Google has hired comedy writers from Pixar and The Onion in a bid to make its smart assistant more likeable. It hopes to use their talent to'infuse personality' into its AI helper, which will be used in the firm's new Pixel phones, Duo app and Home speaker. The ultimate goal is to make users feel more emotionally connected to their personal software agent and the firm believes a livelier disposition could make this happen. In a world of order-taking machines, Google Assistant aims to be a comedian. The search giant has recently hired comedy writers from Pixar and The Onion, a satire newspaper, in order to'infuse personality' into its virtual assistant that will live in Google Home (pictured) Earlier this month, Google unveiled its Pixel smartphones and eagerly awaited Home speaker that will both be designed with the smart assistant.

Additionally, computer processing power has grown at an incredible rate while the cost of processing this data has decreased significantly, making AI more accessible. In fact, AI is everywhere, in nearly every app and device that we use every day. Apple's Siri leverages natural language processing to recognize voice commands. Facebook's deep learning facial recognition algorithm can instantly identify a person with nearly 98 percent accuracy. And Amazon, Netflix and Spotify all utilize machine learning to understand how each item in their massive catalogs not only relate to one another, but also each customer's preferences.

During a recent interview with Erik Lindberg, Senior Director for Westlaw Product Management, not only did I get the scoop on the latest emerging technologies from Westlaw, but I also got to pick his brain about how younger generations are influencing advancements in legal technology and the future of the legal industry. Take a look at his thoughts, and share your own ideas and experiences with us on social media. How are Gen Y and Gen Z attorneys driving advancements in legal technology? They're used to having the world in their pocket and being able to get information much more quickly. They consume and interact with information sources and technology in a completely different way than generations before.

Future conversations with your intelligent gadgets may be co-authored by your favorite comedy writers. It's not too great a leap: according to a Wall Street Journal report, comedy and joke writers from Pixar movies and the Onion are already working on making Google's upcoming Assistant AI voice service feel more loose and vibrant. The development of compelling voice AI will need to start drawing from deeper, more entertaining wells, especially as these home hubs try to have conversations all day long. Current voice AI like Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa on the Echo try to engage with personality, and they even tell jokes (usually, bad ones). But, as these services aim to be entirely voice-based, like the upcoming Google Home hub, they'll need to feel more alive and less canned. Google Home debuts this November, and the upcoming Google Pixel phone, arriving in stores and online on October 20, is the first Google product featuring the new Assistant voice service.

Sony's new a6500 and RX100 V and their blazing fast burst modes and impressive autofocus specs have prompted The Verge's Sean O'Kane to declare that we're living through nothing short of a revolution in photography: Quality aside, this type of feature is changing the basic exercise of photography, which is to capture a subject in a particular moment. This idea was famously framed by French photographer Henry Cartier-Bresson as "the decisive moment." It's the kind of tenet that gets beaten into the heads of anyone who takes photography classes in grade school and college, and it is on the verge of being wiped out by the pace of technology….we A photographer equipped with a camera like the RX100 Mark V will still have to anticipate the right moment to start firing, but there's far more room for error than ever before. "Spray and pray" is nothing new and what Sony has done is arguably less revolutionary than evolutionary–they've refined and improved upon an existing concept. And O'Kane is unquestionably right.

Last week Sony revealed that they've created two new pop songs by use of artificial intelligence. The songs were made at a Sony CSL Research Laboratory using the company's Flow Machines software which learns musical styles from a catalog of songs and then compiles various combos of style transfer, interaction techniques, and optimization. The French Composer Benoît Carré wrote the lyrics to the first song, "Daddy's Car," which has been characterized as being in the same style as the Beatles. He also produced and arranged the track with the help of Artificial Intelligence Flow Machines. The second of the two songs is titled "The Ballad of Mr. Shadow" and is similar in style to jazz artists such as Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Irving Berlin.

Funny artificial intelligence is nothing new. We might be used to Siri's bad jokes on our iPhones or messing with Amazon's Alexa. And recently an AI robot Sophia tried out a pickup line on Charlie Rose on 60 Minutes last week. Now Google has joined the trend of human-like artificial intelligence to make AI a little more fun. Its new assistant was developed in part by comedy writers from Pixar and The Onion, the satirical newspaper that is sometimes just too honest for these crazy times we live in, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Onion's satirical headlines can be pure gold.

Entrepreneurs need little convincing that technology is important, rapidly evolving, and likely to have a profound impact on their businesses. But keeping track of developments, and knowing where to focus one's attention, is anything but straightforward. Analysts at PricewaterhouseCoopers (pdf) say the impact of constant technological breakthroughs represent a "megatrend" – a change so big that "every business should develop an emerging technology strategy". They have highlighted eight key areas that all businesses should pay attention to. The artificial intelligence market is growing rapidly and forecast to be worth 36bn by 2025.

When action camera maker GoPro unveiled its Karma drone last month, it addressed one of the biggest issues with most high-end drones: Portability. With its foldable legs, the Karma is easier to transport from point A to point B and back again. Just days later, drone maker DJI responded with the Mavic Pro, its own foldable drone that, when packed, is smaller than a loaf of bread, and, like the Karma, also sized to be stashed away in a backpack. Despite its compact physique, the Mavic Pro has plenty of high-end features. It can see and avoid obstacles, track a subject as it moves, and automatically fly to a spot selected by the pilot.