the government of India has banned Chinese 59 applications. Almost all major projects, the most notable of which is a service a short video TikTok and another were banned programs from smartphone maker Xiaomi, a map from Chinese giant Baidu and instant messaging applications WeChat and QQ from another giant Tencent, browser, news apps and even the popular game.
the Official reason – these apps are related to the activities prejudicial to the sovereignty and integrity of India as well as state security and public order. And yet the Indian government has said that it has received a lot of complaints on apps that steal user data and pass them on foreign servers.
it is worth noting that the current government’s decision was preceded by unusual initiative from below. A couple of weeks ago there was an application for Indian users that had only one function – to recognize and remove from your smartphone all the Chinese programs. It should be understood that India is a huge and important growing market that is struggling all smartphone manufacturers. But Chinese brands, according to the calculations, occupy more than 80% of the market, and the total audience of the now prohibited applications – more than 500 million people.
However, as noted on the other side of the ocean, not very clear, as it will block these applications to achieve their removal from the app stores or simply close the access through the Internet provider, while the official comments on this issue, but the programs themselves are still available in the stores of Apple and Google.
the Russian news. MTS finally launches a “smart” column with voice assistant “Marvin” leaks which was last year. However while the device only handed out to loyal subscribers, but for the curious available the app with voice assistant. It is interesting here that the format of the application “Marvin” is not even a voice assistant, that is, he is not yet talking. To communicate with him thoseXCOM and voice, but listening to it from time to time when you press the button, and responds solely to the text. This implies that not all users like it, then listen to them constantly waiting for the activation code phrase. But the column runs quite familiar, as counterparts.
Arkady Sandler, Director, Center for artificial intelligence MTS: “We examined the question of the usefulness of talking to an assistant within the application and came across a situation, that is, not very much in demand thing. In the application to say your question is and should be, and to the voice response is not always convenient, in contrast to the text. Therefore, we, as the first version did so and see how it will develop.”
While “Marvin” knows not very much. The ability of voice assistants is generally measured by the number of skills, i.e., mini-programs that they can perform. From Alexa from Amazon, the leader in this field, such as a hundred thousand. The Russian “Alice” from “Yandex” – thousands of “Marusya” from Mail.Ru more than a hundred, the “Marvin” while twenty.
Arkady Sandler, Director, Center for artificial intelligence MTS: “the fact that in contrast to our colleagues who have such decision is, it is built on the shoulders of much more a long time of technology development that are needed assistant, voice recognition, some things NLP, search engines, and so on. We almost all had to make our own from scratch, with their own hands. Moreover as far as I know, the development cycle took us in the end still a very short time compared to all the others.”
In MTS expect that the potential market for voice assistants in Russia is very large, and operators have the chance to take his share. Last year estimate that in 2021 Russia will more than 4 million such columns. MTS rate going to do for family consumption, say that they have almost the largest collection of audiobooks. The column support.rivet work with two music services: the actual MTS Music and outside Sound. And in column integrated hub for devices smart home standard ZigBee to control compatible lights, sensors and blinds, no “Yandex”, no Mail.ru in their columns.
Text: To.Hi-tech