An Aussie mom recently penned a heartfelt thank-you note to Apple, and her story of how the company's "Hey Siri" feature helped save her 1-year-old daughter is now making the rounds. Stacey Gleeson noticed her daughter, Giana, wasn't breathing back in March, and as she leaped into action to perform CPR, she dropped her iPhone. As Gleeson started taking life-saving measures on her baby, she shouted, "Hey Siri, call the ambulance," 7 News reports. Gleeson was able to have a back-and-forth with emergency dispatchers as she continued CPR on Giana, who the BBC reports had been dealing with a respiratory illness and chest infection. The child was breathing again by the time the ambulance arrived at their Cairns home, and Gleeson says doctors told her every second had mattered.

Apple is set to unveil a new and improved Siri, the personal digital assistant, and widen its reach, to Mac computers and third-party apps. The Apple logo is displayed on the exterior of the new flagship Apple Store on May 19, 2016 in San Francisco, California. LOS ANGELES - With so many apps in the App Stores that most new publishers find their work unseen, Apple is tweaking its policies to get more money in the hands of app developers. In an interview with the Verge, Apple senior vice-president Phil Schiller outlined the changes, set to begin in the fall. Developers who can sell subscriptions to their apps--like HBO Now, Spotify and Netflix--will see Apple take 15% commission, after the first year, down from the usual 30%.

Apple is set to unveil a new and improved Siri, the personal digital assistant, and widen its reach, to Mac computers and third-party apps. A link has been sent to your friend's email address. Apple is set to unveil a new and improved Siri, the personal digital assistant, and widen its reach, to Mac computers and third-party apps.

About halfway through a 90-minute exploration of Viv, the recently debuted and much heralded next-generation smart assistant platform, I started to experience a bit of deja vu. Here were two highly intelligent and credentialed founders, animated by a sense of purpose and a shared conviction that there Had To Be A Better Way, extolling the virtues of a new platform that, if only it were to be adopted at critical mass, would Change The World For the Better. It reminded me of my early days covering Apple in the 1980s, or Google in the early aughts. And I found myself believing that, in fact, the world would be a better place if Viv's vision prevailed. What Viv is trying to create is a platform shift on the scale of Google search or Apple's app store -- a new way to interact with the Internet itself. Yes, the interface is an intelligent agent that you talk to -- much like Apple's Siri or Amazon's Alexa.

A woman from Cairns, Australia, used Siri to call an ambulance for her one-year-old daughter, Giana, when she stopped breathing. After dropping her iPhone, Stacey Gleeson shouted at the handset to activate Siri and told it to contact the emergency services as she began CPR.

Siri, which has been a part of Apple's iPhone for several years, has a voice activation function that helped a mom call for an ambulance when her daughter stopped breathing. When a mother from Cairns, Australia needed to call an ambulance for her one-year-old daughter who stopped breathing, Apple's Siri came to the rescue. Stacey Gleeson noticed her daughter Giana was turning blue, according to BBC. While running to her daughter's aid, she dropped her phone. But, the mother shouted to activate Siri and got emergency services on speakerphone.

We all need a little help sometimes. After all, what are cloud-based, artificially intelligent software agents for? By now we're all familiar with the usual suspects: Siri, Google Now, Cortana, and Alexa. They introduced most of us to the idea of talking to, rather than via, a phone, computer, or home appliance. But let's face it: These virtual assistants have become boring, banal commodities.

From machine learning to artificial intelligence to conversational interfaces – these are the buzzwords currently transforming brand tech and in turn shaping society. But what do they actually mean and how are they changing things? Together, these constitute computers that can beat you at Go, know what kind of music you like better than you do, and can put us all out of our jobs. In other words, they are the next'apps' or'QR codes' with the difference being, they are actually important. When I say'mundane' I do not mean unimportant -- the examples of these technologies I give above are not comic.

About halfway through a 90-minute exploration of Viv, the recently debuted and much heralded next-generation smart assistant platform, I started to experience a bit of deja vu. Here were two highly intelligent and credentialed founders, animated by a sense of purpose and a shared conviction that there Had To Be A Better Way, extolling the virtues of a new platform that, if only it were to be adopted at critical mass, would Change The World For the Better. It reminded me of my early days covering Apple in the 1980s, or Google in the early aughts. And I found myself believing that, in fact, the world would be a better place if Viv's vision prevailed. What Viv is trying to create is a platform shift on the scale of Google search or Apple's app store -- a new way to interact with the Internet itself.

Does the following sound familiar? You immediately go to your weather app: rain today, better bring an umbrella. Next, Google Maps gives you a detour from a traffic-filled highway as you commute to work. Around noon, your smartwatch reminds you that you haven't walked more than 20 steps in the past two hours so you take a break and walk around the block. That evening you ask Siri to read the next day's agenda as you get ready for bed. The Internet of Things (IoT), deep learning and augmented reality will accelerate to transcend medicine, and even law enforcement and the punishment of crimes.