China has now overtaken Japan for having more robots than anywhere else in the world. The Chinese government is concerned about an ageing population and the rising cost of human labour making Chinese products less competitive. It is giving over $100 Billion in subsidies for companies to replace more human workers with robots. It's hoped that the workers that will no longer work in the factories will move to the growing service sector, in part to help look after the ageing population. Countries In the west have already lost large numbers of manufacturing jobs to china but we shouldn't get too smug about our white-collar jobs in high tech, administration, clerical and production being safe from A.I. systems in the future.

"It is because of them that my little boy smiles again," a mum's heartfelt thanks to the owners of a dog with skin condition vitiligo, and the Singaporean creator of a selective dating app comes to its defence. Two young kids with a long-term skin condition are making headlines after meeting a dog sharing the same rare autoimmune disease. Eight-year old Carter, from Arkansas, developed vitiligo in 2014, a condition characterised by areas of the skin losing their pigmentation. Ava, who is 10 and from Canada, also has vitiligo which she developed when she was four. But Carter and Ava have more than just that in common.

Nonetheless, arguing that First Amendment coverage may extend to strong A.I. speakers raises a number of legitimate concerns. If A.I. is protected, why not protect speech by cats or by parts of nature, like waves? Well, for one thing, unlike a meow or a crashing sound, A.I. speech uses words and is therefore more likely to be understood as conveying a message. A.I. is also more likely to be central to some human communications effort, supplanting human communication. In other words, we often construct A.I. to serve an essentially communicative function.

Hot on the heels of its addition to the Amazon app on the iPhone, Alexa is looking to make its presence known on Android, too. Huawei has announced that the virtual assistant is on its way to the Mate 9, making it the first Android phone to receive Amazon's AI aide. With Alexa on the Mate 9, you'll be able to do many of the things the Echo and Dot can do, including control your home automation devices while you're away. Huawei is touting its smart home capabilities as the flagship feature of Alexa on the Mate 9, but it can also handle many of the other skills Alexa has on Amazon's devices, including the ability to play games, shop at Amazon.com, get news updates, track your workouts, and play podcasts. Furthermore, you can use it to get information about people, places, and events, check your Google or Outlook calendar, find local businesses, and get weather and traffic updates.

The trend in computing towards more natural user interfaces is unmistakable. Graphical user interfaces have long been dominant, but machines driven by more intuitive inputs, like touch and voice, are now mainstream. Today, audio, motion, and even our thoughts, are the basis for the most innovative computer-user interaction models powered by advanced sensor technology. Each computing paradigm maps to one or more of the five human senses; exploring each sense gives us an indication of the direction in which technology is heading. The introduction of the graphical user interface (GUI) drove a step function change in computers as productivity tools, because users could rely heavily on sight, our dominant sense.

NEW HAVEN – The idea of a tax on robots was raised last May in a draft report to the European Parliament prepared by MEP Mady Delvaux from the Committee on Legal Affairs. Emphasizing how robots could boost inequality, the report proposed that there might be a "need to introduce corporate reporting requirements on the extent and proportion of the contribution of robotics and AI to the economic results of a company for the purpose of taxation and social security contributions." The public reaction to Delvaux's proposal has been overwhelmingly negative, with the notable exception of Bill Gates, who endorsed it. But we should not dismiss the idea out of hand. In just the past year, we have seen the proliferation of devices such as Google Home and Amazon Echo Dot (Alexa), which replace some aspects of household help. Likewise, the Delphi and nuTonomy driverless taxi services in Singapore have started to replace taxi drivers.

Over the past several months, smartphone manufacturers have been hungering for a new hook -- a new way to make mobile devices seem fresh, exciting, and wallet-worthy at a point when last year's models still seem perfectly fine to most people. It's a cycle we've seen in AndroidLand plenty of times before. In the early days, each new iteration of a phone was faster than the last. Then came the display resolution phase. We saw a similar thing with camera quality for a while.

Matchpool, the incentive-based community platform that is touted as allowing anyone to open their own "matchmaking pool", is to launch a crowdfund campaign later this month in a move described by the blockchain start-up's CEO and co-founder Yonatan Ben Shimon, a former hedge fund manager, to disrupt the dating scene on a "global scale." In the run up to the start of the crowdfund, which is scheduled to commence on March 25, the company has also announced that Hermione Way, Tinder's former head of European communications, brand consultant and digital marketeer, has joined the Matchpool advisory board. As an advisor, Way who has appeared on has appeared on media channels including BBC World News, NYTimes, Wall Street Journal, and TechCrunch, will provide guidance on global communications strategies while the company works to modernize the centuries-old matchmaking profession. Dating services as a market, which comprises segments spanning online dating websites, dating apps and matchmaking and dating coaches, has been estimated recently to be a $2.5 billion business in the U.S. alone according to a report by Marketdata Enterprises Inc. Online services are cited to account these days for around 70% of the market's value. Whilst at Tinder, which is part of Nasdaq-quoted Match Group Inc. that also owns dating platforms like OKCupid and Match, she helped grow the brand across the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, Spain and Italy.

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. Amazon just made a surprise move in the ever-intensifying virtual assistant wars by putting Alexa on the iPhone via the Amazon app. It's not the first time a rival assistant has set up shop on the iPhone (Microsoft has a Cortana app for iPhone), but Amazon has an iPhone app that is used by millions! So we decided to put this new version of Alexa to the test against Siri.

Amazon said alcohol is now among tens of thousands of items available for Prime Now free two-hour delivery via an Alexa voice order. In what could be the highest, best use of voice recognition technology to a generation of digital natives, Amazon's digital assistant has added beer runs to its skills. Beginning Tuesday, Amazon Prime customers who have an Alexa-powered device, like the Echo speaker, can order beer, wine and spirits in Seattle, and beer and wine in Columbus and Cincinnati. Amazon will deliver the alcohol within two hours. Parents needn't worry: customers must show valid ID to receive the order.