Netflix Inc. wants subscribers to know it's looking out for them. For instance, the average Netflix subscriber might not guess that its dark superhero drama "Jessica Jones" might strike similar chords as the zany hijinks of "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt." Netflix is happy to help you make the connection. Much of the attention showered on the streaming-video giant in recent years has focused on its appetite for original content and for creators to produce it. "We want to appeal to as many different people as possible, and appeal to the many moods that each person has," said Netflix's vice president of product innovation, Todd Yellin.

Artificial intelligence (AI) may sound futuristic, but it's a real-life breakthrough that exists in the present. Anyone who interacts with an online search engine, shops on Amazon, owns a self-parking car, or talks to voice-powered personal assistants like Siri or Alexa is using AI. AI is a field of computer science in which a machine is equipped with the ability to mimic the cognitive functions of a human. An AI machine can make decisions or predictions based on its past experiences, or it can respond to entirely new scenarios. When given a goal, not only does it attempt to achieve its objective, it continuously tries to improve upon its past performance.

Virtual assistants have been quick to invade our phones and our homes -- is it any surprise that they're creeping into our email accounts, too? A startup called Astro built a chatbot (imaginatively named "Astrobot") into its email app earlier this year, and now it's taking things a step further: as part of a new update going live today, users can talk to Astrobot when they want to sift through their emails sans hands. Well, mostly: you can't invoke it with a wake-word like "Ok, Google." Once installed, you'll have to long-press the little Astrobot button that lives in your inbox. Then, you just gab away: asking if you have any emails prompts Astrobot to read through your most recent messages out loud, and telling it to archive, snooze or mark as unread worked consistently well.

My morning routine is simple: I wake up when my phone's alarm goes off, I go back to sleep, wake up again, contemplate more sleep, get dressed, make coffee and listen to one of Alexa's "flash briefings" before I start slinging words on the internet. Getting that first news blast of the day used to be a job for my trusty clock radio, but no longer: Alexa's invasion has begun. More precisely, it began this past summer, when I was dragged through a Home Depot, saw a spider-wrapped Echo, and said, "Eh, what the hell?" For a while there, in the early days, Alexa's responsibilities boiled down to reading my Audible audiobooks and telling me what the weather was like so that I didn't need to look out the window. Since then, though, she's become so enmeshed in the fabric of my household that I don't consciously remember all the times I talk to her.

Amazon Echo comes in both white and black, and is a hands-free speaker you control with your voice. Echo connects to the Alexa Voice Service to play music, make calls, send and receive messages, provide information, news, sports scores, weather, and more. One works well, or string them around your house for Alexa in every room. Multiple Echo devices work together seamlessly. It may be one of those devices that actually does what it promises to do.

Samsung's Bixby voice assistant for the Galaxy S8 and galaxy S8 Plus is finally available worldwide. Bixby Voice is now being rolled out to more than 200 countries. Unfortunately, the service will only work in English and Korean languages for now. "Now millions of customers worldwide have access to a new and intelligent way of interacting with their phone," executive VP and head of R&D for Samsung's Mobile Business Injong Rhee said. "The expansion of Bixby's voice capabilities is an initial step in the continued rollout of Bixby functionality. In the future, Bixby will have the learning power to offer more intelligent and personalized interactions and seamless connections across more devices."

Last week, when asking for a cup of yogurt, my three-year-old son called me Alexa. It's a funny, modern problem to have your child mistake you for a disembodied A.I. voice--in this case, the one powering Amazon's Echo family of devices. But it's also a good example of what it's like living in a home powered by a smart speaker. Too busy to lift a remote, we bark commands into the void expecting something to respond. Using a voice assistant to run your home feels beamed-in-from-Star Trek cool, making mundane actions magical.

This Tuesday morning, we're still talking about the eclipse, getting a name for Google's latest version of Android and testing the best virtual assistants out there. It'll be on the Pixel very soon. Google loves to make a big splash when it reveals the name for the latest version of Android. But the company is going all out this year, using the solar eclipse as an opportunity to reveal that Android O will henceforth be referred to as Oreo. It makes at least a little sense to tie this reveal into the eclipse -- those iconic photos of the solar event are at least a little bit evocative of Oreos, after all.

I like Gartner's concept of the technology hype cycle. It assumes that expectations of new technologies quickly ramp to an inflated peak, drop into a trough of disillusionment, then gradually ascend a slope of enlightenment until they plateau. Of course, not all technologies complete the cycle or transition through the stages at the same pace. Artificial intelligence (AI) has arguably been in the trough for 60 years. I am thinking of Kubrick's HAL and Roddenberry's "computer" that naturally interact with humans.

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.