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Monster's headphones get their own voice assistant (update)
Monster's latest team-up isn't with another star athlete or fellow accessory-maker: it's with music platform Speak Music Inc., which is lending the company its voice assistant named Melody. Monster says the partnership will add voice control to some of its headphones, making them the "world's first voice-powered premium" cans. The premium part may be true, but there are other voice-activated Bluetooth headsets out there. There's also bound to be more, considering manufacturers can now incorporate Amazon's Alexa Voice Service into their products.
Orii smart ring turns your fingertip into a Bluetooth earpiece
While modern Bluetooth earpieces are more compact than ever, chances are you'll still need to leave at least one stuck in your ear. This can get uncomfortable over time, not to mention the dorkiness that's been haunting this form factor since day one. Hong Kong startup Origami Labs thinks it has an alternative solution to this problem: why not repackage the Bluetooth earpiece as a ring, and then use bone conduction to transmit audio to the fingertip? That's the basic concept behind the Orii smart ring.
Samsung's Bixby voice assistant is ready to help in the US
The voice component of Samsung's Bixby assistant has been a long time in coming. The company was quick to boast about its AI helper at the Galaxy S8 launch, but revealed that the signature voice feature wouldn't arrive until later in the spring... and even then, it only had a full launch in South Korea. Americans had to make do with a preview. At last, though, it's becoming widely available: Samsung is officially rolling out Bixby's voice assistance to S8 and S8 Plus owners in the US. Every American with one of the flagship phones will get to talk to Bixby once an update arrives "tonight." There have been a few tweaks to this official release, too.
Smart home gadget ends a violent dispute by calling police (updated)
Inadvertent smart speaker commands aren't always bad. New Mexico police report that a smart home device (incorrectly labeled at first as a Google Home) intervened in a domestic violence incident by calling 911. When Eduardo Barros asked "did you call the sheriffs?" as he threatened his girlfriend with a gun during a fight, the device interpreted it as a request to call emergency services. They overheard the altercation and called both negotiators and a SWAT team, who arrested Barros over assault, battery and firearms charges after a stand-off.
Google Assistant helps with chores on LG appliances
Google Home's voice platform will soon be supported by some LG smart appliances. Today, as part of the company's I/O 2017 developers conference, LG revealed that its Signature-branded washing machines, dryers, fridges, ovens and air purifiers are getting a Google Assistant update later this month in the US. This means you'll be able to use voice commands to do things like tell your fridge to make more ice, or get real-time air quality updates from your air purifier. LG says these kind of features are also coming to its connected air conditioners and robotic vacuums, such as the Hom-Bot Turbo+, adding that the goal is to make even more appliances compatible with Google Assistant down the road.
Google's voice-controlled AI Assistant comes to the iPhone
You no longer need to install the Allo messaging app on your iPhone to shoot the breeze with Google's AI Assistant. During the company's I/O keynote, Google's Scott Huffman announced that the Assistant is truly coming to the iPhone today, as was rumored earlier this week. With its standalone app, you'll be able to interact with the Assistant using your voice, whether that means asking it questions or controlling your smart home devices with conversational commands. Before now, you could only get limited Assistant functionality through Allo, which also required you to type queries and orders into the chat app.
Ecobee's Alexa thermostat is essentially a wall-mounted Echo
If you're Ecobee and you have to compete against an Alphabet-backed heavyweight like Nest in the smart home space, what do you do? Simple: add built-in voice control that Nest can't currently match. The new Ecobee4 thermostat incorporates Amazon's Alexa. That gives you hands-off control over your home's climate, of course (such as saying when you're away), but it also turns your thermostat into a sort of wall-mounted Echo -- you can use just about any Alexa skill that makes sense. If you want to set a reminder or fetch a recipe, you might not need a separate device.
Google Home has 5 million recipe options for your next night in
Google has been rapidly adding new features to its Home connected speaker recently, and the latest will be handy for chefs. Google Home can now read out recipes step-by-step -- but it sounds like you'll need to kick off the process using your smartphone. According to a blog post that went up today, Home will be able to read back more than 5 million recipes from sites like All Recipes, Food Network, Bon Appetit, the New York Times and more. First, though, you'll need to find the recipe you want on your phone using either the Google Assistant on Android or Google search on your iPhone.
Choose from Alexa or Google Assistant in your new Mercedes
In the future, it'd be nice to expect our smart home will just know when we're on our way home and prepare for our arrival. In the meantime, voice assistants from Google and Amazon let us control our devices without all of that fiddly button pressing. Mercedes Benz, which already pledged to bake Google's platform into its cars, is getting even more committed to our voice-controlled future. Today, the automaker is announcing that both Google Assistant and Alexa will work on all of its 2016 and 2017 models released in the US.
Amazon offers its voice-recognition smarts to other companies
Amazon's Alexa has become the flag-bearer for AI assistants. Not only does she possess an exhaustive list of useful skills, but she's also started finding new homes in everything from phones to cars, watches, little robots and even refrigerators. There's a reason Amazon's Echo and Echo Dot speakers are particularly suited for ordering Alexa around at home, though. They both feature a fancy far-field, seven-microphone setup and audio processing smarts that help Alexa understand your muffled commands shouted from the downstairs bathroom. Today, Amazon's announced it's releasing this mixture of hardware and software in a new development kit, so other companies can build Alexa prisons that recognize you want to add mixed spices to your shopping list, and not listen to a Spice Girls mix (liar).
VW teams with Mobvoi to make in-car AI less terrible
As a general rule, in-car voice assistants are... lackluster. Unless you rely on a smartphone tie-in like Android Auto or Apple CarPlay, you're left with stiff voice commands and limited features. Volkswagen wants to do better. It's forming a joint venture with Mobvoi (yes, the smartwatch maker) that will push toward greater use of AI in cars. The two are planning to develop and sell technology that makes use of Mobvoi's voice recognition and search tech to streamline your driving experience. This includes products that are already on the market -- it's as much about reaching a wider audience as it is VW's long-term future.
Samsung's Bixby AI assistant can see as well as talk
With its latest Galaxy S8 and S8+ smartphones, Samsung also launched its very own AI assistant, Bixby. We know what you're thinking: Do I really need yet another Android helper bot like Google Assistant or even Cortana vying for my attention? Actually, Bixby might prove to be more useful for Galaxy S8 owners than we expected, thanks to its tight integration with the smartphones' hardware.
Line is building its own digital assistant called Clova
Japanese-based messaging app Line is wildly popular in other parts of the world and the company has even expanded from a simple chat app to a full-service mobile carrier. According to a new report from the Financial Times, Line is branching out again and developing its own digital assistant called Clova to compete with the likes of Alexa and Google Assistant, complete with its own line of smart speakers.
Logitech turns your car into an Amazon Alexa controller
Amazon's Alexa platform is no longer confined to the home: Ford, Hyundai and Volkswagen have all revealed plans to integrate the voice assistant into their vehicles. That's great if you're a die-hard Amazon customer and in the market for a new car. For the rest of us, Logitech's aftermarket ZeroTouch mounts and companion app bring the same dash-based Alexa experience but to the car you already own.
Nokia's voice assistant is for engineers, not ordering Ubers
Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Apple are all developing their voice assistants to be the perfect companions for our busy lives, helping us control our smart homes, buy things, summon Ubers, play funky music and find out what show that guy from that film is in. Nokia's newly announced voice assistant, on the other hand, is strictly business -- we're talking the Nokia that specializes in network technologies here, not the Nokia brand of devices licensee HMD Global puts out. The Multi-purpose Intuitive Knowledge Assistant, or MIKA for short, is a voice assistant built specifically for telecoms engineers, quickly surfacing the information they need to fix network faults and such.
Windows 10 preview lets Cortana play music, turn off your PC
Cortana is the star of a big new Windows 10 Insider Preview build. Microsoft says that voice control of your PC was one its "top requests," so the latest update now lets you shutdown, restart, lock or sleep your system using the voice assistant. You can also use natural language to play music on two apps (iHeartRadio and TuneIn) by saying "Play Drake on iHeartRadio," for instance. Once the music starts, you can use your voice to control playback and volume.
Vinci's smart headphones play music, no phone required
It was inevitable that voice-controlled headphones would one day land on our heads. With Siri and Alexa answering our questions and cueing up music for our ears, it was only a matter of time until something like the Vinci smart headphones appeared. Available for pre-order on Kickstarter, it can play music, act as an activity tracker, get directions, read back text messages and more wirelessly via WiFi or a 3G connection. And that's without being connected to a smartphone.
Samsung's Galaxy S8 will include an AI assistant
Samsung isn't wasting any time before it makes use of Viv's artificial intelligence know-how. In a an indirect confirmation of rumors, the tech giant has revealed that the upcoming Galaxy S8 will include an AI assistant as one of its star attractions. It's not offering clues as to what this virtual helper will do, but it will let developers "attach and upload services" to extend the AI's functionality beyond what you get out of the box. That's not much different than what Apple and Google are offering for their own assistants, but it may be what Samsung isn't talking about that's special -- Viv can create its own programs and understand complex intent in a way many AIs can't.
SoundHound's voice assistant lives inside its own speaker
Alexa and Google Home aren't the only pieces of voice-controlled assistant hardware available this holiday season. Today SoundHound announced the first third-party speaker to harness the power of its Hound platform. Built by Boombotix, the stand-alone device will not only play your music, but can answer your questions about the weather, flights, news, sports scores and more.
Amazon Echo Dot review (2016): Forget the Echo. Buy this instead.
The robot assistants we were promised as children are finally ready for the home. Well, sort of. Instead of walking, talking humanoid automatons like Rosie from The Jetsons and Robby the Robot from Lost in Space, our well-spoken helpers are housed in plastic and sit on tables. They answer our questions, control our homes and sometimes tell us a story. The most ubiquitous assistant so far has been Alexa, an Amazon-powered attendant that has made the jump from a $180 tower to the $50 Dot, which isn't much bigger than a hockey puck. That sort of drop in size usually results in a loss of features. In this case, you're going to want to go tiny.
