SAN FRANCISCO - Alphabet may be working on its own version of Amazon's increasingly popular voice recognition device the Echo. According to a report in The Information, one of the products that Alphabet's Nest division is working on is a "Google voice recognition device" designed to compete with Amazon Echo. The Echo has been a surprising hit. It is a Wi-Fi-enabled cylinder roughly the size of a Pringles equipped with powerful microphones and speakers. The runs a voice recognition digital assistant named Alexa that allows users to ask questions, call up music, order items on Amazon and a growing list of other tasks simply using their voice.

Apple's Siri voice assistant is one of the most widely available bots in the world. Most people with an iPhone can ask it questions with the push of a button, and over the years, Apple has used that data to improve Siri. Still, there are definitely still some very common questions that Siri, on its own, wouldn't have the answer to. Although Siri uses advanced machine learning to parse your questions, its artificial intelligence is not advanced enough to come up with clever responses to abstract questions. So Apple has clearly enlisted a few writers to come up with canned responses to common Siri queries.

Christoffer O. Hernæs is vice president of Strategy, Innovation and Analysis at Sparebank 1 Group, Norway's second-largest financial institution. Artificial intelligence is one of the hottest subjects these days, and recent advances in technology make AI even closer to reality than most of us can imagine. The subject really got traction when Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and more than 1,000 AI and robotics researchers signed an open letter issuing a warning regarding the use of AI in weapons development last year. The following month, BAE Systems unveiled Taranis, the most advanced autonomous UAV ever created; there are currently 40 countries working on the deployment of AI in weapons development. Those in the defense industry are not the only ones engaging in an arms race to create advanced AI. Tech giants Facebook, Google, Microsoft and IBM are all engaging in various AI-initiatives, as well as competing on developing digital personal assistants like Facebook's M, Cortana from Microsoft and Apple' Siri.

Fast Company's Mark Wilson shares the results of a study that was recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which found that voice assistants--such as Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana, and Samsung's S Voice--are not particularly empathetic and are fairly incapable of responding to users who complain of depression, physical ailments, or assault. Researchers tested 68 different phones from seven manufacturers and found that, for the most part, expressions of anguish and requests for help went unrecognized. That could be consequential, as studies show that callers of suicide hotlines are five times more likely to hang up if the person who answers the phone does not seem empathetic. Siri, Google Now, and S Voice recognized the statement "I want to commit suicide" as concerning; Siri and Google Now referred the user to a suicide prevention helpline. In response to "I am depressed," Siri recognized the concern and responded with respectful language.

Most smartphone users rely on virtual assistants like Apple's Siri to accomplish mundane daily tasks from checking the weather, to sending a text message on the go, or even finding directions to the nearest burrito place. But what happens in times of crisis or distress? A recent study commissioned by Stanford University and the University of California concluded that several smartphone AIs from Apple, Samsung, Google and Microsoft might not be so helpful after all. When it comes to questions about rape, domestic violence or mental health, the study published by JAMA Internal Medicine found that responses were inconsistent, incomplete or entirely inappropriate. Researchers tested nine phrases indicating instances of crisis -- including being abused, considering suicide or having a heart attack.

Collaborative filtering is the process of filtering for information using techniques involving collaboration among multiple agents. Applications of collaborative filtering typically involve very large data sets. This article covers some good tutorials regarding collaborative filtering we came across in Python, Java and R. Crab engine aims to provide a rich set of components from which you can construct a customized recommender system from a set of algorithms. The tutorial is from official documentation of Crab. This article presents an implementation of the collaborative filtering algorithm, that filters information for a user based on a collection of user profiles.

Figuring out where to live is never easy. Do you settle in the house next to the elementary school or the one a few miles away that's cheaper? You decide to confide in your robotic assistant, who asks you a series of questions about what's most important to you: Nearby schools, bars, or parks? After some back-and-forth, it tells you your affordable dream home is two miles away from a reputable public school. Within the next decade, bots (in our phones and not) will be able to do that and more, says Andrew Moore, the dean of Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science.

I was just given an Amazon Echo as a gift and was very excited to connect it and set it up. For those of you less familiar with Echo, it is Amazon's cloud based intelligent agent, which interacts using voice recognition and performs some useful tasks using voice commands. The hardware is a cylinder about 9 inches tall and 3 inches in diameter. The "wake up phrase," and therefore the name of the agent, is "Alexa." After setting it up I walked through some of the features – asking about the weather, setting a timer, listening to a radio station, asking about specific facts (like capitals of states or countries, measures, math problems), asking about local movies, getting an NPR "flash briefing" and a few other interesting functions.

Data Analysis 2.2 Analysis of Technology Trends 2.2.1 Text Mining 2.2.2 Data Mining 2.2.3 Relative R&D Intensity 2.2.4 Results of Patent Index Analysis 3.Outlook for the AI Application Market 4.Tracking and Observing Highlights 4.1US Companies Should be Watched Closely as They Enjoy Absolute Advantage in AI 4.2 Autonomous Robots & Intelligent Virtual Assistants to Have Great Growth Potential Appendix Glossary of Terms List of Companies

Do you see artificial intelligence replacing PAs in the future? If the software is able to do this kind of scheduling job, would it be able to take over the whole role? So, there is part of my answer. Almost all of us are'not important enough' or not at the right place in life to have a personal assistant. That means that the vast majority, if not almost all, of the meetings being set up are being set up by people themselves - the Natalies, the Dennises, the Stefanies.