Daimler and Bosch to start testing self-driving taxis soon

Mercedes-Benz’s parent company Daimler and Bosch first promised to bring fully autonomous vehicles to the market in the next decade. But with their competition working faster to bring their self-driving cars into the market, it looks like they acknowledged that they needed to work faster. Bosch chief Volkmar Denner told German weekly publication Automobilwoche that they will be testing their self-driving taxis within a few months. No additional details about when exactly but it is at least a more definitive timetable for the project.

The advantage Daimler believes they have over their competition is the purpose-built nature of their taxis. These taxis apparently won’t just be a “technology-kit mounted on a serial vehicle,” or so Daimler VP Wilko Stark says but they’re designed to be autonomous vehicles “from the beginning.”

Source: Engadget

Google Assistant update brings music alarms, the ability to look up TV schedules

Google Assistant adds a couple of handy new features into its arsenal. One is the ability to set alarms to music. So if you want some Beyoncé to wake you up in the morning, you can just say “Set an alarm for 6 a.m. that plays Beyoncé” and it’ll play you just that. It’ll work for whatever music service you’ve set Assistant to use as default, so whether that be Spotify, Pandora, or the songs you’ve uploaded to your Google Play Music library. Another is it can now look up TV schedules for you. So you can ask it things like “When is Big Bang Theory on next?” or like which channel airs a particular show.

Source: The Verge

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Amazon Alexa can now send out text messages, rolling out in the US first

Amazon Alexa can now send out text messages, rolling out in the US first

Amazon Alexa is playing a bit of catch up with other voice assistants like Apple’s Siri and Google Assistant with this latest update. Alexa can now send out SMS messages but with a few caveats. You’ll need to have an Android phone that’s linked to your Alexa device. But it send to any device that can receive text messages (including iPhones). Also, as mentioned in the title, it’s rolling out in the US first.

You just need to say, for example, “Alexa, text Jerry” and then dictate your message to your Amazon Alexa device. It’ll then “find the best way to send the message,” whether that be through SMS or the Alexa messaging service. If you want to send emojis, there’s no way to do that just yet. To turn on the feature, you’ll need to open the Alexa app and head to the Conversations tab, then Contacts, then My Profile to turn on the Send SMS setting. There’s no word yet when the feature is coming to Canada but what Amazon Alexa can do now is make phone calls to other Echo devices or most regular phone numbers in the country as well as in the US and Mexico.

Source: CNN