Apple’s telling secrets about the machine learning behind Siri. Google Calendar gets updated, maybe the first since 2005. And giant robot battles are apparently a real thing now.
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Trending on Google is Apple’s explanation of how Siri works. We all know you can say “Hey Siri” to get your iPhone to respond. Apple’s explanation? No, it’s not magic. It’s a deep neural network that converts the acoustic pattern of your voice into a probability distribution over speech sounds. Then a temporal integration process will computer a confidence score that you did indeed say “Hey, Siri.” If your iPhone thinks that maybe you said “hey, Siri” but it’s not quite sure, it sort of listens harder. That is, it becomes more sensitive to whether you’re trying to say it a second time. All I can say right now is “whoa, dude.”
From Product Hunt, Google Calendar has a new look. The new look will be rolled out to users of Google Apps first. But if you want early access, you can find a link for that in our our show notes on ITWorldCanada.com. [Here: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/render?new_calendar_optin=true#main_7] The big changes are a new colour palette and a responsive layout. For enterprises, there are more features that will help you organize meetings with your co-workers. Also, you can now get more details about where that meeting conference room is actually located or if it’s set up for videoconferencing.
From Reddit, giant robots are fighting each other. A company called MegaBots Inc. says it completed construction of the USA’s first giant piloted mech. And at 15 feet tall and 12,000 pounds it sure is big. So on Tuesday this robot fought another giant robot. A 9,000-pound robot built by Japanese group Kuratas. MegaBots won the battle by using a giant chainsaw to cut off the opponent’s arm. Why do the Americans have to win everything? If you want to see the video, again check out our show notes on ITWorldCanada.com.
