Amazon Bows AI Alexa Plus; Zillow Alums Launch HouseWhisper for Agents; VW ID.4 #3 EV in US; Apple Fixing ‘Trump’ Racist Dictation Bug

Posted: February 26, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Amazon is rolling out its generative AI version of Alexa. Theverge.com reports that if things go as planned, it should make it easier to control your smart home or get info quickly with less hassle. Some of the new abilities coming to Alexa Plus include doing things for you — you’ll be able to ask it to order groceries for you or send event invites to your friends. Amazon says it will also be able to memorize personal details like your diet and movie preferences. You will still activate Alexa Plus with the same wake word…Alexa. (For those who are watching this and I just activated your A-Lady…sorry about that!) The plus version has vision capabilities…it can take pictures and analyze images, as well as read a study guide and test you on answers. Amazon first teased this Plus version about a year and a half ago. Amazon is counting on getting their generative AI into their smart speakers before any of their competitors…there are plenty of those now, but not really on smart speakers yet. Apple is still wrangling with upgrading Siri with AI, and Google has yet to launch a Gemini powered assistant on their smart speakers. 

A trio of alums from Zillow Group have kicked off a new startup that will focus on using AI to help ease the administrative overload that weighs some agents down. According to geekwire.com, the three are CEO Luis Poggi, who was VP of product and engineering at Zillow, Spencer Rascoff, former CEO and co-founder of Zillow, and Alex Kutner, a former Zillow engineering leader. The startup is called HouseWhisper, and it came out of stealth mode this week after hauling in $10 million in funding. According to the trio, HouseWhisper is a conversational AI that acts as the ultimate 24/7 personal assistant, helping agents stay organized with help on following up with clients, scheduling, CRM updates and more. Agents can call, text or send a voice memo to a number and interact with HouseWhisper’s AI as they would with any human assistant. The system has been in beta for 8 months, and is being tested out by some 4,000 agents around the country. 

After a fumble last year that stopped delivery for a while due to faulty door handles, the Volkswagen ID.4 has roared back. Electrek.co notes that sales dropped 55% last year after the door handle disaster, but now, VW sold almost 5,000 ID.4 models last month, up 653% year over year for January…and vaulting it to the #3 selling EV in the US…only trailing the Tesla Model Y and Model 3. If VW stays on this pace, they should sell about 60,000 ID.4 EVs this year. By the way, the Honda Prologue was the #4 selling EV, and the Tesla CyberTruck was fifth. Overall, EVs amounted to 102,000 models sold in January, that is up 30% over January 2024. 

A bug in Apple’s built-in dictation feature on iPhones showed up over the weekend. When a person spoke the word racist, the phone briefly interpreted it at ‘Trump.’ The name showed up in the text of the Messages app momentarily, before being corrected to the actual word that was spoken….racist. Macrumors.com reports that the name didn’t show up every time, but it did show up more often than other words. There are videos of the bug on TikTok and other platforms. Apple claims that the issue is due to a phonetic overlap between the two words, even saying that ‘racist’ and ‘Trump’ do have similar sounds. Riiiight. Former Apple Siri team member John Burkey said ‘This smells like a serious prank.’ I agree with that! At any rate, Apple is working on a fix. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.

Supreme Court No to ISP Bid to Block NY’s $15 Broadband Law; Apple Shareholders-Yes for Apple Board’s AI and DEI Recommendations; Microsoft Testing ‘Free With Ads’ Office Version; Google Launches Free AI Coding Assistant 

Posted: February 25, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The Supreme Court slammed the door again on a request from internet service providers to kill New York’s $15 broadband law. Arstechnica.com reports that the New York law requires that ISPs with over 20,000 customers must provide $15 broadband with download speeds of at least 25 mbps, and $20 per month service with 200 mbps download speeds. The plans have to be offered to people that meet income-eligibility requirements. The ISPs worry that more states will follow suit. AT&T had already stopped offering its 5G home internet service in New York in response to the law. 

Apple will be staying ‘woke,’ after a shareholder vote. According to appleinsider.com, shareholders voted at the annual meeting to approve the board’s recommendations to keep their DEI initiative, and also voted in the affirmative for Apple’s ethical AI data acquisition and usage. Shareholders didn’t support changes in the company’s charitable giving that were called for by a Shareholder group. The Inspire Investing group wanted to have Apple’s giving directed more to groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center and Center for American Progress. Apple pointed out that their corporate donations program follows a ’strict internal governance and approval process.’ 

Taking a page out of streaming services books, Microsoft is testing out a ‘free with ads’ version of Office. Engadget.com says that right now, the free version is only available on the web. The version allows users to access Powerpoint, Word, Excel, and more for free. There aren’t a lot of conditions, but there is an ever-present banner on the right side, and also a 15 second video ad that plays ever free hours. Also…you can only store documents in One Drive and not keep on your machine as local files. The programs are a bit cut down…Word doesn’t have drawing or design tools or dictation. Excel won’t have conditional formatting and recommended charts. Powerpoint doesn’t have draw, animation, and record tools….but hey, free…right? Right now, Microsoft won’t say when they might release this version to the general public. 

Google has bowed a free AI coding assistant with very high usage caps. TechCrunch.com reports it’s called Gemini Code Assist for Individuals. It uses a chat window that lets developers talk in natural language with a Google AI model that can access and edit their code base. It offers 180,000 code completions a month, which is 90 times the GitHub Copilot cap. It also comes with 240 chat requests a day. Developers can sign up for a free public preview today. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.

Apple to Invest $500 Billion in US Due to Tariffs; Microsoft Quietly Cancelling Data Center Leases; Grok 3 Briefly Censored Disparagement of Musk and Trump; Gmail to Drop SMS Codes for QR Codes

Posted: February 24, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

Apple has announced that it plans to invest over $500 billion in the US the next 4 years. Arstechnica.com reports that Apple claims this is the ‘largest ever’ spending commitment in the US, and that if supports a ‘wide range of initiatives,’ focused on artificial intelligence, chip manufacturing, advanced research and development, and worker training. About 20,000 jobs will be created over those four years…of which the vast majority will be focused on R&D, silicon engineering, software development, and AI and machine learning.” Most analysts see the initiative as a way for Apple to avoid the heavy tariffs the Trump administration is putting on China and other nations.

Something interesting is going on at Microsoft. According to gizmodo.com, on Friday, TD Cowen noticed that the partner to OpenAI seemed to be cancelling data center leases. Reportedly, Redmond felt it had an ‘oversupply problem.’ TD Cowen published its quick take on February 21 and said its research into Microsoft’s data center business had turned up something interesting. “Our channel checks indicate that [Microsoft] has 1) cancelled leases in the U.S. totalling ‘a couple of hundreds [megawatts]’ with at least two private data center operators, 2) has pulled back on the conversion of [statements of qualification] to leases, and 3) has re-allocated a considerable portion of its international spend to the U.S.” Microsoft is still promising to spend around $80 billion on US data centers as of this past January. 

Mr Totally Open With No Censorship Elon Musk apparently doesn’t mean it when it comes to himself…or Donald Trump. Techcrunch.com notes that Grok 3, the latest flagship large language model from xAI, when it was introduced in a live stream last Monday, was presented as a ‘maximally truth seeking AI’ by Musk. Well, maybe not so much. Grok 3 was briefly censoring unflattering facts about President Donald Trump — and Musk himself. Over the weekend, users on social media reported that, asked “Who is the biggest misinformation spreader?” with the “Think” setting enabled, Grok 3 noted in its “chain of thought” that it was explicitly instructed not to mention Donald Trump or Elon Musk. The chain of thought is the “reasoning” process the model uses to arrive at an answer to a question. By Sunday morning, the Grok 3 model was again allowing mentions of both Musk and Trump in the misinformation category. 

Google is planing to ditch SMS codes for two factor identification and start using QR Codes. Androidauthority.com reports that Google sees SMS codes as being Phishable, and at any rate, people might not always have access to the device where the codes are sent. In addition, they rely on the carrier’s security practices. No hard dates yet, but it will be simple enough to use…you will just scan the QR code with your camera app.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Microsoft’s Big Quantum Breakthrough; Google Pulls Gemini from Main iOS Search App; AI’s Fake Cases-Getting Lawyers Fired; Another New Chip Coming from Apple

Posted: February 20, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

In what may turn out to be a much bigger deal than any AI, Microsoft has announced a huge breakthrough in quantum 

computing. Microsoft says it has developed a new quantum processor based on a novel state of matter, giving it a clear path to achieve quantum computing’s long-term promise of solving some of the world’s most difficult problems. “We believe this breakthrough will allow us to create a truly meaningful quantum computer not in decades, as some have predicted, but in years,” wrote Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in a LinkedIn post about the news. Redmond has been working on quantum computing for almost 20 years…in fact, that program is the longest-running R&D program in the company. Microsoft’s work produces much more accurate quantum computing than others. They have placed eight topological qubits on a chip dubbed Majorana 1, after the Italian physicist who proposed the particles back in 1937!

Google has pulled Gemini from its main search app on iOS. According to TechCrunch.com, the aim is to get users to download the standalone Gemini app instead, which would allow Google to more directly compete with other consumer-facing AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity. However, the change could also risk reducing Gemini’s reach as Google’s app is already used by millions, and many are not motivated enough to download other new mobile applications. A lot of people aren’t excited about having to use the additional app, but one benefit is that you can have live conversations with the AI assistant via Gemini Live. 

Last year, there was a flap in legal circles as an attorney used AI to write a brief he submitted to the court, and the artificial intelligence came up with ‘artificial cases’ to support his position. The court and opposing counsel noticed the fake cases, and he was fined and dressed down. Arstechnica.com notes that now we have a situation with Morgan and Morgan, which bills itself as ‘America’s largest injury law firm.’ Morgan was involved in a suit against Walmart over a claimed defective hoverboard toy…which caused a house fire. The lead attorney from Morgan, Rudwin Ayala, submitted a filing, and Walmart’s attorneys couldn’t find any trace of eight cases cited in it…except on ChatGPT! The attorney was removed from the case, and Morgan ended up paying Walmart’s attorneys for wasted time chasing down the fake cases. Some attorneys have been fired over this sort of use of AI. I recently took a couple of continuing legal education courses, and they stressed quite strongly that you have to look up any cases AI presents in a legal filing you intend to use…and make damned sure they are actual cases, and not some imagined ones from ChatGPT, Claude, or other AI models!

Yesterday, along with the iPhone 16e, Apple bowed its new C1 modem chip…making the entry-level iPhone the first to run on Apple’s in-house designed modem. Now, 9to5 mac.com reports that analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is predicting another new Cupertino-designed chip, and he says it will be in all the new iPhone 17 models. Apparently, besides their C-1 modem, which is allowing Apple to ditch Qualcomm, Apple has been working on their own Wi-Fi chip to replace the Broadcom ones the present iPhones use. Even though all the new iPhones will have this new Apple Wi-Fi chip, only the so-called ‘slim’ iPhone 17 will use the C-1 modem that just debuted in the iPhone 16e. Analyst Kuo says the Apple Wi-Fi chip should ‘enhance connectivity across Apple devices.’ He didn’t clarify if that just meant from one Apple device to another, or also to your router and other devices. It looks like within a year or 2, Apple will be running iPhones on nearly entirely their own silicon…with the exception of memory chips. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Apple Recapple-‘New Addition to the Family’-iPhone 16e

Posted: February 19, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

As anticipated, Apple unveiled the latest addition to the iPhone family today. Although they had teased a ‘new addition to the family,’ which is technically true…it was really a replacement. The new budget…if you can call it that….iPhone is dubbed the 16e. The 16e replaces the SE phone…the name for several years for the cheaper iPhone….which has been discontinued. So, as the saying goes, ‘what’s in the box?’ Well, you are looking at a 6.1 inch OLED display with the infamous notch…no ‘dynamic island.’ It comes with Face ID and a USB-C port, and runs on Apple’s A18 chip. The 16e has a single 48MP camera, and surprisingly…fully supports Apple Intelligence. The camera does have the integrated 2X telephoto zoom, which lets you zoom in and have a high-resolution image quality level without a 2nd dedicated camera. The front-facing ‘selfie’ camera is 12MP. The phone has Wireless charging and almost as surprising as the Apple Intelligence…it has Satellite connectivity for Emergency SOS AND Messages, as well as Find My by satellite. This is the first iPhone to run the Apple-designed 5G cellular Modem…the C1 chip. the iPhone 16e runs $599 for 128 Gigs…this is the base memory for iPhones now, thankfully…and you can preorder it Friday. The first phones will arrive February 28th. With a slight improvement on Henry Ford’s old ‘You can have any color you want, as long as it is black,’ the iPhone 16e comes in either black or white. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Newest Member-Apple Family Tomorrow; AI Can Replicate Itself-With Help; Phone By Google Call History Filters; Meta Announces 1st Generative AI Developers Conference 

Posted: February 18, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Apple plans to introduce its ‘newest member of the family’ tomorrow. That’s the tease from CEO Tim Cook. Engadget.com reports that we don’t really know if this is just the rollout of the iPhone SE…which was delayed, or new AirTags, or possibly the rumored new home device. Whatever it is, we’ll have a recap about it all tomorrow right here. 

In an absolutely nerve-fraying study from China, they have been able to reach a so-called ‘red line’ with artificial intelligence. According to bgr.com, some Chinese scientists were able to get AI to replicate itself. The researchers ran 10 trials, at the end of which two AI models were able to create separate and functioning replicas in 50% and 90% of cases. Bear in mind that the researchers gave the AI what they call an ‘Agent scaffolding, comprising tools, system prompts, and a thinking model that enabled the LLM to interact with the operating system.’ Without all the assistance, they note that the AI models would not have been able to replicate. At least for now, you can’t just instruct AI to reproduce itself. An international statement about AI safety was signed by many countries last week…but the US, UK, and China refused to sign. 

Google has added some call history filters to the beta of Android. 9to5google.com notes that these should be pretty handy. You can now select from all, missed, contacts, non-spam, spam. What do you bet when it is fully released, most people will leave the filter in non-spam all the time! 

Meta has announced LlamaCon, its first generative AI dev conference. Techcrunch.com reports that the event is scheduled for April 29th. The LlamaCon moniker comes from Meta’s Llama family of generative AI models. Meta said that it plans to share “the latest on [its] open source AI developments to help developers […] build amazing apps and products.” Meta several years ago embraced an “open” approach to developing AI technologies in a bid to grow an ecosystem of apps and platforms. They were caught off guard when the Chinese released their open AI model that reportedly could outperform the next version of Llama…expected to be released soon. Meta is budgeting up to $80 billion on projects revolving around AI this year. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

Google Announces Date for I/O; iPhone Owners Back to Replacing Phones Faster; Thomson Reuters Wins 1st Major US AI Copyright Case; Anthropic CEO Warns of Race To Understand AI

Posted: February 12, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

The next Google I/O will be coming up on May 20th and 21st at Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View. 9to5google.com reports that the keynote will be as usual by CEO Sundar Pichai, and it starts at 10 am Pacific time. The event will be streamed both days. We should see a lot of information and no shortage of hype about Gemini and other AI, in addition to new details about Android 16. In the announcement, Google highlights ‘Android, AI, Web, Cloud, and more.’ Online registration starts today…and it’s free. 

In a report at least I didn’t see coming…after years of holding on to iPhones longer, Apple users have swung back to upgrading more often. According to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, more iPhone users retired their phones in a shorter period of time than had been the trend before. In December 2024 compared to 2023, 36% of buyers had owned their prior iPhones for 2 years or less…that’s up 31%. Fewer users kept their phones for 3 years or longer. CIRP didn’t research the ‘why,’ but it could be due to the hype around AI, or perhaps due to more aggressive carrier pricing. It will be interesting to see if this is really a trend back to more frequently trading up, or just a one-time bump.

Media and tech giant Thomson Reuters has won the first major AI copyright case in the US. Wired.com says the suit was against legal AI startup Ross Intelligence. Thomson Reuters claimed the AI firm reproduced materials from its legal research firm WestLaw. Today, a judge ruled in Thomson Reuters’ favor, finding that the company’s copyright was indeed infringed by Ross Intelligence’s actions. Legal publication houses are very aggressive about protecting their intellectual property, but this is a first as we move to more and more AI. The judge found in favor of Thomson Reuters on the issue of fair use. The fair use doctrine is a key component of how AI companies are seeking to defend themselves against claims that they used copyrighted materials illegally. The idea underpinning fair use is that sometimes it’s legally permissible to use copyrighted works without permission—for example, to create parody works, or in noncommercial research or news production. The court found that Ross failed the 4 pronged test for fair use…the reason behind the work, the nature of the work (whether it’s poetry, nonfiction, private letters, et cetera), the amount of copyrighted work used, and how the use impacts the market value of the original. 

Anthropic’s CEO has warned of the ‘race’ to understand AI as it becomes more powerful. Techcrunch.com reports that Dario Amodei…who has been a neuroscientist…is concerned that our understanding might not keep up with our ability to build things. He said he wasn’t just harping about safety issues, but emphasizing that failing to keep up with understanding what we are building with AI might cause us to lose great opportunities. Anthropic makes the Claude AI product…which some people prefer over OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google Gemini.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.  

Altman-OpenAI Not for Sale To Musk or Others; Apple & Google Take Down Malicious Mobile Apps; Meta Supposedly Used 82TB in Stolen Books for AI Training; Ukraine Makes Non-GPS Drones to Evade Russian Jamming

Posted: February 11, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

After Elon Musk and some partners made an unsolicited bid to buy OpenAI yesterday for some $97.4 billion, OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman flatly and publicly rejected the offer. Arstechnica.com reports that the offer was backed by Musk’s company xAI, with several investor buddies of Musk involved…almost all of whom have money in Tesla or SpaceX. Musk has had a grudge against Altman since 2015, when both partnered with others to start OpenAI as a non-profit. Musk cut ties with the company in 2018….then saw OpenAI’s value soar in 2022 and 2023. His attempt to buy OpenAI is a pretty good indicator that even Elon knows his own AI…called Grok…sucks compared to ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, and even Apple’s AI.

Apple and Google have removed up to 20 apps from their app stores after security researchers found that the apps were carrying data-stealing software for nearly a year. According to techcrunch.com, the researchers at Kaspersky said the malware, called SparkCat, had been active since March 2024. Originally, they found the malware in a food delivery app used in UAE and Indonesia, but then spotted it in 19 other unrelated apps. Apparently the apps were cumulatively downloaded some 242,000 times just on Google’s Play Store. Apparently, the malware scanned image galleries for keywords to grab phrases for crypto wallets. Using the recovery phrases, they could gain control over a victim’s wallet and steal the money. 

ChatGPT and also Gemini from Google have been hit with copyright suits from content owners that didn’t approve of…or get paid for…the training of the large language models on their material. Now, Meta has joined the party, Bgr.com says a class action has hit Meta over its alleged downloading of 82 TB of pirated books from illegal sources to train its AI. Meta had previously admitted that it torrented tens of millions of pirated books. Some documents from the lawsuits have surfaced on X…including comments from Meta employees involved in the process who mused on the type of illegal data collection that Meta was doing. Like OpenAI and Google, Meta can probably remove the copyrighted material at this point now that the large language models are pretty well trained. It remains to be seen if and how much copyright owners will be compensated. 

Ukraine has had an advanced tech industry for years. Now, a company there has come up with drones that don’t rely on GPS for navigation. Thenextweb.com reports that Sine.Engineering has designed the drones to evade Russia’s electronic warfare, which has made a hash of GPS signals. The new drones are basically based on time-of-flight methods…something that way predates GPS. The drone systems measure the time it takes a signal to get from a transmitter to a target. The calculations are done in a communication module that is smaller than a playing card. The Drone shares signals with a ground stations and two beacons. It can run on multiple bandwidths, too. As with a lot of Ukraine’s weapons systems, they have figured out how to build the drones relatively cheaply too. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

OpenAI to Finalize 1st Custom Chip Design; Discord Bows Feature to Ignore Users Instead of Blocking; Lyft Shoots for 2026 for Mobileye-Powered Robotaxis; T-Mobile Satellite Texting for All in Beta…Free-For Now

Posted: February 10, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

OpenAI is moving forward with its plan to cut its reliance on Nvidia for its chip supply by developing its first generation of in-house artificial-intelligence silicon. Reuters.com reports that the ChatGPT maker is finalizing the design for its first in-house chip in the next few months and plans to send it for fabrication at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. If the initial tape out goes smoothly, it would enable the ChatGPT maker to mass-produce its first in-house AI chip and potentially test an alternative to Nvidia’s chips later this year. 

Discord is launching a new feature today. It’s called Ignore, and lets you hide any new messages, DMs, server, notifications, profiles, and activity from select users…without letting them know. According to Engadget.com, the DM from an Ignored person will show up in your inbox with an icon and a grayed-out name…that way if you DO choose to look at it, you can. The same will go for voice or group chat…you will see a warning alerting when the Ignored person is present. You’ll find Ignore in the drop down menu when you click an account’s avatar. A list of ignored and blocked accounts will show up in the Content and Social tab of User Settings. Ignoring is always better than blocking, as the other person generally doesn’t know and therefore won’t find some way to whine about being blocked to you. 

Lyft is preparing to launch Mobileye-powered Robotaxies as soon as 2026. Techcrunch.com says they will first hit the roads in Dallas, with other markets to follow. Marubeni, a Japanese conglomerate with experience managing fleets, will own and finance the Mobileye-equipped vehicles that will show up on Lyft’s ride-hailing app. While Lyft has not yet disclosed its OEM partner for the launch, Mobileye’s advanced driver assistance technology is already integrated into vehicles from Audi, Volkswagen, Nissan, Ford, General Motors, and more.

The T-Mobile Starlink text feature is now available in beta for anybody with a compatible iPhone or Android to try out. It will give 4G or 5G coverage in areas not covered by regular cell service. Engadget.com reports that you can sign up even if you are on another carrier like Verizon or AT&T. The service is free until July, then people on T-Mobile’s high-end $180 Go5G Next plan will continue with it at no cost. Other T-Mobile customers can add the service for $15 a month, or $10 a month if you sign up before the end of February. If you are on another carrier, it will set you back $20 a month. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

ChatGPT No Longer Requires Account; Amazon-A Devices Event on February 26th; NBA Testing Smart Basketball; AT&T’s ‘Why Business is Calling’ Feature

Posted: February 6, 2025 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

ChatGPT is now making search available without an account, in regions where ChatGPT is available. You won’t have to log in to use ChatGPT’s search engine. Just head over to the website and type in your query. OpenAI says that “The search model is a fine-tuned version of GPT-4o, post-trained using novel synthetic data generation techniques, including distilling outputs from OpenAI o1-preview. ChatGPT search leverages third-party search providers, as well as content provided directly by our partners, to provide the information users are looking for.” The real question is how may people will ditch Google search and start using ChatGPT. Don’t expect Google to take this lying down. The games continue!

Amazon is preparing to bow new hardware. A device event has been scheduled for February 26th in New York City at 10 AM Eastern. In an invite, the online giant didn’t really give any clues about what hardware might be featured. Engadget.com notes that there have been freshened Kindles lately. Perhaps Amazon is ready to unveil the next-gen Alexa and related devices. That would mean new Echo speakers and Echo Buds. Amazon also may reveal what they will be charging for a subscription to the ‘turbocharged’ version of Alexa at the event.

SportIQ, a startup out of Finland, has made a better basketball…a smart basketball! Thenextweb.com says the ball has a sensor in the valve that tracks a player’s shots. Data is first extracted on their form, position, angle, power, and technique. Next, the information is fed to a mobile app for AI analysis. Players then receive direct feedback and advice. The company estimates that regular users improve their shooting accuracy by 12%. This has piqued the interest of the NBA. They have selected SportIQ for Launchpad, the league’s tech incubator. If you are interested in a smart ball to improve your own shooting, they are about $106 on SportIQ’s website. You will need to specify an indoor or outdoor ball.

AT&T is rolling out a new feature for Android customers. Zdnet.com reports that it is called TruContact Branded Call Display. You do have to sign up for it with the carrier. It should help you ensure you don’t miss an important call…and helps you to avoid unwanted calls…what a concept! When an enrolled business places a call, they’ll select the reason. The callers have a range of reasons to pick from including “Customer Service,” “Refill Reminder,” “Appointment Reminder,” “Delivery,” “Patient Callback,” and “Upcoming Appointment.” When your phone rings, you’ll see the business name, number, possibly its logo, and the reason for the call. This sounds actually useful! For now, the feature is only available on Android.

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now. 

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