Amazon has offered a very basic streaming music service for a few years now, but it looks like the company is nearly ready to significantly revamp its offerings. An Echo-only streaming music option may be coming in the next few weeks, claims a report from The Verge -- and a full-fledged Spotify competitor that isn't tied to the Echo might be available in early 2017. The Echo-only service would cost 5 a month, while the more expensive 10 per month option would work across any device. A second report today from AFTVnews contains info showing the service may be known as Amazon Music Unlimited, a boring but logical name. The publication found an Amazon Music Unlimited banner and ad inside the Amazon music app on the Fire TV.

At its hardware launch event in San Francisco yesterday, Alphabet showed the sweeping breadth of its ambition to own consumers' personal data, as computing continues to accelerate away from static desktops and screens, coalescing into a cloud of connected devices with the potential to generate far more data -- and data of a far more intimate nature -- than ever before. Along with two new "Google designed" flagship Android smartphones (called Pixel), the first Androids to be preloaded with the company's AI assistant (the Google Assistant) and also including fully unlimited cloud storage to suck users' photos and videos into Google's cloud, there were Google Wifi routers, designed to be bought in bundles to plug all those pesky in-home internet blackspots; the Google Home always listening connected speaker, which is voice-controlled via the Google Assistant and has limited support for third-party IoT devices (such as Philips Hue lightbulbs); an updated Chromecast (the Ultra) to ensure any legacy TV panels are internet-enabled; and Google's less disposable mobile VR play, aka the soft-touch Daydream View headset -- just in case consumer eyeballs seek to stray outside the data-mined smart home by escaping into virtual reality. The scope of Alphabet's ambition for the Google brand is clear: It wants Google's information organizing brain to be embedded right at the domestic center -- i.e. In other words, your daily business is Google's business. "We're moving from a mobile-first world to an AI-first world," said CEO Sundar Pichai kicking off yesterday's event.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly emerging as a catalyst that will accelerate future innovation in mobile technology, according to a new global report from the GSMA, the mobile industry association and standards body. A collection of our most popular articles for IT leaders from the first few months of 2016, including: - Corporate giants recruit digitally-minded outsiders to drive transformation - Analytics platforms to drive strategy in 2016 - Next generation: The changing role of IT leaders. This email address is already registered. By submitting my Email address I confirm that I have read and accepted the Terms of Use and Declaration of Consent. By submitting your email address, you agree to receive emails regarding relevant topic offers from TechTarget and its partners.

Samsung Electronics has agreed to buy Viv Labs, an artificial intelligence startup created by Dag Kittlaus, Adam Cheyer, and Chris Brigham. You may not have heard of Kittlaus, Cheyer, or Brigham, but if you own an iPhone you've probably spoken with one of their creations: Siri. Apple bought their first startup, a spinoff from SRI International, in 2010. A couple of years later, they left to create Viv. Samsung's move into AI could be seen as a reaction to Google's launch of a new AI assistant on its Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones on Tuesday.

In the age of online dating there are more romantic options than there are fish in the, well, you know. On the appropriately named site Plenty of Fish, for instance, you can pore over profiles of hundreds or thousands of potential mates before deciding which ones to contact. Such unfettered choice means a better shot at true love--or so many daters believe. The more options you have, the assumption goes, the more likely you are to find the one who truly suits you. Yet many daters are finding that less romantic choice yields top-notch results without all the angst.

The first time I met Alexa, the A.I. robot voice inside the wine-bottle-size speaker known as the Amazon Echo, I was at my friends' house, in rural New England. "Currently, it is seventy-five degrees," she told us, and assured us that it would not rain. This was a year ago, and I'd never encountered a talking speaker before. When I razzed my friend for his love of gadgetry, he showed me some of Alexa's other tricks: telling us the weather, keeping a shopping list, ordering products from Amazon. This summer, Alexa decided again and again who the tickle monster's next victim was, saying their children's adorable nicknames in her strange A.I. accent.

Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Virtual and Augmented Reality is quickly changing the way we know the markets of technology to be. There have been a number of changes that have come out in the recent few years, and it now looks like the markets are in for a major change. Artificial Intelligence, in particular has been the apple of the eye of many major tech firms. However, it is not just AI, but a mix of all the aforementioned technologies that will lead towards a major leap in the way we use technology. Samsung, one of the biggest names in the world of technology, has now taken a step forward towards the world of AI, as they have now acquired Viv.

When the engineers had at last finished their work, Eugenia Kuyda opened a console on her laptop and began to type. "This is your digital monument." It had been three months since Roman Mazurenko, Kuyda's closest friend, had died. Kuyda had spent that time gathering up his old text messages, setting aside the ones that felt too personal, and feeding the rest into a neural network built by developers at her artificial intelligence startup. She had struggled with whether she was doing the right thing by bringing him back this way. At times it had even given her nightmares. But ever since Mazurenko's death, Kuyda had wanted one more chance to speak with him. A message blinked onto the screen. "You have one of the most interesting puzzles in the world in your hands," it said. Born in Belarus in 1981, Roman Mazurenko was the only child of Sergei, an engineer, and Victoria, a landscape architect. They remember him as an unusually serious child; when he was 8 he wrote a letter to his descendents declaring his most cherished values: wisdom and justice. In family photos, Mazurenko roller-skates, sails a boat, and climbs trees. Average in height, with a mop of chestnut hair, he is almost always smiling.

Samsung Electronics Co. is acquiring Viv Labs Inc., a U.S.-based artificial-intelligence software company, seeking to bolster its expertise as smartphones become virtual assistants for complex tasks. The deal is a coup for Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung; the developers behind Viv also founded Siri, which was sold to Apple Inc. and became the voice-based digital assistant on iPhones and other gadgets. Viv has been working on an AI platform that understands plain language so that users can interact with computers and software programs. "We envision that our users will be able to freely use their smartphones even without touching their interfaces," said Rhee, who runs the mobile division's software research-and-development business. "A lot of your phone's fun functionalities will be covered by voice and conversation."

Samsung Electronics has agreed to buy Viv Labs, an artificial intelligence startup created by Dag Kittlaus, Adam Cheyer and Chris Brigham. You may not have heard of Kittlaus, Cheyer or Brigham, but if you own an iPhone you've probably spoken with one of their creations, Siri. Apple bought their first startup, a spinoff from SRI International, in 2010. A couple of years later, they left to create Viv. Samsung's move into AI could be seen as a reaction to Google's launch of a new AI assistant on its Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones on Tuesday.