This week at Google I/O Xiaomi announced that it would add Google Assistant compatibility to three smart home products and officially bring them to the US. The Mi Bedside Lamp (above) and Mi LED Smart Bulb can both display up to 16 million colors, with voice assistant support also allowing you to control brightness and color temperature. The Mi Smart Plug, meanwhile, adds Wi-Fi control to any outlet so that you can switch “dumb” devices on and off. Xiaomi has almost no presence in the US, and these partner products represent a small fraction of the ecosystem offered in China, India and elsewhere. But by adding Google Assistant support, Xiaomi can at least present itself as a more viable option for American gadget shoppers. CEO Lei Jun recently said that the company plans to launch its own phones in the US within a year or so, though it’s made similar promises in the past. The Mi Bedside Lamp will be available in the US this month; the other two products don’t have ...
Microsoft has long been rumored to be working on a foldable dual-screen device, much like the Courier concept. While we’ve only seen patents and third-party design concepts , there are now signs that Microsoft’s close OEM partners are working on similar devices. WinFuture reports that Dell is working on a similar dual-screen device that runs Windows 10 and an unreleased Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 ARM processor. Dell’s device is reportedly codenamed “Januss,” and has been under development since last summer, but it’s not clear whether the device will ever come to market. Dell was working on mobile Windows devices before, and those devices were canceled. Microsoft also canceled its own Surface Mini device , just weeks before it was due to be revealed. MICROSOFT’S RUMORED DEVICE IS CODENAMED ANDROMEDA Microsoft’s own rumored device, codenamed Andromeda, continues to be the source of much speculation, but it also may never be released. Still, Mic...
Following widespread outcry over the ethical dilemmas raised by Google’s new Duplex system, which lets artificial intelligence mimic a human voice to make appointments, Google has clarified in a statement that the experimental system will have “disclosure built-in.” That seems to mean that whatever eventual shape Duplex takes as a consumer product will involve some type of verbal announcement to the person on the other end that he or she is in fact talking to an AI. “We understand and value the discussion around Google Duplex — as we’ve said from the beginning, transparency in the technology is important,” a Google spokesperson told The Verge in a statement this evening. “We are designing this feature with disclosure built-in, and we’ll make sure the system is appropriately identified. What we showed at I/O was an early technology demo, and we look forward to incorporating feedback as we develop this into a product.” Duplex is not yet a working product, and Go...
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