Until recently, Korean company Samsung was said to behind its competitors in terms of researching and developing artificial intelligence (AI) technology, but the company's recent strategy suggests that it's committed to closing the gap and even competing for the top spot. Since 70 percent of the world's data is produced and stored on Samsung's products, the company is the leading provider of data storage products in the world. By revenue, Samsung is the largest consumer electronics company in the world--yes, it has even overtaken Apple and sells 500 million connected devices a year. From industry events to setting goals with AI at the forefront to updating products to use artificial intelligence, Samsung seems to have gone full throttle in preparing for the 4th industrial revolution. Samsung started 2018 with intention to be an artificial intelligence leader by organizing the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Summit and brought together 300 university students, technical experts and leading academics to explore ways to accelerate AI research and to develop the best commercial applications of AI.

French startup Snips has been working on voice assistant technology that respects your privacy. And the company is going to use its own voice assistant for a set of consumer devices. As part of this consumer push, the company is also announcing an initial coin offering. Yes, it sounds a bit like Snips is playing a game of buzzword bingo. Anyone can currently download the open source Snips SDK and play with it with a Raspberry Pi, a microphone and a speaker.

The possibilities clog our news feeds, create interesting conversations, and give tech leaders inspiration to explore solutions. What will this mean for us as humans? Could this impact all of society? With all the questions being asked, only one thing is absolutely clear. We're about to enter one of the biggest transformations our society has witnessed in the last century - if not millennium.

Apple has released the first major update for its HomePod smart speaker - and has its sights firmly set on Amazon and Google. The new iOS 11.4 update released today adds multi room capabilities to the Siri smart speaker, allowing users to play music in other rooms, in in every room at once. It comes as Apple is believed to be putting the finishing update to a major update to its Siri AI software. The free update also adds new features such as the ability to store iMessages in the cloud. The new iOS 11.4 update released today adds multi room capabilities to the Siri smart speaker, allowing users to play music in other rooms, in in every room at once.

A giant tech company is throwing its hat into the smart speaker ring, but it's not a widely known brand in the United States. Russian search engine giant Yandex will beat Amazona and Google to the punch with its new smart speaker: Yandex.Station. More and more homes are adopting Amazon Echo and Google Home devices, which allow users to request music, control lights and perform a wide variety of other tasks using their voices. In a Tuesday blog post on its website, Yandex claimed the upcoming Yandex.Station smart speaker would be the first such product for the Russian market. It will also be the first piece of hardware produced by the company, according to the blog post.

The new Apple HomePod is displayed at an Apple Store on Feb. 9, 2018 in San Francisco. NEW YORK -- "Hey Siri, play jazz in the living room, hip-hop in the kitchen." Apple's HomePod speaker is getting a little bit smarter today, through a software update that arrives via iOS 11. Smarter, that is, when it comes to playing music. For starters, you now have the ability to "pair" two HomePods for a full stereo effect, with the left and right speakers playing the left and right audio channels accordingly, and independently adjusting to where you place them.

Amazon has led in smart speaker sales and adoption since it pioneered the category with the Echo in 2014. But for the first time, someone else has topped the smart speaker sales charts. According to data from technology and smartphone analysts with Canalys, Google beat out Amazon in first quarter smart speaker shipments this year. Google shipped 3.2 million Google Home and Home mini products in the first quarter of this year, while Amazon shipped only 2.8 million. Google has been inching closer to Amazon's sales numbers, largely aided by a gangbuster holiday season in which it grabbed 40 percent of U.S. smart speaker sales.

Apple is finally delivering on some promises it made last year about its HomePod speaker, including giving the device the ability to link with another for stereo sound. The company released a software release called iOS 11.4 on Tuesday that unlocks more features for the smart speaker. The announcement comes just ahead of Apple's developer conference, which starts Monday -- the same conference where Apple first announced the speaker a year ago. Apple has said that it wanted to make sure the features worked well for users before releasing them. Apple's HomePod hasn't been a huge sales hit for the company, which launched two years after initial products from Amazon.com and Google began dominating the smart-speaker market.

Russia isn't going to sit on the sidelines while American companies like Amazon and Google conquer the smart speaker world. Search giant Yandex has launched the Yandex.Station, billed both as Russia's first smart speaker and the company's first hardware product. The device uses Yandex's in-house voice assistant, Alice, to handle upwards of 4,000 skills like checking traffic, ordering pizza or finding flights. However, its real specialty is video -- it's an unusual bridge between audio-only speakers and smart displays. The Yandex.Station has an HDMI output that lets you stream videos directly to your TV, whether it's from Yandex's own KinoPoisk or alternatives like Ivi and Amediateka.

Schlage's Sense Smart Deadbolt is now compatible with Google Assistant, giving users with enabled devices voice control over their lock. By saying, "OK Google, is my door locked?" or "OK Google, lock my door," Sense owners can check on the status of their deadbolt or lock it using Google Assistant. The company announced that Google Assistant support was on the way during CES earlier this year. Schlage Sense locks also work with Siri and the company introduced the ability to unlock Sense deadbolts with Alexa earlier this month. To use Google Assistant with your Schlage Sense Smart Deadbolt, you'll have to get a Schlage Sense Wi-Fi adaptor, through which you can also lock and unlock the smart deadbolt with your phone.