Apple has moved its self-driving car unit under the leadership of top artificial intelligence executive John Giannandrea, who will oversee the company’s continued work on an autonomous system that could eventually be used in its own car, Bloomberg reports. From the report: The project, known as Titan, is run day-to-day by Doug Field. His team of hundreds of engineers have moved…
Tag: Siri
Apple Added a Secret Button To Your iPhone
Your iPhone got a new button last month, and you may not have even noticed. The Verge reports: No, Apple didn’t sneak into your house and secretly superglue a button onto your smartphone. But it did release iOS 14, the latest version of its iPhone software, which includes a feature called Back Tap. Back Tap adds a fascinating new “button” to…
Apple Offers Support For Thread Networking
ttyler writes: As MacRumors reports, Apple’s new HomePod Mini supports Thread networking technology. “Thread is a low-power IP-based networking technology for connecting Internet of Things (IoT) devices, offering a secure, mesh-based system that makes it easy to build an ecosystem of devices,” reports MacRumors. “While Thread is essentially agnostic to the application layers that run on top of it, it can…
Voice Assistants Are Doing a Poor Job of Conveying Information About Voting
Kyle Wiggers, reporting for VentureBeat: Over 111.8 million people in the U.S. talk to voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant every month, eMarketer estimates. Tens of millions of those people use assistants as data-finding tools, with the Global Web Index reporting that 25% of adults regularly perform voice searches on smartphones. But while voice assistants can answer questions about…
Apple Researching Apple Watch Bands That Can Provide Information In Braille
According to Apple Insider, Apple is researching an Apple Watch band that could contain controllable protrusions to present tactile information on the surface. From the report: Apple has famously always researched providing accessibility features in its devices, whether or not it’s profitable. However, so far there has been a limit to what the Apple Watch can do — and its bands…
Apple Showing Signs It May Soon Launch a Search Engine To Compete Against Google Search
An anonymous reader shares a report from Coywolf News, written by Jon Henshaw: For several years, it’s been reported that Google pays billions of dollars to Apple to remain the default search engine on Safari for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. The deal ensures that iPhone, iPad, and Mac users search with Google when they use Safari. That is unless they manually…
Ann Syrdal, Who Helped Give Computers a Female Voice, Dies at 74
Ann Syrdal, a psychologist and computer science researcher who helped develop synthetic voices that sounded like women, laying the groundwork for such modern digital assistants as Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa, died on July 24 at her home in San Jose, Calif. She was 74. From a report: Her daughter Kristen Lasky said the cause was cancer. As a researcher at…
China’s Xiao-i Sues Apple for $1.43 Billion Over Siri AI Infringement
Chinese artificial intelligence company Shanghai Zhizhen Intelligent Network Technology, also known as Xiao-i, has filed a lawsuit against Apple, alleging it has infringed on Xiao-i’s patents. From a report: Xiao-i is calling for 10 billion yuan ($1.43 billion) in damages and demands that Apple cease “manufacturing, using, promising to sell, selling, and importing” products that infringe on the patent, it said…
Apple Halved App Store Fee To Get Amazon Prime Video On Devices
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Apple agreed in 2016 to halve its App Store fee for Amazon as part of a deal to put the e-commerce giant’s Prime Video app on Apple’s mobile devices and TV set-top box. Eddy Cue, an Apple senior vice president, and Amazon Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos negotiated directly on the deal, according…
Apple WatchOS 7 Unveiled With Sleep Tracking, Shareable Watch Faces and a Hand Washing Timer
At the WWDC 2020 keynote today, Apple unveiled WatchOS 7, adding sleep tracking features, shareable watch faces, a hand washing timer, and much more. CNET reports: WatchOS 7 adds much-anticipated sleep tracking features, including a Wind Down mode to help you get to bed on time. When you wake up, you’ll see a visualization of your previous night’s sleep, including periods…