reference, Food & Drink, Health & Fitness, Lifestyle, Music & Audio, and Productivity, it says. The idea here is to offer developers a means of making money from their Alexa skills ahead of any formal monetization program.

Summary: There are five basic styles of recommenders differentiated mostly by their core algorithms. You need to understand what's going on inside the box in order to know if you're truly optimizing this critical tool. In our first article, "Understanding and Selecting Recommenders" we talked about the broader business considerations and issues for recommenders as a group. In this article we'll cover the five basic types of recommenders and their strengths and weaknesses. Given that Recommenders add 10% to 25% of incremental income to your ecommerce business you need to know exactly how these are working. Optimization will involve fine tuning as well as potentially combining different models.

Artificial Intelligence is radically changing the way we think of technology. It 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. Another study performed by Forrester Research predicted an increase of 300% in investment in AI this year (2017), compared to last year. "Artificial Intelligence" today includes a variety of technologies and tools, some time-tested, others relatively new.

Exoskeletons don't come cheap and they're not one size fits all, making them a daunting prospect for the average buyer. But, some companies are working towards changing that. In December, Hyundai promised to make the suits cheaper. And, researchers are using machine learning to make them more accessible for people with mobility issues. That's where Bionik Laboratories comes in.