Bing’s AI chatbot is now on your Android phone’s keyboard

 Was an early user of Bings AI Chatbot, relatively good,  now yet more accessible. 

Bing’s AI chatbot is now on your Android phone’s keyboard  — here’s how to get it

By Peter Hunt Szpytek, April 6, 2023

Chatbots have become extraordinarily popular for those looking for help with their writing — or simply mess around with them and have fun. Now, Android users have access to one such chatbot straight from their keyboard. Bing Chat is Microsoft’s chatbot that rivals the likes of ChatGPT and Google Bard, and it has been added as a feature to the SwiftKey keyboard, a predictive keyboard that helps with texting.

While Bing Chat can help users compose the body of a message, it can also analyze prewritten text for your tone to suggest changes if the user wants to avoid coming across a certain way. Bing Chat has already been providing those services via the Bing app and through web browsers; however, the new integration with the SwiftKey keyboard allows users to easily access the chatbot for help whenever their keyboard is enabled.   ... ' 

Robots Smiling Back

Not sure how much this buys you, but it makes sense where creating a android-like image to have emotion matching to group or task. We experimented only slightly with this in brand equity systems,  mostly keeping the image smiling.   It was suggested that we might include a quizzical or neutral face to indicate a more neutral position, but that was never integrated.

The Robot Smiled Back   By Columbia Engineering

Columbia Engineering researchers have spent five years developing an autonomous robot with a face that mimics the expressions of nearby humans.

Development of the EVA robot began with the construction of its physical mechanisms, engineered as a disembodied bust with a blue-colored face that can express basic, as well as subtler, emotions via artificial muscles.

The researchers used three-dimensional printing to manufacture complex components that could fit into EVA's human-sized skull without losing functionality. EVA employs deep learning artificial intelligence to "read," then imitate, expressions on nearby human faces, and learned to mimic faces by watching videos of itself.

The robot eventually became capable of reading human facial gestures from a camera, and of responding by mirroring those facial expressions.  .. "

Google and Ford Sign Deal to Put Android into Car, onto Plant Floor

Perhaps unexpected partnership.  Recall we recently mentioned that Ford was the leader in Self Driving Car patents.  We worked with Ford and they were impressive in analytics/data analytics utilization.  The mention of in car Android method should also spread the use of voice and AI more widely un cars.  

Google Snags Ford Cloud Partnership in Coup Over Microsoft

Deal includes Google license fees for every Ford and Lincoln car sold starting in 2023

By Nico Grant, February 1, 2021, 11:00 AM   in Bloomberg

Google signed a six-year deal with Ford Motor Co. that will bring Android technology to the automaker’s cars and cloud services to its factory floor, in a triumph for the internet giant over rival Microsoft Corp.

Google Cloud Platform will be Ford’s “preferred cloud provider” and the partners will form an innovation team called Team Upshift to jointly work on future projects, the companies said Monday in a statement. Ford dashboard infotainment screens will be powered by an Android operating system starting in 2023 and the automaker will adopt Google’s artificial intelligence and data-analytics technology.

The companies did not disclose the value of their deal, but Google will receive revenue from cloud services as well as a Google apps and services licensing fee for every Ford and Lincoln vehicle sold starting in 2023.

Thomas Kurian, chief executive officer of Google Cloud, is trying to sell the Alphabet Inc. company’s computing and storage services through broad strategic partnerships. Fresh off a multiyear alliance with Deutsche Bank AG announced in December, Google has snagged Ford, a longtime Microsoft client. Google will need to continue accumulating these types of customer wins to catch cloud market leaders Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft.  .... " 

Comparative Mobile Security IOS vs Android

Steve Gibson does a good job looking at security in smartphones in a recent Twit.TV.  Reviewing the work by Matthew Green at Johns Hopkins.

Comparative SmartPhone Security  from  talk notes  on Twit.TV podcast #603

A team of security researchers at Johns Hopkins, led by cryptographer, security technologist and associate professor of computer science, our friend Matthew Green, decided to take a serious look at the comparative security offered by the Apple iOS vs Google Android smartphone platforms.

To host the results of their analysis they grabbed the domain securephones.io. ...

Resources:  https://securephones.io/      https://securephones.io/main.html    https://securephones.io/main.pdf

More Digital Humans Emerging

Recall Microsoft's patent of a particular person, just mentioned here.   Recall too the 'uncanny valley', and other disturbing side-effects.   And the magic can collapse quickly of the conversation is not convincing.   But I expect this kind of play being quite common in not too many years.    I have mentioned our own primitive attempts here to simulate conversational brand equity.    Learned much before the capabilities were ready.

Home/News/'Are You Real?'

'Are You Real?'   By Gregory Goth, Commissioned by CACM Staff, January 26, 2021

A Digital Employee developed by IPoft company Amelia.

The digital human is a chatbot partnered with a lifelike avatar to add a visually relatable element to interactions.

Tyler Beck, chief operating officer of Dothan, Ala.-based Five Star Credit Union, recently began evaluating artificial intelligence-based technologies for the $500-million institution serving portions of Alabama and Georgia. As his research progressed, he said he was contacted by a vendor's representative via LinkedIn.

"When I finally got to talk to the company, the lady wasn't on the call," Beck said, "and it hit me she wasn't real. She was artificial intelligence. And not only was the interaction I had with her powered through AI, her profile picture was created through AI. That did a lot to tell me it was on a whole different level than I realized it was at. The functionality and use cases for AI, especially in financial services, is going to be great."

Among the latest iterations of AI-based platforms is the "digital human," a chatbot partnered with a lifelike avatar intended to add a visually relatable element to an interaction. Though Beck and many other business executives are not quite ready to pull the trigger on installing virtual tellers or advisors quite yet, several vendors are quickly emerging. The ecosystem that will enable their technologies to assume prominence is still in its infancy, but is growing quickly.

Additionally, vendors are branding their products to be readily identified as more than disembodied chatbots. New York-based Amelia (formerly known as IPSoft), for example, has trademarked the phrase Digital Employee for its platform, while Austin, Texas-based UneeQ's World Wide Web domain name is digitalhumans.com.

"We are fairly bullish on it," said Jim Lundy, founder and CEO of technology consultancy Aragon Research. "We've seen them in action. We are still in the very early innings and I say that because a lot of the bots that have been deployed thus far are terrible, but for every nine that are bad or average, there is usually one that is amazing."   ... " 

Google General Voice Accessibility

In  the Google Blog, a means of more general voice accessibility via voice on the android phone.  Now updated. 

ACCESSIBILITY

Use Voice Access to control your Android device with your voice

Easily use and navigate your phone by speaking out loud with Voice Access. Image shows two cartoon figures, one who uses a wheelchair and has their phone mounted in front of them, and another standing behind the wheelchair as they take a selfie.

Tom Hume, Senior Product Manager, Google Research

In 2018, we launched Voice Access, an Android app that lets you control your phone using your voice. The ability to use your phone hands-free has been helpful to people with disabilities, and also those without.

Today, on International Day of Persons with Disabilities, we’re rolling out an updated version of Voice Access, available in Beta, that is easier to use and available to more people. This version of Voice Access, which was previously available on Android 11, is now available globally to devices running Android 6.0 and above.   ... " 

Updating the Uncanny Valley

We did related work with advertising and marketing engagements, fascinating area of behavioral interaction. 

Experiments reveal why human-like robots elicit uncanny feelings

by Carol Clark, Emory University

Androids, or robots with human-like features, are often more appealing to people than those that resemble machines—but only up to a certain point. Many people experience an uneasy feeling in response to robots that are nearly lifelike, and yet somehow not quite "right." The feeling of affinity can plunge into one of repulsion as a robot's human likeness increases, a zone known as "the uncanny valley."

The journal Perception published new insights into the cognitive mechanisms underlying this phenomenon made by psychologists at Emory University.  ... '

Shensheng Wang et al. The Uncanny Valley Phenomenon and the Temporal Dynamics of Face Animacy Perception, Perception (2020). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0301006620952611 

Longer Form Translation for Assistants

Have mentioned some experimentation with real time longer form translation, as it can exist within the framework of voice driven assistants.  Impressive so far.

Google Assistant can now read or translate websites and Android app content   By Khari Johnson

Google Assistant is able to read web pages and news articles on Android devices worldwide today, a company spokesperson told VentureBeat. You can trigger the feature by simply saying “Hey Google, read it” or “Hey Google, read this page.”

If you land on a webpage in a language you don’t understand, Google Assistant is also able to read and translate 42 languages into your preferred language. A full list of supported languages can be seen in the video above.  ... "

Update on North's Focals Smart Glasses

More updates on North's Focals Smart Glasses.  Now more closely connected to typical smart phone OS.  At this only to the Android.   Will this mean that we will soon see these as more common as a replacement for the smartphone,  as convenience rather than the need for hands-free?

North’s Focals smart glasses now support Android’s notification actions
Manage your emails or retweet directly from your face
By Jon Porter@JonPorty in TheVerge

North has added native support for Android’s notification actions to its Focals smart glasses. Using the new functionality, you’ll now be able to access any shortcuts app developers include in their app’s notifications. 9to5Google, which first spotted the update, notes that these actions can include deleting or archiving emails in the Gmail app or retweeting tweets on Twitter. .... " 

Wal-Mart Private Label Tablet?

Quite an interesting development.    How might Wal-Mart use this kind of channel to drive online purchases?  Inexpensive position could drive broader uses.   Perhaps adding some shopping assistant to aid the shopper, curating purchasing?

Will Walmart’s new tablet burn into Amazon Fire’s market share?  by George Anderson in Retailwire, with further expert comments.

Tablet sales may have slowed down in recent years, but Walmart has apparently identified an opportunity within the category that it can leverage to drive sales. The retailer, Bloomberg reports, plans to roll out an inexpensive, child-friendly Android tablet under its ONN private label.

Apple, the undisputed leader in the category, appears least likely to feel an impact from Walmart’s new entry since its iPad fills the upper, premium end of the market. Amazon.com’s line of Fire tablets, which include models marketed with colorful, kid-proof cases, appears a more likely target. The Fire line, which also runs on Android, tends to be priced at the lower end of the tablet market. ... "

Open Spec for Hearing Aids

An Open standard for hearing aid manufacturers, the article says.  Makes lots of sense.

Google working on native hearing aid support for an upcoming Android release    By Abner Li

Today’s hearing aids increasingly overlap and share the same functionality as Bluetooth headphones. Google is now working to improve the experience on Android with native support through a new direct audio streaming specification coming in a future OS update.

Google announced a partnership with hearing aids manufacturer GN Hearing today to add direct audio streaming from Android to these assistive devices. In addition to their primary purpose of amplifying sounds, hearing aids will be able to essentially act as Bluetooth headphones. Wearers will be able to just use one device to hear the world, listen to music, take phone calls, and more  ... "

Robots Get Uncannily Realistic, but Why?

Perhaps to engage, sell, enforce or to just prove it can be done.  Replace humans?  Mimic humans?  Put them in situations where humans should be present, but are too expensive.   Even without claiming any intelligence as we see it. Add voice and intelligence, make them as pretty as they need to be,  keeping eye contact, Turing-enable them too, and it will be hard to say what we are engaging with.  Will they be regulated because they are a implicit even unethical lie?   Welcome to the Android.  Expect much more of this in coming decades.

Welcome to the uncanny valley: This robot head shows lifelike expressions
By Luke Dormehlin in Digital Trends  ...

The SEER robot is further described from SigGraph.   With its 'unnerving eye-contact'.  I used to attend that conference, when it was far less entertaining.