Next time you're craving a chalupa supreme, you might not be ordering from a person. Taco Bell is expanding its program for using AI voice recognition in drive-thrus. After testing the technology in more than 100 locations in 13 states, the fast food chain's parent company aims to add voice-powered AI capabilities to hundreds more Taco Bell drive-thrus in the US by the end of the year."With over two years of fine tuning and testing the drive-thru Voice AI technology, were confident in its effectiveness in optimizing operations and enhancing customer satisfaction," said Lawrence Kim, chief innovation officer for Yum! Brands. The company also owns KFC and is currently testing Voice AI in five locations for that chain in Australia.It sounds a little goofy, but in practice, this is an application of AI that people who aren't early adopters might encounter in the wild. There are lots of splashy headlines about chatbots that sound like celebrities, but this type of practical use case shows where and how voice AI might appear in a person's routine and workplace. The press release centers the employee experience as one of the reasons for pursuing the technology. "Tapping into AI gives us the ability to ease team members workloads, freeing them to focus on front-of-house hospitality. It also enables us to unlock new and meaningful ways to engage with our customers," Taco Bell Chief Digital & Technology Officer Dane Mathews said.That's the positive side. On the negative side, there are still plenty of imperfections yet to be resolved in the tech. McDonald's ran a similar effort exploring drive-thrus powered by AI, but called off its program earlier this summer. Customers had encounters that were equal parts frustrating and hilarious with the AI ordering options during the testing phase. There's also a concern that if the kinks in these AI systems do get worked out, the easing of team members' workloads could turn into losing some team members' jobs.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/taco-bell-will-add-voice-ai-ordering-to-hundreds-of-drive-thrus-this-year-141110768.html?src=rss

Netflix has finally set a date for the next season of Squid Game, almost three years after the Korean drama became a massive hit in the US. Season 2 is set to hit Netflix December 26, with a final third season coming sometime in 2025, the streamer announced.While the initial teaser for Season 2 doesnt reveal much about what to expect in the next installment, Netflix shared a few more details about the plot in a letter from Hwang Dong-hyuk, the series director and writer.Seong Gi-hun who vowed revenge at the end of Season 1 returns and joins the game again. Will he succeed in getting his revenge? Front Man doesnt seem to be an easy opponent this time either. The fierce clash between their two worlds will continue into the series finale with Season 3, which will be brought to you next year.I am thrilled to see the seed that was planted in creating a new Squid Game grow and bear fruit through the end of this story.Well do our best to make sure we bring you yet another thrill ride. I hope youre excited for whats to come. Thank you, always, and see you soon, everyone.Despite the long wait since the initial season, Netflix has done a lot to capitalize on the success of Squid Game. The series inspired a spinoff reality show, called Squid Game: The Challenge, which has also been greenlit for a second season. The company also treated fans to an IRL Squid Game pop-up in Los Angeles.Additionally, Netflix announced plans for a Squid Game multiplayer game that will debut alongside Season 2 of the show. Details of the game are unclear, but the company has said that players will compete with friends in games theyll recognize from the series.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/season-2-of-squid-game-arrives-on-netflix-december-26-000010045.html?src=rss

TechCrunch reported that a group of researchers from the university KU Leuven in Belgium identified six popular dating apps that malicious users can use to pinpoint the near-exact location of other users. Dating apps including Hinge, Happn, Bumble, Grindr, Badoo and Hily all exhibited some form of trilateration that could expose users approximate locations, which prompted some of the apps to take action and tighten their security, according to the published paper.The term trilateration refers to a three-point measurement used in GPS to determine the relative distance to a target. The six named apps fell into one of three categories of trilateration including exact distance trilateration in which a target is accurate to at least a 111m by 111m square (at the equator), round distance trilateration or oracle trilateration in which distance filters are used to approximate a rounded area much like a Venn diagram.Grindr is susceptible to exact distance trilateration while Happn falls under rounded distance trilateration. The remaining four fall under oracle trilateration despite the fact that Hinge and Hily hide the distances of its users, according to the paper.Karel Dhondt, one of the researchers involved in the study, told TechCrunch that a user with malicious intent could locate another user up to 2 meters away using oracle trilateration. This method involves the malicious user going to a rough estimate of the victim's location based on their profile and moving in increments until the victim is no longer in proximity along three different positions and triangulating the data to one spot.Bumbles vice president of global communication Gabrielle Ferree told the website that they swiftly resolved the issues outlined with its distance filter last year. Hily co-founder and chief technology officer Dmytro Kononov said in a statement that an investigation revealed a potential possibility for trilateration but exploiting this for attacks was impossible.Happn chief executive officer and president Karima Ben Adelmalek told TechCrunch they discussed trilateration with the Belgian researchers. He says that an additional layer of protection designed to prevent trilateration was not taken into account in their analysis.Grindrs chief privacy officer Kelly Peterson Miranda noted that users can disable their distance display from their profile. She also noted that Grindr users are in control of what location information they provide. Hinge did not respond with a comment.Other dating apps have taken extra steps to ensure its users are speaking to actual people and not spam bots or fake accounts. Tinder started requiring users in February in the US, UK, Brazil and Mexico to upload a copy of an official drivers license or passport along with a video selfie as part of a new advanced ID verification system.Update, July 31, 7:55PM ET: The story was updated to remove the statement that Badoo did not respond to a request for comment. As Badoo is owned by Bumble, Bumble VP Gabrielle Ferree's statement covers both brands.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/belgian-researchers-found-a-huge-privacy-hole-in-six-dating-apps-223227855.html?src=rss

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