We hope you weren't counting on giving (or getting) a HomePod for the holidays -- Apple has delayed the release of the Siri-powered speaker from December to early 2018. In a statement, the company said it needed a "little more time" before the device was ready for its initial release in Australia, the UK and the US. It's not yet clear how this will affect releases in other countries (we've asked the company if it can elaborate), but we wouldn't be surprised if it pushed back their releases slightly as well. They were already being asked to wait until early 2018. You can read the full statement below.

A simple trick goes a long way in hiding your webcam: tape. You don't think about your car until you get a flat. You don't appreciate your phone until the screen cracks. Cyber-security is something you take for granted, until someone hacks your account, steals your bank info, and spreads compromising pictures of you all over the Internet. Most people know about virus protection.

Google's chatbot analytics platform is now open to everyone, more than six months after its quiet debut during the company's I/O developer conference. Called Chatbase, it's intended to help developers better analyze and optimize their bots so they can improve conversion rates and accuracy -- and avoid having users feel bots are useless. Anyone can use Google's Chatbase for free, similar to Google Analytics, and it'll work across any platform, including Facebook Messenger, Kik, Slack, Viber, and Skype. But it's more than messaging services where Chatbase could prove invaluable: With the rise of voice assistants like Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, Samsung's Bixby, and Apple's Siri, understanding analytics will be important. A product of Google's Area 120 internal incubator, Chatbase currently has "hundreds" of companies using it, including Ticketmaster, HBO, and Viber.

Petra the parrot is no feather-brain. The chatty African Grey has apparently decided its does not need a human to complete simple tasks around the house. In a hilarious video clip posted online, the parrot is heard ordering its owner's voice-activated virtual assistant, Alexa, to flip on the living room lights - and the gadget complies. Petra says: 'Alexa, all lights on.' The successful bird then nods its head in apparent satisfaction before engaging in'small talk' with Alexa.

We've been overusing the term Artificial Intelligence and AI with everyone we meet online and offline. Mostly inspired by its influence in multiple industries. The way industries are employing this smart technology is indeed overwhelming. In fact, the use of machine learning, artificial intelligence, and deep learning is becoming pervasive in all walks of life. This ubiquitous and generous use of AI gives us a tonne of hope and curiosity about how Artificial Intelligence is going to help us deal with our day-to-day hardships.

While dating and personal ads have been around for decades, the way we meet the people we date has changed dramatically in the last five years. Dating apps such as Tinder have captured a large portion of the online dating market. These apps, but especially Tinder, have transformed the way we represent ourselves online when we date. Men are likely to signal specific resources or potential for acquiring resources, while women are more likely to signal pro-social behaviours such as benevolence, charitable work or virtue, researchers found. While attractiveness is important, users are actually signalling much more than just stereotypical looks.

The design is drawing attention: TechCrunch called it "the strangest smart speaker" and Quartz said the device stands out from the smart speaker crowd "for one reason." While it goes on sale in December, Baidu already has a deal to outfit the device in 100 InterContinental Beijing hotels rooms. Baidu also introduced two robots, the Raven R and Raven Q (the latter of which is still in development). The Raven R looks like a cross between Pixar's Luxo Jr. logo and a contemporary art sculpture. It's a six-jointed robot that moves based on user commands in order to improve the interactive experience and make the device seem like it's expressing emotions.

The Latin Grammy nominated song "Despacito" is a smash hit on YouTube. But if you ask Google's personal assistant to play "Despacito" it can't understand the command. Even though YouTube is part of Google. It's a learning moment about artificial intelligence, how natural language processing works and why machines still struggle with translation and foreign accents.

The Co-arthers of this post are Yue Cathy Chang an SVDS alumi, and Cindi Thompson,Principal Data Scientist at Silicon Valley Data Science. There article was originally posted on the Silicon Valley Data Science blog. From asking Amazon Alexa for traffic conditions, to receiving helpful tips from Slackbot, to using WeChat to book doctor's appointments, bots are becoming omnipresent in our lives. The bot market is hot! There's a plethora of companies and investments in bots: VentureBeat's 2016 Bots Landscape shows just under 200 companies ranging from personal assistants to AI tools to messaging, $22B in funding, and a very hefty $159B in valuation.

For the smart home and kitchen gadget section of our holiday gift guide, we skipped past the WiFi-enabled toaster ovens and what-have-you, and narrowed our list down to the stuff that's actually useful. For starters, yes, we agree that the Instant Pot -- a darling in food and tech circles -- is worth the hype. With this one gadget, you get a pressure cooker, slow cooker, rice cooker, yogurt maker, cake maker, egg maker, with modes for sautéing, steaming, warming and sterilizing. The cook in your life might also enjoy the Tasty One Top, a much-buzzed-about induction cooktop, which tracks the time and temperature, and automatically adjusts as necessary. Outside the kitchen, Philip's Hue lighting kit now works with Alexa-, HomeKit- and Google Assistant-integrated gadgets.