Every trip around the sun, we prod, poke, and test hundreds of products here at WIRED. Most of them are just fine. Not boring--few things are truly boring these days--though also not really exciting. But every so often, we get a product in our hands and it sets off that spark of joy, that rush of excitement that makes us want to tell you about it, explain why we love it, argue about why it's important. The products below are all the things that lit a fire in our imaginations during 2017.

If you don't know yet, we can answer that for you, as well as provide some impressions of Google's latest smart speaker and a new hybrid from Honda. Does the company provide rides or just information?EU decides to treat Uber like a taxi company Europe's highest court has ruled that Uber is a transportation company and not some kind of middleman between passengers and drivers, like it has often claimed. The much-anticipated decision opens the door for member nations to impose stricter regulations on the company, especially where it operates the UberPOP service with non-professional drivers. No other smart speaker sounds this good.Google Home Max review: an assistant for music lovers The Google Home Max is expensive, but you get a lot for your money. If you want great audio and don't want to mess around with more complicated speaker setups, the Home Max is a solid option -- with all those Google Assistant smarts.

When one product is better in one aspect, but it's competitor is stronger in another, the easy answer is to recommend both. You might want a Sony TV in your home theater, for instance, but Anthem's A/V receiver, Bowers & Wilkins' speakers, and a subwoofer from SVS. Well that dog won't hunt when it comes to smart speakers, especially if you're looking to control your smart home. No one wants to remember one wake word to turn on a light, a second to stream music, and a third to lock the front door. With this in mind, I evaluated the two most popular smart speakers--Amazon Echo and Google Home--using seven important criteria, but giving smart home control the heaviest weight. If you can't stand the suspense, my current opinion is that the Amazon Echo series is superior to the Google Home series.

The machines haven't taken over. However, they are seeping their way into our lives, affecting how we live, work and entertain ourselves. From voice-powered personal assistants like Siri and Alexa, to more underlying and fundamental technologies such as behavioral algorithms, suggestive searches and autonomously-powered self-driving vehicles boasting powerful predictive capabilities, there are several examples and applications of artificial intelligence in use today. However, the technology is still in its infancy. I can claim that any piece of software has A.I. due to an algorithm that responds based on pre-defined multi-faceted input or user behavior. A true artificially-intelligent system is one that can learn on its own.

Fulfilment & Logistics At Amazon, we've been making investments in ML for the last 20 years… 3. 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. At Amazon, we've been making investments in ML for the last 20 years… Fulfilment & Logistics Search & Discovery 5. 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. At Amazon, we've been making investments in ML for the last 20 years… Fulfilment & Logistics Existing Products Search & Discovery 7. 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. Put machine learning in the hands of every developer and data scientist ML @ AWS: Our mission 14. 2017, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. What are some of the ML capabilities our customers are asking for?

With the success of Amazon's Echo and it's voice-controlled assistant Alexa, the smart speaker war is heating up to battle for the hub of home automation. Traditionally, these devices needed to be operated with buttons, a remote, or other physical controls, limiting their capabilities. As AI becomes more mainstream and customers demand more from their devices, the need to become more user-friendly grows. Consumers want instantaneous responses without having to hunt down a remote, or get up to approach their device - the demand for far-field voice activation is just around the corner. Far-field voice technology is involved in Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Apple HomePod amongst others, but how? Far-field speech recognition is far more complicated than we might have initially though, and Tao Ma, Principal Architect, AI Platform & Research at JD.com has shared with us some of his work in the area including the background, system design and architecture of these systems.

Hong Kong, China It's 2050 and the world revolves around you. From the contents of your fridge to room temperature -- digital assistants ensure your home runs smoothly. Your screens know your taste and show channels you want to see as you enter the room. Your car is driverless and your favourite barman may just be an android. Predictions for an AI-dominated future are increasingly common, but Antoine Blondeau has experience in reading, and arguably manipulating, the runes -- he helped develop technology that evolved into predictive texting and Apple's Siri.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised take a prominent place within organizations in 2018, and the coming year will mark the beginning of the democratization of AI. In other words, a much broader range of companies and government departments will use AI. "Throughout 2018, AI performance will continue to improve," says Chirag Dekate, research director at Gartner. "The increased availability of AI capabilities embedded in applications and platforms like cloud office suites and deep neural network (DNN)-based virtual assistants, such as Alexa and Siri, will boost intelligent conversational interfaces to products and services." Gartner's latest CIO survey of 3,160 CIOs from 98 countries, found that 21% of CIOs are already piloting AI initiatives or have short-term plans for them.

Ms Perkins told BBC Newsnight's Emily Maitlis that while the film maker is now seen as a "repulsive monster", at the time he was "an extremely exciting person to be around".

Much has changed in the wealth management industry since robo-advisors first made their appearance a decade ago. Talk of disrupting the advisor-client relationship has given way to a new generation of innovative technology solutions that enhance and augment the fundamental ways that investors invest and advisors advise. Today, robo-advisors can be seen as part of a broader movement to digitize wealth management, embodied in the term: WealthTech. Technology derived from wealth management firms, research tools that generate investment solutions, and platforms to support financial advisors -- all fall under WealthTech. Finance is becoming a technology play.