The Gaia Data Release 3 (DR3), published in June 2022, delivers a diverse set of astrometric, photometric, and spectroscopic measurements for more than a billion stars. The wealth and complexity of the data makes traditional approaches for estimating stellar parameters for the full Gaia dataset almost prohibitive. We have explored different supervised learning methods for extracting basic stellar parameters as well as distances and line-of-sight extinctions, given spectro-photo-astrometric data (including also the new Gaia XP spectra). For training we use an enhanced high-quality dataset compiled from Gaia DR3 and ground-based spectroscopic survey data covering the whole sky and all Galactic components. We show that even with a simple neural-network architecture or tree-based algorithm (and in the absence of Gaia XP spectra), we succeed in predicting competitive results (compared to Bayesian isochrone fitting) down to faint magnitudes. We will present a new Gaia DR3 stellar-parameter catalogue obtained using the currently best-performing machine-learning algorithm for tabular data, XGBoost, in the near future.

When Samsung revealed the Galaxy Note 9 back in August, it showed off new AI-powered camera features, like flaw detection and a scene optimizer to tune the exposure and color of a shot before you've captured it. When Apple launched the iPhone XS and XS Max last month, it talked a lot about how the new phone's AI-specific neural processor enabled better photos, especially Portrait pics. Now, it's Google's turn to boast about its AI-enhanced smartphone camera--and show how its software smarts and access to vast networks of data give it a leg up on the competition. Earlier today Google announced its new Google Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL smartphones. The new phones were expected (and had been leaked weeks beforehand), but since Google makes the vast majority of its revenue from digital advertising, any new hardware launch from the company piques a particular kind of interest. Google may not sell nearly as many phones as its flagship competitors do, but it knows that if it's going to compete at all in the high-end smartphone market, it has to have a killer camera.

At the beginning of 2017 you could have been forgiven for thinking that smartphone innovation had died, with most phones looking the same and doing the same things, changing very little from the year before. But by the end of 2017 two things were clear: manufacturers needed to go all-screen or go home, and artificial intelligence had finally made its way into the phone, not just feeding everything you said to a server somewhere over the horizon. The Samsung Galaxy S8 introduced the new minimal bezel design in April, shrinking the non-screen parts of the front down to the bare minimum and as a result putting a bigger screen in the same sized smartphone. It was clearly the future. Even Apple agreed, launching the iPhone X in November.

Google has unveiled its new Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL smartphones, with the Android-maker bullish that it can directly challenge the dominance of Apple's iPhone. The firm is using the new high-end smartphones and Android Oreo operating system to demonstrate its prowess in combining hardware and software, using exclusive features to attempt things other manufacturers including Apple cannot. The two phones both have the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, 64GB of storage as standard, front-facing speakers, water-resistance to IP67 standards, no headphones jack and new 12-megapixel cameras on the back, but have different sized OLED screens. The Pixel 2 has a traditional 5in screen with large bezels at the top and bottom and costs from £629, while the Pixel 2 XL has a modern design similar to the Samsung Galaxy S8 and LG's G6, with an elongated 6in screen and small bezels, costing from £799. In a direct swipe at Apple, Google's vice president product manager Mario Queiroz said: "We don't save cool features just for the large device. You get all the goodness with both phones, so the only choice you have to make is what size you want."

Google said on Wednesday it would offer an audio-only option on its Duo video calls service to help users communicate using poor-quality connections, and was adding a feature to permit file sharing in group chats on its Allo messaging App. The company launched Google Duo in August, providing video calls for users on Android and iOS, pitting it against Apple Inc's FaceTime, Microsoft Corp's video-calling app Skype and Facebook Inc's Messenger. Google, owned by Alphabet Inc, said audio-only calls on Duo would be available from Wednesday in Brazil, and would be rolled out to users around the world in the coming days. The audio-only calls would work well on all connection speeds and be data efficient, Google Vice President for Product Management Mario Queiroz said in a blog post after he announced the moves at a Google conference in Sao Paulo. In response to requests from users in countries like Brazil, Google said that Android users everywhere would be able to share documents and other files (.pdf, .docs,

Google has placed a virtual assistant at the heart of its latest smartphones and first voice-activated speaker. The two Pixel handsets are the first mobiles to trigger Google Assistant by pressing their home buttons, somewhat like Apple's Siri. The Home speaker lets the same artificial intelligence tool be controlled without use of a touchscreen. Google also unveiled new virtual reality kit and a 4K media streamer. However, the US company will have to overcome privacy concerns and convince users that chatting to a virtual assistant has advantages over using individual apps.

Developers and press gathered today at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California, for the annual ritual known as Google I/O. Are you ready for a Google overdose? Here's everything the company announced during its most important event of the year: Google launched its latest Android N developer preview today -- the first one to receive "beta-quality" status. Developers can start testing their apps for this release by downloading the new preview here. The factory images should arrive shortly for the following supported devices: Nexus 5X, Nexus 6, Nexus 6P, Nexus 9, Nexus 9 LTE, Nexus Player, General Mobile 4G, and Pixel C. Remember the rumor suggesting Google may use an online poll to name Android N? Well, it turns the rumor was half-correct: It's more of a suggestion box than a poll. Google wants to hear your what you've got at android.com/n.

It's a reflection of Google's Search and AI advances, an answer to Alexa, an imitation of nothing else precisely and an echo of Amazon's home assistant ambitions. Google introduced it during I/O 2016, and it's what the company simply calls Google Home. It's a front, more so a frontier maybe, that Amazon set out into first, but Google Home is packed with enough promise to serve a serious challenge to the Echo early on. Chromecast has been one of the hottest consumer products since its launch day, and Google Home will build on that success, stated Mario Queiroz, vice president of product management at Google, during a presentation at I/O 2016. "Google Home is a Wi-Fi speaker that streams music directly from the cloud so you get the highest quality playback," said Queiroz.

For the past year and a half, the tech world has been recovering from Amazon's surprise announcement of the Echo. Now, Google is finally doing what everybody wanted it to do: release a competitor. It's called Google Home, and it's coming out later this year for an unspecified price. You can sign up to be notified for updates at the Home website. Mario Queiroz is the executive behind the project.

Mountain View (United States) (AFP) - Google on Wednesday unveiled a virtual home assistant device that brings together the Internet titan's strengths to challenge Amazon Echo. Google Home, about the size of a stout vase, will hit the market later this year, vice president of product management Mario Queiroz promised at the opening of the Internet giant's annual developers conference in the Silicon Valley city of Mountain View. Home devices will incorporate new Google virtual assistant software introduced by chief executive Sundar Pichai. "Our ability to do conversational understanding is far ahead of what other virtual assistants can do," Pichai told a packed audience at the Shoreline Amphitheatre, a venue known more for concerts than for gatherings of developers. "We are an order of magnitude ahead of everyone else."