If you've ever downloaded a dating app, chances are someone has already told you that you need to see the Black Mirror episode, "Hang the DJ," which takes the idea of algorithm-driven dating to a whole other level. For the uninitiated, Black Mirror is a sci-fi series of standalone stories about mysterious, alternative worlds, that double as critiques on society, like a modern-day Twilight Zone. And if you really haven't seen any of it yet, DID YOU NOT SEE THE SPOILER ALERT ABOVE? Call it professional bias, but I loved "Hang the DJ," which was released on Netflix a few months ago. The episode was both strange and a grotesquely familiar interpretation of the direction our romantic futures are headed--as in, straight into an AI-powered supercomputer compiling data about our entire lives.

All across the western world, Google Homes and Amazon Echoes of all shapes and sizes were welcomed into consumer homes with open arms. For personal use, these assistants can tell you the time, keep your appointments, and search the web when you have your hands full – and their capabilities growing by the day with each new input and request. Many are starting to ask what they won't be able to do in the future. In the business world, the story is similar, if not quite as visible yet. More and more companies, especially within the finance sector, are exploring what AI can do for their business, to either plaudits or scepticism from employees and the general public.

Whether or not virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa actually make our lives better is debatable to say the least. Is navigating the myriad of voice cues really faster or more convenient than just tapping on your smartphone screen a few times? Whichever side of the issue you fall on, it's clear that AI is here to stay, so the European Space Agency is planning to embrace it with a fancy virtual assistant of its own and it's headed to the International Space Station this year. The new AI is the product of a partnership between Airbus and IBM and it's called the Crew Interactive Mobile Companion. That's not a terribly catchy name, so they just call it CIMON (pronounced "Simon," I assume) for short and it'll be put through its paces by astronaut Alexander Gerst.

In 2015, 1.7 million voice-first devices were shipped across the U.S. But the number soon rose up to 6.5 million in 2016. The increase in the trend captured the growing demand for voice-search in the coming years. Voice-search technology has existed for many years but its evolution has just begun. From automated voice recognition phone system to simplified voice to text dictaphones, voice technology was adopted in different forms all across the globe.

Hollywood movies telling us since long those Robots are coming to get us, people were enjoying these indications as jokes and science fiction movies. Some time back New York Times and Mr. Musk told us the same thing but this time we are serious and anxious. In early days if some one answers to our very old-style question "What do you do" regardless of your origin or culture or from you come from or language you speak we get same question very often. If the answer was "I do artificial intelligence" and immediate reaction was "Why don't you have natural one". Today if the answer to the same question is "I do artificial intelligence"; immediate reaction is "Please don't hurt me / us".

Apple is reportedly coming out with a cheaper version of its $349 HomePod, Business Insider reports. The company is following in the footsteps of Google and Amazon, both of which released'discount' versions of their own smart speakers, making the technology more accessible to a wider audience. The cheaper HomePod would cost somewhere between $150 and $200, and it would be smaller. The new report says it could be available as soon as this fall. Apple might be releasing a cheaper, smaller version of its HomePod speaker.

No, you're (probably) not being haunted, it's just Amazon's Alexa voice assistant malfunctioning in a profoundly creepy way. Some Alexa users have reported hearing an unprompted laugh from their smart speaker devices in the last day. The laugh happens randomly, when nobody is using the device, or in response to request to turn on or off lights. "We're aware of this and working to fix it," Amazon (AMZN) said in a statement, confirming the issue. The company did not elaborate on how widespread the laugh is.

An artificial personality (AP) is a collection of characteristics, tendencies and behavioral quirks assigned to a chatbot, digital assistant, robot or video game character. A primary goal of adding personality to digital entities is to encourage end users to interact with programming on an emotional, as well as a logical, level. Personalities are especially significant for voice-activated digital assistants such as Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa, Google Assistant and Microsoft's Cortana because they are intended to take the place of human assistants. Google has hired a creative team to give its unnamed assistant personality, while Siri was purposely designed early on to be a little sassy. Cortana was modeled after real-life celebrity personal assistants and Alexa now offers a skill that allows her to be disrespectful.

When we're asked, "What is artificial intelligence?" Perhaps it's a sassy-talking technology like Siri from Apple, or helpful humanoid counterparts like those depicted in The Jetsons. Some might even imagine sophisticated robots threatening to extinguish the human race. Nowadays, there are as many definitions of AI as there are companies trying to pitch AI solutions. So, how do law firms know how to incorporate artificial intelligence? When is the right time to use legal AI? Think of AI as computers performing tasks previously thought to require human intelligence.

The Bose AR glasses are still a prototype. Hey Bose glasses, tell me what it is I'm looking at. Smart glasses based on augmented reality typically work by floating a visual layer of information related to your surroundings that only you as the person wearing those spectacles are able to see. The AR glasses that Bose is showing off as a working prototype at SXSW in Austin, which kicks off this weekend, doesn't change what you're seeing--there's no actual display inside. Instead by determining your location (via GPS on your nearby iOS or Android phone) and tracking the way your head is turned, the glasses promise to tell you all about what it is you're seeing.