Google has been hard at work increasing the number of devices supported by its Assistant as it fights to control the smart home.

Competing for the smart home is clearly near the top of Google’s priorities as those interactions move away from smartphones. Once a consumer is invested in an ecosystem, it’s difficult to get them to switch.

Google’s main competitor is Amazon with their Alexa ecosystem. Amazon, quite likely as a result of its retail presence, has sold a lot more of its Echo line...

According to the latest Automation Readiness Index, the US is behind eight other countries when it comes to being prepared for advancements such as AI and the IoT.

The study, published last week, ranked 25 of the world’s advanced economies in how well they’re preparing their workforce for automation.

Here are the top 10 rankings:

• South Korea

• Germany

• Singapore

• Japan

• Canada

• Estonia

• France

• UK

• US

• Australia

The US is often seen as a leader in areas such as AI, so it may be a surprise to see it ranked below many other countries. While it may be ahead in terms of innovation, the study highlights more needs to be done to prepare the workforce.

The researchers broke the study down into three main categories to assess the countries’ overall ranks. They were: Innovation Environment,...

In a bid to prevent falling behind China and the US, the European Commission has outlined its plan to invest €20 billion in ethical artificial intelligence.

The cash will be used to boost artificial intelligence research in the private and public domains, prepare for the socio-economic changes advancements will bring about, and ensure frameworks are in place for its legal and ethical development.

Andrus Ansip, Vice-President for the Digital Single Market, said:

“Just as the...

The majority of IoT projects fail, but SoftwareAG’s SVP of IoT took the stage at this year’s IoT Tech Expo in London to share his insights on how to avoid becoming another statistic.

Bernd Gross believes the IoT industry has reached a turning point where the focus is now shifting to deployment. It's hard to argue with, around the world there's notably less talk and some impressive use of IoT technologies to solve real problems.

“After many...

A strategic team up between Microsoft and C3 IoT will lead to the creation of a “better together” solution and go-to-market initiatives which speed up the application development of enterprise AI and IoT.

The “better together” solution, comprising of the C3 IoT Platform – a low-code, highly productive PaaS for scaling AI and IoT throughout enterprises – is fully integrated to operate on Microsoft Azure. The Microsoft-C3 IoT collaboration will allow customers to formulate...

Chip manufacturing giant Qualcomm has launched its Vision Intelligence Platform alongside its first two dedicated chipsets for IoT devices.

The new 10nm chipsets, QCS605 and QCS603, can be used for devices such as drones, robotic vacuum cleaners, 360-cameras, and more. Both contain Qualcomm’s latest development in camera and artificial intelligence.

Driving the...

The overall market value for smart cities will surpass $2 trillion by 2025, according to Frost & Sullivan – with artificial intelligence (AI) at the heart of it.

The analyst firm believes AI, alongside personalised healthcare, robotics, advanced driver assistance systems and distributed energy generation will be among the cornerstone technologies of future smart cities.

With more than 80% of the population in developed countries expected to live in...

Plenty of companies are talking about artificial intelligence and machine learning today in vague, disconnected terms. It will certainly influence our strategy; not sure how, but everything’s coming up AI, right?

As a pleasant antidote to all that bluff and bluster, how about this from John Stone, senior vice president of the Intelligent Solutions Group at agricultural manufacturing giant John Deere? “AI and machine learning is going to be as core to John Deere as an engine and transmission...

The gap between AI researchers from China and the United States is narrowing, according to a new study.

Hundreds of researchers attend the annual conference of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) to hear presentations on the latest developments in AI. It’s become something of the de facto...

Mnubo, an IoT data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) provider, has raised $16.5 million in a series B financing round to speed up the global expansion of its SmartObjects IoT analytics and data science solution.

Throughout the world, SmartObjects aims to helping service providers and equipment manufacturers in furthering their data monetisation strategy. Johnson-Controls Hitachi is among the prominent manufacturers who are using SmartObjects. 

Greg Barats, president and CEO of HSB Group, a...