After months of speculation, Apple has finally unveiled its answer to the Amazon Echo: the Siri-powered HomePod. It will start shipping in December for $349 in white and space gray colors. The HomePod is powered by Apple's A8X processor, the same chip found in older iPhones. Apple is emphasizing the HomePod's audio capabilities as a key factor separating it from more affordable rivals like the Amazon Echo and Google Home. Similar to Sonos speakers, the HomePod can analyze the size of the room in which it's placed and adjust its output accordingly.

Just as we expected, Apple unveiled its Siri speaker, Homepod, today during its WWDC keynote. It's yet another category where Apple is a bit late to the party -- Amazon's Echo and Alexa ecosystem has grown steadily over the past few years, and Google has also gotten a start with its Home speaker and Assistant. Even Microsoft has a leg up with the Cortana-powered Harman Kardon Invoke speaker. Apple's pitch, as usual, is that it's delivering a more premium audio experience than the competition. The HomePod's small, vase-like case houses a four-inch woofer and seven tweeters.

Apple's Craig Federighi touts new machine learning and AI features coming to iPhones at WWDC. Your Apple hardware is about to get a notch smarter as the company builds new artificial intelligence abilities into Macs and iPhones -- and lets other programmers tap into that power. AI technology will mean Siri better understands what you want and speaks with a computer voice that Apple says sounds natural. Craig Federighi, senior vice president in charge of Mac and iPhone software, announced the AI technology Monday at the company's annual WWDC event for developers in San Jose, California. And on Macs, it'll monitor your web browsing behavior to block advertising companies from tracking some of your online behavior.

Today, Apple is holding its Worldwide Developers Conference. So far, they have announced a host of updates. For example, during the presentation, the company noted that their watchOS 4 is going to include advanced AI and be far more personalized. Moving forward, Siri intelligence will automatically display information that is relevant to you on the face of the watch using advanced machine learning technologies that improve and "learn" over time. Ultimately, this means that the more you interact with the watch, the smarter it gets.

Apple's famously female digital voice assistant will soon come with a male option, as Apple readies its own Siri-powered virtual butler to go head-to-head-to-head with Amazon's Echo and Google Home. It will also be paying more attention to what you do on your iPhone. Apple says it wants its digital assistant to be more helpful in navigating your digital life. It says it will learn your habits based on what articles you might be reading, for instance. Or if someone texts you about owing money, it will ask if you want to pay from your Apple Pay account.

Apple has officially launched HomePod, a Siri-powered talking music system for the home. It looks unusual, like a cross between Google Home and the Mac Pro, all wrapped up in mesh. Apple says it has "the power to rock the house", thanks to its use of seven different tweeters, and the huge bass woofer that sits right in the middle. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar. Japan's On-Art Corp's CEO Kazuya Kanemaru poses with his company's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot'TRX03' and other robots during a demonstration in Tokyo, Japan Japan's On-Art Corp's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot'TRX03' performs during its unveiling in Tokyo, Japan Singulato Motors co-founder and CEO Shen Haiyin poses in his company's concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China A picture shows Singulato Motors' concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China Connected company president Shigeki Tomoyama addresses a press briefing as he elaborates on Toyota's "connected strategy" in Tokyo.

Apple has given Siri a new voice. The virtual chatterbox found inside the iPhone now sounds much smarter and more human, according to the company, which unveiled the changes at WWDC. The new voice uses machine learning to replicate the way that people actually speak, according to Apple's engineering head Craig Federighi. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar.

Apple says its Safari browser will try to guard your privacy by identifying and blocking data files that track you as you move from website to website. It's turning to machine learning, a form of artificial intelligence, to make that happen. That's a new focus for Apple as it competes with Google and Amazon. Later Monday, it's expected to announce an internet-connected smart speaker to compete with Amazon's Echo and Google's Home. Other features coming to the Mac include the ability to stop video from automatically playing on websites when using Safari.

Apple definitely isn't slowing down with watchOS updates now that the Apple Watch is relatively established. To start, there's a new Siri-powered watch face that automatically displays updates based on context. You'll get traffic alerts if you're about to head out to work, for example. There are also kaleidoscope and Toy Story faces if you're feeling particularly trippy or youthful. Fitness also gets a big push this time around.

Apple has announced iOS 11, the latest version of its mobile operating system that boasts a variety of small, yet important, improvements. Messages, for instance, now syncs across all of your devices via iCloud and gains a redesigned app drawer for better discovery. Apple Pay is now capable of letting you send cash to other people via iMessage, with the payments authenticated with Touch ID. Siri, meanwhile, gets automatic translation native to its voice interface, a feature that's been sorely lacking in previous versions Siri isn't just a voice assistant anymore, and Apple is pushing the idea that it does a similar job to Google Assistant on Android. For instance, contextual learning and predictive suggestions will be synced across all of your devices, hoping to know what you need before you do.