POSTCARDS FROM PARIS

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Xiaomi is bringing smart home products with Google Assistant to the US

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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 ...
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YouTube now supports HDR video on Apple’s latest iPhones

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YouTube has added support for HDR video playback on Apple’s iPhone X, 8, and 8 Plus. The iPad Pro also has a display that’s bright and vibrant enough for high dynamic range content, but  MacRumors  notes that YouTube hasn’t flipped the switch to enable it on there yet. HDR video is more colorful and more radiant than traditional content. It’s a little closer to looking through a window than watching video on a screen. But you’ve got to have a display that’s capable of showing it; thankfully more and more recent smartphones do. YouTube has plenty of great demo material for seeing the improved picture for yourself: just search “HDR” and you’ll find no shortage of exotic scenery, cityscapes, food, animals, and other demo reel material. My iPhone switched over to HDR automatically once I started streaming a video, but you can also tap the icon with three vertical dots to manually enable it. Note that since it’s really all about color, brightness, and contrast, you don’t have to pi...
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Google now says controversial AI voice calling system will identify itself to humans

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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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