Smartphones are great devices, but not for everything. There are often times when having a device on you is the last thing you need, particularly if you are not using the screen. Amazon, Google and Apple are all betting that screen-less, intelligent, voice interaction will play a large role in the future of the internet at least in the home (if not the office, the car etc.). This article looks at some of the trends and recent announcements that suggest that voice control interfaces linked to artificial intelligence (AI) platforms is the future of the internet. There were two major milestones in the technology calendar this week.

"In sum: Alexa is kinda my new best friend," writes Rebecca, an author and blogger on Mommyproof. As a mother of young children, it's not hard to see why: Rebecca details the joys of virtual assistant Amazon Echo, which functions as a kind of combined kitchen helper, child entertainer and DJ. "Is it weird that Alexa feels like my trusty little friend during that six pm witching hour, gently guiding me through dinnertime?" Rebecca's not alone: Other parent bloggers have touted the device's family-friendly uses when it comes to child care and household tasks. Many of these "mommy blog" posts are sponsored by Amazon in an ad campaign explicitly geared toward families with young children. In one recent television spot for the device, a young father excitedly purchases an Echo and watches as Alexa slowly becomes an integral part of the household.

IN THE CLASSIC SCI-FI NOVEL "the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," an alien visiting Earth names himself Ford Perfect based on the assumption that cars are the dominant form of life on this planet. It's an understandable mistake when you look at our cities today. These hunks of metal consume vast amounts of our money, space and natural resources--and sit idle 95% of the time. At the beginning of the book, the Earth is destroyed to make way for an intergalactic highway. But unless we rapidly reimagine urban transportation, cities risk imploding under the weight of more than a billion cars.

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Some business pundits today believe innovation ignites better in startups than in large, established corporations. They believe big companies are weighed down by their own success, too invested in the past to create and execute new ideas. They say, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks." In fact, a lot of big companies have proven they are better positioned than emergent firms to create and execute innovation, however on-fire a startup may be. Consider, for example, Hasbro's evolution from a product company in the 1990s into the brand experience powerhouse it is today by leveraging its core brands (for example, spreading Transformers across multiple platforms including toys, movies, theme park rides, television shows, digital gaming systems, and comic books; the venerable New York Times, published since September 18, 1851, reinvented itself in the digital age as New York Times digital; General Motors, in partnership with Lyft, plans to test a fleet of self-driving Chevrolet Bolt electric taxis on public roads to lead the transformation of the auto industry; and at barely two decades old, Google is a comparative youngster but has leaped from the web to the street with tangible new products, such as its self-driving car and betting on new technologies such as artificial intelligence and robotics. Corporations like these have the assets, resources, and capabilities necessary to fuel innovation.

Given the pace of how technology is changing and developing these days, what can only be considered as science fiction in the past could become a reality in the next decade. The artificial intelligence or AI is projected to balloon to a 70 billion industry by 2020, according to an IDC research, cited by the Bank of America as reported by Fortune. That is a significant milestone coming from the 8.2 billion industry value in 2013. AI is already being used in data analytics and web search systems, and driverless cars and service robots are also under development. With that, the future where AI will be changing people's everyday life doesn't seem that distant. Speaking to a crowd of tech leaders at a conference hosted last week by Recode, an online publication, Tesla Motors and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said that AI and machines have the potential to be so sophisticated that humans may need to be injected with "neural laces" that would link them to the computers so they could keep up with them.

What If robots decide to take over the world one day? Well… Alphabet Inc (the parent company of Google) has that same thought, that's why the company is developing a'kill switch', just in case, an artificial intelligence system turns evil. To put our minds at ease the tech giant has even published a paper which outlines Deep Mind's plans to ensure that'The Terminator' doesn't become a reality. DeepMind, a Google subsidiary tasked with creating advancements in artificial intelligent technology has already managed to make an AI system capable of beating the world's best Go players. An endeavour that was thought to be impossible by many including the world champion of Go, Lee Sedol.

Late Night host Seth Meyers sits down with USA TODAY's Jefferson Graham to talk tech--why Facebook is funnier than Twitter, his thoughts on drones and hyperloops, his home app of choice and why he won't buy the Amazon Echo. "I couldn't live without my iPhone, but if I have to hit a reply, I'm so much happier having a Blackberry," says Meyers in a #TalkingTech interview here. He likes iPhone for surfing and quick replies, but the physical keyboard of the BlackBerry for writing jokes and longer e-mail replies. The host of NBC's Late Night with Seth Meyers (Monday through Friday, 12:35 AM) regularly turns to tech in his monologues, where gadgets, apps and websites are often just as relevant as the day's headlines. He recently took on presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in the segment "Hillary Clin-Tron Tech Genius," for not being as tech savvy as he would have liked, roasting her for such sins as admitting that she didn't know how to charge an Apple iPad or operate the fax (yes, fax) machine. The former Saturday Night Live troupe player and writer describes himself as "pretty good for a 42-year-old, and pretty terrible for an 18-year-old.

For the past half decade, the technology industry has been racing to build better cameras into the hardware we use every day. Yet the surveillance age has inspired an odd cottage industry battling against this trend: a glut of cheap stickers and branded plastic slides designed to cover up the front-facing cameras on phones, laptops and even televisions. For years, security researchers have shown that hackers can hijack the cameras to spy on whomever is on the other end. To put that in perspective, think of all the things your devices have seen you do. Such warnings have finally caught on.

Microsoft has announced a new summer update for the Xbox One console, which will include support for the company's digital personal assistant, Cortana, and will more closely align the console with Windows 10 PCs. A more unified online store will offer both PC and console titles, and Xbox One will also be able to support some Windows apps. Microsoft is calling the Xbox One version of Cortana a "personal gaming assistant". As on PC and smartphone, she is able to learn your current whereabouts and where your key locations are, so you'll be able to ask it, while you're playing a game at home, how long it'll take you to get to work. Any information you request from Cortana will be displayed in a panel at the side of the main game screen.