Artificial intelligence (AI) will emerge as a key marketing point in the smartphone industry next year, with the world's leading handset manufacturers scrambling to add more AI functions to their upcoming flagship devices. The move comes as big data technology, allowing devices to make human-like predictions, has been identified as a core feature for a paradigm shift in the global handset market which has stagnated in recent years. The weak growth has been attributed to toughened rivalry among existing players and a slowdown in terms of technological innovations from industry-leading handset makers ― such as Samsung Electronics and Apple ― according to observers. According to market researcher Gartner, the smartphone market has reached 90 per cent penetration in key global markets this year - including the United States, Europe and Japan ― where lifecycles for premium handsets are extended to 2.5 years on average. The trend will prolong over the next five years, added the firm.

Rumors are flying about the latest Samsung flagship smartphone. Presumably to be called the Galaxy S8, it'll attempt to revive Samsung's burned edges from the Galaxy Note7 debacle. Here's everything we have heard so far about what Samsung is putting together. The details are pretty much in the rumor category at this point, but we'll continually update this article as we get more information. The latest Samsung phone usually wins the "best display" crown from Displaymate.

With the advent of faster communication platforms across devices, today's customer is willing to connect with service providers through new channels (social media, self-help, online assistance, live chat etc.) and seek a more seamless and simpler customer experience. Customer also demands a faster grievance capture. Here we look at the latest inventions in the area of machine learning and natural language processing and the benefits a communication service provider can derive from these while attaining efficient handling of customer's requests. With the advent of IVR (Interactive Voice Response) some of the activities were moved to machine interaction thereby reducing call volumes to the CSRs. To keep the key presses minimal, only few services are provided on IVRs.

The Huawei Mobile Broadband Forum in Tokyo this week had tongues wagging about all the possibilities in a new 5G world. While the Chinese tech company would be behind the infrastructure that delivers 5G, the emphasis was on the next generation of apps that such pipes could bring. Whether it's driverless cars or simply cars with artificial intelligence to help humans drive safer and smarter, the amount of data involved makes a 5G mobile network imperative. The showfloor had several examples of this, including a Toshiba concept which had the car talking to the driver to advise on safety, navigation and fuel stops. Virtual and augmented reality was mentioned liberally during the forum.

Humanoid robots who are all named Pepper, are greeting shoppers in two Westfield malls in California. They will be at the malls during the holiday season and might go well beyond that, according to Steve Carlin, the vice president and general manager for Softbank Robotics America. The friendly robots welcome the shoppers to the mall, dance with them, or play games with them like card matching. The Pepper robots can also take selfies and teach six languages to anyone who's interested, as well as conduct a customer service survey. Pepper ready to welcome visitors (Image Credit: SFGate) There's no plan to replace human clerks with the robots, though.

A survey in 2013 by Vincent C. Müller and Nick Bostrom asked hundreds of scientists when they believe machines will achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI), meaning human-level intelligence. The median years for 10, 50, and 90 percent probability of reaching AGI were 2022, 2040, and 2075, respectively. But, there are still many challenges to reaching human-level intelligence. The first is domain limitation. Today's artificial intelligence primarily applies a mathematical approach that can solve a finite set of statements for a finite set of terms described under a finite set of rules.

Mobile internet applications are evolving rapidly. Cognitive computing technologies will inspire telecom service providers to profoundly change their business model in new creative ways. Deploying intelligent voice control apps on smartphones was just the beginning of this trend. As an example, mobile network operators are increasing their investment in big data analytics and machine learning technologies as they transform into digital application developers and cognitive service providers. With a long history of handling huge datasets, and with their path now led by the IT ecosystem, mobile operators will devote more than $50 billion to big data analytics and machine learning technologies through 2021, according to the latest global market study by ABI Research. "Machine learning-based predictive analytics are applicable to all aspects of the telecom business," said Joe Hoffman, vice president at ABI Research.

Customer: I want to know how to activate the voice mail service. Company: The voice mail service is already active on your SIM. Customer: How much does it cost? Company: The cost of the service, from your mobile phone in Italy is 12.40 cents per call. Here is an example for a conversation with a diligent customer service clerk at a telecommunications company.

Wireless carrier competition in the U.S. is white hot -- analysts increasingly see signs of wireless market saturation, meaning that growth is most likely going to come from competitors. Of the four major U.S. carriers, T-Mobile USA has led the way, slashing prices, killing the two-year contract and daring its competitors to follow suit. As competition intensifies, Finnish mobile technology provider Nokia believes customer service will emerge as an even more important key differentiator, and analytics and machine learning will take customer service to the next level in the U.S. and around the globe. In 2011, when AT&T announced its intention to acquire T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom, it looked like the wireless market in the U.S. was well on its way to becoming a duopoly. Verizon Wireless and AT&T already held the lion's share of customers between them, and they both held licenses to the majority of wireless spectrum too.

We are on the verge of a very fast rate of technological change. If you think the Internet and mobile communications have changed the world, just wait. Coming years will be even more disruptive and amazing. When most people ponder technology they default to thoughts about compute power and its limitations. In 1965 Gordon Moore, the cofounder of Intel theorized that processing power should be capable of doubling every 18-24 months.