Dear colleagues, Please find in in the following the reminder for our CfP on contributions Towards Omnipresent and Smart Speech Assistants: The functionality of digital voice assistant systems is constantly growing. The attractiveness of such devices is based on their ease of use as they allow to conduct online searches and orders as well as smart home services by simply calling up the device. However, the implications of voice-based interaction are not always clear to the user, especially since today's voice assistants are sometimes only better remote controls. In future, however, they should not only process simple commands, but also enable a natural and smooth interaction and be omnipresent. In addition to an improved speech recognition, this will require enhanced speech understanding and more intelligent dialog guidance. While state-of-the art systems are mainly conceptualized for young adults and middle-aged people, future systems should adapt to the user in order to meet the needs of different (vulnerable) user groups ranging from young children to the elderly. This will be accompanied by efforts to make systems more understandable and users more sophisticated. Consequently, legal aspects resulting from the spread of voice assistants and the stricter data protection regulations are important. The goal of this Research Topic is to present the latest advances - both from academia and industry - in the area of voice assistants. We aim at bringing together researchers from the disciplines of human-computer interaction, artificial intelligence, and human factors in order to promote interdisciplinary collaborations and cross-fertilization of ideas. More specifically, we are interested in exploring the current landscape and future directions for the emerging topic of voice assistants. This Research Topic provides an opportunity for scholars and researchers to contribute original research articles as well as review articles that will stimulate the continuing effort on the development of future voice assistants. In addition to methodological and theoretical contributions, we welcome practical applications at the intersection of artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, and human factors. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to the following: • Applications of voice assistants • Improvements in dialog handling and dialog management • Intelligent feedback and turn-taking technologies • “In the wild” studies of voice assistants • ubiquitous computing and omnipresent voice assistants • Reliability of modern voice assistants • Multi-party interactions – Current state and future directions • Aspects of perceived quality and user experience • Coping with uncertainty of voice understanding • Incorporation of additional speech-based user characteristics • Techniques enabling (automatic) learning • Explainable AI – Explain Explainable AI • Security issues – misbehavior, breaches and possible solutions • Ethical issues and persuasive interfaces • Privacy issues and their implications • Methods to measure and improve acceptance of speech assistants Manuscript Deadline: 24-March 2021 YES - I would like to participate: https://research-topic-management-app.frontiersin.org/manage/contributor-confirms-participation?activationkey=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 Topic Editors: Dr. Ingo Siegert, Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, Magdeburg, Germany Dr. Stefan Hillmann, Quality and Usability Lab, Institute for Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Technical University Berlin, Berlin, Germany Dr. Benjamin Weiss, Hanyang University, Seoul, South Korea Dr. Jessica Martina Szczuka, University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany Dr. Alexey Karpov, St. Petersburg Institute for Informatics and Automation of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SPIIRAS), St. Petersburg, Russia Visit the homepage for this Research Topic for a full description of the project:https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/16346 The submission deadline for this Research Topic is 24 March 2021. I look forward to your response. Kind Regards, Ingo Siegert Topic Editor, Human-Media Interaction Section, Frontiers in Computer Science On behalf of the Topic Editors.