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Say my name Amazon is launching a new back-door feature that will try to ensure Alexa wakes when you say her name—and not by accident. The feature is actually one developers will take advantage of, by allowing them to send your voice command up to the Amazon's cloud, to verify if you really said "Alexa" or something close to it. Like "Samexa."

If you didn't say the name, the cloud will signal the third-party device to not awake. Tagged Cloud-Based Wake Word Verification, the signal that the wake word wasn't said will actually "close the audio stream..." and the light will go off, says Amazon. The company wants to reduce the number of times Alexa awakens due to mistakes, or what Amazon calls "false wakes."

Amazon Echo is now the most popular voice-controlled speaker, with Alexa put more in use than other voice-base A.I. like Cortana and Google Home. Continuing to make the voice assistant work seamlessly and accurately is something Amazon clearly wants to stay ahead of with its consumers. (Via The Verge)

Waymo + Lyft Waymo, the self-driving car project of Google's parent, and Lyft are going to work together on autonomous technology. The self-driving car arena is a crowded one with Lyft's car-sharing competitor Uber also pushing to ahead with their own technology, along with Apple, Tesla and other major car manufacturers.

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