Apple never really participates in CES, but there was a time when Apple would dominate the show without showing up. Not too long ago, booths would be filled with clocks, cases, speakers, and pie-in-the-sky concepts specifically made for the iPhone, and the buzz would be all about the next Apple product in the pipeline. Kohler announced a smart mirror at CES 2018. While you'll find iOS accessories and iPhone X cases if you're looking for them, the news coming out of CES floor is dominated by smart home gadgets and connectivity. From showers to speakers and everything in between, CES is all about making the dumb things in your home smart.

Qualcomm executives called the new Asus Lyra Voice a model for routers going forward: partly a speaker, partly a router, and powered by Amazon's Alexa assistant. The company said it's trying to convince ISPs like Cox and Comcast to move in that direction. Unlike AMD and Intel, you can't buy Qualcomm chips to build your own smartphones and routers. But when company executives take the stage at CES to describe how future products should look, it's worth paying attention. Qualcomm announced three versions of its Smart Audio Platform--complete with a quad-core ARM A53 processor, audio DSP, 802.11ac

Alexa and Google Assistant are appearing on what seems like every single gadget at CES 2018, but Cortana's absence from the party has made it the butt of jokes. Luckily, Qualcomm has announced that it's Smart Audio Platform, which includes microphone, speaker and voice recognition tech, now supports Cortana. That will make it a lot easier for smart speaker manufacturers to build devices around the neglected bot, instead of Google and Amazon's more popular platforms. Microsoft's Cortana has recently landed on Harmon Kardon's Invoke speakers (below) and its own Cortana thermostat. Apart from those wins, however, it's getting badly beaten in its race with Amazon and Google to get voice AI onto gadgets.

A number of dating apps in China were shut down by the police after it was found that they were actually run by automated robots. According to BBC, more than 600 suspects, associated with 21 Chinese companies, were arrested by the police after then startling discovery and at least 12 dating apps were shut down. The fraudulent apps operated across 13 provinces in the country, including Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou, and Shenzhen. The investigation into the matter began in August 2017 when the police tried to crack down on one such app, operating in southern Guangdong province, China, that charged money from customers for in exchange for viewing pornographic videos that did not exist. Further investigation revealed that one of the company's staff members had created fake "sexy girl" accounts, in order to dupe newly registered customers and con them of their money. These accounts were programmed to send out automatically generated greetings and compliments to customers who thought that they were interacting with real women.

Qualcomm has announced a new chipset that the company claims will vastly improve wireless earbuds and solve the device's biggest problem. Called the QCC5100, the new Qualcomm SoC (system-on-chip) will be able to deliver three times the battery life of future wireless earbuds. "This breakthrough single-chip solution is designed to dramatically reduce power consumption and offers enhanced processing capabilities to help our customers build new life-enhancing, feature-rich devices," Qualcomm senior vice president Anthony Murray said. "This will open new possibilities for extended-use hearable applications including virtual assistants, augmented hearing and enhanced listening" The Qualcomm QCC5100 series chipset will be made available to makers of truly wireless earbuds soon. It comes with its own dedicated application processor sub-system, dual DSP architecture and next-gen ADK software.

In 2014, user data on OkCupid showed that most men on the site rated black women as less attractive than women of other races and ethnicities. That resonated with Ari Curtis, 28, and inspired her blog, Least Desirable. In 2014, user data on OkCupid showed that most men on the site rated black women as less attractive than women of other races and ethnicities. That resonated with Ari Curtis, 28, and inspired her blog, Least Desirable. I usually like "bears," but no "panda bears."

When it comes to smart speakers, the Amazon Echo is still in the lead. Much of this success is due to the Echo's built-in voice-controlled intelligent virtual assistant, Alexa. Amazon has revealed that they're getting ready to bring Alexa outside of the Echo. Ahead of this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Amazon announced a new tool kit called the Alexa Mobile Accessory Kit that will allow developers "to bring Alexa to portable, on-the-go devices such as hearables, headphones, smart watches, fitness devices, and more." Alexa has made quite a name for itself in the health industry through the Echo, and the company has also been working on smart glasses powered by Alexa.

Emotion artificial intelligence (AI) systems are becoming so sophisticated that Gartner, Inc. predicts that by 2022, personal devices will know more about an individual's emotional state than his or her own family. AI is generating multiple disruptive forces that are reshaping the way we interact with personal technologies. "Emotion AI systems and affective computing are allowing everyday objects to detect, analyze, process and respond to people's emotional states and moods to provide better context and a more personalized experience," said Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner. "To remain relevant, technology vendors must integrate AI into every aspect of their devices, or face marginalization." 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.

Today, consumers can quickly order the product they want from their mobile devices or digital assistants (such as Amazon Alexa). These technologies have drastically reduced the time from impulse to buying for a consumer. However, the trade finance and international supply chain that is critical to completing the fulfillment cycle has not yet caught up with the pace of our digital consumers. It is complex, slow, and ripe for digital disruption -- 200 documents including contracts, customs clearance, and shipping are involved and exchanged among the supply chain entities, according to Maersk, the global transportation and logistics giant. Disruption is here: the confluence of three digital technologies -- big data, artificial intelligence, and blockchain -- have the potential to drastically reduce the complexities of trade finance and international supply chains.

Lenovo has announced a new Smart Display device with Google Assistant built in at CES 2018. The device is seen as an Amazon Echo Show competitor and is Google's first official smart speaker device that comes with a touchscreen. The Lenovo Smart Display with Google Assistant comes is in 8-inch and 10-inch screen size variants. The 8-inch model comes with an HD screen resolution, while the bigger model comes with a Full HD screen resolution. The two models pretty much look the same, but the 8-inch model comes with a light gray color scheme, while the 10-inch model is white with a bamboo pattern on its back panel, according to Ars Technica.