Blue Ridge Technology

AI Voice Assistant Pros & Cons Does your business get the same three phone calls multiple times a day? For lots of local businesses, questions like “What time do you open/close” and “Can I schedule/change my appointment” account for 50% or more of incoming phone calls. This is normal, but it’s fair to wonder: how much of your team’s time is going to answering the same basic questions, over and over and over? AI voice assistants are a hot new technology, and they may be more in reach than you’d expect. What Is an AI Voice Assistant? An AI voice assistant can take in natural language from callers, determine intent, and then provide an answer in response, also in audible natural language. It’s not like the old interactive voice response (IVR) systems — think “press 1 for sales” or “say ‘account balance’ to hear your balance”. Rather than using complicated menus of pre-planned responses, AI voice assistants give callers the ability to describe what they need in their own words. The bes...

The Fight of Cybercriminals ​Cybercriminals and ransomware groups are targeting each other. But bad guys are still bad guys, and this new development doesn’t lessen your risk. Even if you think you’ve seen everything when it comes to what cybercriminals are willing to do, this one may come as a shock. Recently, several high-profile ransomware groups and cybercriminal rings have themselves gotten hacked. The culprit wasn’t a government or law enforcement agency. It was another group of bad guys. And while this might sound like good news at first, it really isn’t. We’ll explain what you need to know below. What’s Happening: Cybercriminals Are Targeting Each Other In the last couple of years, various cyber gangs have gotten into online turf wars not all that different from what you might see portrayed in your favorite crime drama. Only instead of drugs and guns, these gangs deal in stolen data and malware. BlackFog r eported last year on two cases , though there have been many more....