The most important news this week is either the Civilization VI expansion or the fact that EA's stock lost $3 billion in value thanks to Battlefront II. But hey, there's also lots of Destiny 2 ne--wait, come back! Okay, there's also new footage of Okami HD, Star Citizen's started selling off fictitious land titles to fund development, Square says Deus Ex might not be quite dead yet, Jazz Jackrabbit hit GOG.com, and Battlezone II is being remade for 2018. This is gaming news for November 27 to December 1. Get this: I accidentally paid $120 to play XCOM: The Bureau Declassified, that mediocre third-person shooter 2K forced out a couple years ago. I rented it from GameFly and then...forgot to send it back.

The rules of Tinder are pretty simple: You swipe right, or you swipe left. You like someone's profile (right), or you don't (left). Occasionally, you might send a Super Like--the digital version of showing up at someone's doorstep, bouquet of flowers in hand, blasting "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None the Richer out of a boombox--but otherwise, there's not much nuance. The Tinderverse exists in black and white. But those simple decisions translate into a lot of data.

It's funny how quickly apps have become shorthand for everyday tasks: we now go on "Tinder dates", a takeaway is "a Deliveroo", taxis give way to "getting an Uber". And when it comes to sharing confidences and keeping in touch, we're all WhatsApping. The preposterously named app, which sounds like an unwelcome thumbs-up across the dance floor, has become the preferred method of communication for 1.2 billion of us – leaving emails, texts and (obviously) face-to-face conversation in the dust. WhatsApp's main plus – and quite a big minus, if you think about it – is that anyone can use it. It's free, and makes chatting in a group really easy – almost too easy, in fact, as you spend half your time being added to random groups and trying desperately to catch up and decipher their in-jokes.

For many of us, our experience with artificial intelligence (A.I.) may be, for a lack of a better way to put it, "helpfully cool." That can mean asking Amazon's Alexa to play a particular song or querying Google's Home to see if butter is a suitable replacement for vegetable shortening. That sort of change is coming faster than you might expect. And organizations that anticipate the most effective ways to leverage A.I. will profit handsomely. I first identified artificial intelligence way back in 1983 as one of 20 core technologies that would become powerful drivers of exponential economic value creation. Looked at in the context of my overall Anticipatory Organization Model, A.I. is an ideal example of a Hard Trend – a future certainty – which in this case means our overall increasing use of this technology in a broad array of applications.

Smart speakers are set to be the hottest Christmas gift this year. On Black Friday, Amazon dropped the price of its core Echo product to £79 (it is back up to £90 now), while Google slashed the cost of its Home device from £129 to £77.50 at most outlets (it is also back up now). Meanwhile, Apple is promising to launch its version, HomePod, although the price point is rumoured to be significantly higher. With the pre-Christmas launch of the Echo Show, which ups Alexa's game with a built-in screen, are they the next must-have device? A simple voice command can fill your room with music – and change tunes whenever you wish. They will answer questions on a vast range of topics, set alarms, tell you the weather and what your commute holds in store.

Infor, a leading provider of beautiful business applications specialized by industry and built for the cloud, today announced that it will highlight Coleman AI capabilities, utilizing Amazon Lex, at AWS re:Invent 2017, which will take place Nov. 27 to Dec. 1 in Las Vegas, NV. Infor will lead and contribute to conference sessions that discuss how Amazon Lex is powering functionality in Coleman AI, which help it act as a digital assistant in the enterprise to boost business productivity. Amazon Lex is a service by Amazon Web Services (AWS) for building conversational interfaces into any application using voice and text. "Amazon Lex helps us power the ability to execute intelligent skills to perform a quick Q&A with the system expert, conduct self-service analytics, and quickly automate tasks through our Infor OS platform and our Infor Coleman AI platform," said Massimo Capoccia, Infor Senior Vice President of Software Development. The AWS re:Invent sessions at which Infor will be represented include: Session: MCL308 - Using a Digital Assistant in the Enterprise for Business Productivity 2:30 p.m., Tuesday, Nov. 28 Venetian Hotel, Level 5, Palazzo N - 650, T1 Manjunath Ganimasty, Vice President of Software Development at Infor; Rick Rider, Product Director-Technology at Infor; and Harshal Pimpalkhute, Product Manager at Amazon Web Services, Inc., will present "Infor Coleman - Using a Digital Assistant in the Enterprise for Business Productivity," during which they will demonstrate how Infor integrated Amazon Lex into its standard technology stack, with several use cases based on advisory, assistant, and automation roles deeply rooted in its expanding Artificial Intelligence (AI) strategy. They will discuss how Amazon Lex has become a pivotal component of Infor's AI strategy, powering one of the major functionalities of Infor Coleman as a digital assistant.

The Google Home Max is Google's high-end Google Home smart speaker that's scheduled to arrive this month. Google hasn't announced a release date for the Home Max yet, but it looks like it may arrive on Dec. 11. The potential Google Home Max release date is listed on Best Buy's website, as first spotted by 9To5Google. The Best Buy listed the smart home speaker with a "coming soon" label and a $399 price tag. However, the release date listed right next to the model and SKU information is Dec. 11.

Jim Beam's smart decanter answers questions and can pour a glass of bourbon using a voice command. Jim Beam is joining the in-home smart device train with an artificially intelligent bourbon decanter called JIM. JIM is not exactly an Amazon Echo or Google Home, but it can answer questions about bourbon and even pour a shot when asked. The best part might be the voice of 7th Generation Master Distiller Fred Noe, who speaks with a matter-of-fact Kentucky accent. More: Hawking: AI could be'worst event in the history of our civilization' The smart decanter operates using 3G.

Nest was a pioneer in internet-connected home devices such as thermostats and home security cameras. Inc. recently launched a home-security device that competes with Nest. Making Nest and its 1,000 employees part of Google would mark a retrenchment of Alphabet's strategy to separate its core Google internet business from a number of other units, such as its research lab and life-sciences firm. When Alphabet was formed in August 2015, Nest was the model "other bet," with its own headquarters, hiring process and perks--even its own branded bikes for employees. At the time, CEO Larry Page said in a public letter that "the whole point is that Alphabet companies should have independence and develop their own brands."

Harrison told me in an email that he's gotten a lot of feedback on his proposal. One common objection is that people say "computer" too often in everyday conversation. But it shouldn't be too hard to program the software to infer from tone and context whether it's being directly addressed. Another is that the term feels increasingly anachronistic: Several respondents brought up the iPad Pro commercial in which a kid asks, "What's a computer?" That doesn't strike me as a real obstacle, but it's easy enough to imagine alternative, equally generic wake words if others find "computer" inapt: "device," "machine," and "robot" come to mind.