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...home assistants could soon report their owners to the police for breaking the law based on a “Moral A.I.” system, if the ideas of academics in Europe are implemented. ...academics at the University of Bergen in Norway discussed the idea of a “moral A.I.” for smart home assistants, like the Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Apple HomePod, during a conference. Moral A.I. would reportedly make home assistants have to “decide whether to report their owners for breaking the law,” or whether to stay silent. “This would let them to weigh-up whether to report illegal activity to the police, effectively putting...

Amazon and Google really do want to watch your every move. A series of patents filed by the firms 'outline an array of possibilities' for how their smart speakers could be used to better listen in on users. They suggest their always-on Google Home and Amazon Echo devices could know everything from a user's mood to their medical condition, and target advertising based on this data. The development comes amid a growing scandal involving the handling of the private data of 50 million users by Facebook and Cambridge Analytica.

Intelligent assistant platforms like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant could be the next great frontier in computer interface, but there are bound to be some bumps along the way before we reach a Star Trek-style future. For example, Android Police founder Artem Russakovskii discovered a hardware defect in the upcoming Google Home Mini that caused the device to record almost all nearby audio and upload it directly to Google. That’s a pretty severe privacy violation, but Google says it’s pushing out an update to prevent it from happening again.The Google Home Mini is a small puck-shaped speaker that lets you...

October 4th, 2016 · No Comments · 2160p, Connected TVs, Digital Media Receivers, HDMI, HDR, Home Automation, News, screen mirroring, search and recommendation, Second Screen, Streaming Services, UHD (4K) Media Players, UHDTV  Google used its hardware press conference in San Francisco Tuesday to unveil the latest iteration in its family of Chromecast digital media adapters.The new Chromecast Ultra, which is billed as offering the most premium Chromecast streaming video experience to date, is designed to seamlessly link (along with other Chromecast units) to the newly announced – and Amazon Echo-like – Google Home omni-directional wireless speaker with built-in Google Assist.Google...