Apple and IBM are working together to make artificial intelligence apps more impressive. Photo: Apple
Apple has been ramping up its interest in artificial intelligence for the past few years — and its continuing business-focused partnership with IBM is going to help.
Late Monday, one-time rivals Apple and IBM announced that business apps running on Apple devices will soon be able to take advantage of the ability to combine IBM Watson technology with Apple Core ML to create more intelligent apps.
Google is using artificial intelligence to make it easier for you to find the files you need inside Google Drive. Its next update will add an interface that predicts the people and files you’re most likely to want and makes them more visible, speeding up your workflow.
2017 was a great year for consumer technology. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
2017 was an exciting year for consumer technology. It brought us big advancements in areas like machine learning and biometric security, as well as a big boost for augmented reality, and some not-so-satisfying changes to smartphone price tags.
The laser in the iPhone X's Face ID could one day transform the speed of broadband. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
What do you do when Face ID doesn’t recognize your face? Do you reposition your face? Reposition the iPhone? Stare a little harder at the camera, to tell it you really mean business?
Stop! Instead of acquiescing to your iPhone X’s silent demands, you should use this as a teaching moment (and show your phone who’s boss at the same time). Face ID learns how your face changes over time, but you can also teach it to recognize you better. Here’s how.
Gain great A.I. graduates and grow your market in India? That's what's called a win-win. Photo: Universal
To help with its machine learning and artificial intelligence research, Apple is reportedly scouting for possible new employees straight out of an engineering college in India.
The internet is upset at one of Apple's machine learning applications. Photo: Michael Summers/Flickr CC
Is Apple building up a massive centralized archive of bra pictures belonging to its female users? To invoke Betteridge’s law about attention-grabbing headlines that end with a question mark, no, it’s not.
The internet went crazy yesterday after a tweet from one internet user pointed out that typing “brassiere” into the Photos app search bar of her iPhone brought up what appeared to be a folder showing various images of her in a state of undress. As it turns out, though, that’s not exactly the case.
Apple puts a lot of AI tech into Siri. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
A tiny, low-power auxiliary processor that constantly listens for the phrase “Hey Siri” enables one of the most basic features of Apple’s AI assistant.
The processor, embedded in the iPhone’s motion coprocessor, keeps the “Hey Siri” command from running on the device’s main processor all day. That revelation comes in a research paper published today by Apple’s machine learning team. The paper dives deep into how Apple uses AI to power “Hey Siri.”
Regaind could give iOS Photos an AI boost. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
Apple has quietly made another acquisition of a little-known startup that could bring some big benefits to iPhone and iPad users in the future.
A small France startup called Regaind was reportedly acquired by Apple. The company specializes in using machine learning to recognize what’s in a photo, which could boost some features Apple already created in its photos app.
Siri is set to get some big upgrades with iOS 11. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
For its next act with Siri, Apple is taking some cues from one of the tech world’s biggest sources of inspiration: Hollywood.
With the release of iOS 11 later this month, Siri is set to get some big upgrades. The most notable will be the AI helper’s silky-smooth voice. And according to one Apple exec, the movie Her played a big role in helping the company figure out the changes they should make.
Deep learning technology is making Siri smarter. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
Apple has updated its recently-launched machine learning blog to include three new papers, describing Apple’s use of artificial intelligence to improve Siri.
For a long time, Apple segregated itself from the rest of the artificial intelligence community, refusing to attend conferences, or to let its researchers publish their work in existing journals.
Today, Apple got around this second problem in the most Apple way possible: by launching a machine learning journal of its own.
Adding Faces is even easier in iOS 11. Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
If you’re using the iOS 11 beta, you may be enjoying the new Faces and Memories features in the Photos app. But, even while the facial recognition has improved, Photos has lost the ability to recognize new people. If you look in the People album, you’ll see that Add People button has gone. How, then, do you add new faces to your library? Fear not — it’s still easy, although a little less obvious.
Anna Katrina Shedletsky is a former Apple product design engineer who is using her experience to build AI that helps companies streamline manufacturing. Photo: Instrumental
On this week’s Apple Chat (the podcast formerly known as Kahney’s Korner): I talk with former Apple product design engineer Anna-Katrina Shedletsky about her take on modern manufacturing and how AI will revolutionize factories. She introduces us to her new company, Instrumental, which is using machine learning to help manufacturers identify and fix problems on their assembly lines.
Using her hard-earned experience at Apple overseeing the production of the first Apple Watch and several generations of the iPod, Shedletsky says machine learning is coming fast to manufacturing. Amazingly, almost all consumer electronics products are still assembled by hand — including hundreds of millions of iPhones.
But that’s changing. Manufacturing is undergoing a huge sea change with the advance of robotics and AI.
macOS High Sierra brings powerful updates to the Mac. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
macOS High Sierra doesn’t pack as many updates as iOS 11, but Apple’s latest desktop software delivers plenty of new features worth drooling over.
After using the first High Sierra beta for the last few days, I’ve been blown away. Check out what’s new in the macOS High Sierra hands-on video below:
Sitting on a cash pile of billions, Apple’s not a company that’s used to being left behind. But when it comes to artificial intelligence, that’s exactly what has happened in recent years. While companies like Google and Facebook led the way with cutting-edge AI, Apple lagged. It was embarrassing for a company in Apple’s position to miss out on the single best tech revolution taking place at the moment.
Custom AI-powered silicon could be Apple's next big thing. Photo: Apple
Apple is allegedly planning to take its Artificial Intelligence game to an all-new level an AI-powered iPhone chip.
In a race to catch up with the competition at Amazon and Google, Apple has a team of engineers working on a new piece of silicon that’s dedicated to processing artificial intelligence commands which could lead to improved battery life.
Dark data isn't as sinister as it sounds. Photo: Lattice Data
Apple has acquired an AI company as part of its continued push to embrace artificial intelligence.
The company in question is the Menlo Park-based Lattice Data, which specializes in taking unstructured, “dark” data and transforming it into more useful, structured information. Apple acquired around 20 engineers as part of the deal.
Siri may soon remember every detail of your life. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
If Apple has its way in the field of artificial intelligence, robots and algorithms won’t just be used to replace you at work, they could help fix your brain too.
Apple executive and Siri co-creator, Tom Gruber, laid out a different vision for artificial intelligence today while speaking at the TED 2017 conference in Vancouver, Canada. During his remarks, Gruber told the crowd how he thinks AI could become more helpful than harmful.
The 2015 Lexus RX450h is Apple's vehicle of choice. Photo: Lexus
Apple is tapping into some of the brilliant minds behind NASA’s recent project for its self-driving car concept, according to new documents that unmask some of the scientists on the team.
A new filing from the California DMV reveals the identity of the six drivers listed on Apple’s self-driving permit, some of whom weren’t even known to be working for Cupertino.
The 2015 Lexus RX450h is Apple's vehicle of choice. Photo: Lexus
Getting behind the wheel of one of Apple’s self-driving cars requires drivers to pass a series of tests, based on new information about the secretive project that leaked out today.
Details of Apple’s self-driving car program have been revealed by documents filed with the California DMV that shed light on the “Apple Automated System” currently under development.
Siri could be about to get more security conscious. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
Siri may soon respond to your voice and your voice alone, according to a recently-published patent application from Apple.
The security feature would essentially expand the biometric security system of Touch ID to voice, so that Siri’s voice recognition could also be used to unlock devices or potentially even confirm payments on Apple Pay.
Sprinkle is Microsoft's newest app for iOS. Photo: Microsoft
Microsoft is the latest tech giant to get in on the craze of fun camera apps like Snapchat, which are currently all the rage among teens.
The company’s new app, Sprinkles, launched today on iOS as a featured app. While it looks like just another Snapchat wannabe on the outside, Microsoft threw in some crazy AI technology that makes it easier than ever to create and share silly photos.
Siri needs better machine learning skills. Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
Apple plans to deepen its roots in Microsoft’s backyard by expanding operations at its Seattle center that specializes in AI and machine learning technology.
Details about the new Seattle hub were shared by Apple in a recent interview that also announced the iPhone-maker has created a $1 million endowed professorship in artificial intelligence at the University of Washington.
Sorry, Alexa: Siri still the most widespread AI assistant Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac
Siri may be set to get a serious upgrade when Apple launches its next iPhone later this year.
According to the latest rumor out of Asia, Apple is planning to catch up with the likes of Alexa and Google Assistant by creating a better version of Siri that comes with more artificial intelligence skills.
This powerful artificial intelligence tool can help customer service agents, or converse with customers directly. Photo: Agent.ai
This post is brought to you by Agent.ai.
Not all businesses can afford a full-time staff of phone operators. And let’s be honest: Frustration with automated systems can leave customers looking for another place to do business.
Agent.ai has created something that bridges the gap — a customer relationship management (CRM) system that’s powered by machine learning. It comes in two forms: Co-Pilot and Auto-Pilot.