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Philips Hue Iris review: This gorgeous accent light supports both Zigbee and Bluetooth

PCWorld

The latest version of the Iris, a smart mood lamp from Signify-owned Philips Hue, cannily improves on the elegant original, upping its brightness, improving its translucent light diffuser and spiffing up the power cable, while adding a Bluetooth radio in the bargain. Capable of working both with or without a hub, the $100 Iris can cast a soothing shaft of color or tunable white light on a nearby wall, while its translucent diffuser glows inside the lamp's clear shell. A cinch to set up and compatible with Alexa, Google Assistant, and (if used with a hub) HomeKit, the Iris makes for an easy and inexpensive way to warm up a room. While the Iris has a list price of $100 (or $99.99 if you want to get technical about it), the recently released lamp is only now finding its way into retail channels, so don't be surprised if you see inflated prices from third-party resellers. While it's rated for up to 570 lumens, or twice as bright as its predecessor, the Iris isn't really meant to light a room or illuminate a workspace.


Amazon Echo Dot (4th gen) with Clock review: The clock-equipped Echo Dot gets a spherical makeover

PCWorld

Like chocolate-covered peanut butter or eggs served with bacon, an Amazon Echo Dot with a built-in clock turns out to be a splendid combination. The latest Echo Dot with Clock doesn't veer far from the original's winning formula, serving up the same basic LED display baked into an Alexa-powered smart speaker. The only real difference this time around, aside from slightly improved audio, is a revamped spherical design that's now shared by the standard Echo Dot and the flagship Echo model. While the new Echo Dot with Clock does represent a clear stylistic departure from the original, there's no real reason to rush out and replace an existing one. Available in "glacier white" and "twilight blue" flavors, the new Echo Dot with Clock got the same spherical makeover that the standard 4th-gen Echo Dot did. Measuring 3.5 inches tall and 3.9 inches wide, the Echo Dot with Clock is nearly two inches taller than its predecessor, although it's roughly the same width.


How AI can Benefit and Change eLearning

#artificialintelligence

Studies have revealed that it has increased the retention power around 25-50% as compared to traditional face-to-face learning. The use of cloud technologies to benefit and change eLearning has been a breakthrough to ease the process and reach larger masses worldwide. At the same time, there have been several breakthroughs in new emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) that have contributed towards the growth of multiple fields, eLearning being one of them. Before seeing how AI can change eLearning, let us try to understand what AI is. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the ability of machines to be intelligent enough to take decisions on their own.


Ensuring Dataset Quality for Machine Learning Certification

arXiv.org Machine Learning

In this paper, we address the problem of dataset quality in the context of Machine Learning (ML)-based critical systems. We briefly analyse the applicability of some existing standards dealing with data and show that the specificities of the ML context are neither properly captured nor taken into ac-count. As a first answer to this concerning situation, we propose a dataset specification and verification process, and apply it on a signal recognition system from the railway domain. In addi-tion, we also give a list of recommendations for the collection and management of datasets. This work is one step towards the dataset engineering process that will be required for ML to be used on safety critical systems.


Pandora is the first third-party music app to work on Apple's HomePod

Engadget

When Apple unveiled the HomePod mini last month, the company showed off a long-awaited feature: the ability to use it with third-party music services. And as of now, Pandora is the first third-party music app to work with Apple's existing HomePod as well as the upcoming HomePod mini. An update to Pandora's iOS app is rolling out that lets you add the app the HomePod. If you've updated the Pandora app, you'll find a new item in the settings menu: Connect with HomePod. From there, it just takes a few taps to give Pandora permission to work with the speaker. This means you can ask Siri to do things like "play New Indie Radio on Pandora" and it'll start playing your station directly on the speaker.


The best smart lights of 2020

USATODAY - Tech Top Stories

Light strips are a fun and easy way to add smart lighting to just about anywhere in your home, like under kitchen cabinets, around TVs, along baseboards, and more. To get the job done right, you need a light strip that's fast and simple to set up, stays securely in place, and comes loaded with fun and useful features to light up any room. For these reasons, the Lifx Z LED Strip 6.6' Kit is the best smart light strip you can buy. In what felt like a blink of an eye, we had these dimmable lights connected to Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri. They also work with IFTTT, SmartThings, Nest, Arlo, Flic, and more.


Jabra's new noise-canceling earbuds are serious AirPods Pro rivals

USATODAY - Tech Top Stories

Jabra has been surprising us with category-busting earbuds since the brand's first "so-called" true wireless pair (that is, those without wires at all), the Elite and Elite Active 65t. Elite they were, and the follow-up Elite and Elite Active 75t are even better. In fact, Jabra's decision to retroactively add noise canceling to the already stellar 75t series via firmware makes them excellent competition for the new 85t, at a much lower price point. However, while the 85t may look a lot like the 75t--with some extra bulk--Jabra's engineers have drawn up something new here, aimed at long-term wearability and improved sound quality to take on the AirPods Pro, Bose's QuietComfort Earbuds, and other premium-tier rivals. And apart from one notable flaw (for which a fix is reportedly coming) they're about as close to perfect as true wireless gets.


Leena AI nabs $8M Series as it expands from chatbots to HR service platform โ€“ TechCrunch

#artificialintelligence

When we covered Leena AI as a member of the Y Combinator Summer 2018 cohort, the young startup was firmly focused on building HR chatbots, but in the intervening years it has expanded the vision to a broader HR policy platform. Today, the company announced an $8 million Series A led by Greycroft with help from several individual industry investors. Company CEO and co-founder Adit Jain says that in 2018 the company was concentrating on building an intelligent virtual assistant for HR-related questions. It allowed employees to ask the bot questions like how many vacation days they have left or what holidays they have off this year. Over the last couple of years since leaving Y Combinator, the company has moved into broader HR service delivery.


AI May Help Identify Patients With Early-Stage Dementia

WSJ.com: WSJD - Technology

Researchers are studying whether artificial-intelligence tools that analyze things like typing speed, sleep patterns and speech can be used to help clinicians better identify patients with early-stage dementia. Huge quantities of data reflecting our ability to think and process information are now widely available, thanks to watches and phones that track movement and heart rate, as well as tablets, computers and virtual assistants such as Amazon Echo that can record the way we type, search the internet and pay bills.


AI-assisted virtual teachers coming, are you ready?

#artificialintelligence

The time has come for Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven teaching assistants to help ease a human teacher's workload in the age of online learning, however, such virtual machines have to be effective and communicate well to be accepted by the society in a broad way, argue researchers. The increase in online education has allowed a new type of teacher to emerge -- an artificial one. But just how accepting students are of an artificial instructor remains to be seen, said researchers at the University of Central Florida's Nicholson School of Communication and Media who are working to examine student perceptions of AI-based teachers. Some of their findings, published in the'International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction', indicated that for students to accept an AI teaching assistant, it needs to be effective and easy to talk to. "The hope is that by understanding how students relate to AI-teachers, engineers and computer scientists can design them to easily integrate into the education experience," said Jihyun Kim, an associate professor in the school and lead author of the study.