siri

The COVID-19 situation has produced so much information, misinformation, fake news, and confusion that people are naturally at a loss for what to do. The biggest question on people's minds may be whether they are infected or not. In normal circumstances, seeing a professional is the advised course of action but health workers are already spread thin trying to care for confirmed cases. To help take a load off their shoulders, some, like Google sister company Verily, have created tools to help triage cases and Apple's Siri is one of the latest to be added in that arsenal.

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The Samsung smart speaker called Galaxy Home Mini leaked in a release-ready configuration today tossing a jab at Apple's smart assistant Siri (unofficially, of course). The video comes courtesy of an unnamed source* who would appear to have been at a location where several new Samsung products were being shown. This new smart speaker will apparently allow you, the user to "make it say literally anything you want" - like what we see in the video below: "At least I'm better than Siri."

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NEON is an artificial intelligence project, aka "artificial human" project from a Samsung-backed group called STAR Labs. This is not the same as S.T.A.R. Labs from DC Comics, and the artificial human isn't an android. Instead, it's more like a chat bot. Lots of jargon and buzz-words were shared today by the head of the project, Pranav Mistry.

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The folks at Sengled brought a very vintage-looking piece of tech to Las Vegas this week, to CES 2020. This is the Sengled Smart LED Edison Filament Bulb, with a design that's decidedly old-school. Sengled also has a set of new smart (and not so smart) lighting and smart home solutions out at CES 2020, including Smart LED Candle Light Bulbs, a new Smart Hub, and a Smart Plug with Energy Monitoring.

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The folks at Intellithings announced this week that their smart home system RoomMe would expand with support for Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, and Samsung smartwatch support. RoomMe will also have new compatibility with a new update for two smart home hubs not on their list before - the Insteon hub and the Logitech Harmony. RoomMe is what they call a "smart home True Occupancy Automation system" that uses "patented presence sensing technology" to see if you're in the house.

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Walmart Voice Order, the company's feature for ordering items using voice commands, now supports Apple's Siri assistant. The new support brings Walmart Voice Ordering to Macs, iPhones and iPads, the Apple Watch, and even CarPlay and HomePod smart speakers. The Siri support joins previously added compatibility with Google Assistant.

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Siri is gaining a new talent, with deeper integration between iOS and Google Voice allowing calls and text messages to be sent via Apple's assistant. The new feature was quietly added to the latest update of Google Voice, and after a little setup is almost as easy to use as placing a call or sending a message via Siri through Apple's own dialer or iMessage.

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It's been a long time coming, but as of today the iOS faithful can tap into Siri while using Spotify. This missing functionality has been a point of contention between Spotify and Apple, but now it seems the two companies can finally bury the hatchet on that front, though we imagine some conflict with still remain between the two. Previously, only Apple Music was able to boast Siri integration, though that changed when Apple opened up SiriKit in iOS 13.

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Apple might be the first to have its voice-activated personal assistant but it is commonly regarded to be falling behind the likes of Amazon Alexa and especially Google Assistant. Some say that part of it is due to Apple's hard stance on privacy, limiting the data Siri can gather to improve the service. The other possible reason is Apple's closed ecosystem that is pretty stingy when it comes to integrating with third-party apps and services. It seems that Apple might be turning over a new leaf but just for a bit when it comes to third-party messaging apps but with some big caveats.

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It's been a long time coming, but it looks like Spotify is finally going to gain Siri integration in iOS 13. Apple indicated as much when it opened up the SiriKit framework to third-party app makers earlier in the summer, and it seems that Spotify has wasted little time in beginning to work on Siri integration. The feature has been added in Spotify's latest beta version, which suggests that an official release isn't that far off.

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Apple packed a lot of announcements into its iPhone reveal event yesterday, but one device that didn't get a shoutout is the AirPod. Despite that, it seems that Apple still has big plans for the speaker throughout the rest of the year. In all, there are three incoming features for the AirPod, and one in particular is something users have been asking for since the HomePod launched.

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Apple is overhauling how it deals with Siri recordings, pledging to do away with human assessment of Siri requests after users voiced privacy concerns that their conversations with the assistant could be overheard for quality testing. The iOS and macOS assistant has been caught up in ongoing controversies around all of the major virtual assistants the past few weeks, with privacy advocates warning that human assessment and intervention is far more prevalent than many users might assume.

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