Siri, Apple Inc's virtual assistant, might have spilled the beans by telling users on Tuesday that the iPhone maker is going to host a special event on April 20.

Don't mention the 'B' word.

Apple apologized on Wednesday for letting contractors listen to commands that users give to its voice assistant Siri. The company is now promising changes.

"Contractors in Cork [Ireland] were expected to each listen to more than 1,000 recordings from Siri every shift, before Apple suspended the practice last month"

Today, services like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant are getting better at responding to some types of requests, but because they can misunderstand questions and aren't cognizant of their surroundings, they're often super awkward to use in public spaces around other people. But a patent filed by Apple and made public today suggests Siri may someday detect when you're whispering at it, and in turn know when to whisper back.

Samsung is turning its attention to personal assistants-the company has acquired Viv Labs, a startup founded by Dag Kittlaus, Adam Cheyer, and Chris Brigham, all of whom were part of the original Siri team that Apple bought in 2010.

A software engineer formally involved in the development of the Siri voice assistant at Apple has joined Samsung's new talking internet of things initiative.

For years, technologies like Apple's Siri and Google's Google Now have been flying blind, awoken by the spoken command of their users. If Apple acquires PrimeSense, perceptual computing may finally open its eyes.