"Right now, you definitely don't need one," said David Pierce, a senior writer at Wired who has reviewed both the Google Home Mini and Amazon Echo Show. "But you should get one! Once you get used to all the small things they can do, like play music or tell you the weather or convert tablespoons to cups while you're mid-recipe, it's hard to go back ... They're playthings. And truly, neither Amazon nor Google's gadget is "better," according to our experts, though one might be a better fit for a given user. "Both speakers perform different tasks really well and really poorly," said Alex Hernandez, editor-in-chief of tech site Techaeris. "It will come down to what you want to do with your smart speaker." The Echo "can control a wider range of smart home devices" than Google Home, said Alex Cranz, senior reviews editor at Gizmodo. That is, of course, if you have smart home devices to control. Our experts agree that Google Home's main draw is its ability to answer complex questions like "What were last week's lottery numbers?" Google Home is "supremely smart thanks to Google's dominance in search," said Nick Pino, a senior editor at TechRadar. "It can tell you things like how much airplane tickets cost, or when movies, games or music originally came out ... Alexa pretty frequently doesn't know how to answer your questions." Plus, they say Google Home is better at understanding your voice. With Echo, "you have to be very specific in how you word your requests, and they can often come out sounding like word salad.

If you buy a new Nissan, you can tell Amazon's Alexa to unlock the car before you leave the house. If you buy a new Ford, you sit behind the wheel and tell Alexa to order diapers or ask about the weather. But those capabilities are trivial compared with the kind of power that a true virtual personal assistant would have to understand your commands and improve the driving experience. Wouldn't it be great to get into the car and just tell it what you want, without worrying about apps and devices and what's incompatible with what? How much washer fluid do I have left?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has gained worldwide exposure over the years through Hollywood, including the recent blockbuster movies such as Alien: Covenant and Blade Runner 2049. While androids like those depicted in the movies are nothing but science fiction at this point in time, we are seeing the increasingly advanced application of AI incorporate mainstream computing. In this post, we examine how website development is benefiting from artificial intelligence (AI), as well as some unique integration challenges. Modern mainstream website development has focused on the building of a customer-facing front-end presence on the Internet and the integration of the front-end with enterprise back-office operations. Drupal is an industry-leading open-sourced platform for building such enterprise websites.

Retail banking is being attacked by both small fintech firms as well as the big tech giants like Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and others. The best defense that traditional financial institutions can use against this invasion is a strong, personalized digital banking offense. Modest-sized fintech firms and large tech giants continue to make retail banking inroads worldwide, providing services that leverage the best in digital technology to deliver a customer experience that removes cumbersome steps from both routine and more involved banking engagements. Relative financial newcomers like AliPay (China), WeChat (China), Rakuten (Japan), Atom (UK), Monzo (UK), Starling (UK), N26 (Germany) and Revolut (UK) have joined household names like PayPal, Amazon and Google to disrupt the banking ecosystem, leveraging modern infrastructures and innovative cultures. According to Bain, "Many of the tech giants possess the ingredients of success: digital prowess, large customer bases, organizations well versed in improving the customer experience, and ample leeway to extend their corporate brands into banking." More concerning may be that some of these firms are generating a level of trust previously reserved only for traditional banks and credit unions.

Back at Google I/O, CEO Sundar Pichai outlined the company's vision as an "AI first" company, with a new focus on contextual information, machine learning, and using intelligent technology to improve customer experience. The launch of the Pixel 2 and 2 XL, the latest batch of Google Home products, and the Google Clips offer a glimpse into what this long-term strategic shift could mean. We'll get to Google's latest smartphones in a minute, but there's much more to explore about the company's latest strategy. As part of the Google I/O 2017 keynote, Sundar Pichai announced that the company's various machine learning and artificial intelligence efforts and teams are being brought together under a new initiative called Google.ai. Google.ai will be focusing not only on research, but on developing tools such as TensorFlow and its new Cloud TPUs, and "applied AI".

In the world we live in today, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is everywhere. Some of the places we experience it are very obvious, but sometimes AI is being used in ways we may not even realize. The question we face isn't when AI will begin to play a role in our everyday lives because the answer is that it already is. Rather, we should be asking whether or not we are using it to its full capacity. I had the opportunity to talk to Robert Weideman, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Nuance Enterprise.

A religion based around artificial intelligence is in the news again, this time helmed by Anthony Levandowski, a former member of Google's self-driving car team. His argument is that humans will eventually create AI that is more intelligent than we are, making it functionally god-like, so we might as well start planning for that eventuality. His thinking about the rise of super intelligent machines runs parallel to that of Elon Musk, who has been trumpeting the risks of artificial superintelligence on Twitter and in public appearances. But while talking about an AI god grabs headlines, we have more pressing problems to consider. The AI experts I get to speak with aren't concerned about an artificial superintelligence suddenly cropping up in the next few months and taking over the world. Meanwhile, there's plenty to be concerned about when it comes to immediate and unintended consequences of the machine learning techniques already available.

Can your digital assistant really be trusted with your home's security? Amazon and other major companies are betting big on it. Digital assistants, the core of your smart home's interface, leverage artificial intelligence to constantly build upon your user inputs -- "learning" how best to interact with you and your family. The newest crop of AI-powered home security devices use the same technology, and integration with the smart home technologies you know and love is right around the corner. Traditional home security systems are monitored by actual people, day and night, so there's someone standing by when you're asleep or away on vacation.

Did you realize how most appliances around you have become more adept and smart in doing their job? Well, it's all because of advancement in A.I. technology (Artificial Intelligence) that literally poured life in our humble machines. Ever wondered, how Google and commercial flights have become so impeccable? That is Artificial Intelligence, doing the job for you. From your daily commute to email spam filtration to banking security, everything is now facilitated by AI. As the name suggests, this technology works towards providing some degree of autonomy to a device/gadget/machine, so it can operate with the least amount of human interaction.

When Google revealed its new Pixels earlier this year, it made a tacit statement: the age of headphone jacks on smartphones is over. So, what's a diehard Google phone fan to do? Buy Google's new wireless earbuds -- in theory, at least. Several leaks ensured we knew they were coming, but the Pixel Buds were still a surprise because they emphasized functionality over convenience. Obviously, you can listen to music with them, but you can also sift through notifications and translate languages on the fly. Still, despite lots of potential, Google's Pixel Buds just don't live up to the hype.