Microsoft has just earned the title of the third most valuable company in the world. The software giant saw its market cap skyrocket to just over $760 billion on Wednesday, making it that much closer to being the world's most valuable company -- a title held by Apple and closely followed by Amazon. But that doesn't mean Microsoft has lost out on any bragging rights, however, as its new market capitalization means that it has surged ahead of Google parent company Alphabet, in terms of valuation. Microsoft is now worth close to $20 billion more than Alphabet, which has a market cap of roughly $744 billion. It's the first time that such occurrence has happened in three years Microsoft is now worth close to $20 billion more than Alphabet, which has a market cap of roughly $744 billion.

For better or worse, Google Assistant can do it all. From mundane tasks like turning on your lights and setting reminders to convincingly mimicking human speech patterns, the AI helper is so capable it's scary. Its latest (unofficial) ability, though, is a bit more sinister. Artist Alexander Reben recently taught Assistant to fire a gun. Fortunately, the victim was an apple, not a living being.

Moscow-based search giant Yandex has revealed a Russian speaking smart speaker to take on Amazon. The $160 device will work with its digital assistant'Alice', becoming the latest challenger to take on the leading voice-activated home helpers from Silicon Valley. Yandex is targeting the Russian-speaking market with its Yandex.Station speaker, as well as a platform on which third-party developers can programme Alice to order pizza, check mobile phone bills or buy plane tickets. The $160 device will work with its digital assistant'Alice', becoming the latest challenger to take on the leading voice-activated home helpers from Silicon Valley. The Yandex Station has Bluetooth capabilities and an HDMI port for streaming television on connected displays, and has including two 10W audio drivers and a 30W woofer.

A new 40,000-person study of smart speakers and their connection to retail purchases shows that Amazon Echo buyers increase their spending at Amazon significantly after purchasing a smart speaker. "We surveyed over 40,000 Amazon customers," says Adam Marchick, CEO of Alpine.AI, which help companies build integrations with Amazon Echo and Google Home. "For people who have Echos, in the past 12 months they've significantly increased spending on pet food and treats, baking and cooking, grooming, and health and beauty products." Not only have people increased spending at Amazon, Marchick says, they've actually decreased spending elsewhere. "[Echo] is causing people to get more reliant on Amazon," he told me last week.

With its paid Premium streaming service, YouTube has a steep climb to even compete against entrenched services like Netflix. First it has to get our attention, so for one of its most-anticipated series, Impulse, it came up with an interesting promotion. Google Assistant owners can access the first episode by saying "talk to Impulse." The AI device will give a brief sum-up of the show and ask for a password (it's "Henry" and a few variants). Once you do that, you'll get a link to the first unlisted episode on YouTube.

Microsoft is acquiring conversational AI startup Semantic Machines in an effort to make bots and intelligent assistants like Cortana sound and respond more like humans. Founded in 2014, Semantic Machines uses machine learning to make bots respond in a more natural way to queries. Semantic Machines is led by UC Berkeley professor Dan Klein and former Apple chief speech scientist Larry Gillick. Both are considered pioneers in conversational AI. Microsoft's acquisition will boost the company's Cortana digital assistant, as well as the company's Azure Bot Service that's used by 300,000 developers.

Since losing his vision at age 13, Erik Weihenmayer has summited Mount Everest, white-water rafted and climbed frozen waterfalls. But making soup in his kitchen presented a unique challenge. On a frozen waterfall he could tap his ax against the ice to get a feel for its density, but in the kitchen, he had no way to differentiate between cans of tomato and chicken noodle. Mr. Weihenmayer, 49 years old, found a solution in Microsoft Corp.'s Seeing AI, a free app for the visually impaired. Among other things, the app can recognize faces, identify money, read handwriting and scan bar codes to differentiate between cans of soup.

LONDON, UK – Conversational AI allows you to reignite the customer experience with increased engagement, personalised customer service and improved customer satisfaction. Your customers can simply ask for what they want as if they were talking to a live assistant--and receive the right response, every time. Providing 24/7 customer support simply on your own terms is no longer enough. Your customers want an experience that's fast and convenient. They want to message you a question while waiting in line for coffee or use their voice to make an online purchase while driving to work. They want to be understood using their own words, not your jargon.

This year's Google I/O revealed that the tech company is nearing the completion of an artficially intelligent secretary that can book appointments without you having to lift a finger. But the science fiction dream of a robotic housekeeper, like Rosie from The Jetsons, remains elusive. That has a lot to do with the fact that in many respects A.I. remains incredibly dumb when asked to operate in the real world. Sure, it can ridiculously complex calculations at blazing fast speeds -- a narrow application -- but when confronted with mundane tasks like making your bed, A.I. perpetually comes up short. This is exactly why a group of computer scientists led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is teaching machines to complete household tasks using a The Sims-inspired "VirtualHome" simulator.

An Amazon Echo sits on a table in New York. An IHS survey estimates that there are 20 billion connected devices globally as of this year. Will 2018 be "The Year of IoT"? Not exactly, but the future looks promising and 2018 will show a promising trajectory. Despite the huge gains in connectivity, the truth is 2018 will be more of a steady (rather than explosive) growth period for the IoT, full of fits and spasms, and everything that goes along with them.