Machine learning may be neck and neck with "big data" in the race to being Hollywood's favorite catch-all term for technology as magic. Like big data, such outsider interest is driven by real successes of the approach. "We didn't know how to get a car to drive itself 10 years ago. Now we are very close," says Thibaut Lamadon, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Chicago. Netflix recommendations, AI assistants in our homes, and even our image searches for cat pictures have been invisibly improved by machine learning, a branch of computer science focused on giving computers the ability to recognize patterns and to learn and adapt to given contexts without being explicitly programmed for them.

Back in May, reports surfaced that Apple was working on a device that would rival Amazon's Echo speakers. In fact, those rumors indicated that Tim Cook & Co. had been working on the gadget before Amazon announced its speakers with the Alexa virtual assistant on board. Now Bloomberg reports that Apple's upcoming device is moving from the R&D phase and into proper testing. Similar to the Echo line, Apple's smart-home unit will pack in Siri and control connected appliances, lights and more via voice cues. Google announced its version back at I/O in May, a smart speaker called Home. The company scheduled an event for October 4th, so perhaps we'll hear more about the device in addition to the anticipated new Nexus phones.

Apple is reportedly still hard at work on a Siri-powered device to rival the Amazon Echo. The project is out of the research and development and phase and into prototyping, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, who has an excellent track record with Apple rumors. Gurman doesn't say what the smart home device will be, but presumably it will be some kind of speaker. The aim is for the Siri device to control smart home appliances--presumably via HomeKit--similar to the Echo. The Siri device would likely also be able to carry out the same tasks that the personal digital assistant already does on the iPhone and iPad.

Buried in Bloomberg's report Friday morning about Apple moving ahead with its Amazon Echo competitor is a far more interesting nugget: Apple believes it's just three years away from a fully voice-controlled iPhone, according to an unnamed source. Beyond the home device, Apple is researching new ways to improve Siri on iPhones and iPads, two people said. With an initiative code-named "Invisible Hand," Apple hopes to give users the ability to fully control their devices through a Siri command system within three years, one of the people added. Currently, the voice assistant is able to respond to commands within its application, but Apple's goal is for Siri to be able to control the entire system without having to open an app or reactivate Siri. Clearly Apple's convinced that voice control is the future--along with Amazon, Google, Microsoft and others, all of whom are investing heavily in the area.

Apple is continuing work on an Internet-connected gadget powered by its Siri voice assistant, according to a new report. The device, which Bloomberg reports recently entered the prototyping phase, would be a rival to Amazon's Echo speaker, a surprise hit following its release about two years ago. Amazon has sold about 3 million Echo devices, according to one estimate. Google is also planning a similar device, called Google Home. Like the Echo, the yet-unnamed Apple gadget would respond to various voice requests.

On the surface it looks like a simple public cloud infrastructure deal. But stand back from productivity app Evernote's recently announced migration of its entire infrastructure onto Google's Cloud Platform and there's a much bigger story to tell. Productivity apps are many, but Evernote's 200 million plus customers make it one of the most popular. Allowing users to store private notes on the cloud, add multimedia, and access everything from multiple devices (recently restricted to two unless you pay a fee), Evernote's back-end now contains about five billion notes. Until now, all of that was held on Evernote's own private cloud infrastructure, but from early October it's all going to be migrated to Google's Cloud Platform. Evernote's notes were already easy to integrate with Google Drive, but this goes much deeper than the mass adoption of the cloud as a place to store data.

Apple says their voice recognition app Siri is improved. USA TODAY's Jefferson Graham puts Siri through a few tests to find out. Siri's closest Indian restaurant turned out to be in San Jose, California, just a 6 hour drive from Los Angeles (Photo: Robert Hanashiro) LOS ANGELES -- Hey, Siri: if you can't find me an Indian restaurant just three miles from my office, what can you get right? With the IOS 10 mobile operating system upgrade, Apple has promised us that its five-year-old personal digital assistant Siri would be better than ever, and would expand beyond the core Apple apps to also work with third-party apps like LinkedIn, Uber and Pinterest. The results of my tests is that Siri is slightly improved, but only if you take the time to enunciate correctly and slowly, and teach the voice-activated assistant what you want.

You might think that between your family thread on Facebook Messenger, your various friend groups on WhatsApp, and the trusted text a few acquaintances still insist on using, you've got all possible lines of communication covered. But spare a thought for Allo, Google's latest attempt to be more than just a fringe player in messaging. Allo made its debut on far-flung shores earlier this week, but as of today it's now available in the UK for Android and iOS. Allo lets you to exchange words, images, stickers and the like in individual or group chats. Beyond the standard fare, you can increase or decrease message font size to "shout or whisper," and there's a smart reply option that drafts quick-responses on your behalf (with ambiguous success).

Edward Snowden has given a stark warning not to use Google's new Allo messaging app, which launched this week. The NSA whistleblower claims that the the'smart' messaging app which integrates Google's virtual assistant does not feature important privacy measures that the tech firm said it would have. Speaking in a series of tweets, the security expert said that the app should be completely avoided. Government whistleblower Edward Snowden (pictured) says that people should not use Google's Allo app if they care about their privacy Google has been criticised for not including the promised end-to-end encryption in the app when it first launched and reportedly storing messages indefinitely. Allo is'A Google app that records every message you ever send and makes it available to police upon request,' said Snowden.

Apple Inc. has acquired Indian machine-learning startup Tuplejump Software Pvt Ltd as it seeks to expand its expertise in artificial intelligence. The iPhone maker bought the Hyderabad, India-based company in June, according to a person familiar with the deal who asked not to be identified. Tuplejump's software specializes in processing and analyzing big sets of data quickly. The deal was reported earlier by TechCrunch. The purchase price wasn't disclosed.