Earlier this week, I read about St. Louis University equipping every dorm room on campus with an Amazon Echo Dot. It’s a great idea and not just a simple device deployment: SLU has a custom Alexa Skill that provides answers to more than 100 questions … [Read more...]
Lenovo Smart Display 10: An intelligent and entertaining Google Assistant
Out of all of the gadgets I saw at January’s Consumer Electronics Show, the one I was ready to buy on the spot if I could was just $249. Sure, the new TVs costing thousands of dollars were beautiful to look at. And the latest robots, drones and … [Read more...]
IoT news of the week for August 10, 2018
Anki’s inexpensive robot is crammed with smarts: Normally I wouldn’t expect much from a $250 robot, so I’m super impressed by the new Anki Vector. Aside from keeping the cute, emotion-based interactions from its prior robot, Cozmo, with Vector, Anki … [Read more...]
Siri got smarter at WWDC 2018, but not the way you’d think
On Monday, the keynote kicked off Apple’s WorldWide Developer Conference with a focus on software and services. Nope, there was no new hardware, so no new support for Z-Wave or Zigbee radios like I had hoped for HomeKit. Apple’s Home app is coming to … [Read more...]
Should our digital assistants speak before being spoken to?
Digital assistants such as Amazon Alexa, Google Home and Siri are very useful, but there’s a catch: They generally don’t provide information unless you ask for it. That approach only solves half of the assistant equation. A truly effective assistant … [Read more...]