Amazon’s Alexa and other voice assistants are “far too stupid” to hold conversations with users and the e-commerce giant’s latest Echo Show product with a screen is an attempt to address the “shortcomings” of voice interaction, an analyst has claimed. On Tuesday, Amazon unveiled the Echo Show, a voice-controlled speaker with a touchscreen display which will be available in June for $229.99. But one analyst has criticized Alexa, the artificial intelligence (AI)-powered voice assistant that allows

Microsoft announced on Thursday that the first mixed reality headsets that work with its Windows 10 operating system are now available for developers to preorder. Two options are available, designs built by Acer and HP, though both offer similar feature sets. They’ll work with Microsoft’s new mixed reality motion controllers, announced this morning, which will allow users to interact with the digital environments around them.

Evan Spiegel’s Snap faces one major hurdle that Facebook didn’t have when it went public five years ago, equity strategist Michael Graham told CNBC on Thursday. The report was also an indicator on how the company has fared as Facebook pushes aggressively into its turf. “The fact that every month Snap will be battling [Facebook’s] Instagram for users is a real difference in the two stories.” When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the social media company public in May 2012, he faced the rise of P

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel is “so arrogant” and needs to find some humility, CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Thursday. Earlier Wednesday, Snap’s first earnings report as a public company fell short of Wall Street’s expectations. On Thursday, Cramer said: “You’ve got to put him through some sort of gauntlet because this guy is so arrogant. He’s so arrogant that I mean, honestly, Evan Spiegel, listen to me and listen to me good : You’re going to introduce yourself next time and then you’re going to back off and

Rob Arnott, the founder and chief executive officer of Research Affiliates, shares his market views in an exclusive interview for CNBC PRO with Mike Santoli. On why fundamental indexing outperforms: “You’re getting the return from re-balancing. When the market says, here’s a company that’s a wonderful company with great growth prospects. Fundamental indexing strategies rebalance positions according to valuation measures instead of the market cap-weighted allocations typically used by passive ind

A daily morning look at the financial stories you need to know to start the day. STOCKS/ECONOMY-Stock futures are lower after Wednesday’s mixed close. We get readings on wholesale inflation and weekly jobless claims later this morning. -The U.S. government posted a surprise $182 billion surplus in April. COLLEGE COSTS-Interest costs on new government student loans will increase by about 20 percent.

Industrial giant Caterpillar is on the cusp of a big year of earnings growth and potential new business strategy, Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts said Thursday. BofAML upgraded the stock to buy from neutral and raised its price target to $120, nearly 20 percent above where Caterpillar closed Wednesday. The stock, which traded flat Thursday morning, is up 8.2 percent this year, already beating the S&P 500. “CAT is set up to beat all year long,” research analysts Ross Gilardi, Michael Fenig

In 2014, sleep researcher Roy Raymann joined Apple’s growing health team from Philips Research to focus on using mobile technology to track sleep and improve sleep quality. Last month, Raymann left the company to head up a start-up called SleepScore Labs. A variety of new apps and devices have emerged, claiming to track sleep and provide insights in how users can feel more rested. It works by tracking the user’s sleep relative to others of a similar age and gender, and then provides advice about

With Ford Motor’s stock languishing at its lowest price in almost five years, the executive chairman of the automaker, Bill Ford, understands how shareholders feel. “We’re as frustrated as you are by the stock price,” said Ford during the company’s annual meeting. “The Ford family wants the stock to go up. Bill Ford’s comments come amid reports the automaker’s board is scrutinizing the business plan of CEO Mark Fields. Instead, Fields, Bill Ford and other executives answered questions submitted

Netflix said it would create 400 jobs in its new European customer service hub in Amsterdam, as the U.S. video streaming pioneer expands around the world. The service hub, which opened this week, will initially employ 170 people. The number is expected to grow to 345 by the end of the year and surpass 400 by 2018-end. The company has expanded around the world over the last few years, betting that its U.S. formula would pay off in other countries. Netflix has committed more than $1.75 billion to

Snap has 150- & 180-day lock-up expirations beginning July 31,” JPMorgan’s Doug Anmuth wrote in a note to clients Thursday. Other research analysts also pointed to the lockup expiration as a negative factor for the company’s share price. Nearly 70 percent of Wall Street does not have buy ratings on Snap shares, according to FactSet. The large amount in the supply of new Snap shares is a big concern for investors. Disclosure: Brad Lamensdorf’s HDGE ETF is short Snap shares.

Most investors got crushed in Snap on Thursday after the company’s first-quarter miss, but some traders made a killing on the social media firm’s stock plunge with big bearish bets just before the close Wednesday. Snap reported sales of $150 million versus a Wall Street consensus of $158 million Wednesday after the close. Traders who made these bearish bets essentially doubled their money. When they scramble into puts in the final 5 minutes of trading, we think that’s pretty telling,” Najarian s

Snap reported quarterly financial results for the first time as a public company on Wednesday night, revealing slower-than-expected revenue and user growth. “To their credit, they did give us guidance saying that revenues would be below the fourth quarter in the first quarter. Investors vaporized a fifth of the company’s value on Thursday, as the stock fell more than 20 percent. Wall Street was hoping that Snap would report 167.3 million daily active users, but it reported 166 million. “I don’t

And if you’re leading a major tech company, such Apple, Google or IBM, it pays especially well. Bloomberg recently released its ranking of the highest-paid executives of 2016, based on the Bloomberg Pay Index, which tracks the 200 highest-paid executives who appear in filings from companies that submit compensation details to U.S. regulators. Unsurprisingly, the top five highest-paid CEOs all helm powerful companies in the tech realm. The majority of Lore’s earnings stem from Walmart’s purchase

Even after a drop of more than 20 percent that normally would bring out the value buyers on Wall Street, Snap’s ratings list looks decidedly bearish for what’s supposed to be a hot new social media stock. Nomura Instinet’s Anthony DiClemente reiterated his reduce rating on the stock and lowered his price target to $14 from $16, citing “fierce competition” from Facebook. However, deceleration of user growth, competitive concerns, volatility due to absence of Street expectations management, and lo

Microsoft just announced the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, the company’s next big refresh of its Windows 10 operating system. Terry Myerson, Microsoft’s executive vice president of the Windows and devices group, revealed the update during Day Two of Microsoft’s Build developer conference on Thursday. The refresh follows Microsoft’s first Creators Update, which started rolling out to Windows machines last month. Myerson highlighted several new features coming to the Windows 10 Fall Creators Up

Professional investors, most of whom have underperformed the market the last 15 years, have a message for all the millennials who just started trading when their favorite company Snap went public: Investing isn’t easy. Snap shares got destroyed in the aftermath of the social network’s first earnings report, likely hitting younger investors the most, according to data from Wall Street brokers. When the parent of popular disappearing messaging app Snapchat began trading March 2, online trading bro

They formed a startup, PathAI, last year after their technology won a competition in detecting breast cancer. “The combination of human plus AI in this example reduced the expert’s error rate by 85 percent,” Beck said. “One of the powerful aspects of deep learning is unsupervised feature learning,” Dudley explained, “meaning you don’t have to constrain upfront what you think is important for predicting something or modeling something.” In results published last year in the journal Nature, Dudley

The Apple Watch is proving itself to be a useful tool for monitoring serious medical conditions, and not just for fitness. A mobile health app made by start-up Cardiogram, backed by Silicon Valley venture firms including Andreessen Horowitz, has proven to be shockingly popular among the people who download it, the company’s co-founder Brandon Ballinger told CNBC. Cardiogram uses the Apple Watch’s built-in heart sensor to give you advice about heart health — for instance, showing when you’re unu

This is a new feature Amazon announced earlier this week. Alexa users who own an Echo, or who have the app installed on their iOS or Android smartphone, can now call or message one another for free. I’ve been testing it for a couple of days, and I’m blown away by how fun it is to use Alexa to place calls. I get a genuine buzz of excitement when I see my Echo suddenly light up with a green light, alerting me that a friend is calling. I can clearly see how Amazon may be able to use the Echo to tot