Since Microsoft and Amazon announced plans to integrate their respective personal digital assistantslast summer, there's been almost no official update on the status of the partnership.

It seems, however, like there's finally movement happening.

An April 27 update to the Cortana support page actually mentions Alexa. "Cortana and Alexa are still getting to know each other. Soon you'll be able to ask Alexa to buy things, add items to your shopping list, access your Alexa skills, and more," says the brief update on the page. Yes, "soon" is vague. But it's something.

Typing "Alexa" into the search box in Windows 10 (on the Fall Creators Update version, at least) yields a message saying "I'll be able to connect you to Alexa soon. Stay tuned!"

Last summer, Amazon and Microsoft announced that their respective personal assistants would be able to talk to one another, so customers could opt to use the assistant most suited to a particular task. Amazon and Microsoft officials said last year that they'd make Cortana-Alexa integration available before the end of calendar 2017. Since then, there's been no update on when this might arrive.

In early March 2018, Cortana team members told Windows Insiders that the Cortana-Alexa integration was in "internal self-hosting" at Microsoftat the moment. Microsoft is working to "make sure it's (the integration) a great experience," the team said, noting that bringing together the two different speech stacks is "non-trivial."

Recently, Cortana's new boss, Javier Soltero, admitted that "skills for the sake of skills won't fly." He told PC World that skills usage isn't "quite as deep as most people think it is." He also acknowledged Microsoft's in total catch-up mode on this front. (That's for sure, with Alexa at 40,000-plus third-party skillsat last count.)
Given Cortana is set to access Alexa skills via this integration partnership, maybe Cortana's skills shortage is less horrible than meets the eye.
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Soltero also declined to say whether there are any other Cortana-powered speakers in the works. Currently, there's one from Harman-Kardon. I think speakers might not be where Microsoft is focusing; perhaps it's more about conferencing systems, microphones or other more business-centric peripherals.

A new lidar sensor could equip thousands of driverless cars with the sensing abilities required to drive at high speeds on the open road.

Lidar has become the primary way most driverless cars sense the world around them, bouncing laser light off nearby objects to create 3-D maps of their surroundings.

For years, the industry leader in lidar has been Velodyne, which builds some of the most expensive, ultra-high-resolution sensors available. But the rapid growth of self-driving vehicle research prompted other firms to start making them too – among them, a startup called Luminar, which was set up by Stanford drop-out Austin Russell and came out of stealth last year.

Luminar’s technology is different to other lidar systems. It uses a longer wavelength of light to operate at higher powers, allowing it to see darker objects over longer distances. It’s also able to zoom in on areas of specific interest.

But its sensors, which use a mechanical mirror system and expensive indium gallium arsenide semiconductors, were difficult and pricey to produce. Early units cost at least tens of thousands of dollars and required an entire day of human labor to assemble.

Over the last year, Russell, who was one of MIT Technology Review’s 35 Innovators Under 35 in 2017, says the firm has taken steps to change that. It acquired a chip design firm called Black Forest Engineering, hired consumer electronics experts, and set up its manufacturing complex in Orlando – all with the aim of building its sensor at commercial scale.

As a result, Russell says that the latest version of the sensor is approaching being auto-grade, meaning it should be ready for extreme temperatures, inclement weather, and other adverse conditions a production car might be exposed to (though it’s yet to be certified as such). The careful redesign of its laser detector chip, meanwhile, has cut its cost from tens of thousands of dollars to just $3, and automation means the sensors can now be built in eight minutes.

All of that means Luminar reckons it can offer a set of sensors for “a few thousand” dollars, Russell says. At the same time, it’s also boosted the specs, so the sensor can detect objects that are 250 meters off—enough for 7 seconds of reaction time at 75mph.

Ingmar Posner, an associate professor of information engineering at the University of Oxford and founder of the university’s autonomous-driving spinoff Oxbotica, says that the specifications and price point of the sensor “sound great.” But he also points out that the price will need to fall further if the sensors are to be used in affordable consumer vehicles.

That could yet happen. Russell points out that the sensor cost is related to the scale of production, and by the end of the year Luminar plans to be building 5,000 of its sensors every quarter. That’s a lot – more than the 10,000 sensors that competitor Velodyne planned to build last year – and would give it enough, Russell claims, to equip every autonomous test car on the roads by the end of this year.

The major hurdle to that kind of market dominance is convincing other research groups and automakers to switch from their existing sensors – something that would require rewriting control software and re-mapping entire cities so cars can navigate using the new sensors. Russell likens the situation to “ripping off a Band-Aid,” because it will need to happen at some point as carmakers switch to using auto-grade, rather than experimental, sensors.
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What remains to be seen for Luminar, though, is just how soon that Band-Aid gets pulled.

Chinese researchers have developed a method using microscopic robots to kill cancerous tumors and stifle future growth.

The study published in the journal Nature Biotechnology uses nanotechnology to deliver thrombin, an enzyme that helps blood to clot.

The thrombin was placed using DNA origami, a process where DNA is folded into specific shapes. In this case, the DNA-based nanorobot was formed into a hollow tube carrying thrombin, researchers said. When the nanorobot would come in contact with the tumor, the tube automatically would open and deliver the thrombin.

The scientists behind this study tested the delivery bots by injecting them into mice with human breast cancer tumors. Within 48 hours, the bots had successfully grabbed onto vascular cells at the tumor sites, causing blood clots in the tumor’s vessels and cutting off their blood supply, leading to their death.

Remarkably, the bots did not cause clotting in other parts of the body, just the cancerous cells they’d been programmed to target, according to the paper.

The scientists were also able to demonstrate the bots did not cause clotting in the healthy tissues of Bama miniature pigs, calming fears over what might happen in larger animals.

Nanotechnology is viewed as a promising option for treating cancer. It involves work in science, engineering or tech of objects the size of nanometers. For perspective, a human hair is between 80,000 and 100,000 nanometers wide, according to the National Nanotechnology Initiative. 

"Our data show that DNA nanorobots represent a promising strategy for precise drug delivery in cancer therapy," read an excerpt from the study.

The goal, say the scientists, is to eventually prove these bots can do the same thing in humans that’s been done in animals. Of course, more work needs to be done before human trials can begin.
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Regardless, this is a huge breakthrough in cancer research. The current methods of either using chemotherapy to destroy every cell just to get at the cancer cell are barbaric in comparison. Using targeted drugs is also not as exact as merely cutting off blood supply and killing the cancer on the spot. Should this new technique gain approval for use on humans in the near future it could have impressive effects on those afflicted with the disease.

If the Department of Transportation grants GM's latest Safety Petition, the automaker will be able to deploy its no-steering-wheel, pedal-less autonomous car next year. GM has not only revealed what its level 4 self-driving vehicle would look like but also announced that it filed a Safety Petition to be able to deploy its utterly driverless version of Chevy Bolt called Cruise AV in 2019. The company describes it as "the first production-ready vehicle built from the start to operate safely on its own, with no driver, steering wheel, pedals or manual controls."

The Cruise AV is much different from the self-driving Chevy Bolts GM is testing in California. It has no controls whatsoever, not even buttons you can push. It treats you as a passenger, no matter where you sit. The car can even open and shut doors on its own. Now, autonomous cars like this don't meet the Federal Motor Vehicle's safety standards. Automakers could apply for an exemption, but the government can only exempt 2,500 vehicles every year. GM President Dan Ammann said that the company is not seeking an exemption, though – instead, it wants to "meet that standard differently."

He explained:

"What we can do is put the equivalent of the passenger side airbag on that side as well. So, it’s to meet the standards but meet them in a way that's different than what's exactly prescribed, and that's what the petition seeks to get approval for."

Several automakers and transportation companies banded together last year to call for a change to those rules. "Without changes to these regulations," GM VP Michael Abelson told a subcommittee that time, "it may be years before the promise of today's technology can be realized and thousands of preventable deaths... will happen."
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Automakers will have to see those changes come to light if they want their fully autonomous cars to hit the road. GM might beat them to the punch, but rival companies like Ford, Mercedes, and Waymo all plan to release cars with no steering wheels of their own.

Serial entrepreneur and social media expert Gary Vaynerchuk said it best: “I don't think anybody who's a major internet company can live without having a major voice strategy.” 

Voice will account for nearly 50% of search on mobile in the next three years and will be the primary way consumers search for and make purchases on their phones and voice-enabled devices. Everything we do will involve voice in some way, from shopping to ordering groceries to asking what the weather is outside. And thanks to the nearly 20 million voice-enabled smart speakers sold thus far by Amazon and Google, we’re already seeing the fight for the real estate in consumers’ homes.

The smart-speaker movement is taking the world by storm. We see some of the most significant companies in the world, like Amazon and Google, set the tone for how and where voice can impact consumers. And, why wouldn’t they? Nearly 30 million households are projected to have a voice-first device by the end of 2017. While they are essential in kick-starting the revolution, these smart devices won’t be the last stop on the voice train.

While the adoption of smart speakers has risen rapidly, the usage of third-party applications, or “skills,” has been less than impressive. Less than 3% of skills built on top of Alexa are actually getting used, which is in most cases a result of the limited functionality of these applications. For example, Domino’s users want more than just their “easy order” or something they order over and over again. Reviews of the Starbucks integration with Alexa note that many orders never make it to the barista, only to bring more users back to the mobile app instead. And those that want flowers for that special someone are limited to seasonality or occasion with the 1-800 Flowers integration, without a way to actually see the flowers or gifts they’re ordering. Voice is capable of so much more.

The large platform companies have focused their energies on developing voice assistants that offer broad yet shallow integrations with third parties. As a result, “skills” just scratch the surface of what’s possible with voice. As the examples above demonstrate, while it’s relatively simple to build and launch an application for these platforms, you’re limited by what’s possible from a functional point of view.

To realize voice's full potential, companies need a more deeply integrated voice experience that is brand specific and is all knowing about their business. In retail, for example, the art of the consumer experience lies in discovery and personalization. Very rarely do you know the exact product you’re looking for when you go to a website or browse the “most popular” products section. That’s why companies invest millions in their mobile apps and websites, helping guide you through an experience to find exactly what you want. Voice is going through an evolution of its own, assisting companies to understand how to build much more meaningful customer experiences. It could be as simple as knowing that when you want a new sweatshirt, ordering your last order just won’t do. You want to see it in front of you, most likely on a mobile device and will ask a series of questions around color, price, size, material, and reviews. 

Imagine a voice experience where you can search for flowers for your mother, or someone special, watching the results on the screen in front of you change based on your budget, your color preference or type of flower. Imagine a fall selection of coffee flavors coming out in your favorite chain coffee shop, empowering you to add pumpkin spice, a shot of vanilla, and change from cold to hot once you’ve stepped outside. 
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There’s no question that Google and Amazon have birthed a genuinely revolutionary time in technology, conditioning us to be comfortable using a voice-powered device or experience, but we’re just at the precipice of the potential of voice. Voice, just like the introduction of the mobile device before it, will fundamentally change how we interact with the world around us. Only when you understand that, will you see how powerful voice will be.

Robots are taking our jobs, no doubt about it. Just in the past year, we’ve seen barista robots, fast-food robots, and even pizza delivery robots. But robots can’t replace journalists, right? The dogged reporters, members of the vaunted Fourth Estate, the men and women who bring us the news stories we read every day?

Think again. It’s happening, and the odds are that you’ve been reading stories created by artificial intelligence in local and world news already.

A year ago, the Washington Post introduced Heliograf, an in-house program that automatically generates short reports for their live blog. It was first used during the Rio Olympics to provide information such as the results of medal events for services like Alexa. At that time Sam Han, engineering director of data science, said, “The next challenge is to broaden the subjects covered, deepen the kind of analysis possible and identify potential stories for our newsroom.”

It looks like that day has arrived. Over the past year, the Post has published 850 stories from Heliograf, expanding its reach to include reporting on subjects like congressional races and high-school football games.
Other outlets like the Associated Press have also begun to rely on automated software to create content for readers. Executives are quick to point out that the AI is not meant to replace reporters, but instead allow them extra time to develop and relate more important and relevant stories. “Heliograf will free up Post reporters and editors to add analysis, color from the scene and real insight to stories in ways only they can,” said Jeremy Gilbert, director of strategic initiatives at the Post.

Not to mention the fact that machines don’t make typos and provide more accurate reporting. As Francesco Marconi, AP’s strategy manager put it, “In the case of automated financial news coverage by AP, the error rate in the copy decreased even as the volume of the output increased more than tenfold.”
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What robotics means for the future of reporting is an open question. Many of today’s biggest names in journalism got their start covering local news or high school sports. In the end, it all comes down to ad revenue. Although the Post can appraise the clicks and pageviews Heliograf generates, evaluating how much it impacts the bottom line is a more difficult task. In any event, it seems like reporters and robots will be working side-by-side for the foreseeable future.

Today’s connected car is not so much a smartphone on wheels; with so many microprocessors chatting with one another across and beyond the vehicle, it is now more aptly described as a data center on wheels.
A tremendous influx of software content, connectivity, entertainment services and autonomy functionality is transforming vehicles. We are rapidly approaching a point in which the automobile will be built around the software, as opposed to the other way around.

Tesla recently made the first deliveries of its mass market “Model 3” electric vehicle. Controls are focused around a large touch screen and the shifter adds “Autopilot” to the traditional “Park”, “Reverse”, “Neutral” and “Drive” options. Full self-driving capability is promised for a later date with simply an Over-the-Air software update.

This generalized shift to software, in turn, means the opportunity for a cyber-attack is growing rapidly. Even with the larger potential attack surface, and while cybersecurity threats will never be eliminated altogether, it is also true that substantial work is taking place to engineer tomorrow’s vehicles to be systematically more able to deal with those threats in a safe and predictable manner.

Vehicle manufacturers have announced these important vehicle cybersecurity enhancements:
     •  Building-in security features to protect safety critical systems,
     •  Isolation of control systems from communications systems,
     •  Leveraging security techniques to limit unauthorized access to software and updates,
     •  Use of threat modeling and simulated attacks to inform design decisions and
   • Creation of the  Auto ISAC (Automotive Information Sharing and Analysis Center) to enhance cybersecurity awareness and collaboration across the industry.

Cybersecurity is being moved to the vehicle’s design foundation, thanks to increased coordination across the broadening, diversifying automotive ecosystem. We are seeing the industry move away from the traditional point-to-point approach to self-healing systems.

The effect is the emergence of a holistic, systems-level approach to building organically secure vehicles that are ultimately capable of self-healing. Self-healing means responding to the inevitable cybersecurity threats in a safe and predictable manner. For example, in detecting and suppressing the introduction of malware or anomalous instructions in the auto ecosystem from manufacturers and suppliers, to communication and control systems throughout vehicle lifetimes.

Security by Design. Security simply can no longer be an afterthought. Security must be a foundational consideration throughout the entire software-development flow for automobiles, from design to delivery. Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), Tier 1 suppliers and other industry stakeholders must all start wearing their Chief Security Officer hat.

The industry has always had a strong emphasis on physical security; security processes for brakes, steering and other physical components have long been intensely codified. So sudden has been the surge toward software in vehicles, however, that it has somewhat crept up on the industry. Cybersecurity has effectively been stapled on top of more and more sophisticated services leveraging increased Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communications. 

There have been some limited-in-scope efforts to move toward an approach of security by design and establish shared guidelines. For example, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT) set up the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and its certification process that ensures trust and security in the building of V2V and V2I systems.

There is now recognition growing across the industry that the collaboration must be significantly more inclusive in order to sufficiently address the challenges. In the last two years, cybersecurity incidents have been reported broadly across the industry at Chrysler, Ford, GM and Tesla, as well as in commercial vehicles. High tech car thieves today are leveraging laptops and potentially even smartphone apps to steal vehicles.
Risk Management. There is a bit of sensational hysteria growing around the global security conversation with automobiles becoming more and more connected and autonomous. The truth is that the global, increasingly broad automotive ecosystem is working more collaboratively to architect vehicles with cybersecurity at their foundation.

Risk based approaches such as NIST’s Cybersecurity Framework (CsF) are already mandatory for government agencies and recommended for critical infrastructure such as transportation.

Reporting, Sharing and Training. While the automotive industry has a very mature approach to reporting, information sharing and training when it comes to physical issues with the car—well-defined reporting and recall processes around a problem with the brake or accelerator, etc.—the model around software and cybersecurity is not nearly as formalized.
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The good news is that new technologies such as automotive Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) and Runtime App Self Protection (RASP) are emerging to limit the scale of harm that can be unleashed by any single attack, to reduce attack surfaces and to harden cybersecurity capabilities. Because coordination is increasing, the ecosystem is moving toward a system-of-systems approach to automotive security.

The promise of automated cars is that they could eliminate human-error accidents and potentially enable more efficient use of roadways. That could mean traffic reduction and lower commute times.

The Defensive Delay. One of the reasons traffic jams exist in the first place is due to our (understandable) behavior of waiting for the car in front to start accelerating. No matter what the cause of the initial stop or slow-down was, the ripple effect which creates the jam then has to release its tension one car at a time. The traffic jam continues to exist even though there is nothing preventing anyone's forward movement. If you're the 20th car in a line of stopped cars, you don't start moving until after the 19th car does. The 20th car waits for 19 discrete actions to occur consecutively before it can begin to move.

While autonomous cars may not fully marginalize this pattern – if for nothing more than the sake of trying to behave more human-like to keep people comfortable – their connectivity will certainly allow them to behave in a manner closer to a road train, wherein the 20th vehicle in a traffic line can start moving at the same time the 1st vehicle does. The reality is that the only thing stopping everyone from moving at the same time is their lack of faith in the person ahead.

Latest Developments. By combining several technologies that exist today, Ford says cars will soon help unclog traffic jams more efficiently than human drivers can. The concept, called Traffic Jam Assist, will use adaptive cruise control, lane keep assist, and sensors from active park assist to keep traffic flowing efficiently and safely. In fact, safety is perhaps the biggest benefit to self-driving car systems, which can neither drive aggressively nor be distracted the way human drivers are. Another automatic driving tool, developed by Volvo and called City Safety, stops cars in potential accident situations on urban roads.

In addition to clearing the roads of human driving errors, automated navigation systems will reduce gasoline consumption as well as driving times. "If one in four cars has Traffic Jam Assist or similar self-driving technologies, travel times are reduced by 37.5% and delays are reduced by 20%. That’s because adaptive cruise control (ACC) is better at pacing the car ahead without continual brake, speed-up, brake cycles."

New Research. New research shows that adding just a few self-driving cars to the streets can improve overall traffic patterns. In the next several years, there will likely be an awkward transitional period when human drivers and autonomous vehicles share the roads. Consumer advocates, safety experts, and roboticists have expressed concern that mixing self-driving cars with human drivers could be dangerous. Recent field experiments in Tucson, Arizona offer a surprisingly optimistic outlook. Autonomous vehicles help minimize stop-and-go traffic, which is a bad habit that we sloppy humans perpetuate.

"Our experiments show that with as few as 5% of vehicles being automated and carefully controlled, we can eliminate stop-and-go waves caused by human driving behavior," said Daniel B. Work, assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a lead researcher in the study.

Although there is an abundance of researchers figuring out how to build a self-driving car, nobody knows exactly how robotic cars will be introduced to public roads. Most industry stakeholders agree that eventually, when all cars are fully autonomous there will be major safety improvements. An often-cited statistic to back this claim is that 94% of fatal car accidents are caused by humans.
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Until all cars are autonomous, we will still have traffic jams caused by road construction, accidents, and rubbernecking. But the new research reveals that even by incrementally adding semi-autonomous features such as adaptive cruise control into today's cars, traffic can improve.

In a plan that could disrupt conventional grocery chains, local bodegas and app-based services like Instacart, Amazon is hoping to open more than 2,000 self-branded grocery stores.

The first of these new brick-and-mortar experiments branded Amazon Go, is an 1800-square-foot retail space located in the company’s hometown of Seattle, lets shoppers just grab the items they want and leave; the order gets charged to their Amazon account afterwards.

Amazon Go works by using computer vision and sensors to detect what items you’re taking out of the store. You start by opening Amazon’s app on your smartphone and scanning a code into their turnstile as you enter the Amazon Go store. You do your normal shopping, and the sensors throughout the store identify the items in your cart and charge them to your Amazon account when you walk out the door. It’ll feel like shoplifting, except you’re actually being watched by more cameras than you can imagine. 

The store will stock most items you’d find in a local convenience store: snacks, drinks, pre-made food like salads and sandwiches, and grocery essentials like bread and milk. It’ll also sell Blue Apron-like meal kits that let you cook your own dinners for two. 

Though Amazon Go does do away with human cashiers, there are no robots physically stocking the store, so while it does eliminate some jobs, it’s not a completely automated system.

The store is currently open in beta to Amazon employees only. A public opening is scheduled for early 2017. 
There are two other store formats that Amazon is considering. First is a much larger, multifunction store with curbside pickup options. The second option is a drive-through store, without any in-person browsing. Two of the drive-through prototypes are set to open in Seattle within the next few weeks.

There’s more information on this YouTube video.