Q: I got Amazon Echo for Christmas. It tells me the weather and plays music. What else can it do? It seems like a waste of money to me. A: At its core, Amazon's Echo is a Bluetooth speaker that responds to voice commands.

Amazon customers have been warned they could lose hundreds of pounds if they fall for a "convincing" fake email scam. Action Fraud, the UK's fraud and cyber-crime centre, said the spoofed emails from "service@amazon.co.uk" claims recipients have made an order online and mimic an automatic customer email notification. The number of people who have been sent the fake email is unclear, however Action Fraud said it had received several reports about the scam. The email claims shoppers have ordered products including an expensive vintage chandelier, Boses stereos, iPhone's and luxury watches. In order to get a shopper's financial information, the email cleverly states that if the recipient didn't authorised the transaction they can click on the help centre link to receive a full refund.

It is, of course, wise and beneficial to peer ahead for potential dangers and problems -- one of the central tasks of high-end science fiction. Alas, detecting that a danger lurks is easier than prescribing solutions to prevent it. Take the plausibility of malignant Artificial Intelligence, remarked-upon recently by luminaries ranging from Stephen Hawking to Elon Musk to Francis Fukuyama (Our Post-Human Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution). Some warn that the arrival of sapient, or super- sapient machinery may bring an end to our species – or at least its relevance on the cosmic stage – a potentiality evoked in many a lurid Hollywood film. Nick Bostrom takes an in-depth look at the future of augmented human and a revolution in machine intelligence in his recent book -- Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies -- charting possible hazards, failure modes and spectacular benefits as machines match and then exceed our human levels of intelligence. Taking middle ground, SpaceX/Tesla entrepreneur Elon Musk has joined with Y-Combinator founder Sam Altman to establish Open AI, an endeavor that aims to keep artificial intelligence research – and its products – accountable by maximizing transparency and accountability.

Our aim is to demonstrate the capabilities of modern computer vision and graphics technology, and convey it in an approachable and fun way. We want to emphasize that computer-generated videos have been part in feature-film movies for over 30 years. Virtually every high-end movie production contains a significant percentage of synthetically-generated content (from Lord of the Rings to Benjamin Button). These results are hard to distinguish from reality and it often goes unnoticed that the content is not real. The novelty and contribution of our work is that we can edit pre-recorded videos in real-time on a commodity PC.

Okay, here's a weird one: Chinese drone manufacturer DJI has reportedly bought a majority stake in famous camera brand Hasselblad. The news comes from TechCrunch and photography website Luminous Landscape, both claiming inside sources have confirmed the as-yet unannounced deal. Details are beyond sketchy, since neither company has spoken to journalists to confirm or deny the transaction so far. The story, as Luminous Landscape tells it, is that Hasselblad was finally coming out of its death slide with the launch of the new X1D mirrorless compact camera. But producing the device was too costly for the cash-strapped business, and the venture firm that bought it in 2011 was unwilling to put in more capital.

"At Altek, we are constantly striving to enhance our digital image solutions and set the direction for the future of smarter imaging devices," said Jason Lin, General Manager and Corporate Senior Vice President of Altek. "CEVA's imaging and vision DSP provides the platform which allows us to further enhance the image quality of our solutions and push the boundaries of what a camera can do using artificial intelligence and advanced vision algorithms." "Altek is a proven leader in imaging, with a strong track record in the smartphone space and we are excited to work with them," said, Ilan Yona, vice president and general manager of CEVA's Vision Business Unit. "The combination of Altek's advanced imaging technologies along with our DSP-based vision and machine learning offering creates one of the most intelligent digital imaging solutions on the market today." CEVA's latest generation imaging and vision DSP platforms address the extreme processing requirements and low power constraints of the most sophisticated machine learning and machine vision applications used in smartphones, surveillance, augmented reality, sense and avoid drones and self-driving cars.

The Season 12 premiere finally answered questions about Zack (Eric Millegan) and revealed the identity of The Puppeteer. Now, the Jeffersonian can get back to solving grisly murders every week. In Season 12, episode 2, the team will have an interesting case in their hands. According to the synopsis (via SpoilerTV), the FBI discovers the body of man who created artificial intelligence. The promo reveals that the crime scene is teeming with evidence.

True, set manufacturers are bombarding consumers with a whole series of buzzwords -- OLED, 4K, 8K, HDR, QLED, wide color gamut -- intended to spur excitement and generate sales. Flashy new sets with these supposedly "must have" features are getting the spotlight Wednesday at the annual CES gadget show in Las Vegas. But when it comes down to it, none of these amount to revolutionary improvements for your living room. Set manufacturers may not have run out of technological tricks yet, but for this year, at least, they're reduced to improving what's already out there. "That's a good thing," said Gartner analyst Brian Blau, looking for the bright side.

From winning Jeopardy in 2011 to helping write a sad song last year, IBM's Watson cognitive computing platform is all over popular culture. Press releases fly out about Watson producing a movie trailer, powering a Macy's shopping app, even controlling lights on an internet-connected dress--along with more serious applications like working on cancer treatments. It seems, from IBM's hype, that Watson can do everything. But Bernie Meyerson, IBM's chief innovation officer, wants to dial back the hype in some ways, calling Watson "just the first step on a very, very long road." Watson can be helpful in a lot of industries, such as medicine, which are awash in data, but it can't replace people, he says.

All the media drones fly early, at once, at the bell. Get lots of comfy gel around our eyes and ears to make sure we can stay looped in for a good long time. Fifty years ago, people wondered if journalists, or "professional" media, would still exist. It does, now, but it's sometimes indistinguishable from its homegrown social media counterpart. Even more filter bubbles, because no one really wants to be truly alone.