Popular tech blogger and software developer Marco Arment over the weekend argued that Apple's apparent failure to invest heavily in artificial intelligence wouldn't potentially render the tech giant irrelevant in the future. AI is currently fueling much-hyped personal assistants from rivals and Arment fears Apple's inaction may make the company the next BlackBerry (BBRY), which notoriously got crushed by Apple's iPhone. But Apple's success elsewhere should be able to keep it in the game, and moreover, the company might not necessarily need to develop its own AI software and services to remain competitive, some analysts say. Arment's criticism comes as Amazon (AMZN) enjoys unexpected success with its Echo digital personal assistant devices and days after Alphabet's Google (GOOGL) said it would introduce its own Echo-like devices later this year. The Amazon devices are based on its Alexa artificial intelligence assistant, while Google will incorporate its similar Google Now assistant into its devices.

Apple has big plans for Siri that will make the company's famous assistant a lot more useful, according to a new report. The company will soon open up Siri to developers with new software tools that will allow Siri to tap into more third-party services, according to a new report in The Information. Apple is also working on a new pice of a hardware, an Amazon Echo rival that will work with Apple's smart home platform. Apple plans to put Siri in the hands of developers with a new software development kit (SDK) that will reportedly be called the Siri SDK. The Siri SDK could launch at next months's World Wide Developer Conference, where Apple typically previews the newest version of IOS and its latest developer tools. The SDK will require "some work" by developers to make their apps accessible by Siri, the report says.

While much of Silicon Valley has been duking it out with each other in the artificial intelligence wars, Apple has been strangely silent. But it might not be for much longer. The Information has just reported that Apple is working on two bold new moves to broaden its AI strategy. First, the Cupertino firm will supposedly open up Siri to third-party developers, so that the voice assistant can be used with anyone's apps, not just Apple's own. More interestingly, however, Apple is also apparently working on a smart Bluetooth speaker not unlike Amazon's Echo or Google Home.

SAN FRANCISCO - Apple is planning to make Siri smarter by linking it to the vast menu of iOS apps and eventually will deploy the digital assistant on a standalone device similar to Amazon's best-selling Echo. The news, reported Tuesday by tech media site The Information, answers an oft-asked question about why the iPhone-maker seems to be sitting on the sidelines as a growing number of companies from Google to Siri-offshoot Viv make big announcements about the coming age of voice-activated machine learning. Citing unnamed sources, the article said Apple was preparing to release a software developer kit, or SDK, that would allow app-makers to allow their products to integrate with Siri. Apple's annual Worldwide Develop Conference is scheduled for June 13 in San Francisco. Apple, which hasn't had a brand new product since the release of Apple Watch a year ago March, is said to be working on an a device with a speaker and microphone that would compete with Amazon Echo as well as Google's recently announced Google Home.

Apple is developing a'Siri speaker' for the home and is set to allow app makers to access its smart assistant, it has been revealed. The move would put Apple in a three way battle with Amazon and Google. The speaker would double as a music player, and could be revealed next month at the firm's annual developer conference, it is believed. Now the firm is set to unveil a new speaker powered by its Siri assistant. 'Apple is upping its game in the field of intelligent assistants,' wrote Amir Efrati of The Information, who revealed the speaker.

S. Somasegar is a venture partner at Madrona Venture Group and the former head of Microsoft's Developer Division.. Daniel Li is an investor with Madrona Venture Group. Application intelligence is the process of using machine learning technology to create apps that use historical and real-time data to make predictions and decisions to deliver rich, adaptive, personalized experiences for users. We believe that every successful new application built today will be an intelligent application. The armies of chat bots and virtual assistants, the e-commerce sites that show the right recommendations at the right time, and the latest dating apps, are all built to learn and create continuously improving experiences. In addition, legacy applications are becoming more and more intelligent to compete and keep pace with this new wave of applications. We have spent time thinking about the various ways Intelligent Apps emerge – and how they are built.

Two carjacking suspects who reportedly used the gay dating app Grindr to lure their victims have been arrested by the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, officials said Tuesday. The carjackings occurred over the last two weeks in the high desert communities of Victorville and Adelanto, according to deputies. "On both occasions, the victims had blindly met the suspects using the dating application Grindr," the Sheriff's Department said. The first carjacking was reported May 15 when Steven Thomas, 24, of Victorville, met up with a victim and robbed him, deputies said. Thomas, who was on parole for possessing stolen property, stole the victim's wallet and vehicle at gunpoint near the intersection of Muskrat Avenue and Air Expressway in Adelanto, deputies said.

It has become one of the most popular dating apps for young, single people looking to meet partners. But Tinder is also the go-to service for some couples looking for a ménage à trois, and it seems the company wants to keep it that way. Tinder is trying to shut down a threesome app called '3nder', suing it over the similarity of the companies' names. You might associate Tinder with young, single people looking to meet partners. But the dating app is also the go-to for some couples looking for a ménage à trois, and it seems the company wants to keep it that way.

The tech world was in a frenzy this weekend, arguing over whether or not Apple would collapse if it failed to catch onto the budding trend of artificial intelligence, which some think could be the next major computing platform after the smartphone. Marco Arment, a well-respected developer and observer of the tech industry, wrote a post on his Friday highlighting how Apple appears to be behind on AI compared to its biggest competitors like Facebook, Amazon, and especially Google, which showed off some interesting AI-powered gadgets and apps at the I/O developers conference last week. Microsoft is doing a lot of cool stuff with machine learning and AI too, racist chatbots excluded, of course.) The argument goes that if AI turns out to be a major platform and we end up communicating with our gadgets through voice more than tapping and touching, then Apple could be in big trouble and suffer a similar fate as BlackBerry did when it failed to adapt to modern touchscreen smartphones. Where Apple suffers is big-data services and AI, such as search, relevance, classification, and complex natural-language queries.

Siri co-founder Dag Kittlaus unvleils Viv, a new artificial intelligence personal assistant platform that enables developers to distribute their products through a speedy conversational interface. TechCrunch Disrupt is the world's leading authority in debuting revolutionary startups, introducing game-changing technologies, and discussing what's top of mind for the tech industry's key innovators. Disrupt gathers the best and brightest entrepreneurs, investors, hackers, and tech fans for on-stage interviews, the Startup Battlefield competition, a 24-hour Hackathon, Startup Alley, Hardware Alley, and After Parties.