intelligentassistant
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Facebook's Messenger AI will sniff out Spotify tracks for you
Facebook Messenger integrated Spotify into its chat extensions back in April of this year, then added a way to create group playlists within the chat app a month later. Now, the music streaming service is showing up in M, Facebook Messenger's AI assistant. The virtual helper monitors the words in your conversation, then pops up with hopefully relevant responses like "you're welcome," "no problem," or suggestions like "send birthday greetings" or "save bookmark." Now, though, when you mention playing music in a chat, you might find a new little popup that says "Find Music" next to the Spotify logo.
Adobe demos a virtual assistant for voice-based photo edits
If CES was any indication, voice control and virtual assistants will rule in 2017. While some companies seem to be adding the tools just for the sake of doing so, others are finding some implementations that could actually be useful. Adobe falls into the latter category and the company is showing off what it calls "a first step" towards voice-controlled edits in its design apps.
BlackBerry CEO promises legal action against product leakers
Leaks are par for the course when you're a huge company working on a new product, but one BlackBerry leaker seems to have gone too far. At least, CEO John Chen thinks so: today he penned a post on the official Inside BlackBerry blog promising legal action against a leaker who "falsely posed as an employee of one of [BlackBerry's] carrier partners to obtain access to secured networks." Ouch.
Leaks show BlackBerry working on a rival to Siri, Google Now (video)
Looks like Microsoft isn't the only latecomer scrambling to add a voice-guided assistant to its mobile platform. A leaked test-build of the new BlackBerry firmware (version 10.3.0.140, if you're curious) is rocking an app called "Intelligent Assistant," but as both N4BB and a ZonaBlackBerry forum poster have noticed, it doesn't quite work yet. The application sports a somewhat familiar circular icon for the primary UI, but, at the moment, it's hard to tell how deep the implementation runs and what its capabilities are. Should this feature actually make it into a future update, it could be the struggling Canadian company's answer to Android's Google Now and iOS' Siri. Let's just hope the beleaguered outfit can come up with a catchier name if and when that happens. Check out the sources and video below for a look at the rest of what the flatter BB 10.3 might offer.
