Erik Mueller is Director of Intelligent Assistants at Capital One. He won the AAAI Feigenbaum Prize with the Watson Team. He has ten patents on artificial intelligence and is the author of four books in the field. He holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in computer science from UCLA and an S.B. in computer science from MIT.

It's home to Google Assistant, the new conversational assistant that Google plans to bring to many more of its consumer products. The first sign that Allo is a bit smarter than the standard messaging app is through a feature called Smart Replies. Even more impressive, Google has combined this feature with its photo recognition abilities, so the app is able to suggest responses to photos that are shared within your conversation. Things that Google can do "natively" like conversions, simple Google searches and translations will appear directly in your chat while other queries will surface links to Google results.

BRISBANE, Australia – A man charged in the death of a New Zealand tourist who plummeted from his apartment balcony after the two began arguing during a date was found not guilty of murder on Thursday. Tinder date found NOT GUILTY of killing Warriena Wright after she plunged 14 floors to her death https://t.co/WCKOHWnAT1 A Queensland state Supreme Court jury also acquitted Gable Tostee, 30, of the lesser offense of manslaughter in the death of 26-year-old Warriena Wright, who fell from Tostee's balcony in 2014 after the two met through the dating app Tinder. He had faced a life sentence if convicted. Prosecutors did not allege that Tostee threw Wright to her death, but had argued she was so scared of Tostee that she fell 14 floors while trying to escape from his apartment balcony in the city of Gold Coast.

A record 889 people under 18 fell victim to sex crimes and other offenses perpetrated via social networking services from January to June, the National Police Agency said Thursday. The number is 33 higher than the tally from July to December last year, marking the highest level since data on a half-year basis became available in 2008. As a breeding ground for sex crimes, Twitter and other largely unregulated SNS sites overtook dating sites, which are bound by regulations including a minimum age rule of 18, analysts said. Of the total, 348, or 40 percent, fell prey to indecent acts, 268 to child pornography and 225 to prostitution. Eight children, including some as young as 11, were raped, and 13 abducted.

Now that the Amazon Echo has reached the UK, thousands of Brits are getting to grips with the cylindrical speaker's smart assistant, Alexa. Companies like Just Eat and Sky have created app-like "Skills" for the Echo, allowing owners to re-order their last takeaway and receive news updates, but Amazon's own integrations have been lacking compared to those available in the US. To celebrate availability of the Echo Dot, the retailer today confirmed that a number of new features are available on UK Echos, including Alexa voice shopping and ESP (Echo Spatial Perception). With Alexa voice shopping, Prime subscribers can talk to their Echo to order products and check the status of their delivery. Amazon says "order paper towels," "order dog food" and "buy some LEGO" are some good examples of what you can ask Alexa to find.

An Australian man has been acquitted of the murder of a New Zealand woman during their first Tinder date. Gable Tostee, 30, was charged after Warriena Wright, 26, fell from his balcony in Queensland's Gold Coast in August 2014. Prosecutors argued that she was so intimidated that she tried to escape by climbing to a lower floor, but fell. After four days of deliberation, the jury found him not guilty of murder and manslaughter. Defence lawyer Nick Dore said outside the court that his client was "relieved this matter is now behind him and he's looking forward to moving on with his life".

While major tech companies are in a race to develop real-life artificial intelligence applications, self-aware AI might come sooner than you think. Major companies in the tech industry are racing to implement artificial intelligence technology into smartphones and other internet-linked devices in order to make them think like people. CBS News reports that artificial intelligence (AI) projects at Carnegie Mellon aim to bring this emerging technology closed to our daily life. F0r instance, the CMU Highly Intelligent Mobile Platform is a robot designed to perform dangerous tasks in situations that would put humans in too much risk, such as the 2011 disaster in Japan, at the Fukushima nuclear plant. Because CHIMP is designed to be able to work independently in disastrous conditions, it needs both mental and manual good skills.

With an estimated 50 million users swiping on Tinder every month, it can be easy for your profile to be overlooked. But Tinder has introduced a new feature that could help you get noticed in a sea of profiles. Tinder Boost is a new premium feature that places paid users at the top for 30 minutes, giving them up to 10 times more profile views than the standard method. After being announced earlier this month, the update is now being rolled out for Tinder users worldwide over the next few days. Tinder will ask users if they'd like to activate Boost while swiping through profiles in the app.

Since your racist uncle is not a reliable source, many Americans have turned to Alexa for information about the presidential election. It's hard to say whether that's good or bad, but Amazon has taken notice and released new commands for its AI assistant ahead of the next debate. You can now ask questions about the time and channel of the debate, where it's happening, and afterwards, who won. Alexa is also getting a host of new commands on election day, November 8th, "to help keep you up to date on all things Election 2016 including who is leading the election, which states the candidates have won and more," Amazon says. Examples of questions you can pose include "Alexa, who is winning the presidential election," "who is leading in the presidential polls," "which percent of the popular vote does Hillary have" and "which states has Trump won."

Columnist Ed Baig reviews Pixel, which features the high-IQ Google Assistant and a competitive, high-end smartphone camera. Guests inspect the new Pixel phone by Google after it was introduced at a Google product event in San Francisco, Calif., Oct 4, 2016. SAN FRANCISCO -- When Google's new smartphone goes on sale this week, no one is expecting an iPhone-like hit -- at least not right away. Despite a splashy launch and a "Made by Google" marketing campaign, not to mention some positive reviews, the Pixel is still taking on the likes of the wildly popular iPhone. Samsung's recent spate of troubles may boost Pixel sales with defecting Note and Galaxy owners, but not enough to make a serious dent in the high-end smartphone market, analysts say.