At Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference last week, the company went through the expected level of releases for an off-cycle Apple event: new MacBooks, iPad updates and the upcoming HomePod speaker led headlines coming out of the event. But in all of the post-WWDC coverage, there's been a common thread that's both representative and a problem for Apple right now: it's of a company that's playing catch-up. To be sure, Apple is in no danger of shutting its doors any time soon. The iPhone remains a dominant force in the smartphone market and the company could potentially break a $1 trillion market valuation with the launch of the iPhone 8. But at the same time, the company has struggled to find a major product that could match the bar set by past releases like the iPad or iPod.

The cheetah can accelerate from zero to 96.6 kph in under three seconds. These cases show where the Google approach gives inferior answers. If you type the first question into Google, you get a "Popular on the web" snippet with photos of several candidates. Google just reads this, even omitting any kind of pause after "web" and before "cheetah." To top it off, the correct answer isn't even in the list it reads, and appears 10th in the list of animals. In the second question, you also don't get the correct answer from Google.

We have witnessed in the past few years how the digital age brought the physical world closer to everyone. Ecommerce industry was born at the term of the 20th century, and while still in its infancy, made tremendous progress. It's worth noting that the early adopters of ecommerce were not driven by economies of scale or reduced cost but by convenience. This is exactly why Artificial Intelligence will get acceptance in ecommerce. AI will not only transform buyer-seller interactions but also present certain challenges that would keep pilling faster than they are solved.

Alexa, the voice assistant for the Amazon Echo device, has "Skills" that allow you to order pizza via voice command or close your garage from anywhere in the world. What if you could hack Alexa to do something even more impressive: create a world without work meetings? Right now, in the shadows of enterprise businesses, there are people hacking away at speech technology products like Alexa to improve daily business life--from scheduling appointments to hailing ride-sharing vehicles. Meanwhile, businesses and entrepreneurs have started asking Alexa to provide updates on status reports, share key metrics with coworkers in other locations, set reminders for daily to-dos, and flag high-priority information. At this rate of development, products like Alexa will soon be programmed to allow executives to get boardroom-like updates from a device on their desk--the way Captain Kirk from Star Trek once did. They'll be able to compile, synthesize, and share information in a matter of minutes, eliminating the need for the meetings where these tasks typically take place.

Apple is reportedly working on a chip called the Apple Neural Engine, which would be dedicated to carrying out artificial intelligence (AI) processing on its mobile devices. Although it is already being used extensively to power digital assistants like Siri and Google Assistant, these technologies rely on computer servers to process data sent to them rather than the processing happening on the mobile device itself. Augmented reality and digital assistants are not the only applications of AI that will become important on mobile devices. Once the capability is made available to all mobile application developers, it will bring new types of capabilities to mobile devices. Health applications, for example, will be able to tell when body readings from sensors on the phone or associated wearable devices are abnormal and need acting on.

Digital disruption is the flip side of digital opportunity. Established companies and startups alike enlist new technologies in the fight to dislodge incumbents, protect entrenched positions, or re-invent entire industries and business activities. To help business and IT executives evaluate emerging technologies and their potential impact on the digital transformation of their organizations, Forrester recently published "Top Technologies for Digital Predators, 2017," a detailed analysis of 15 emerging technologies with a wide range of disruptive potential and time-to-impact. Here's my summary description of the 5 technologies with the highest potential to create competitive advantage, change markets, or alter the business landscape altogether: AI solutions that can interact with their users, learn their behavior and understand their needs, and even make decisions on their behalf. The landscape for this emerging technology is expanding rapidly to include a wide range of chatbots, virtual agents, robotic process automation, and other digital assistants.

Virtual or smart assistants, AI, or whatever you want to call them, these services have taken off in a big way this year, with virtually every new flagship smartphone touting their inclusion. We have universal players in Alexa and Google Assistant, and smaller propriety options from the likes of Samsung, HTC, and now even Andy Rubin's new Essential Phone. Better search results, personalized responses, and contextual information right at your fingertips. Not to mention that interacting with voice is a faster, more convenient, and a more human way to ask questions and be told certain pieces of information. Certainly, smart assistants have their uses and I'm sure that they're going to be a helpful tool for many.

Apple launched the next iteration of its MacOS – High Sierra at the World Wide Developers Conference Monday. While the company did introduce the OS at the event, many of its features weren't revealed at the event. Apple's MacBooks are displayed following an Apple event in San Francisco, March 9, 2015. Siri integration in iTunes: Prior to MacOS High Sierra, Siri only used to search through iTunes, but did not offer integrative features. Siri is now more deeply integrated into the operating system and will actually let you give it some more complex commands which would require artificial intelligence to function -- for example, you could ask the voice assistant to play "rock music," and it will actually sort through your iTunes library and find music that belongs to the rock genre.

Father's day is still a week away, yet the essential question of buying our dads something worthy, a product they don't already possess is plaguing many of us. The essential gifts, such as a watch or a pair of sunglasses just don't make much sense as most people' dads already have those, sometimes more than one. You don't really want to buy your dad something he won't use on a regular basis -- it should be something memorable that your dad uses or at least has the inclination to use -- some tech gifts might be a good option. If you don't have anything in mind, a tech gift is a safe option than say, boring ones such as a tie or a shirt. Read: Father's Day History: 9 Interesting Facts You May Not Know About The Holiday And Its Origins Sonos Dads and Grads sale: If your dad likes listening to music, a Sonos two-room music system might be a good option and it is available for $50 discount -- $348 instead of $398.