AI & RoboticsNews

Google Assistant gets new voice options in nine more languages

September 18, 2019
Google Assistant users outside the US haven’t had much choice when it comes to voice options — until now, as Google launches a second voice for Assistant in French, German, Dutch, Japanese, Norwegian, Korean, Italian and English for India and the UK. The new voices have been built with DeepMind’s WaveNet technology to help them sound natural, and will be displayed in settings as…
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AI & RoboticsNews

AI can gauge the risk of dying from heart conditions

September 16, 2019
AI’s ability to predict threats to your health could soon include deadly heart conditions. Researchers at MIT’s CSAIL have developed a machine learning system, RiskCardio, that can estimate the risk of death due to cardiovascular issues that block or reduce…
AI & RoboticsNews

Did AI kill off spam and we just didn’t notice?

September 11, 2019
I was pwned online recently. My contact information was revealed to the internet by the Entertainment Software Association’s leaky exhibitor portal. Luckily, confidential info like my SSN and birthdate were not spilled but I still found myself preparing for the inevitable flood of scams and spam, now that my details were out there for the world to see. But the deluge never came, only a…
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AI & RoboticsNews

Deep Fusion is the iPhone's take on AI photography

September 10, 2019
In announcing the iPhones 11 Pro, Phil Schiller tipped us off to a new feature that’ll come to the flagship smartphones in the next year. Deep Fusion is a system which Schiller describes as “computational photography mad science,” which is likely to be the…
AI & RoboticsNews

Google Assistant on Pixel 4 may handle calls while you're on hold

September 8, 2019
Google Assistant’s ability to handle phone calls may extend beyond booking appointments. A 9to5Google source claims Assistant on the upcoming Pixel 4 will have the option of taking over when you’re on hold, bringing you back when another human answers. You’d only have to tap a button to ignore the hold music and get things done. It’s not clear if this will also skip the…
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AI & RoboticsNews

Google Assistant will help you find Tile trackers

September 7, 2019
You don’t want to lose an item tagged with a Tile Bluetooth tracker, but you’ll at least have an easier time finding it in the near future. Tile is planning Google Assistant support that will let you directly ring your tracker from any device that supports the AI…
AI & RoboticsNews

NTSB says Tesla Autopilot was partly to blame for 2018 crash

September 5, 2019
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) cited both driver error and Tesla’s Autopilot design as the probable causes of a January 2018 crash, in which a Model S slammed into a parked fire truck at about 31 mph. According to the report, the driver was distracted and did not see the fire truck. But NTSB says that Tesla’s Autopilot was also at fault, as its design “permitted…
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