I'm really fascinated by apps like Spotify and Shazam, and would like to pursue a career related to music information retrieval (MIR) and recommender systems. It seems like an esoteric field, especially since deep learning these days seems to primarily be focused on image and text data. Maybe we can connect and form a study group! Maybe we can share interesting papers (e.g. from ISMIR and ACM RecSys conferences), work on projects together, and share study materials.

Intelligent systems designed using machine learning algorithms require a large number of labeled data. Background knowledge provides complementary, real world factual information that can augment the limited labeled data to train a machine learning algorithm. The term Knowledge Graph (KG) is in vogue as for many practical applications, it is convenient and useful to organize this background knowledge in the form of a graph. Recent academic research and implemented industrial intelligent systems have shown promising performance for machine learning algorithms that combine training data with a knowledge graph. In this article, we discuss the use of relevant KGs to enhance input data for two applications that use machine learning -- recommendation and community detection. The KG improves both accuracy and explainability.

Amazon studies user voice recordings to make improvements to Alexa, according to the company. Each time you say "Alexa" (or whatever your wake word of choice happens to be), Amazon might be listening. However, the company says the wake word and the command or question that follows is the only part that's being recorded. This is all to help Alexa get smarter, but this may leave some smart home users feeling a bit uneasy. While Amazon points out that an "extremely small fraction of voice recordings are manually reviewed," the recordings have been mismanaged in the past, including a few horror stories, so it doesn't hurt to take precautions. You can adjust Alexa's voice recording settings in the Amazon Alexa app, available for download on iOS and Android devices. There are other ways to manage your voice recordings in the Amazon Alexa app, like automatic deletion and turning off voice recordings altogether.

Paolo Pirjanian is an Armenia born in Iran and fled to Denmark as a teen. From the time he was young, he was fascinated by computers and started coding in his bedroom. After getting his PhD in robotics, Paolo became an early leader in the field of consumer robotics who has 16 years of experience developing and commercializing cutting-edge home robots. He worked at NASA JPL and led world-class teams and companies at iRobot, Evolution Robotics, and others. In 2016, Paolo founded Embodied, Inc. with the vision to build socially and emotionally intelligent digital companions that improve care and wellness and support people in living better lives every day.

"Alexa, play Beyoncé!" Ever wondered how this works? Want to find out about the technology behind virtual personal assistants and other smart home gadgets? Then this course is for you! Performing via cognition, today's computers, software and devices can recognize people and speech, as well as write, speak and read handwriting. This course is perfect for teens with previous Python experience who want to develop a practical understanding of ML.

One of the biggest tech opportunities over the next decade is artificial intelligence (AI). According to Grand View Research, the general AI market, across a variety of products and services, is set to expand at a huge 46.2% average annual growth rate between 2019 and 2025. AI is set to power the next generation of tech innovation, from virtual assistants, to big-data analytics and inference, to self-driving cars, to image and voice recognition, and new 5G applications. With COVID-19 sweeping across the country and leading to shelter-in-place orders, many of these tech trends could be accelerated, as business look to quickly digitize to serve customers and cut costs. With many AI-oriented big tech companies reporting resilient financial results in their first quarter earnings reports, several look like strong buys in May as we come out of the March crash.

When unexpected events occur and customer demand increases what can companies do to smooth out the resulting peaks and troughs? Henry Jinman at EBI.AI outlines four ways conversational AI can help and shares a real-life example. First there were Storms Ciara and Dennis, now Coronavirus. The impacts of the pandemic are changing every minute, causing widespread fear and uncertainty around the world. Frontline teams are under particular pressure as agents struggle to manage surging and often widely fluctuating volumes of customer calls. When disaster strikes, what can businesses do to smooth the peaks and troughs?

You've figured out the basics of setting up your smart home, now it's time to raise your game. I've spent years installing, configuring, and tweaking dozens of smart home products in virtually every product category. Along the way I've figured out a lot of the secrets they don't tell you in the manual or the FAQs, ranging from modest suggestions that can make your smart home configuration less complex, to essential decisions that can save you from having to start over from scratch a few years later. Here's my best advice on how to optimize your smart home, digested into a dozen top tips and best practices. These days, an Amazon or Google/Nest smart speaker or smart display can fill the role of a smart home hub (and some Amazon Echo devices are equipped with Zigbee radios).. There are three major smart home platforms on the market, and your smart home will probably have at least one of them installed: Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, or Apple HomeKit.

Sonos unveiled three all-new higher-end speakers today: The $799 Sonos Arc, a roundish soundbar with support for Dolby Atmos object-based audio; the $699 Sonos Sub (Gen 3), a dual-driver, dual-amplifier subwoofer; and the $499 Play 5, a 14-pound speaker with six drivers and an equal number of Class D amplifiers. All three new speakers will be available in all-white or all-black (including the Sonos logo) on June 10, preceded by the release of the new Sonos S2 app on June 8. The Sonos Arc replaces both the Sonos Playbar, the company's first soundbar that came to market in 2013, and the Sonos Playbase that shipped in 2018. The less-expensive Sonos Beam ($399) will remain in the company's lineup. As with several newer Sonos speakers, the Arc supports your choice of Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant along with Apple AirPlay 2. The roundish Sonos Arc can operate on furniture or be hung on the wall using an optional mounting kit.

When it comes to headphones, especially truly wireless versions, it's hard to top those made by a certain Cupertino-based company named after a popular fruit. Google's own attempt to recreate the magic that is the Apple AirPods is here, and it's safe to say the reboot of the Android-friendly Pixel Buds is a pretty good one. The $179 truly wireless earbuds ditch the connecting wire found on the previous model, but maintain all the features that made the last version so appealing. While issues like fit and minor quirks -- especially with the AI-powered Google Assistant -- still exist, the end result is a pair of truly wireless buds with the same high-end build quality as the competition, and a welcome addition to the Android ecosystem. If only they didn't chafe so much.