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Let Smart Reply answer that email for you — it's already doing it quite a bit

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Did that last email from your friend about this weekend’s plans sound suspiciously canned? Hate to break it to you, but that might’ve been because … it was. A little over a year after Google debuted its Inbox app, the internet giant has revealed that its Smart Reply feature is responsible for an impressive 10 percent of mobile responses sent in the app.Smart Reply, as its name implies, generates replies to incoming messages based on its contents, using artificial intelligence to send back a response so you don’t have to. And apparently, one out of every 10 messages are now being sent not by humans, but by the AI. This latest statistic was brought to light by Jeff Dean, a senior fellow in Google’s research group, at Wednesday’s AI Frontier conference in Santa Clara, California.

“What this does is it takes an incoming email message and then, given the text of the email message, it tries to predict what are likely responses you might want to give,” Dean said. “Now, 10 percent of mobile responses on email on the Inbox product are generated with this Smart Reply feature, so it’s saving people a lot of time.”

Of course, while 10 percent is a significant proportion, it’s unclear how many emails this actually translates to. After all, the Inbox app is not as popular as the Gmail app (though it does consistently find itself in the top 5o productivity apps in the App Store, and seems relatively popular on Android, too).

Lulu Chang
Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…
Meta’s next cute attempt at forcing AI into your life is an AI pet journal app
Meta wants you to tell your secrets to a cute AI pet in Waddle World app.
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Meta wants to make its AI feel like a cute tiny friend through a newly launched pet journal app called Waddle World. Think of it as Tamagotchi, but the pixelated pet can actually chat with you and doodle little illustrations based on what you tell it about your day. Right now, this free app is available on iOS and Android only in the Philippines, with access limited to adults.

Waddle World is a pet that wants to know about your day

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A tiny smartphone gadget can detect some of the nastiest chemicals in your water
Scientists built a tiny smartphone gadget that can spot toxic 'forever chemicals'
Smartphone-connected drinking water safety sensor Featured

What if checking your drinking water for dangerous chemicals were as simple as plugging a tiny gadget into your smartphone? Researchers in Japan have developed a compact sensor that could make that possible, potentially bringing sophisticated water contamination testing out of expensive laboratories and into people's hands.

Scientists at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) have created a portable device capable of detecting extremely low concentrations of PFAS, commonly known as "forever chemicals." The findings were published in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics, which demonstrate how an inexpensive sensor and a smartphone could make identifying potentially harmful chemicals in water a lot easier.

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ShiftCam ProRig+ wants to turn the iPhone into a filmmaking beast
ShiftCam launches ProRig+ on Kickstarter with advanced camera controls for iPhone creators
ShiftCam ProRig+

ShiftCam is adding to its range of iPhone filmmaking accessories with ProRig+, a revised version of its modular camera rig that has dedicated controls for focus, zoom, shutter, and shooting modes. The new system launches on Kickstarter with the ProControl remote, giving mobile creators a higher level of hands-on control without having to constantly tap their iPhone’s screen.

The announcement comes soon after ShiftCam introduced the original ProRig, developed with feedback from Apple. The original model is expected to ship in the coming weeks, while ProRig+ will be a more advanced remote and will be delivered to backers in February 2027. The Kickstarter campaign has also been honored with the platform’s “Projects We Love” designation.

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