Nearly two years after first demonstrating it onstage at Google I/O 2018, Google has quietly rolled out haircut appointment booking for Google Duplex, its AI chat agent. Now, VentureBeat has discovered that users with supported devices can have Google Assistant call barbershops, hairstylists, and salons to reserve appointments on their behalf without having to place calls themselves.
Booking a…
When AI hurts people, who is held responsible?
October 13, 2020
Following a Maricopa County Grand Jury decision, last month the woman behind the wheel of a semi-autonomous Uber vehicle was charged with negligent homicide for the 2018 killing of Elaine Herzberg. The backup driver being charged following the first autonomous vehicle…
Real estate tech company Snapdocs today closed a $60 million funding round. According to a spokesperson, the proceeds will be put toward product development and expanding the company’s workforce. (Snapdocs plans to double its 225-employee headcount within the next 9…
Will AI power video chats of the future? That’s what Nvidia implied this week with the unveiling of Maxine, a platform that provides developers with a suite of GPU-accelerated AI conferencing software. Maxine brings AI effects including gaze correction, super-resolution, noise cancellation, face relighting, and more to end users, while in the process reducing how much bandwidth videoconferencing…
Google Assistant finally works with some third-party apps
October 8, 2020
Before today, if you ask Siri or the Google Assistant to “check the news on Twitter,” you’ll either be shown the @CHEK_News account on the Twitter website or articles about the social network on Apple News. For Android users, voice commands are about to get a lot…
The 2021 versions of Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements are now available, and Adobe has added a number of AI-powered features to them. Those apps are Adobe’s streamlined versions of Photoshop and Premiere, and they’re designed for beginners and folks who don’t…
Starting today, Google Assistant can quickly open, search, and interact with some of the most popular Android apps on the Google Play Store. To kick off its Google Assistant Developer Day conference, Google this morning announced new Assistant shortcuts across fitness, social media, payment, ride-hailing, and other categories of apps for actions like finding a ride, ordering food, and playing…
Density, a startup building AI-powered, people-counting infrared sensors, today announced a new product called Open Area that can map offices ostensibly without compromising privacy. The company expects that Open Area will facilitate social distancing during the pandemic…
SiteAware (formerly Dronomy), a startup developing a verification platform for construction, today closed a $10 million funding round co-led by Axon Ventures and Robert Bosch Venture Capital GmbH. The company says the funding will be used to accelerate its expansion in the…
Google Assistant comes to Tobii Dynavox devices and apps
October 6, 2020
Google today announced that it’s bringing Google Assistant to Tobii Dynavox‘s apps and services, enabling users with accessibility needs to assign virtual tiles to actions that control smart home devices and appliances. The companies also partnered to integrate Action Blocks, UI elements that make it easier for people with cognitive disabilities to use Google Assistant, with Tobii thousands of…
