One key example: This fall, Apple's Siri assistant will start processing voice on iPhones. Right now, even your request to set a timer is sent as an audio recording to the cloud, where it is processed, triggering a response that's sent back to the phone. By processing voice on the phone, says Apple, Siri will respond more quickly. This will only work on the iPhone XS and newer models, which have a compatible built-for-AI processor Apple calls a "neural engine." People might also feel more secure knowing that their voice recordings aren't being sent to unseen computers in faraway places.

Caché Owens and Cynthia Velásquez reached the same conclusion within days of meeting: they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together. The pair first started talking on Instagram in January, through a popular account that offered a contemporary version of traditional newspaper personal ads. Owens, a 29-year-old artist and professor, had never had much luck on dating apps, but the Personals page was different. It did not use photos, but instead featured a long list of bios of queer and trans people looking for internet friends, lovers or partners across the globe. Velásquez and Owens' DMs turned into daily phone calls, they got engaged in April, Velásquez moved from Los Angeles to North Carolina to be with Owens in May, and the two are getting married next month, just before the one-year anniversary of their first Instagram chat.

A recent college grad living in rural Connecticut, they'd been subject to the swipe-and-ghost thing a few too many times. Then, this spring, Juniper submitted an ad to @_personals_, an Instagram for lesbian, queer, transgender, and non-binary people looking for love (and other stuff). The post, titled "TenderQueer Butch4Butch," took Juniper two weeks to craft, but the care paid off: the ad ultimately garnered well over 1,000 likes--and more than 200 messages. Tinder's Days as a Hookup App May Be Over "I was so used to the Tinder culture of nobody wanting to text back," Juniper says. "All of the sudden I had hundreds of queers flooding my inbox trying to hang out."

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."

Samsung, the largest maker of televisions and smartphones in the world, is buying Viv Labs, a high-profile artificial intelligence startup founded by the inventors of Apple's Siri voice assistant, the South Korean electronics conglomerate said Wednesday. The move is a major land grab in the battle for cutting-edge artificial intelligence taking place among tech giants. Samsung, which has lagged in such services, is now positioned to add intelligent, Siri-like voice capabilities to its vast collection of home and mobile electronics. "We have a unique opportunity to take advantage of AI, and show the rest of the industry what the smart, connected world can look like," Jacopo Lenzi, Samsung's Senior Vice President of Business Development and Strategic Acquisitions, said in an interview. The companies declined to disclose the purchase price of the deal.

The Google Pixel phone is finally here, and it's bringing AI with it. The latest pure Android smartphone was announced at a Google event on Tuesday, along with a new Daydream View virtual reality (VR) headset, a new Google Wi-Fi router, and a new Chromecast. Google CEO Sundar Pichai opened the event, explaining the transition from PC to web, and now web to mobile. He then spoke about how Google believes the tech world is in the midst of a transition from "mobile-first to AI-first." That AI focus is built around Google Assistant, Google's personal assistant that was unveiled in May.

Ahead of the product announcements, Google CEO Sundar Pichai took to the stage to say that technology development today has reached a "seminal moment" by shifting from a mobile-first world to an AI-first world. Building on years of work and investment in machine learning, he added, Google is marking that shift by bringing its intelligent Google Assistant to both the new Pixel phones and the new smart Google Home device. Designed and built by Google, the Pixel smartphones -- available for pre-ordering beginning today at a base price of 649 -- will also be the first phones to have built-in support for the company's new Daydream virtual-reality system. The 129 Google Home can also be pre-ordered starting today and are set to begin shipping on Nov. 4. "We're at a seminal moment in computing," Pichai said at the start of today's even.

Google has announced its new Pixel and Pixel XL phones, as expected, which will be powered by Google's new Google Assistant. Google launched the Pixel in both a standard as well as a jumbo size, the Pixel XL. But the 5-inch Pixel and 5.5-inch Pixel XL aren't noteworthy because of their hardware, but because of the software and services attached to them: not only will users be able to launch the interactive Google Assistant from their home buttons, but the phones will come with an unlimited amount of cloud storage for photos and videos at original quality --even 4K!--compliments of Google. The Pixel will cost 649 (or 27 per month) exclusively from Verizon. Google didn't provide a price for the Pixel XL.