Rocker Chris Cornell, who gained fame as the lead singer of the bands Soundgarden and later Audioslave, has died at age 52, according to his representative. Cornell, who had been on tour, died Wednesday night in Detroit, Brian Bumbery said in a statement to The Associated Press. Bumbery called the death "sudden and unexpected" and said his wife and family were shocked by it. The statement said the family would be working closely with the medical examiner to determine the cause and asked for privacy. With his powerful, nearly four-octave vocal range, Cornell was one of the leading voices of the 1990s grunge movement with Soundgarden, which emerged as one of the biggest bands out of Seattle's emerging music scene, joining the likes of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains.

To borrow a cliché opening from the last high school commencement or Maid of Honor speech you heard, the dictionary defines artificial intelligence (AI) as 1: a branch of computer science dealing with the simulation of intelligent behavior in computers; and 2: the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior. But, do these definitions really explain the difference between an artificially intelligent system and one that's just programmed to be useful? What is "intelligent" behavior or, more specifically, "intelligent human behavior"? For many, the term "artificial intelligence" draws to mind humanoid robots like C-3PO from "Star Wars" or Dolores from "Westworld."

More and more people are using the phrase "Ok Google" to start a conversation to find information or perform actions using the Google Assistant. Launched last fall, the new assistant is already available on over 100 million devices and is rapidly evolving. Today at Google I/O, its creator took the stage to discuss how Google Assistant is expanding its capabilities and reach on smartphones and Google Home. Google Home, a standalone voice activated smart-appliance and speaker, is getting the most attention, with a number of significant improvements on the way. In a few months, Google Home will be able to make hands-free VOIP calls to any phone in the U.S. or Canada for free.

LOS ANGELES – Modern movie culture would have you believe artificial intelligence is out to kill us all. In "2001: A Space Odyssey," Hal, the AI computer aboard a space flight to Jupiter, develops a mind of its own and turns against the crew. "The Terminator" makes his mission clear in the movie's title. Ava, the pretty-faced android in "Ex Machina," has a killer instinct. David, the pretty-faced android in "Prometheus," also doesn't have the best intentions for human survival.

In recent years, a host of Hollywood blockbusters -- including "The Fast and the Furious 7," "Jurassic World," and "The Wolf of Wall Street" -- have included aerial tracking shots provided by drone helicopters outfitted with cameras. Those shots required separate operators for the drones and the cameras, and careful planning to avoid collisions. But a team of researchers from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and ETH Zurich hope to make drone cinematography more accessible, simple, and reliable. At the International Conference on Robotics and Automation later this month, the researchers will present a system that allows a director to specify a shot's framing -- which figures or faces appear where, at what distance. Then, on the fly, it generates control signals for a camera-equipped autonomous drone, which preserve that framing as the actors move.

Amazon announced that its virtual assistant Alexa will soon be able to deliver notifications, including telling you to go for a run if the weather is nice. Users will be able to enable notifications for specific updates about news, the weather and shopping. Skills like AccuWeather will provide weather updates, The Washington Post will provide breaking news alerts, and Just Eat will give food order confirmations. Amazon Echo is a voice-controlled smart speaker that works alongside a smartphone app. Using a virtual assistant called Alexa, the speaker can respond to voice commands from the user, such as setting an alarm or ordering a cab.

The debate surrounding the use of artificial intelligence in marketing is usually a controversial one. In the eyes of pop culture, advanced technology, like artificial intelligence, evokes views of imminent dystopias. One of the most memorable books I read recently was Dave Eggers' chilling dystopia The Circle, which was released as a movie last month. The story revolves around ambitious young go-getter Mae Holland who joins a growing tech company that aims to complete the "circle" of information sharing (which would eliminate any notions of privacy). This is a world in which advanced technology is a ubiquitous and seamless part of everyday life, so much so that we don't stop to question its existence.

USA TODAY's Jefferson Graham says Google Home is improved but is still a work in progress with some gaping holes. LOS ANGELES -- Google announced new features for its Google Home personal assistant product Wednesday, with one key catch-up to rival Amazon -- free phone calls to the United States and Canada mobile and landline phones. Google Home, which is a distant No. 2 in the personal digital assistant speaker market to Amazon's Echo speaker line, announced many new tools for the Home that tap into the Google Assistant. The assistant is Google's answer to Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana and Samsung's Bixby and looks to use voice computing for both search and daily tasks. In Google's vision of the utopian world, we would use Google Home to answer basic search questions.

Google is expected to give the crowd a look at new twists in its Android software for mobile devices. Executives are also likely to detail plans for expanding the reach and capabilities of a voice-controlled digital assistant currently available on some smartphones and an internet-connected speaker called Home. Some of the unveiled products won't be out until later this year.

Google Home is barely six months old, and Google is piling on new features. On Wednesday at its I/O developer conference in Mountain View, the company announced upgrades focused on personalizing your interactions and making them hands-free. Presented by Rishi Chandra, Google's Vice President for Home Products, the new features leapfrog Amazon's popular Echo assistant in some ways, while in other ways Google is just catching up. "A phone call is still the easiest way" to communicate with others, Chandra said, as he announced the availability of hands-free calling for Google Home. "Just ask the Google assistant to make the call and we can connect you to any land or cell line in the U.S. or Canada completely free," he said.