A few months ago, Amazon invited reporters to its Spheres complex in downtown Seattle. It's an enormous greenhouse doubling as a work space for employees: a climate-controlled, glass-enclosed, self-contained ecosystem made up of 40,000 species of plants from all over the world. Amazon executives opened the event with a statement worthy of their surroundings: The company had 70 products, services and tools to introduce. The journalists in the room responded with gasps and laughter. There were new devices like the Echo subwoofer and a tiny gadget to bring Alexa into your car. A smart plug that automatically connects to Wi-Fi and will make any smart appliance respond to your spoken commands.

Rapid technological advances in digitization and data and analytics have been reshaping the business landscape, supercharging performance, and enabling the emergence of new business innovations and new forms of competition. At the same time, the technology itself continues to evolve, bringing new waves of advances in robotics, analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI), and especially machine learning. Together they amount to a step change in technical capabilities that could have profound implications for business, for the economy, and more broadly, for society. Some companies are gaining a competitive edge with their use of data and analytics, which can enable faster and larger-scale evidence-based decision making, insight generation, and process optimization. But there is room to catch up and to excel.

What is the Internet of Things (IoT)? In simple terms, IoT refers to connected devices that work over the internet. But it's increasingly being known for devices that we interact with like Google Home and Amazon Echo (Alexa). IoT is disrupting existing markets and creating new ones by increasing efficiency and reducing costs. IoT is nothing new but the number of devices and people using them has grown tremendously in recent years.

According to the Financial Times, Facebook is working on producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips for a virtual assistant to be smarter than Apple's Siri or Amazon's Alexa Facebook is working with Intel, other tech giants and semiconductor makers to make this goal come true. It's goals in developing a more specialized and powerful AI chip is so that a digital assistant will have enough'common sense' to communicate with a human on any subject as well as making it a practical tool in regards to controlling its social network; for instance in the area of monitoring videos and deciding what content should be allowed on its service. Facebook has in the past been known to make its own hardware when necessary and is currently developing its own custom'application-specific integrated circuit' (ASIC) chips which would be a particular kind of transmission protocol designed to specifically work with the company's AI programs. Yann LeCun, Facebook's chief AI scientist and one of the pioneers of modern AI, says there is a need for more specialized AI chips to speed up tasks at lightening speed but with lower power consumption. He says that the company is doing anything and everything it can do in this area especially in monitoring videos flowing through their site in real time but that it will essentially require neural designs which are computer systems modeled on the human brain and nervous system.

San Francisco (CNN Business)It could be any ad on YouTube: A blonde model playfully puts her hand in front of the camera lens, dons white sunglasses and flashes a grin. In the background, hip-hop music plays while an unmistakably female voice says, "Fashion changes, but style lasts forever." The ad -- part of a demo reel on YouTube created by a new startup called WellSaid Labs -- is short and slick. But something is a bit different. While the model you see is a human, the background voice you hear only sounds like one. The Seattle-based company is using voice actors and artificial intelligence to create synthetic voices that sound a heck of a lot like people.

His stomach growls with hunger pangs and hastily he grunts out the words, "Large pep pizza and a liter of soda." Instantly the home virtual assistant comes to life and repeats back in an eerily human voice. "Bob, you want a large pepperoni pizza and a liter of soda correct?" "Yeah," grunts the man as he dials in a new show on his remote and pours the remaining crumbs of the potato chip bag into his mouth. Quickly the AI assistant calls the local pizza parlor and a friendly "employee" answers. "Speedy Pizza, how may I help you?" "Hi, I'd like to place an order for a large pepperoni pizza and a liter of soda for delivery," requests Bob's AI assistant in a cheerful and pleasant demeanor.

One of the most common applications of machine learning today is in recommendation algorithms. Netflix and YouTube use them to push you new shows and videos; Google and Facebook use them to rank the content in your search results and news feed. While these algorithms offer a great deal of convenience, they have some undesirable side effects. You've probably heard of them before: filter bubbles and echo chambers. Concern about these effects is not new.

The'gamification' of dating apps is damaging singleton's chances of spotting the right match for them, a psychiatrist has warned. Swiping through endless faces on apps like Tinder and Bumble, known as'infinite swipe', The practice has become so addictive that more than one in 10 users swipe for over 14 hours a week, a survey backing up the claims has revealed. Research has found that nearly 30 per cent of dating app users are spending over seven hours per week trying to find a match, and 14 per cent swipe for over 14 hours, encouraged by a phenomena known as'infinite swipe' that sees users swiping through endless faces on the app The rise of dating apps has given rise to a new user phenomenon: the'infinite swipe. Just as other tech platforms such as Facebook and Google have adopted the persuasive design feature of infinite scroll, to engage the user in habit forming experiences, dating apps have leveraged the power of the'infinite swipe'. Users are'nudged" to process the face of a potential match in less than a second, with little or no context on the person's personality.

Should I buy a Chromebook or a Windows laptop? Whether you're seeking out the best computer for your child or just weighing which inexpensive computer is right for your home, considering a Chrome OS-powered Chromebook as a PC alternative is a smart choice--and we can help you choose the right one. A notebook PC powered by Microsoft Windows offers several advantages: Windows offers the most flexibility to run just about any app, as well as the choice of any browser you choose. You can tweak and configure your PC as you choose. That convenience demands more computing horsepower, and often a higher price compared to most Chromebooks.

Artificial intelligence has become an essential part of our everyday lives. It is used in financial processes, medical examinations, logistics, publishing, and in a wide range of other fast-rising industries. According to The AI Index 2018 Annual Report by Stanford University, active AI startups in the US increased 2.1x from 2015 to 2018, while venture capital funding for US AI startups increased 4.5x from 2013 to 2017. Today, there are so many AI development companies on the market that it is becoming more and more difficult to choose the one. Based on my experience in IT market research, I've compiled a list of best AI providers.