siri

Here's something that might ease the ongoing tensions between Apple and Spotify: when it arrives, iOS 13 will apparently open up SiriKit, allowing Apple's AI assistant to work with third-party music and podcast apps. In other words, the days of Siri shooting down requests to play music through Spotify might soon be over. That's assuming, of course, that this functionality makes it into the final version iOS 13 that ships to customers later this year.

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Apple takes pride in its strong stance on user privacy but some point out that, at times, it also limits the things Apple's products can potentially do. Siri, for example, is regarded to lag behind Google Assistant or even Amazon Alexa because of what Apple refuses to take from users. That doesn't mean, however, that one of the earliest consumer AI assistants is underpowered and in iOS 13, Apple will be showing what it can do while still respecting the user's privacy.

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Obsequious, coy, and above all female virtual assistants like Alexa, Siri, and the Google Assistant are a widespread example of sexism, a new UN report argues, blasting gender bias coded into tech products. The use of default female voices for digital assistants, and their programmed reactions to insults and inappropriate requests, could be contributing to a growing gender gap, it's suggested.

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In the battle of AI assistants, you might think that Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant has the lion's share of the market considering their pervasive presence in devices. Only one of that is correct, however, with Alexa taking just third place. Two surveys conducted by Microsoft reveal that Siri and Google Assistant are actually tied at the top. More interesting, however, are consumers' rather conflicted feelings about using these assistants when it comes to their privacy.

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Facebook is working on its own personal assistant to take on Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri, a new leak claims. This project has been in the pipeline since early last year, sources allege, with Facebook reportedly also having been in contact with vendors to supply the hardware. The voice assistant would, presumably, be paired with the company's Portal device, but wider plans are unclear.

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Apple is keeping its string of device reveals going, first revealing a pair of new iPads on Monday and then updating its line of iMacs yesterday. Though some rumors claimed that we'd see a new iPod Touch today, we're actually getting a new pair of AirPods. An AirPods follow-up has been rumored for quite some time, so the fact that we're seeing them now shouldn't come as too much of a surprise.

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Apple seems to want to expand the speed at which Siri is implemented in 3rd-party products. At least that's what it'd seem, given their acquisition of the group called Pullstring. This group is in the business of assisting with the building and designing of voice apps for physical products. Oh, they've got their own conversational AI, too.

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Apple has experienced a big change behind closed doors, at least according to a recent report citing insider sources. According to the leakers, Apple's now-former Siri lead Bill Stasior, who joined Apple from Amazon in 2012, has been moved to a different part of the company. In his place is reportedly John Giannandrea, Apple's machine learning and AI strategy senior vice president.

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Today brought the release of iOS 12.2 beta 1 for developers, and with it came a new feature: a 'Hey Siri' interface believed to be for the upcoming (and unofficial) AirPods 2. The setup screen is said to appear when setting up the device, enabling users to summon Siri using AirPods in addition to an iPhone and the 'Hey Siri' phrase. The feature's appearance indicates the next AirPods iteration is near.

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There might be an overabundance of connected appliances these days but not all of them speak the same language. For that, you would need a gateway that would act as a hub and translator for the myriad connected products you may have at home. Although its name doesn’t always come up in IoT news, abode’s gateway is one of those that can speak multiple languages and integrate with multiple AI assistants. And with the abode Gen 2 gateway, it is getting more capable with the promise of one important integration coming soon.

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Loup Ventures has published its annual smart speaker IQ test results, revealing how the four big personal assistant AIs performed when asked 800 questions each. Compared to the previous year, three products saw the biggest gain in IQ points and were able to answer a substantially higher percentage of questions versus 2017. However, Google Assistant still beat them all across the board.

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Siri may be a mainstay of Apple devices, but if you're a fan of the Google Assistant there's now a sneaky workaround to tap into that instead. Google's Assistant has until now been far more clunky to interact with on iPhone and iPad than on Android, but support for Siri Shortcuts cuts out a lot of the headache.

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