The hype machinery is kicking into high gear with all types of vendors touting offerings, and even leadership, in the emerging markets for machine learning and Artificial Intelligence, or AI. The big vendors want in on the action too. Salesforce claims it's Einstein delivers'AI for Everyone' (does E AI2?!). IBM has been positioning Watson as the AI solution for business--accidentally leaving the door open for a more astute Sherlock to steal the show. Journalists, writers, filmmakers, and even the average "Joe blogger" have been sharing their visions of what a machine learning and AI future hold.

Every day, millions of people make buying decisions based on search – products to buy, restaurants in the neighborhood, and tons of other choices. According to the Nielsen Report "Global Trust in Advertising" however, while consumers rely on online opinions or price comparisons, more often than not, it's word-of-mouth recommendations that are the most effective. The most credible advertising comes straight from the people we know and trust, and over 83% of respondents completely or somewhat trust the suggestions of friends and family. So when we make a final decision to buy, it's reasonable to assume that we ask a spouse, relatives or close friends for advice. After all, they are the ones who know us, our tastes, preferences, sense of fashion, etc.

The wide angle lenses introduce unpleasant distortion, and the small camera sensors can't produce those blurry backgrounds we see in higher-end portraits. Roughly 24 billion selfies were added to the Google Photos service in 2016, according to the company. Most of them, we're not ashamed to say, were garbage. So, when Adobe showed off a "sneak peek" video in which a man makes a run-of-the-mill selfie look like a pro-grade (or at least enthusiast-level) portrait, it seemed like magic. However, most of the retouching technology on display already exists in Adobe's arsenal--but now the company is leveraging artificial intelligence to bring those advanced capabilities into the one-tap world of smartphone photo editing.

If you're an Apple Watch owner, you might be wondering why there's no Spotify app for your favorite wrist computer. Developer Andrew Chang aimed to remedy that oversight with his own app, Snowy. Back in February, though, Chang was contacted by Spotify, who thought that the app, then called Spotty, was too much like Spotify in its name and interface. However, the company must've been impressed with Chang's work. Now it's hired him to work on an official app.

Have you seen Ex Machina (2015)? A smart man creates a smart robot girl, Ava. This machine turned out to be more intelligent then its creator. Or have you seen Her (2013)? A lonely writer falls in love with Samantha, his intelligent computer operating system with accelerated learning capability.

A couple of weeks ago, the authority that oversees broadcast licensing in Germany concluded that internet streaming services should be subject to the same licensing imposed on broadcast radio and television. The focus is on Twitch.tv This will be a test case for the entire world as governments and tax authorities realize they are missing out on license fees and the ability to regulate to these services. What engrained power structure could resist? In the early 1900s there was a radio craze not unlike the personal computer revolution of the 70s and 80s. Hobbyist magazines quickly evolved into a commercial enterprise.

I've been reading about Gcam, the Google X project that was first sparked by the need for a tiny camera to fit inside Google Glass, before evolving to power the world-beating camera of the Google Pixel. Gcam embodies an atypical approach to photography in seeking to find software solutions for what have traditionally been hardware problems. Well, others have tried, but those have always seemed like inchoate gimmicks, so I guess the unprecedented thing about Gcam is that it actually works. But the most exciting thing is what it portends. I think we'll one day be able to capture images without any photographic equipment at all. Now I know this sounds preposterous, but I don't think it's any more so than the internet or human flight might have once seemed.

Weekday afternoons, millions of Americans -- many stuck in rush-hour traffic -- learn the business news of the day from Kai Ryssdal, a former Navy pilot and host of the public radio show Marketplace. "I spend almost as much time with Kai Ryssdal as I do with my own husband," joked Sally Kilbridge of Scottsdale, Ariz., who toughs out her more than two-hour-a-day commute by listening to public radio. Marketplace, which is produced in downtown Los Angeles by American Public Media, is the most popular business program broadcast in the U.S., with an average of 14.6 million listeners a week. In the last year, the 28-year-old program has seen its audience grow 16% -- benefiting from Americans' increased appetite for news. Hoping to capitalize on its success, Marketplace has launched an ambitious plan to remain a vital source for economic information as consumers' listening habits change, putting a strain the traditional broadcast model.

Once the preserve of videographers with big production budgets, drones have now dropped in price by up to 30%, and not a day go by without a new drone being announced. Just recently DJI announced the latest addition to its Phantom range, the DJI Phantom 4. So 4K video shooting and high definition aerial photography can now be all yours for around £500. So here's a look at just what you can do with a drone… not all of them are entirely serious. The trouble with starting out on your own as a freelance photographer or videographer is that you're entering an incredibly crowded market. There are a lot of good people out there, using a lot of good kit, and it's tough to stand out.

In China's quest to shed its reputation as a land of copycats, the world's second-biggest economy is pouring resources in to the hottest area in technology innovation: artificial intelligence. With the goal of nurturing world-class companies that can compete with the likes of Google and IBM in building intelligent machines, the Chinese leadership singled out AI as a key area of development in a report released during the National People's Congress in March. Soon after, the country's biggest technology companies -- Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent -- announced plans for AI laboratories and projects worth billions of dollars.