During Google I/O today, the company announced that Assistant will soon be able to make appointments and reservations for you even when they can't be booked online. It's powered by a new technology called Google Duplex and it will be rolling out as an experiment soon. In a demonstration, Google showed how the Assistant can call a hair salon and book an appointment with the person on the other end of the line. With a command from the user about when she wanted to make the appointment, the Assistant then called the salon, worked out a date and time and notified the user afterward. The Assistant was even able to say, "Mhmmm," when she was asked by the salon employee to hold on.

Google Assistant may have debuted as a bonus feature in the company's ho-hum Allo messaging app, but it's been on a roll ever since. The AI helper is now embedded in more than 500 million devices worldwide, Google revealed Tuesday during its annual I/O developer conference keynote. The company is rolling out new features and products to make Assistant more helpful no matter what sort of device you use--and to keep pace with Amazon Echo's fast and furious improvements. And get this: In the future, Google Assistant will even call local businesses to book appointments for you. Google's machine learning chops have advanced far enough that you'll be able to ask Assistant to schedule an appointment for you at a business that can't be easily booked online, and Google's big brains in the sky will actually ring local shops to set up a reservation.

Google Assistant is about to get seriously smart. At the search giant's annual I/O developer conference, CEO Sundar Pichai unveiled a new technology called'Duplex' that enables its Google Assistant to make phone calls in real-time with actual humans. It can book a hair appointment and reserve a table for you at your favorite restaurant, among other things. That's on top of a slew of other tools that Google says can make it easier than ever for you to interact with your smart devices. At Google's I/O developer conference, CEO Sundar Pichai unveiled a new technology called'Duplex' that enables its Google Assistant to make phone calls in real-time with actual humans Duplex, which Pichai says the firm has been working on'for many years', will be rolling out to a limited number of users for now.

Google said it is rolling out its visual assistant, which brings ups information as well as ways to interact with apps with a Google Assistant voice request in a full-screen experience, to Android phones this summer. When an Android user makes a query through Google Assistant, Google will provide a more interactive visual experience on the phone. That includes ways to interact with smart home products, like thermostats, or interacting directly with apps like the Starbucks app. Google's visual assistant is coming to iOS devices this year. You can make a voice query such as "what is the temperature right now," and a display shows up with a way to change the temperature.

At the annual I/O developers conference on Tuesday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced that users now have six additional options for their Assistant's voice, one of which is that of famed singer/songwriter John Legend. The new voices arrive thanks to the company's work with Wavenet technology over the last year. They'll be available for both mobile and the Google Home beginning later today. Click here to catch up on the latest news from Google I/O 2018!

The Google Assistant has been the star of the past few I/O developer conferences, so we're not surprised to see new features being announced today. One of the biggest is "continued conversation" -- essentially, you won't need to say "Hey Google" every single time you want to ask the Assistant a question. In a demo, Google showed someone asking what the score of the last Golden State Warriors game. From there, he was able to follow up and say "when are they playing next" without having to say "hey Google" again to activate it. In the same vein, Google also talked about "multiple actions," which lets you ask more than one question or do more than one thing at once. For example, you could say "tell me the weather in New York City and San Francisco" or "turn off my lights and turn on the popcorn maker."

We pose 150 questions to Siri, Google and Alexa to see which one has more correct answers. OK Google, we get it. You are smarter than the other assistants. This has been the subtext of recent Google I/O developer conferences. The latest edition kicks off today in Mountain View, California, where the Internet giant is expected to announce several updates to the Google Home line, its answer to the Amazon Echo connected speaker.

The Kinect will never die. Microsoft debuted its motion-sensing camera on June 1st, 2009, showing off a handful of gimmicky applications for the Xbox 360; it promised easy, controller-free gaming for the whole family. Back then, Kinect was called Project Natal, and Microsoft envisioned a future where its blocky camera would expand the gaming landscape, bringing everyday communication and entertainment applications to the Xbox 360, such as video calling, shopping and binge-watching. This was the first indication that Microsoft's plans for Kinect stretched far beyond the video game industry. With Kinect, Microsoft popularized the idea of yelling at our appliances -- or, as it's known today, the IoT market.

When it comes to compact smart speakers, Google and Amazon lead the pack--and right now the dueling companies are offering their most popular tiny speakers on sale. Across many retailers, including the Google Store and Best Buy, the Google Home Mini is on offer for $39, a savings of $10, or you can save $40 when you buy two. Either way, you'll be able to access the Google Assistant (probably the smartest of all digital assistants) via voice control to do everything from querying Google's search engine to controlling various smart home devices. With a 3.86-inch diameter and a 1.65-inch height, this tiny speaker has a soft, modern aesthetic, and can blend into any room. We gave it 4 stars out of 5 for its sleek design and sophisticated smart assistant.

SAP is continuing to add smart features to its cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution - S/4HANA Cloud - as it looks to help customers automate processes and react faster to information held in their core systems. It has also integrated S/4HANA with CoPilot, its digital assistant, allowing users to take action through a natural language interface, like Microsoft's Cortana. The 1805 release of S/4HANA Cloud, which is out today, will include 12 new'scenarios' to help customers optimise common processes. Nine of these are machine learning solutions and three are CoPilot'conversational UI scenarios'. Read next: S/4HANA: What does SAP's next generation ERP mean for customers?