This year it feels like robots are suddenly everywhere. Geneva airport is trialling a robotic "baggage butler". Adidas has announced it will make shoes at a German facility populated overwhelmingly by machines. We are already driving cars that make split-second corrections to our poor decisions, and Google and others are advancing ever closer to allowing us to simply sit back and let the vehicle do all of the work. There are retailers and logistics companies investigating the potential of drones delivering everything from groceries and takeaways to vital medicine and emergency aid, while various stories of robotic doctors, robotic bankers and robotic artificial intelligence are a newsfeed staple. This is really all as the science fiction of the 20th century predicted.

If you recall, back in March this year, there were reports that the Google-owned robotics engineering firm Boston Dynamics has been put up for sale. At that time Toyota and Amazon were named as possible buyers. Now, it is being reported that Toyota is in advanced talks with Google over a possible deal, with the report saying that the "ink is nearly dry." The financial details aren't yet known though. The report notes that Toyota plans to make Boston Dynamics part of the Toyota Research Institute (TRI), a recently-announced division (based in Silicon Valley) that focuses on artificial intelligence and robotics research.

Welcome to Mossberg, a weekly commentary and reviews column on The Verge and Recode by veteran tech journalist Walt Mossberg, now an Executive Editor at The Verge and Editor at Large of Recode. Fifteen years ago, when the time became ripe for post-PC devices that put a premium on integrating software and hardware, Apple was the best-positioned company to lead the charge -- and it did. The company's vertical integration, its attention to detail and innovation in both software and hardware, and its willingness to make big bets gave it an edge. And it used that edge to reel off its now-familiar string of game-changing products like the iPod, the iPhone, the MacBook Air, and the iPad. Now, the iPod is essentially gone, and the other products are in mature or maturing markets, with either pretty flat or dropping sales.

Amazon's Alexa personal assistant is super useful in the Echo and lot of fun to use. But if you don't have an Echo or can't buy one because you're outside of the US, it can be hard to appreciate Alexa's skill set. In light of this, Amazon has created a web app that lets you play with Alexa right in your browser. You can access the web app at echosim.io and it lets you ask Alexa all kinds of questions. What it doesn't let you experience is the always listening nature of the Echo device and its far field microphone array -- you have to click and hold a button on the site before you speak to it.

Bottom line: Enterprises are impatient to translate their investments in cloud apps and the insight they provide into business outcomes and solid results today. The more enterprises seek out insights to drive greater business outcomes, the more it becomes evident the era of the Intelligent Cloud has arrived. C-level execs are looking to scale beyond descriptive analytics that defines past performance patterns. What many are after is an entirely new level of insights that are prescriptive and cognitive. Getting greater insight that leads to more favorable business outcomes is what the Intelligent Cloud is all about.

Welcome to our 11th addition of The FR. This week, we discuss the coming of the robots to financial services and the Bitcoin civil war. We also take a look at "stack fallacy," Max Levchin's Affirm, IEX, Cornell's tech-infused MBA and the little digital bank on the prairie. Is Wall Street destined for Planet of the Robos? According to George Mason University's Robin D. Hanson, it's not a question of if but when the jobs of highly skilled, specialized workers are automated, since computers eventually will have the "mental powers" to do everything humans now do and more (See here).

On this Memorial Day weekend – traditional start of the racing season the US and the calendar home of the Indy 500 – we thought we'd take a look at the future of racing, and whether Ricky Bobby will find himself hammering it home in the driver's seat…or pushing fries in the concession stand. Racing leagues – including aptly-named Roborace – are popping up promising spectators the opportunity to see driverless cars compete in virtual battles of algorithms. Teams of researchers are taking algorithms similar to those already being used by major brands like Tesla and Google to put cars on the open road and put them to work on the racetrack. There is so much interest in the idea of pushing autonomous vehicle technologies to the extreme that track days have been set up to enable autonomous technologies developers to put their vehicles to he test on the track. Recently, Arrow Electronics broke records with its semi-autonomous vehicle at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

According to a new report from Business Insider, Apple is working on a new artificial intelligence system that will "wipe the floor" with all of its competitors. The major improvement to Siri is said to come from the company's acquisition of VocalIQ, a UK-based start-up that created artificial-intelligence software that helps computers and people speak to each other in a more natural dialogue. Before getting acquired, VocalIQ tested their technology against Siri, Google Now, and Cortana. With a question like "Find a nearby Chinese restaurant with open parking and WiFi that's kid-friendly" VocalIQ had a success rate over 90%. Google Now, Siri, and Cortana were only successful about 20% of the time.

QUETTA, PAKISTAN – The family of a driver who was killed alongside Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan has filed a case against U.S. officials, seeking to press murder charges, police said Sunday. Mansour had entered Pakistan from Iran using a false name and fake Pakistani identity documents on May 21, when his car was targeted by a U.S. drone. The driver, who was also killed, was later identified as Mohammed Azam. The police filed a case on behalf of Azam's family, police official Abdul Wakil Mengal said. It was not immediately clear what legal avenues the family can realistically pursue.