Amazon is now calling for government regulation of facial recognition technology, even as it defends sales of its own such technology to law enforcement authorities. In a new post on the Amazon Web Services Machine Learning blog, the company’s VP of Global Public Policy, Michael Punke, writes, “We support the calls for an appropriate national…
The inaugural MIT AI Policy Congress recently convened in Massachusetts, bringing together leading researchers, industry insiders, and policy experts for a series of discussions about the future of artificial intelligence. Hosted by MIT’s Internet Policy Research Initiative (IPRI) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the conversation stressed the importance of collaboration and…
Facial recognition technology has had a big year, in good ways and bad. On the positive side, Apple signaled a more or less definitive switch to 3D facial recognition as the primary mechanism for user authentication on its flagship smartphones: Having made a big splash last year with its introduction of Face ID on the…
Amazon is seeking to get its Alexa virtual assistant into more third party devices with the announcement that it has now opened up the SDK for its Alexa Mobile Accessory Kit. The development platform was first announced near the start of the year, when it was available for select headphone devices from Bose, Jabra, and…
It has been another remarkable year for the biometrics industry, with a lot of activity across a wide range of sectors. Apple, which spearheaded the mobile biometrics revolution with its launch of Touch ID five years ago, went ahead and confirmed its shift to 3D facial recognition with the launch of three new iPhones featuring…
Two Canadian credit unions are now testing a system that lets customers do their banking through Alexa, Amazon’s voice-based virtual assistant. The technology comes by way of Vancouver-based FinTech specialist Central 1, which developed it in collaboration with San Francisco design agency Point One Digital. Essentially, the idea is to make Alexa a customer service…
Samsung will launch a revamped version of its Bixby AI assistant next year, and aims to extend it far beyond smartphones. In a statement announcing “Bixby 2.0”, Samsung Electronics R&D SVP Eui-Suk Chung says it will be “a bold reinvention of the platform” representing “the next major tectonic shift” in consumer technology after the emergence…
Amazon has unveiled two new services that appear to be the tip of the iceberg with respect to the company’s emerging Internet of Things strategy, according to a Fortune article by Stacey Higginbotham. The first is the company’s new Dash Buttons, which are essentially little WiFi-connected buttons that can be used to conveniently and immediately…
