An advertisement in a Colorado Springs newspaper that year invited kids to call Santa, but it mistakenly listed the number for the hotline at the U.S. Continental Air Defense Command. CONAD, as it was called, had the job of monitoring a vast radar network from a combat operations center in Colorado Springs, searching the skies for any hint of a nuclear attack by the onetime Soviet Union.

The Internet of Things (IoT) may have jumped the digital shark this year. Of course, some would say this happened a long time ago. The New York Times was calling it the "Internet of Way Too Many Things" back in 2015, long before the Amazon Echo, Google Home and other voice-activated speakers found their way into tens of millions of American homes, and long before smart versions of ordinary devices replaced consumers' thermostats, refrigerators and cars. Long before two-thirds of consumers told PYMNTS that they wanted their connected device, whatever it may be, to make seamless payments on their behalf, as shown in this year's "How We Will Pay" study. The study also illuminated which devices people use most and how they like to use them.

Depending on who you ask, artificial intelligence is either going to save humanity or kill us all. At the same time, AI seems to be in everything from home assistants to washing machines. But what is AI, and why is everyone going on about it? Here's how to explain artificial intelligence to your family over Christmas when they ask whether they've unwittingly inviting the AI apocalypse into their living room. Roughly speaking, artificial intelligence research is all about creating computers that can perform tasks that usually require human intelligence.

By nature, human language is complex. To understand human speech, a technology must also understand the grammatical rules, meaning and context, but also colloquialisms, slang and acronyms used in a language. Natural language processing algorithms support computers by simulating the human ability to understand language. Many NLP algorithms are based on statistics and may be combined with deep learning. This approach is superficial in its analysis of language, however, because it isn't able to understand the meaning of words.

OkCupid is clearly eager to cast off many dating site traditions. The service has announced that it will require "real" first names in dating profiles (in a tweet it said "You do not need to use your government name or even your full first name"), starting now with an initial test group and rolling out to everyone over time. As the company explains, it doesn't want the real you to be "hidden beneath another layer of mystique" -- it figures that your profile should offer insight into your personality, not your handle. To some extent, OkCupid is just joining the modern era. Numerous other dating apps require your first name, so you're not left wondering how to address someone when you meet them in person. And of course, creeps may be more willing to message you if they can hide behind an alias.

Using Artificial intelligence concept in mobile app development, as well as Augmented or Virtual Reality and the Internet of Things, brings to developers tens or even hundreds of thousands of downloads in just a few months. AI allows you to create not only entertainment software but smart and advanced enterprise applications. Building an AI assistant implies the use of software tools. In fact, they are identical in structure to neurons in the CNS. Also, these tools are able to remember and process previously received data, and then - analyze and apply it in future practice.

For long, insurance firms have been relying on traditional virtual assistants. But with the advent of improved analytics, insurance technology startups (better known as Insurtech)are paving way for smarter and more innovative platforms. With strong data analytics, Insurtech startups seem to have no lack of funding. According to a report by KPMG, since 2015 the interest in Insurtech has increased dramatically. The report shows that Insurtech startups attracted more than $1.7 billion worldwide in 2016.

According to a recent press release, "Verint Systems Inc. today announced that it has acquired all of the outstanding equity interests in Next IT Corporation and its affiliate Next IT Innovation Labs, LLC (collectively, "Next IT"), a developer of conversational artificial intelligence-powered intelligent virtual assistants. The purchase price consisted of close to $30 million of cash paid at closing, plus potential additional future cash payments. 'We continue to execute our innovation strategy, including making acquisitions that expand our self-service portfolio, accelerate Verint's cloud and automation capabilities, and are accretive to earnings. We believe that Verint's ongoing innovation in artificial intelligence technologies--such as machine learning, robotics and natural language processing--positions us for accelerated growth by helping organizations modernize their customer engagement operations with greater automation,' says Dan Bodner, CEO, Verint."

"Things usually get worse before they get better." Whether it's the valley of the shadow of death in the 23rd Psalm or the Dangerous Trench on the way to Shell City in the Sponge Bob movie, we're used to the concept of feeling that things are getting worse, even though we know we're headed in the right direction. This experience can be represented by a U-shaped curve, literally forming the shape of a valley between two peaks. In technical terms, the curve represents a nonlinear relationship between two variables. A specific example is the uncanny valley -- the hypothesis of the unease, frustration, or even revulsion we feel as something approaches the behavior and appearance of a human without getting all the way there.

"I have FOMO for the future", says Sam Lessin. That's why his startup Fin is working backwards from a far-off tech utopia. One day, computers with some human help will answer our every beck and call. Today, Lessin is teaming them up. Every day, Fin gets smarter.