Like many tech enthusiasts, I've been using a $180 Amazon Echo intelligent speaker at my home for a year or more. And, while I love using it for some things -- playing music and podcasts, setting timers, and re-ordering items from Amazon -- I've come to realize that, like Apple's Siri and all other virtual assistants, its Alexa voice-driven artificial intelligence system disappoints a lot. So I was excited to test Google Home, the $129 Echo competitor that puts the search giant's much-touted new Google Assistant intelligence technology inside a small, but powerful Echo-like speaker and microphone unit. Surely, I thought, after collecting all that info about the world (and about me) for years and years, Google would crush Amazon in the home-intelligence race. But after nearly a week of using two Google Home units in two different rooms, my conclusions are decidedly mixed.

"The law is an ass," said Charles Dickens. That may be so but it is a predictable one at that. Researchers at University College London, the University of Sheffield and the University of Pennsylvania applied an AI algorithm to the judicial decisions of 584 cases that went through the European Court of Human Rights and found patterns in the text. Having learned from these cases, the algorithm was able to predict the outcome of other cases with 79 percent accuracy. Interestingly, it was found that rather than legal argument being predictive of case outcomes, the most reliable factors were non-legal elements: language used, topics covered and circumstances mentioned in the case text.

OK, now this is clever. That was my reaction when I asked Google Home, "What's the temperature inside?" and it replied, "It's currently 73 degrees, but the Nest is set to 65." Google's hyper-aware, voice-activated speaker dishes up a lot of surprising answers, and it's smarter, better sounding, and better looking than Amazon Echo. At $129, Google Home also beats the Echo's current price by $51. That's significant, because the two digital assistants promise essentially the same features and benefits. And both let you control other smart home devices with voice commands.

There's a place where the internet, Wi-Fi, and GPS do not exist. Communication is haphazard: Sometimes messages arrive different times at the same place, the same time at different places, or not at all. For scientists talking to submarines, robots, and other instruments, data travels at dial-up speeds of single bytes per minute--far slower than the megabits per second we use in the office or at home. Oceanographic researchers have gotten around the problem by connecting devices to tethers of fiber optic cable or copper wires, which provide enough bandwidth to stream images of the Titanic or weird creatures that live around underwater volcanic hot springs. But the heavy cables can also get tangled, dragging down the vehicles they connect.

After years of steady growth, innovation and sometimes disappointment, the robotics market is heating up on several fronts amid some new breakthroughs in the arena. Both the industrial and service robotics markets are hot. In addition, the consumer market is seeing a new level of interest, as the industry is invaded by the next wave of so-called personal assistant robots or social robots for the home. Asus, Blue Frog Robotics, InGen, Jibo, NEC, Samsung and others are developing various personal assistant robots for consumers. In addition, a number of companies from China are also developing them. Personal assistant robots might be the next big thing. "If successful, Jibo (and its competitors) could usher in a new consumer electronics market--social robots for the home," said Dan Kara, an analyst at ABI Research. "Personal robots, often called social robots, are technically advanced robots that interact directly with people and are designed to assist in the home, or to act as a companion," Kara said.

Boltt: Boltt fitness wearables is a step ahead in technological innovation. We have developed a way to do away with fragmented fitness solutions and are introducing intuitive'connected solutions.' Artificial Intelligence is the next step in every segment, and it is evident from the way tech giants have been involved in its development which also indicates it to be a space which still has a lot unexplored. We have thereby put our efforts in discovering the capabilities of AI technology, and we were thrilled to see its magnanimity. The industry today is heaped with wearable fitness brands which evidently lacks in offering personal coaching.

"The Next Voice You Hear Will Be Your Own" – Jackson Browne You know how things can sneak up on you, particularly trends. There are dribs and drabs and all of a sudden a swirling tornado of evidence that something is happening? I have had that experience these last few weeks with a realization that the phenomenon of voice will likely be the next meaningful user interface in healthcare. We may all be excited by man-made artifacts like artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), 3D, and a multiplicity of other two-letter acronyms that spring from the minds of engineers, but the natural human thing that is our voice may well be the most interesting 200,000-year overnight sensation to bring meaning to medicine. I remember back as far as college, when dinosaurs still roamed the earth and iPhones were just a twinkle in Steve Jobs' eye, that I took part in some student experiments about voice recognition technology that were largely absurd in their lack of utility. Yes, occasionally by shouting at your phone you could find your way to Sand Hill Road, but more likely it would instead offer you the mating habits of the sandy toad.

Machine learning is all about faster processing of massive amounts of data, no? Take the new iPhone camera for example. It has an image signal processor (ISP) enhanced by machine learning that makes editing photos more intelligent.

Ten thousand creatives and designers, have descended on San Diego for the annual pilgrimage that is Adobe Max, showcasing the 2017 updates to its all-powerful Creative Cloud suite of software. Principal among its announcements was Adobe Sensei, the company's latest foray into artificial intelligence that will work across all three of its clouds – Document, Marketing and Creative. According to Adobe, Sensei (the Japanese word for teacher) is a new framework and set of intelligent services for dramatically improving the design and delivery of digital experiences. Adobe Sensei's intelligent services tackle today's complex experience challenges – including image matching across millions of images, understanding the meaning and sentiment of documents and finely targeting important audience segments – leveraging machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning capabilities. This announcement builds upon the machine learning capabilities unveiled in Adobe Marketing Cloud at Adobe Summit in March.