This week I was lucky enough to attend CES 2018 in Las Vegas – or unlucky, for those of you that have been before! This year a record-breaking attendance of nearly 200,000 came to see 4,000 exhibitors and 1,200 speakers. I'm not even going to attempt to summarise all the key announcements, otherwise we'll be here until next week. Instead, I'm going to keep it short and sweet and give my observations on the three things that stood out for me this year. This year felt more like a motor show than a tech show.

One in six Americans now own a smart speaker, according to new research out this week from NPR and Edison Research – a figure that's up 128 percent from January, 2017. Amazon's Echo speakers are still in the lead, the report says, as 11 percent now own an Amazon Alexa device compared with 4 percent who own a Google Home product. Today, 16 percent of Americans own a smart speaker, or around 39 million people. The holiday shopping season also seemed to have played a role in the increased adoption of smart devices in the U.S., with 7 percent of Americans reporting they acquired at least one smart speaker between Black Friday and the end of December, and 4 percent saying they acquired their first smart speaker during the holidays. Both Amazon and Google used the holiday shopping season to their advantage in terms of acquiring market share for their respective devices by slashing prices to encourage more impulse buys, and by heavily promoting the items across their storefronts.

Jefferson Graham runs down the winners and losers of CES 2018. Toto's $19,000 Floating Tub has a heated headrest and "brings freedom from gravity, releasing stress on joints and encouraging ultimate relaxation." LAS VEGAS -- The $19,000 high-end floating bathtub from Japanese manufacturer Toto was cool, but a cutting edge tech gadget? The mammoth technology convention formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show was stacked with home and bath products this year. While a new Kohler toilet is Bluetooth-enabled and lets you flush by asking Alexa to do just that, it was hard to lump these appliance upgrades in with some of the technological leaps that really made a mark in our lives.

Google Assistant attracts them with its expertise in answering complex questions, its ability to adapt to different settings and broader language support. Alexa can be used to command more devices, is associated with making purchases, and has become a household name. Microsoft Corp's Cortana is optimized to work with its services, including Skype.

Before the start of CES 2018, the only real smart speakers with a display were the Amazon Echo Show and the Echo Spot. But now that Google has partnered with several manufacturers to make a whole line of Echo Show rivals, a bona fide new device category has been born: the smart display. And based on the devices revealed this week, I believe the smart display will slowly start to outnumber smart speakers and will likely be the norm going forward. The simple reason for this argument is that the display makes such devices much more useful. Sure, you could have Alexa or Google Assistant tell you there's a Starbucks 1.5 miles away from you.

CES 2018 kicked off with a major Google presence on the show's front doorstep. Nathan's already explained why the company may have decided to appear at the world's biggest tech show with such strength, but halfway through the show, I get the feeling that the gambit's paying off. Google Assistant is eroding the lead established by Amazon's Alexa, arguably the internet company's biggest voice assistant rival, and it's doing it with better devices, wider functionality... and free donuts for anyone at CES. With Google bringing its Assistant to smart displays (not to mention more TVs), it's obviously chasing Amazon's own Echo Show assistant in a major way. It's also done it with arguably better products: Lenovo's 8- and 10-inch Smart Displays offer better-looking screens and more premium (read: less janky-looking) hardware than own Amazon's debut smart display.

Personal devices will know more about an individual's emotional state than his or her own family does, according to projections for 2022 by Gartner. The analyst claimed that artificial intelligence (AI) is "generating multiple disruptive forces" that are reshaping the way people interact with personal technologies, with emotion being at the fore of the next AI development. "Emotion AI systems and affective computing are allowing everyday objects to detect, analyse, process and respond to people's emotional states and moods to provide better context and a more personalised experience," said Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner. "To remain relevant, technology vendors must integrate AI into every aspect of their devices, or face marginalisation." The current wave of emotion AI systems is being driven by the proliferation of virtual personal assistants (VPAs) and other AI-based technology for conversational systems, found Gartner. It continued that as a second wave emerges, AI technology will add value to more and more customer experience scenarios, including educational software, video games, diagnostic software, athletic and health performance, and the autonomous car.

Siri, Alexa, and OK Google… these are the virtual interactions that Sci-Fi movies have portrayed for decades past. The future is, it seems, here at our fingertips. These technologies are sparking new expectations in today's consumers on an almost daily basis. We want intelligent interactions that are personalized to our own situations and we want them on demand – not after we waste our precious time sitting on hold. Long gone are the days when customers almost expected to experience IVR hell and would pretty much tolerate jaw-dropping wait times.

Alexa can help you with heating up the seat, lifting the lid, playing your favorite tunes, and of course, flush. Alexa is branching out to other appliances, too. LAS VEGAS -- You thought choosing a smartphone or deciding whether to buy an Amazon Echo rather than Google Home was hard. Now try coming to grips with which smart light fixture, faucet, or fridge to buy. Get past that, and good luck setting everything up.

Every Android phone is different, and so is taking screenshots with them. Even though Android 4 introduced simple screenshots for all with the handy power-and-volume-down-key combo, nailing it can still be tricky. That's why some phone makers have introduced new methods. We're here to help: Just find your Android phone on the list below to learn the various ways to snap, share, and save a screenshot. On supported phones, you can also ask Google Assistant to take a screenshot for you.