Geoffrey Litt: Stevens: a hackable AI assistant using a single SQLite table and a handful of cron jobs. “In this short post, I’ll show you how I built a useful AI assistant for my family using a dead simple architecture: a single SQLite table of memories, and a handful of cron jobs for ingesting memories and sending updates, all hosted on Val.town. The whole thing is so simple that you can […]
#DigitalAssistants
Mashable: Amazon Echo alternatives with better privacy options. “Amazon recently confirmed that Alexa users will no longer have the ability to process requests locally, meaning your voice recordings will be stored in Amazon’s servers, no matter what you think about it. That’s…not great. The good news is there are a couple of major alternatives you can use that have better privacy settings. […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2025/03/27/mashable-amazon-echo-alternatives-with-better-privacy-options/
The Register: Apple hallucinated Siri’s future AI features, lawsuit claims. “Apple on Wednesday was sued in a US federal court for allegedly misrepresenting the AI capabilities of its Siri personal digital assistant. The complaint [PDF], filed on behalf of plaintiff Peter Landsheft as a proposed class action, argues that Apple mid-2024 launched a marketing campaign for its iPhone 16 that […]
Northeastern Global News: Your voice assistant is profiling you, just not in the way you expect, new research finds. “These devices are almost always listening, and the companies behind them are already collecting our data. However, a team of researchers recently set out to determine just how much companies like Amazon, Apple and Google are using the data gathered through their voice […]
TechCrunch: Google is replacing Google Assistant with Gemini. “Google said in a blog post that it’ll upgrade more users from Google Assistant to Gemini ‘over the coming months.’ Later this year, Assistant will no longer be accessible on most mobile devices or available from app stores.”
https://rbfirehose.com/2025/03/15/techcrunch-google-is-replacing-google-assistant-with-gemini/
MediaPost: Google Battles Consumers Over Accidental Recordings By Voice-Activated Devices. “Google is urging a federal judge to dismiss a class-action lawsuit by users of voice-activated devices who allege that the company wrongly recorded their conversations and shared snippets with outside parties.”
The Verge: Sesame is the first voice assistant I’ve ever wanted to talk to more than once. “…speaking to ‘Maya,’ one of two voices from a new startup headed by the man who built Oculus VR and sold it to Facebook, is the first time I’ve been left wanting more. Like I could just talk to it, or at least play a genuinely fun game of testing its limits, like I did with Bing before Microsoft […]
Digitaltrends: Amazon launches Alexa+, an AI-powered rebirth of its digital assistant. “Amazon is finally pushing ahead into a new era of digital assistants with Alexa+, a next-gen version of Alexa that is powered by generative AI capabilities. It is more talkative with natural language capabilities, comes with a wide range of agentic chops, and can turn voice commands into routines, among a […]
#DigitalAssistants #Perplexity #Gemini
"A digital assistant made by a startup is giving tough competition to Google's Gemini."
Survey shows people would rather use this new Android assistant instead of Gemini
"An Android Authority survey shows that a new digital assistant is giving tough competition to Google's Gemini and people are happy to switch."
https://www.androidauthority.com/google-gemini-vs-perplexity-survey-results-3526863/
#ai #DigitalAssistants #Perplexity #Gemini
"Perplexity makes Google’s new assistant look bad"
I switched to a new Android voice assistant, and Google Gemini now feels outdated
"One year on, Gemini remains as frustrating as the Google Assistant. Luckily, competition from Perplexity is here to keep Google accountable."
https://www.androidauthority.com/perplexity-assistant-vs-gemini-3523242/
One Foot Tsunami: Not So Super, Apple. “I asked my iPhone2 who won Super Bowls 1 through 60 (that’s ‘I’ through ‘LX’ in Super Bowl styling) and captured a screenshot of each result. The timestamps tell me this took just under 10 minutes. It also made my thumb hurt a little. … So, how did Siri do? With the absolute most charitable interpretation, Siri correctly provided the winner of just […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2025/01/24/one-foot-tsunami-not-so-super-apple/
University of Copenhagen: Coming soon – offline speech recognition on your phone. “More than one in four people currently integrate speech recognition into their daily lives. A new algorithm developed by a University of Copenhagen researcher and his international colleagues makes it possible to interact with digital assistants like ‘Siri’ without any internet connection. The innovation […]
I keep thinking about how digital assistants should work vs how they actually work. The ideal assistant learns YOUR habits over time without needing constant setup tweaks. But current ones feel like they're built for a generic "everyone" instead of adapting to individuals. Wouldn't it be great if they actually evolved with us? 🤔 #AI #DigitalAssistants #UX https://medium.com/@itsjimchristian/what-does-your-ideal-digital-assistant-look-like-541c34a97913
Fresh work from Wes Goatley Newly Forgotten #Technologies: Stories From #AI - Free #Futures is a #soundtracked collection of #speculative near-future #fiction about how we move past the current exploitative age of AI. The stories are soundtracked by a score composed only from #digitalassistants voices, dissected, distorted, and recomposed into new forms that highlight the machinic and dis-human nature of synthetic voices. https://wesleygoatley.bandcamp.com/album/newly-forgotten-technologies-stories-from-ai-free-futures
Bill Rogers is an experienced #AI entrepreneur whose latest venture, ai12z, gives web content platform owners tools to build #digitalAssistants and #chatbots and to run #genAI powered #search.
It's always inspiring to talk with an accomplished #startup #founder who's doing interesting things with leading-edge tech.
List of 17 Best AI Assistants in 2024 to Make Your Life Super Easy.
See here - https://techchilli.com/artificial-intelligence/best-ai-assistants/
#AIAssistants #TechInnovation #2024Tech #Productivity #HomeAutomation #SmartLiving #EfficiencyBoost #AItechnology #DailyRoutines #OrganizedLife #FutureTech #TechTrends #SmartTools #DigitalAssistants
@stevegrunwell *this is after - around 6 or 7 years ago I bought a Kindle fire that was the only model they had without an AI of a digital assistant automatically enabled, a few months after purchase, against my repeated refusal to grant it permission to turn on, the AI came on anyways & within a week of my near continually being irked & spooked by this, it dropped from my bag (with my neuropathy I didn't notice it then) & I accidentally drove over it. Even as for a day or so in some regards I was a little more frantic to find it crushed, I was equally relieved, as said device that was disobeying my commands was destroyed.
It's a mainstay of why I no longer have an ebook reader either, as I don't want said mess to repeat itself & why I don't really accept things that are "just grant it permission",as it's not the only AI I've had that's turned itself on, without said permission.
Some first thoughts about error handling in intelligent personal assistants from our #w3c #voiceinteraction community group.
Have you connected Google Bard to your Gmail yet? Here’s just one of the fun tricks it can do - try asking it.. well… just about anything you can think of about your email! #GoogleBard #GmailIntegration #AIInEmail #DigitalAssistants #TechInnovation #EmailAutomation #SmartEmail #AITechnology #GoogleAI #EmailTechTips #AI #artificialintelligence #artificialintelligenceforbusines
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