There is an unprecedented growth in the percentage of aging population throughout the world, particularly in growing economies such as Europe, Japan and China. Form 2000 to 2050, the percentage of the world's population who is 60 years of age and older will approximately double from about 12% to 22% (from 605 million to 2 billion). During the same period, the number of people aged 80 years and older will quadruple. In the USA, 14.5% of the population is 65 years or older, but by 2030 these number is anticipated to grow to 20%. This rapid aging demographic will directly affect social, economic and health outcomes for these growing economies.

Google officials have admitted that the company's workers can listen to Google Assistant users, and that one of them recently leaked confidential data. A Dutch language expert working for Google to train its speech technology leaked private information in a breach of the company's security policies, company officials said. The disclosure came after Belgian broadcaster VRT NWS reported that its reporters listened to more than 1,000 conversations recorded by the search giant's virtual assistant, including some that revealed identifiable information about the users. "As part of our work to develop speech technology for more languages, we partner with language experts around the world who understand the nuances and accents of a specific language," Google executive David Monsees wrote in a blog post posted on Thursday. These language experts review and transcribe a small set of queries to help us better understand those languages." "We just learned that one of these language reviewers has violated our data security policies by leaking confidential Dutch audio data.

This repository provides examples and best practices for building recommendation systems, provided as Jupyter notebooks. Several utilities are provided in reco_utils to support common tasks such as loading datasets in the format expected by different algorithms, evaluating model outputs, and splitting training/test data. Implementations of several state-of-the-art algorithms are provided for self-study and customization in your own applications. Please see the setup guide for more details on setting up your machine locally, on Spark, or on Azure Databricks. NOTE - The Alternating Least Squares (ALS) notebooks require a PySpark environment to run.

Amazon Echo devices are compatible with a multitude of smart home products. Amazon's Echo smart speaker is reportedly about to get a premium upgrade. Citing people familiar with the situation, Bloomberg published a report on Friday saying that the e-commerce giant is poised to unveil a next-level Echo in 2020 that's larger in size to accommodate new technology, better sound and at least four tweeters. The online tech behemoth has previously worked to upgrade the Echo's sound with software tweaks, offering a standalone subwoofer and add-ons that connect the speaker to a stereo. An Echo with improved sound quality would directly rival high-end Sonos speakers and Apple's acoustically rich $300 HomePod.

A New Mexico man was arrested for allegedly beating his girlfriend after their Amazon device alerted police. Eduardo Barros, 28, was with his girlfriend and her daughter at a residence in Tijeras, outside of Albuquerque, on July 2. The pair got into an argument and the confrontation became physical, according to the Bernalillo County Sheriff Department's spokesperson, Deputy Felicia Romero. Eduardo Barros, 28, (pictured), was arrested for allegedly threatening to kill his girlfriend after he mentioned'calling sheriffs' during a fight, which prompted an Alexa device to call 911 It is understood Barros allegedly became angered because of a text message that the woman received and he accused her of cheating on him. He was allegedly in possession of a firearm and threatened to kill his unidentified girlfriend, saying to her, 'Did you call the sheriffs?' A smart speaker, which was connected to a surround sound system inside the house, recognized the comment as a voice command and called 911, Romero told the New York Post.

If you're looking for a smart plug that hits all the right notes and never puts a foot wrong, the iDevices Switch is still the way to go. On top of Android and iOS compatibility, the Switch offers in-depth energy monitoring and seamless integration with the two most popular smart home ecosystems: Amazon Alexa and Apple HomeKit. Looks aren't everything, but the iDevices Switch is easily the most attractive smart plug we tested. Along with its sleek, minimalist casing, it offers a unique "night light" LED strip that can be set to any color of the rainbow. Mercifully, the Switch only occupies a single outlet on your wall panel, and its own outlet is positioned on the right-hand side--a real advantage if you want to place it snugly behind a couch or bookcase. It could also be a disadvantage if you want to plug something in on the left side, but for most users the side placement will be a plus rather than a minus. The slickly designed iDevices app is more attractive than most, and very easy to use.

Google acknowledged its contractors are able to listen to recordings of what people say to the company's artificial-intelligence system, Google Assistant. The company admitted on Thursday that humans can access recordings made by the Assistant, after some of its Dutch language recordings were leaked. Google is investigating the breach. The recordings were obtained by the Belgian public broadcaster VRT, which reviewed more than 1,000 audio clips and found 153 had been captured accidentally. Google Assistant begins automatically recording audio when prompted by a user, usually by saying a wake-up word or phrase like, "OK, Google". Google says contractors listen to recordings to better understand language patterns and accents, and notes that recordings may be used by the company in its user terms.

Not all voice assistants can handle the same requests. We put Siri, Alexa and Google to the test. As privacy concerns loom large over smart speakers, a new investigation has found that Google's smart speakers might infringe on individual privacy more than buyers realize. Even when Google Home smart speakers aren't activated, the speakers are eavesdropping closely, often to private, intimate conversations, a report by Dutch broadcaster VRT has uncovered. Recordings found by VRT contain startling content: Couples' quarrels that may have potentially resulted in domestic violence, explicit conversations in the bedroom, men searching for pornography, confidential business calls, and talks with children.

Today's social media platforms are ruled over by opaque algorithms that decide what we see, guiding us towards content they believe we have the greatest chance of engaging with and creating new content in response to. We have no right to see inside these algorithms or control them in any way. Their decisions are made with their profit-minded creators in mind, not our intellectual and emotional best interests. Could our personal digital assistants of the future wade through the vast social wasteland on our behalf, tracking down content and curating a specialized feed that represents what we want to see, not what social platforms want us to see and even shield us from hate? The algorithms that run today's social media platforms are designed to mindlessly drive us towards the highest-engagement content.

Thanks to the limitless possibilities that artificial intelligence (AI) has to offer, our lives have never been easier. From smartphones and personal assistants to home automation systems, AI is everywhere. The ability of machines to mimic human intelligence may seem frightening, but the truth is that AI is already transforming many industries. And it's inevitable that labor markets and traditional workplaces will become part of this transformation as well. Though this tech has been around for quite some time, recent advances in computing have started accelerating the growth of AI, and many companies are investing heavily in this technology.