To hackers, types of artificial intelligence like voice and video assistants can be an entryway into individuals' lives and actual conditions, or go about as irritating gadgets, snooping on discussions, in the ultimate intrusion of privacy. As their omnipresence increases inside organizations, AI assistants are a growing target for spyware, same as the attacks we've seen on online voice and video calls, where probably private group chats were found by directing a simple Google search, which means anybody could participate. Voice control carries the added potential for exploitation with the chance of sneaking in malware and spyware by accidentally adding new "skills" to Alexa through "trigger" words.

Many of Amazon's gadgets went on sale at the start of this week and continue to be discounted today. Key among them are both new Kindle Paperwhites -- the standard version and the Signature Edition -- along with the second-generation Echo Show 8 and the Fire TV Cube. On top of that, Apple's AirPods Pro are on sale for $175 and the 2021 Apple TV 4K remains discounted to $160. Here are the best tech deals from this week that you can still get today. The Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition is on sale for $145, which is an all-time low.

While we saw Amazon's new smart thermostat go on sale earlier this week, now you can get the more advanced Google Nest Thermostat for less, too. The smart home gadget is down to $99 at Amazon right now, which is 24 percent off its normal price and close to its all-time low. All colors have been discounted and you can get the device with a trim kit for only $114, or 21 percent less than usual. Normally $130, the Energy Star-certified Nest Thermostat came out in 2020 as an affordable alternative to Google's Nest Learning Thermostat. The standard model doesn't have the luxury materials or the hi-res display that the Learning model does, but the biggest selling points remain the same.

However, a model can have hundreds, if not thousands of features. Most feature statistics changes are benign. The problem is not how to detect these changes, but how to know which change actually requires your attention. Real-time machine learning is largely an infrastructure problem. Solving it will require the data science/ML team and the platform team to work together. Both online inference and continual learning require a mature streaming infrastructure.

Let's say there was a person who experienced every online meeting cliche. Even before the pandemic, I wondered if AI assistants could fundamentally change how we do meetings. When the world entered the era of remote work, it was a much needed switch. It can't be that easy to replace a human, right? The median estimate among leading computer scientists reported a 50% chance that high-level machine intelligence systems technology would arrive within 45 years.

More companies are relying on cloud technology than ever before. They are discovering the benefits of using the cloud to utilize data and facilitate communications between employees, customers, contractors and other stakeholders. One of the underappreciated benefits of cloud technology is that it makes it easier to work with virtual assistants. Savvy executives and small business owners realize that virtual assistants can perform many important tasks a lot more efficiently. Cloud technology has helped VAs perform their jobs more easily and effortlessly exchange documents with their employers.

From low-rise jeans to reruns of the sitcom Friends, generation Z has a seemingly endless appetite for 90s and early 00s nostalgia. Now that extends to their romantic lives, as Tinder has introduced a blind date feature to boost its popularity among young people – by enabling them to meet partners in a way that resembles the pre-smartphone era. The new feature on the dating app matches people based on preferences, and enables them to make conversation before they are allowed to view each other's photos. It will shortly be available in the US before being expanded globally. Tinder says the feature is intended to respond to demands from generation Z, usually defined as people born between 1997 and 2012, for more authentic connections as a backlash to online dating's earlier emphasis on superficial judgments based on preened Instagram-ready photos on dating profiles.

Tinder has launched a new feature that could bring back memories of dating in the pre-smartphone era. It's a new Fast Chat experience called Blind Date that pairs members before allowing them to view each other's profiles. Tinder says its purpose is to give users a "low-pressure way to put their personality first," since they'll have to rely on conversation to make a first impression. The mode, which was perhaps partly inspired by the popularity of Netflix dating show Love is Blind, pairs people up based on their answers to random icebreaker questions, such as "I put ketchup on ____." Participants then enter a timed chat with their only knowledge of each other being their answers to those questions.

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Financial services technology firm Refinitiv has launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) assistant for Microsoft Teams to provide financial professionals with stock market news and actionable insights. Refinitiv AI Alerts - which is powered by technology from AI specialist ModuleQ - uses permissions and Microsoft 365 interactions to automatically learn the user's individual priorities and recommends content based on email conversations and upcoming meetings. "Microsoft Teams has become an indispensable platform for professionals across financial services, with institutions accelerating their adoption, and increasingly integrating critical data and tools into the platform to simplify the workflow and user experience of professionals," said Andrea Remyn Stone, group head of data and analytics at London Stock Exchange Group, which owns Refinitiv. "Refinitiv AI Alerts brings critical content and insights to Refinitiv's customer base within this platform, allowing users to discover and act on timely information across Teams, Refinitiv solutions and Microsoft 365 seamlessly." The new solution is the latest result of Refinitiv's partnership with Microsoft, which has previously helped financial services organisations connect, collaborate and leverage data to make more informed decisions.