Privacy Concerns

Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Apple have all used humans (employees and contractors) to listen to and transcribe voice recordings from their virtual assistants or messaging apps. This is done, according to the companies, to improve the quality of sp…

David Limp, Amazon's hardware chief, at last year's Alexa event in Seattle. Tyler Lizenby/CNET Alexa has had a lot of explaining to do. Since Amazon's voice assistant debuted in 2014, the company has convinced millions of people to invite Alexa into their h…

Your Amazon Echo speaker could look massively outdated this week - Express

About 1 in 4 Consumers Say Theyve Made A Purchase After Hearing A Podcast AdRoughly a quarter of consumers have made a purchase after being exposed to a podcast ad, and about one in three say they find podcasts ads to be more engaging than other formats, acco…

There's a reason a new product announced by Amazon 12 months ago never got released to the general public.  Echo Auto just isn't ready for drive time.  The product has an unbelievably affordable price at $25 and was only offered initially by "invite-only," …

Facebook introduced two new Portal devices in addition to a refresh of its 10-inch Portal smart screen this week. Alejandra Ramos/CNET Facebook announced an update to its Portal line of smart displays this week, including a revamped version of its 10-inch s…

(CNN)When Facebook first introduced Portal, a smart speaker with a screen, in October of last year, the company was grappling with a seemingly endless list of privacy issues. The idea of Facebook -- that Facebook -- trying to sell consumers on putting its cam…

Google has finally absorbed the health division of DeepMind, the British artificial intelligence company it acquired in 2014 for £400 million, despite concerns over the implications for data privacy. DeepMind first announced plans to transfer DeepMind Health…

The $149 Portal TV can connect to the top of your TV or sit below it on your media table. James Martin/CNET In a quaint Victorian house on a quaint park-adjacent corner of San Francisco on Tuesday, Andrew Bozworth, Facebook's VP of AR/VR, and Ryan Cairns, h…

When Facebook launched Portal last year, I was equal parts blown away and deeply unimpressed. As a "smart" screen in my house, Portal was laughably bad compared to the Echo Show and Google/Nest Home Hub. But when you fired up a video chat through Facebook Mes…