Amazon is bringing its voice assistant to British television screens with the latest edition of its popular Fire TV stick. The £40 ($50) stick that transforms any TV screen into a streaming device will now come with Alexa - the female helper from Amazon Echo. The update will let viewers quickly search for content and rewind programmes using only their voice. Viewers can speak to the bot through an in-built microphone on the device's remote control TV viewers will be able to speak to Alexa through a microphone built into the device's remote control. The bot will be able to understand entertainment-specific commands such as'skip back 10 minutes' and'find suspense thrillers'.

How is technology shaping the healthcare sector and what is on the horizon? A digital healthcare transformation is taking place globally that will have an immense impact on patients and providers alike. Rise in patient engagement and mobile technologies - We will see a trend toward more patient involvement in their own healthcare that will be impacted by two factors. First, the healthcare industry continues to invest in the creation of online information, mobile applications, and personal health devices. This translates into increased consumer engagement to enhance health in three important areas, according to a recent survey[1]: partnering with providers, tapping online resources, and relying on technology.

Artificial intelligence has a new job: setting a good example for your kids. It seems that children's behaviour can be influenced by the personality of a robot companion – playing with an enthusiastic or attentive robot, for instance, made them engage more and work harder. Researchers ran a series of experiments with Tega, a companion robot that looks like a cross between a Furby and a Teletubby. To test how the robot's personality could affect the children's behaviour, they programmed the robot with different responses. "The goal is to have a companion that has all of the behaviours that we want to instil and promote in the child," says team member Goren Gorden at Tel Aviv University in Israel.

I recently returned from a vacation to find that Google's algorithms had created a customized slide show of my trip. I hadn't asked for one. But the company's software robots apparently noticed I'd traveled somewhere and taken a flurry of photos, which likely indicated I'd been vacationing. Now, I actually enjoy some of Google's simpler customization tools, like autocomplete. But this unbidden slide-show curation seemed too humanlike.

Here's how science works: You have a question about some infinitesimal sliver of the universe. You form a hypothesis, test it, and eventually gather enough data to support or disprove what you thought was going on. The next bit is less glamorous: You write a manuscript, submit it to an academic journal, and endure the gauntlet of peer review, where a small group of anonymous experts in your field scrutinize the quality of your work. Peer review has its flaws. Human beings (even scientists) are biased, lazy, and self-interested.

Twitter has reportedly started "ghost-deleting" tweets as part of its crackdown on offensive content. The company recently announced a new set of safety features designed to protect users from online abuse, including something called'safe search'. This hides tweets containing "potentially sensitive content" and tweets from blocked and muted accounts from users' search results, though Twitter said that the content will continue to exist. However, according to Twitter user @SuperNerdCow, the site has gone a step further, hiding one of his tweets from all users, even when they enter the update's URL. Twitter has ghost-deleted my Tweet.

When I started at O&M in 2004, I was working for an IT client. The split between offline advertising and online activities was 80% / 20%. By 2007, it was the opposite. With the rise of online, we started the long race of personalisation; digital marketing helped us to adapt the way we communicate on brands. We could segment better and send more specific communication for a lower budget!

And it all feels a little familiar. The company has re-invented the status tool – which until now has only offered the option to put a piece of text next to your name, like "at the gym" – so that it takes one of Snapchat's most central and celebrated features. And it is just the latest Facebook company to do so – with everything from Instagram to Facebook's own app taking its competitors innovations. People will now be able to share photos and videos as "statuses", in a similar way to how stories work on Snapchat and now Instagram. Rather than simply posting text, they will be able to add pictures that will show for all their friends – until they are automatically deleted.

Amazon is bringing the next generation of its excellent Fire TV Stick to the UK, updating the device with Alexa, expanded voice search capabilities and a new user interface. The addition of Alexa support is undoubtedly the most notable upgrade. The artificial intelligence assistant is widely recognised as the best in the game, powering Amazon's Echo speakers, and is set to land on a range of new product categories in the near future, including cars, phones, fridges and TVs. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar. Japan's On-Art Corp's CEO Kazuya Kanemaru poses with his company's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot'TRX03' and other robots during a demonstration in Tokyo, Japan Japan's On-Art Corp's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot'TRX03' performs during its unveiling in Tokyo, Japan Singulato Motors co-founder and CEO Shen Haiyin poses in his company's concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China A picture shows Singulato Motors' concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China Connected company president Shigeki Tomoyama addresses a press briefing as he elaborates on Toyota's "connected strategy" in Tokyo.

Where is the data stored and who has access to it? How is my personal data shared? Today many mobile apps are connected to trackers that collect personal information and sell it.