This originally appeared on x.ai by Josh Catone. In the classic 1980s dystopian sci-fi movie RoboCop, mortally wounded Detroit police officer Alex Murphy is reborn as a cyborg when his brain is implanted in a fully mechanical body. He comes back better and stronger than ever, so good at his job that later in the film, his fellow human officers go on strike to protest robots taking their jobs. RoboCop presents that classic image of a cyborg as a machine-augmented human. Being part man and part machine, Murphy melds the street smarts and instincts of a human officer with the strength, stamina, and durability of a machine to become a more effective cop.

Facebook is preparing to launch a new range of hardware including a big screen chat device and a smart speaker. The laptop-sized touchscreen and smart camera technology, codenamed Aloha, is said to make it so people connecting digitally through the device feel like they're actually in the same room. The secretive team is also working on an Amazon Echo-like smart speaker, 360-degree camera, and futuristic wearables. The laptop-sized touchscreen and smart camera technology, codenamed Aloha, is said to make it so people connecting digitally through the device feel like they're actually in the same room, and will compete with Amazon's Echo Show (pictured) The firm has put veteran executive Andrew Bosworth in charge of the secretive'building 8' team according to Business Insider, which is also developing a 360-degree camera and futuristic wearables such as Facebook's augmented reality glasses and the Oculus VR headsets. 'We are excited about our long-term investments in virtual reality, augmented reality, and consumer hardware,' a Facebook spokesperson told Business Insider.

Development on the Vega speaker was reportedly held up by delays in Samsung's proprietary Bixby virtual assistant, which is expected to power the device. Issues for Bixby included the difficulty translating Bixby into languages besides English and the program's lack of accumulated user experience compared to older assistant programs like Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant. While Bixby suffered a delayed rollout and only formally launched earlier this summer, the assistant is slated to roll out globally soon. The Vega speaker has yet to get a set release date, but with companies and consumers becoming increasingly familiar with smart home technology, Samsung likely wants to get a presence within this growing market.

It's hard to overstate Amazon's online retail dominance. With 76 percent market share of online retail, it's as if the 95-96 Chicago Bulls entered your local rec league. No one can challenge Amazon today, but a newly announced partnership between Google and Walmart--allowing you to order groceries with from the latter with Google Assistant, or online via Google Express, starting late September--may ultimately present a threat. In Walmart, Google adds a retail behemoth to its Google Express service, an online shopping bazaar in need of an anchor. In Google, Walmart gains a foothold in the voice-enabled future of commerce.

Wal-Mart is teaming up with Alphabet Inc's Google to enter the nascent voice-shopping market, currently dominated by Amazon.com Google, which makes the Android software used to run most of the world's smartphones, will offer hundreds of thousands of Walmart items on its voice-controlled Google Assistant platform from late September, Walmart's head of e-commerce, Marc Lore, wrote in a blog post on Wednesday. 'Starting in late September, we'll be working with Google to offer hundreds of thousands of items for voice shopping via Google Assistant - the largest number of items currently offered by a retailer through the platform,' he wrote. Wal-Mart is teaming up with Google and its Home smart speaker (pictured) to enter the voice-shopping market, currently dominated by Amazon.com, Amazon, whose voice-controlled aide Alexa allows users to shop from the retailer, has the lion's share of the U.S. voice-controlled device industry. Lore, who joined the world's largest retailer after it bought his e-commerce company Jet.com, said Wal-Mart would offer a wider selection than any retailer on the platform.

Google wants its virtual assistant to be in gadgets besides smartphones and intelligent speakers, and it looks like the company could be taking steps toward making that happen. The search giant may be working on smart headphones that work with the Google Assistant, according to a new report from 9to5Google. The tech news blog discovered code within an app uploaded to the Google Play Store that seemingly refers to headphones that can run Google's virtual helper. "Your headphones have the Google Assistant," one string of code says. Tell it to do things.

Nobody wants an assistant they can't trust. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't put my faith in Samsung's Bixby. It's the newest entry in the crowded field of virtual assistants, and its youthful inexperience shows. After living with Bixby on the Galaxy S8 for a week, I couldn't wait to kick it to the curb. To its credit, Bixby has some intriguing features that make it potentially more functional than the competition.

A Google Home smart speaker (left) is shown with the Google pixel phone following a product event in San Francisco. A Google Home smart speaker (left) is shown with the Google pixel phone following a product event in San Francisco. With an eye on the future of online retailing, Walmart and Google are teaming up to go after rival Amazon in a play that also targets the growing market for voice-activated shopping. Starting next month, Walmart customers will be able to access hundreds of thousands of products from the company's shelves -- everything from dish washing soap to dining tables -- via the online retailing service Google Express. Until now, Walmart's enormous inventory was available online only through the company's own website.

The recent Efma-Accenture Innovation in Insurance Awards 2017 offered a valuable opportunity to learn how global insurers are leveraging digital technologies to transform themselves into everyday insurers. The innovations we saw are built on exponentially expanding digital technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), big data, analytics, and blockchain, and are being applied across the entire insurance value chain, from product development to claims. As customers come to expect increasingly personalized, on-demand service, insurers must evolve to meet their expectations. To that end, leading insurers are embracing new technologies to shape innovative business models and client value proposition. I strongly believe that those who will innovate at scale will be in a position to weather disruption and transform into everyday insurers.

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.