IT Executive news

• Amazon's Alexa digital assistant has mad skills; more than 1000 of them, actually

  05-06-2016 20:05
  
  Alexa is one of the most powerful virtual assistants available, with Amazon saying Friday that the Alexa platform has surpassed 1000 skills. With a variety of features ranging from hailing an Uber to ordering a pizza from Domino’s, it seems like Amazon is preparing to defend its turf ahead of the pending release of Google Home and Apple’s rumored Echo-like device.
  Amazon opened up its Alexa platform to third-party developers last June, and in a manner that was much more open th
  
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• A.I. guardian-angel vehicles will dominate auto industry, says Toyota exec

  05-06-2016 20:03
  
  CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- While much of the media attention around autonomous vehicle technology has been focused on fully self-driving cars, consumers shouldn't expect cars to act like chauffeurs any time soon.
  The vast majority of mainstream vehicles adopting autonomous driving features will be controlled by advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) or "guardian angels" that learn over time, Gil Pratt, CEO Toyota Research Institute, told reporters and analysts last week.
  Speaking at the New England
  
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• Instagram goes algorithmic, will try to guess what you want to see in your feed

  05-06-2016 19:54
  
  Enjoy Instagram’s reverse-chronological timeline while you can, because it’s about to go away for good. In a blog post published Friday, Instagram announced that it will start to roll out a new algorithmic feed to its users “over the coming month.” 
  The new algorithmic feed, which Instagram first announced back in March, will attempt to identify the things you’re most interested in and put those posts at the top of your feed. According to Instagram, users
  
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• Facebook begins removing chat from its mobile site, nudges users toward its Messenger app

  05-06-2016 16:45
  
  If it wasn’t clear already, Facebook would really like it if you used its Messenger app.
  TechCrunch reported Friday that the company is currently working to remove the Messenger function on the mobile version of its website, pushing users instead to use the separate Facebook Messenger app.
  According to the report, tapping the chat button in the toolbar may result in a message informing you that “your conversations are moving to Messenger,” and that “soon you’ll onl
  
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• Judge sends two to prison for 7 years for H-1B fraud

  05-06-2016 03:24
  
  Two brothers were sentenced Friday to 87 months in prison for running an H-1B fraud scheme intended to create a low cost, on-demand workforce, federal law enforcement officials said.
  Atul Nanda, 46, and his brother, Jiten "Jay" Nanda, 45, were each sentenced by Judge Barbara M. G. Lynn, the Chief U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Texas, to 7 years and two months in federal prison, according to U.S. Attorney John Parker.The brothers were recently convicted by a jury following a tr
  
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