Who here remembers taking computer programming in school? Whether you learned programming by punching holes in a never ending series of cards, or by writing simple DOS or other computer language commands, the fact remained that computers needed an incredibly precise set of instructions to accomplish a task. The more complicated the task, the more complicated your instructions had to be. Machine learning is inherently different. Rather than telling a computer exactly how to solve a problem, the programmer instead tells it how to go about learning to solve the problem for itself.

If you're also single and looking for love, then Maple Match – a new matchmaking website that promises to "Make dating great again" – may be the catch-all solution you've been waiting for. According to its website, Maple Match aims to make it "easy for Americans to find the ideal Canadian partner to save them from the unfathomable horror of a Trump presidency." "After more than 35,000 hits and more than 4,500 signups in just four days, we are confident that Maple Match will fulfill a clear need in the dating space," site founder and CEO Joe Goldman told Tech Times. He added that the site aims to be operational "as soon as possible." Even Canadians – who are known for being unflinchingly polite – have been vocal about their dislike for Donald Trump, though perhaps that dislike is more out of concern than anything else.

The creators of Siri, Dag Kittlaus and Adam Cheyer debuted their next-gen AI, Viv yesterday at Disrupt NY 2016. Viv is designed to be an open platform that allows developers to create apps, which expand the AIs reach of possibility. We talked about the backstory behind Siri and Viv last week; now the AI has been showcased and you can watch it in action below. Viv connects with third-party applications and recognizes the way humans talk, creating an open artificial intelligence that can complete complex tasks from booking your restaurant reservation to sending your friend money for the drinks she bought you last night. The creators of Siri and Viv see AI tech becoming a broad umbrella under which all the separate apps and services we use can come together seamlessly.

Then you might have a hard time getting those right swipes. For almost two months, dating app Bumble has been letting users put special election filters onto their profile to let potential matches know where they stand on the political spectrum. Aside from Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz (who has since dropped out of the race), as well as the overarching Democratic or Republican filters, the options also include fictional candidates like Frank Underwood from "House of Cards," Kanye West and, naturally, pizza. For users who couldn't care less about the election, there was also a #IDGAF filter. Bumble offered its 5 million users the option to choose from these 10 filters, and though using them was not required, the company told The Huffington Post that 1.8 million filters were swiped on daily.

Dag Kittlaus and Adam Cheyer created the artificial intelligence behind Siri, Apple's iconic digital assistant, and one of the first modern apps to capably handle natural language queries on a smartphone. Today the pair showed off their newest creation, Viv, a next generation AI assistant that they have been developing in stealth mode for the last four years. The goal was to create a better version of Siri, one that connected to a multitude of services, instead of routinely shuffling queries off to a basic web search. During a 20-minute demo onstage at Disrupt NYC, Viv flawlessly handled a number of complex requests, not just in terms of comprehension, but by connecting with third-party merchants to purchase goods and book reservations. Viv's approach is much closer to Amazon's Alexa or Facebook's Messenger bots, offering the ability to connect with third-party merchants and vendors so that it can execute on requests to purchase goods or book reservations.

No one knew what to make of the Amazon Echo when it first debuted. Originally described as a Siri-like, tube-shaped home assistant, how could this glorified speaker be more useful than similar phone features? But in its year-plus of existence, the Echo has been quietly taking over households everywhere. Amazon hasn't released official sales information, but we can deduce the device has experienced some success based on more than Alec Baldwin's endorsement. According to Slice Intelligence, the Echo's sales grew an average of 342 percent during Q3 and Q4 of 2015.

Dag Kittlaus wants you to imagine buying a consumer electronic device in the near future. You take it out the box, plug it into the wall, unlock it with a biometric thumbprint, and then the device comes to life. "Hi, nice to meet you," it says, before walking you through its setup via natural conversation. That scenario isn't too far away, according to Kittlaus, who used today's TechCrunch Disrupt in Brooklyn as part of a coming-out-party for Viv, a new voice-activated digital assistant. After three round of venture capital (VC) funding and more than a year in development, Viv is ready for primetime.

Dag Kittlaus and Adam Cheyer, who created the software behind Apple's Siri, have spent the last four years building a new digital assistant: Viv. At TechCrunch Disrupt on Monday, Kittlaus finally demonstrated Viv to the public -- and it makes Siri look antiquated in comparison. Let's first get one thing out of the way: Siri is pretty awful to use. Much of the time, asking Siri to do anything feels like you're just speaking into a Google search. It only has a few functions it can do well, and feels closed.

Amazon's digital assistant, the Echo, next to a can of Pringles potato chips, whose size it is often compared to. SAN FRANCISCO -- The smartphone's grip over our every moment may be slowly loosening as digital assistants leap into speakers and other devices that bring the Internet into the public sphere. So far, the field belongs to Amazon's Echo and its voice-activated assistant Alexa. An early hit since it became widely available a year ago, it is still in only a sliver of homes. But its interactions, distinctly different from smartphone use, have caused academics to take notice.

All of those nifty Google voice commands are one of the major strengths of using an Android phone. But they're even more powerful if you enable "Ok Google" detection from any screen. This means whether your phone is locked or you're using another app, you can just speak a question or command to put Google's search power to use. To start, launch the Google app and open Settings Ok Google detection. Next you'll be prompted to say, "Ok Google" three times so the app can learn how your voice sounds.