Apple on Monday confirmed it has bought Shazam, the music app that can identify a song by hearing just a snippet of it. The acquisition boosts Apple's position in the music world and advances its artificial intelligence efforts. Shazam, launched in 1999, claims that at least 1 billion people have downloaded its app and used it to identify songs at least 30 billion times. Its service was one of the first AI products to be used by a broad audience. As Apple faces other tech giants in this increasingly competitive arena, analysts say Shazam could add significant value not only with its own service but also by making Apple's AI products -- namely Siri -- smarter about music.

Smart homes can be tricky to manage, especially if you've invested in a bunch of different brands. If you have a Google Home, good news: You can now use the Google Assistant to clean up and "sync" any misbehaving devices. Let's say you have some Philips Hue lights in your living room -- you set them up and everything works great. A few months later, you buy some extra bulbs for the kitchen, but your Home doesn't seem to recognise them. You could, of course, start poking around the appropriate apps, but now there's a voice command that will do it for you: Sync My Lights.

Every BBC radio station and podcast is now accessible through Amazon's Alexa assistant. So if you have an Echo or Echo dot in your home (or any Alexa-enabled speaker, for that matter), you can now launch Radio 1, 6 Music, or an episode of Desert Island Discs with your voice. The new Alexa "skill" offers granular control too, including "play," "pause" and "resume." You can also skip back to the "previous" episode of a podcast at any time. It's not the first time the BBC has backed Alexa, however.

Google launched its high-quality Home Max speaker with Google Assistant in October, and the last we heard (via a Best Buy leak), it was set to arrive on December 11th. That date was spot on, it turns out, as the Home Max has indeed gone on sale at both Best Buy and Verizon. It's also live on Google's own online store. The Home Max speaker sports a pair of 4.5-inch high-excursion woofers and custom tweeters, putting it in the same class as serious audio products like the Sonos Play:5. We had a brief hands-on with it during the launch, under controlled conditions, and found it to be "extremely loud, well balanced and crystal clear, with well-defined bass."

One of the greatest perks of connected speakers is waking up to whatever music you like, not just a buzzer or the radio. However, that hasn't been an option for Alexa-equipped devices like the Echo -- until today, that is. Amazon has added a feature to Alexa that lets you wake up to the music of your choice from one of several streaming services, including its own options and Spotify. To begin with, your criteria can be as broad or narrow as you like. You can name a song, playlist or genre, or ask to play any kind of music if you're not picky.

In fact, it's been a while since the song-identifying software squeezed its way into the iOS App Store's top 10. So, why has Apple confirmed it is "combining" its business with that of the smaller London company? It has not revealed the price it is paying, but the sum is rumoured to be as much as $400m (£300m), which would make it one of Apple's most expensive takeovers to date. The US technology giant also hasn't disclosed its motivations beyond saying that it has "exciting plans in store". But there are several reasons the deal may have appealed.

Russia's next president could be an artificially intelligent robot that claims'enemies of the people will be shot'. Forty thousand Russians have nominated a piece of AI software on their phones to stand against Vladimir Putin for the 2018 Russian presidency. The AI assistant known as Alisa, similar to the Apple's voice-activated Siri, was created by Russian technology company Yandex. Russia's next president could be an artificially intelligent robot that claims'enemies of the people will be shot'. Since the AI's launch in September, Alisa has stirred controversy on social media, with users sharing a series of contentious statements from the software.

The other day I received a voice notification that my Amazon order for Vitamin D pills (getting ready for a Portland winter) had shipped and was en route to my home. It was a simple gesture that was also communicated via email. But for someone who sends billions of notifications a day, the voice alert got my juices flowing because it represented an exciting future that's starting to come into view. After years of science fiction exposing us to the idea of voice-powered apparatus, we finally live in an era where smart speakers such as Amazon Echo, Google Home and other devices (like Apple's forthcoming HomePod) are at our beck and call to deliver news, music and movies in one moment and then, a few seconds later, change the temperature of our living room. And get ready for more notifications.

Ask anyone what Google is and the most likely answer will be that it's a search engine, which is pretty hard to argue with. The tech giant's most important platform is called Google Search, where people type in queries and get search results in return. Except the nature of search is drastically changing, as Google further integrates machine learning and artificial intelligence into everything it does. We now get personalised search results based on our location, user history and content preferences. We get content recommendations popping up on our phones and alerts for the latest news, sports results and travel updates.

If you make a purchase by clicking one of our links, we may earn a small share of the revenue. However, our picks and opinions are independent from USA TODAY's newsroom and any business incentives. Amazon's 12 Days of Deals continues on with a slew of offers for "music lovers, avid readers, and film buffs" and we've cherry-picked the best offers on the best products from the lineup. For the person you want to splurge on, tech is just the ticket. And whether they're the type who always has music playing, prefers reading to TV, or is obsessed with the latest technology, one of these things is sure to be the perfect fit.