Have an Amazon Alexa, Google Nest Mini or other smart speaker? You probably want to mute it if you join a lot of phone calls or video conferences while at home. This is easy in most cases; for example, the Nest Mini’s mute switch is on the back. While muted, speakers won’t listen for their […]

Devices with voice recognition became much more common throughout the 2010s. The addition of Siri to the iPhone 4S in 2011 spurred major competition among tech vendors looking to put voice-powered assistants at the center of how end users interact with their phones, tablets, speakers and smart TVs. Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, among others, […]

If you have an Amazon Alexa or Google Home voice-activated speaker, you can review the recordings it has made online. You also have the option to delete those recordings if you don’t want to keep them or are concerned about their long-term retention.

Talking about artificial intelligence (AI) can easily bring to mind images of human-like robots carrying out advanced tasks, a la the androids in TV shows like “Star Trek: The Next Generation” or “The Orville.” In reality, AI is much more mundane, but still very powerful. What AI looks like in real life Have you ever […]