As artificial intelligence grows smarter, the debate rages on about if--or when--its abilities will eventually surpass us. At least one person in the tech world isn't worried about the prospect of robot overlords: Adam Cheyer, co-founder of Siri, the voice assistant company that Apple acquired in 2010. Speaking at South by Southwest on March 11, Cheyer summarized Google Brain founder Andrew Ng: Worrying about A.I. becoming too smart right now is like worrying about overpopulation on Mars. "We're barely at the beginning of A.I.," Cheyer said. "There's nothing to even be done yet."

Microsoft Monday is a weekly column that focuses on updates in regards to the Redmond giant. This week, Microsoft Monday includes details about features removed from the Windows 10 Creators Update, the So.cl social network shutting down, Teams being released tomorrow, flash support being added to the Pix app, a new partnership between Microsoft and Qualcomm, Skype for macOS now supporting the Touch Bar and much more! Last week Forbes contributor Gordon Kelly pointed out that the Windows 10 Creators Update will have some feature removals. Flash autorun in Edge - Flash will be turned off by default in the default Windows 10 browser. Microsoft Paint extended language support - Microsoft Paint will only support languages on the main localization list going forward.

OK, we at FintekNews believe in being fair and and equal to ALL the investment/ trading/ money management firms that have "the next best robo-advisor" out there. So here's a story that first appeared in HuffPo talking about TD Ameritrade'discovering' that these newfangled robos might catch on and have a big influence on the finance sector. Boy, good to see they are up-to-date and sure hope their top pick isn't the "Steam Railroad Company". Seriously though, they recently launched their robo Essential Portfolios, and are now in the robo fight for millennial (and other) investor money with all the other major financial players out there, including Schwab's Intelligent Portfolios, Betterment and more. "Today's youth are often referred to as "digital natives." This generation has never been without smartphones or "touch-based" screen experiences. They have been raised communicating via text messaging and completing transactions through apps. As a result, they have a comfort level with ...

From televisions to toasters, all kinds of devices are getting hooked up to the Internet. That's bringing convenience, like air conditioning systems that can be activated remotely while you're on your way home from work. But it's also bringing new privacy concerns, as anything connected to the Internet tends to attract the attention of hackers. Case in point: Documents recently released by Wikileaks suggest the Central Intelligence Agency can use spying targets' TVs against them, turning the sets into always-listening microphones. Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Donald Trump, also recently claimed that microwaves could also be used as spying devices, though she has since walked back those comments.

Domino's Pizza has been a company willing to embrace technological change over the past few years. In 2015, it announced that customers could order pizza just by texting a pizza emoji to Domino's. Last November, it delivered a pizza by drone to a couple in New Zealand, claiming that it will be faster and safer as a drone delivery would not have to worry about traffic. Now Domino's is taking another step towards the future as it announced the DRU platform, which ZDNet describes as "an artificial intelligence (AI)-based technology that will allow customers to order a pizza using their voice." Customers could use their phone, computers, or virtual assistants like Amazon Alexa to order pizza, find opening hours, and browse through a menu. Domino's has been developing the DRU platform for years, and most companies obviously do not have the resources to make their own virtual assistants.

A report from research firm IDC has thrown more light on the emerging importance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). According to a new Worldwide Semiannual Cognitive/Artificial Intelligence Systems Spending Guide, spending on AI technologies is all set to surge from $8 billion in 2016 to $47 billion in 2020. With healthcare being one of the industries that will invest the most on cognitive/ AI systems, it is apparent that this industry is betting big on AI technologies. Virtual assistants, intelligent automation and cognitive computing all are going to impact various facets of healthcare – from operations to patient-centric care to precision medicine. Data is a huge driving force in the world of healthcare today.

Google Home, the smart home speaker launched by the tech giant last year, is about to become available in the UK. The voice controlled assistant powered by artificial intelligence and which is a rival to the Amazon Echo is scheduled to be available for UK buyers in the second quarter of the year, it's been revealed. Not content with being the surprise headline of Mobile World Congress (after Nokia's 3310) with the launch of its voice assistant on many of the new phones being unveiled at the event, Google's flagship product which uses Google Assistant is also making waves. It's the first indication of Google's ambitions to expand Google Home beyond US shores, where it launched in October It comes hot on the heels of Amazon's Echo launch in the UK just before Christmas, signalling an escalating rivalry in the battle to own the connected home. Further details have not been revealed, such as the exact date it will be available, where it will go on sale, and the price.

By now, many of us have heard about or might even own one of the popular, sleek multi-functional voice-first devices, such as the Amazon Echo, also known as "Alexa", the name used when waking the device to give a verbal command. Quick joke: How do you make Alexa laugh? This joke is terrible for many reasons, not the least of which is that I ended up anthropomorphized a digital device, which may be one of the biggest issues with this devices. Related: There's No Doubt That Amazon Alexa Is the Next Big Thing First, according to Voice Labs Voice Report for 2017, 6.5 million voice-first devices -- defined as an always-on piece of hardware utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) with primarily a voice interface, both for input and output -- were shipped in 2016. In 2017, that number is estimated to grow to 24.5 million devices shipped, thanks in large part to its appearance during the Super Bowl commercials.

In previous posts (part 1 and part 2), I have explained the process of data live streaming. In the first post, I have explained the process of setting up the Raspberry PI 3 and Weather station. In the second one, I have explained the process of setting up the Event Hub that helps us to. In this post, I will explain the process of creating and setting up the Stream Analytics. Stream Analytics is an event processing engine, which helps to send data from Event Hub to Power BI and Azure ML.

Imagine driving down the highway, coming home from work, and without taking your hands off the wheel or hitting any buttons, asking your car to turn up the heat in your house, preheat the oven for dinner, and play your favorite album, all in the same breath. Picture negotiating with a street vendor in Beijing, having your phone translate the entire conversation between Mandarin and English out loud, so you can haggle in real time. Or how about a stuffed animal that can tell your daughter interactive stories every night before bed, reshaping the adventure at every twist and turn based on her responses and reactions. The human voice is well on its way to becoming the next major medium we use to interact with computers, and as we'll explore in this two-part series, voice computing is the burgeoning field of technology making it possible. Already spanning multiple consumer and enterprise ventures (think call center routing, digital dictation, or the virtual assistants on smartphones), the industry's ultimate aim is enabling people to carry on hands-free, conversational-style interactions with computers.