If Huawei released a phone with the specs of the Essential's hype-driven debut, no one would have paid much attention. It really is a nice phone, but "nice" isn't blowing any minds. As it happens, though, the Essential Phone--the first product from a company started by Android creator Andy Rubin and the gadget line it flagships--is more mission than material. Now, that's not to say the handset is gonna free the masses from the fractured bloatware that plagues handsets from LG, Samsung, and others. Wrapped up in Rubin's penance, however, isn't salvation for the cluttered smartphone landscape, but for the ever-splintering smart home.

To hear Samsung's Galaxy S8 ad campaign tell it, the company's Bixby digital assistant was already fully featured and ready to go at the handset's launch. The reality is quite a bit different, however. Bixby Voice, the would-be competitor to Siri and Google Assistant apparently won't be available until late next month, somewhat narrowing the "later this spring" timeframe from April. Wall Street Journal reports that the cause for tardiness has to do with how the assistant comprehends English syntax and grammar. To be fair, that's a sore spot for pretty much every artificial intelligence system at the moment.

Amazon's Echo speakers give you voice control over calendars from Google and Microsoft, but there's long been a notable exception to that rule: Apple. Thankfully, Amazon just filled that gap. The internet giant has quietly added support for linking Alexa to your iCloud calendar, letting you add events or check appointments that should promptly show up on your iOS devices and Macs. You'll need to switch on Apple's two-factor authentication, but you're otherwise off to the races. It's a big deal if you're heavily invested in Apple's ecosystem, although the timing is definitely... convenient. Right now, rumors are swirling of Apple developing a Siri-based smart speaker that could launch as soon as June 5th, at WWDC.

Samsung's Bixby virtual assistant was a touted part of the Galaxy S8, but it initially missed being part of the flagship smartphone's April launch. However, Samsung will soon be bringing the full version of Bixby to Galaxy users. Bixby is expected to launch by late June in the U.S., the Wall Street Journal reported. For Samsung users, Bixby is the Galaxy's equivalent of similar voice assistant programs like Apple's Siri and Google's Assistant. With the service, which launched in Korea earlier this month, users can use Bixby to get information for topics like news, local locations and the weather.

You can now link your iCloud Calendar to the Alexa voice assistant. Amazon has just rolled out the functionality to Alexa-compatible devices, describing it as "a top requested feature". The announcement should please iPhone, iPad and Mac users, who can now organise their calendar and quickly find out about their schedule by chatting to Alexa. 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.

If you make a purchase by clicking one of our links, we may earn a small share of the revenue. Our picks and opinions are independent from USATODAY's newsroom and any business incentives. If you've been intrigued by the idea of automating your home, now's the perfect time to jump in with both feet. Right now, Target is offering a special deal when you purchase a Google Home ($129.99) You can save $50 and get both at once for $329.99, a deal that's good until midnight on June 3.

Yesterday saw the debut of Essential, the latest brainchild of the creator of Android--Andy Rubin. While everyone is talking about the Essential Phone, the Essential Home looks like a real contender to knock the Amazon Echo off its smart speaker throne. On the surface, it doesn't seem like the Essential Home will do much more than what we've seen in other smart speakers like the Echo and Google Home. It can play music, set timers, ask the internet for information (like what a baby kangaroo is called), and control your smart home. But it's not what the Essential Home can do that makes it unique, but rather how. That starts with your privacy.

Apple is reportedly working on a processor that is devoted to AI-related tasks to improve how its devices handle tasks that require human intelligence. A man takes a selfie while waiting for the start of an Apple event at the Worldwide Developer's Conference on June 13, 2016 in San Francisco, California. Looking at what's been discussed to this point (and speculating on what Apple will announce at its Worldwide Developer Conference Monday), it's safe to say that all of these organizations are keenly focused on different types of artificial intelligence, or AI. What this means is that each wants to create unique experiences that leverage both new types of computing components and software algorithms to automatically generate useful information about the world around us. In other words, they want to use real-world data in clever ways to enable cool stuff.

Anthropocentrism is not a new trend. For thousands of years, we were convinced humankind was the only reason why the Earth moves around the Sun and why all of the other species even exist. Some of us still believe it is true, the rest of the population are becoming more and more aware of a new form of intelligence that threatens our future -- a form we have designed and built ourselves -- the Artificial Intelligence. When discussing AI, people tend to focus on robots taking over jobs and machines driving cars and killing innocent passersby, the reality, however, is nowhere near as tragic. The very reason AI is growing so fast is to make life easier as modern times are all about convenience.

I had been testing out Vi, a set of $249 Bluetooth running headphones with its own built-in AI assistant and biometric tracking features. After a convoluted series of events in which I was offered a potentially illegal entry to the Brooklyn Half Marathon a week before the race, I found my adventure: I decided to run my own 13.1 miles in the Prospect Park Loop with nothing but the AI headphones to guide me, using Vi for a crash training course to prep in less than a week. Vi doesn't offer much more than other running apps I've used: It tracks the distance you run, measures your heart rate, and offers some realtime coaching direction to fine-tune your step rate to find your ideal pace, which it calls your "Comfort Zone," -- but it leaves much to be desired as a next-gen personal trainer. It currently has no dedicated feature to set specific goals, so users prepping for races like me have no guide to train for big events or set more defined goals than just fine-tuning their running style.