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 Personal Assistant Systems


Ziggy: Alexa gets a new name and an updated voice. Here's how to change both.

USATODAY - Tech Top Stories

Amazon has rolled out some new ways to interact with its digital voice assistant, Alexa. The assistant available on Amazon devices such as Fire tablets and Echo speakers will now answer to a new name: Ziggy. Also, users can ask to Alexa to "change your voice" to someone with a more masculine or deeper voice. Although the assistant is always known as Alexa, users can update the wake words they use to get Alexa to answer, including "Amazon," "Echo" and "Computer." The new voice and wake words launched on July 15.


How AI is powering the future of financial services

#artificialintelligence

Financial institutions are using AI-powered solutions to unlock revenue growth opportunities, minimise operating expenses, and automate manually intensive processes. Many in the financial services industry believe strongly in the potential of AI. A recent survey by NVIDIA of financial services professionals showed 83% of respondents agreeing that AI is important to their company's future success. The survey, titled'State of AI in Financial Services', also showed a substantial financial impact of AI for enterprises with 34% of those who replied agreeing that AI will increase their company's annual revenue by at least 20%. The approach to using AI differed based on the type of financial firm.


Bumble dating app led FBI to Capitol riot suspect: DOJ

FOX News

Fox News congressional correspondent Jacqui Heinrich has the latest from Capitol Hill on'America Reports' The FBI was tipped off to a Texas man arrested Friday for allegedly assaulting police officers during the Capitol riot after messaging with a woman he met on the dating app Bumble in January, the Justice Department announced. Andrew Quentin Taake, 32, was charged with assaulting an officer, obstructing an official proceeding, and other offenses for his actions during the riot, which allegedly included pepper-spraying several officers and assaulting others with a whip-like weapon. The FBI received a tip from a woman he met on the online dating app, Bumble, on Jan. 9. Screenshots of their messages show that Taake sent the woman a selfie that was taken "about 30 minutes after being sprayed," allegedly telling the potential suitor that he was at the riot "from the very beginning." A woman who Andrew Quentin Taake matched with on Bumble tipped off the FBI about his alleged Capitol riot involvement. Taake allegedly flew to Washington, D.C., from Houston the day before the riot and returned home a few days later.


Reasons for the Rise of Voice AI Strategy Adoption in Businesses

#artificialintelligence

The latest Voice AI trend has been evolving day by day by adding value to third-party platforms such as Alexa or Google for implementing omnichannel voice AI experiences with the help of voice assistants to enhance customer experiences. According to the latest survey, 46% of the businesses across various industries are not sure about the change voice technology could bring into their organizations. Though this is the same case with the consumers, over the adoption of voice user interfaces emerges to increase at an expanding rate. According to Statista, the number of digital voice assistants is likely to reach 8.4billion units by 2024, which is more than the world's population. This is due to the increasing demand for Voice AI assistants for better convenience and accessibility.


The Adoption of AI and Machine Learning in Healthcare: What is the Right Way to Proceed?

#artificialintelligence

The artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning is getting stronger than ever. Many applications and projects have been developed based on AI already. Take the example of Apple Siri or the advertising algorithms that pushes products and services based on our Google search. The question though is, can AI take the place of a human and replace him or her?! Some believe we will be able to teach a robot or artificial material to perform tasks quickly and efficiently than a human. The idea falls on the line of a screwdriver where we use it because we cannot unscrew just by using our bare hands.


Conceptual Modeling of Explainable Recommender Systems: An Ontological Formalization to Guide Their Design and Development

Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research

With the increasing importance of e-commerce and the immense variety of products, users need help to decide which ones are the most interesting to them. This is one of the main goals of recommender systems. However, users' trust may be compromised if they do not understand how or why the recommendation was achieved. Here, explanations are essential to improve user confidence in recommender systems and to make the recommendation useful. Providing explanation capabilities into recommender systems is not an easy task as their success depends on several aspects such as the explanation's goal, the user's expectation, the knowledge available, or the presentation method. Therefore, this work proposes a conceptual model to alleviate this problem by defining the requirements of explanations for recommender systems. Our goal is to provide a model that guides the development of effective explanations for recommender systems as they are correctly designed and suited to the user's needs. Although earlier explanation taxonomies sustain this work, our model includes new concepts not considered in previous works. Moreover, we make a novel contribution regarding the formalization of this model as an ontology that can be integrated into the development of proper explanations for recommender systems.


How To Do Keyword Recognition Using Simple Convolutional Network

#artificialintelligence

With the rapid development of mobile devices, speech-related technology is booming like never before. Many service providers like Google offer the ability to search through the voice on the android platform. For android mobile phones, 'Ok Google' uses this functionality to search a particular keyword to initiate the voice-based commands. Keyword recognition refers to speech technology that recognizes the existence of a word or short phrase within a given stream of audio. It is synonymously referred to as keyword spotting.


Top 10 Artificial Intelligence Apps in the Market

#artificialintelligence

When it comes to the mobile app industry, businesses of all sizes and specialisations confront strong competition. This position compels them to keep up with all developing digital developments in order to maintain their worth. Recognizing the huge influence of artificial intelligence on business, top firms such as Amazon, eBay, and Tinder make extensive use of AI in their applications to generate tailored mobile user experiences and improve profitability. Start-ups also raise more investment for AI integrations, propelling them to high marketability and competitiveness. Annually, more AI apps go viral, bringing greater exposure and revenues to their owners.


RO-MAN 2021 Roboethics Competition: Bringing ethical robots into the home

Robohub

In 1984, Heathkit presented HERO Jr. as the first robot that could be used in households to perform a variety of tasks, such as guarding people's homes, setting reminders, and even playing games. Following this development, many companies launched affordable "smart robots" that could be used within the household. Some of these technologies, like Google Home, Amazon Echo and Roomba, have become household staples; meanwhile, other products such as Jibo, Aniki, and Kuri failed to successfully launch despite having all the necessary resources. Why were these robots shut down? The simple answer is that most of these personal robots do not work well--but this is not necessarily because we do not have the technological capacity to build highly functional robots.


Amazon's Alexa can now answer questions about the Tokyo 2020 Olympics

Daily Mail - Science & tech

The moment that sports fans around the world have been waiting for is almost here, with the Tokyo 2020 Olympics finally kicking off today. With over 200 countries and regions competing across 33 sports and 46 disciplines, it can be hard to keep up with all the latest news. Thankfully, Amazon has your back, and has equipped its smart assistant, Alexa, with facts to give users quick and easy access to the latest news and successes throughout the games. 'Alexa, what's Team GB's Olympics update?' 'Alexa, what's Team Ireland's Olympics update?' 'Alexa, which country has the most gold meals?' 'Alexa, who is the athlete of the day?' Users of Alexa-enabled devices can ask the smart assistant a range of questions, including'Alexa, which country has the most gold medals?', and receive answers almost immediately. Amazon explained: 'Following the Olympics Opening Ceremony on Friday 23rd July, Alexa will give customers the low down on Team GB, Team Ireland, ParalympicsGB and Paralympics Ireland athletes competing at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games this year.