By Pavel Alpeyev When Siri is asked whether she has a boyfriend, the iPhone's digital assistant is usually quick to deflect the question with a quip about drones always trying to pick her up. For Minori Takechi, founder of Vinclu, that's a missed opportunity. Takechi is the creator of Hikari Azuma, a miniskirt-wearing avatar. She can hold a basic conversation and wake you up in the morning by turning on the lights. Hikari will message you at work and greet you when you return home.

The introduction of Amazon Echo and Google Home is helping the Chatbot crossover into the mainstream, heralding a new era for the technology. However, while they have grand ambitions of offering 360-degree personal assistant support to consumers, the current limits of the technology mean they still fall short of being able to complete more complex tasks. Sure, Alexa and Siri can tell you the weather, play your favourite Spotify playlist, search the internet on your behalf, and manage your diary – but ask them to book you a ticket on the next train home, order an Uber, or tell you your bank balance and they're stumped. First off, most chatbots are designed to be generalists, offering support on a wide range of tasks faster and cheaper than a human executive assistant. The problem is that these'virtual assistants' don't have access to the information they need for the provision of more complex support.

Google's next iPhone killer, the Pixel XL has been revealed in a new series of renders. The images, created by @onleaks and MySmartPrice, show the handset's new look, and most notably, its lack of a headphone socket. Previous leaked have also claimed it may also have a hidden feature - squeezable edges. The images, created by @onleaks and MySmartPrice, show the handset's new look, and most notably, its lack of a headphone socket. 'The phones feature considerably less bezel compared to the Pixel and the Pixel XL, said mysmartprice.com

Facebook on Wednesday reported a surge in profits in the past quarter, fueled by strong growth in money-making ads to its more than two billion users. Net profit in the second quarter leapt 71 percent from a year ago to $3.9 billion while revenue climbed 45 percent to $9.3 billion. In after-hours trade, Facebook shares rose some two percent to $166.83 on the stronger-than-expected results. Recent reports suggest Facebook may be working on its own smart speaker to compete with Google Home and Amazon Echo in the budding market for home digital assistants. Facebook could also be working on a smartphone, according to paperwork recently spotted by cyber sleuths which the tech giant filed earlier this year.

Artificial intelligence has fascinated mankind for centuries. The concept dates back to Greek myths of golden automatons crafted to assist the gods, medieval pursuits to alchemically force life into unliving matter, and countless novels of the 19th century and beyond. It can be difficult for us to wrap our minds around the reality of AI. The historically fictional nature of AI coaxes us into a natural tendency to see it as an abstract topic--a dream of the future. You can use AI today. The process involves complex mathematics and programming. However, recent innovations in cloud computing by large companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and IBM have shifted the bulk of the work away from smaller businesses. For companies like yours, accessing the cutting-edge power of AI is now as simple as calling an API. So how can you implement AI to help your business?

Twitter is still fighting a battle against online trolls on their platform. Ever want to date someone based on shared interests, goals, or Twitter block lists? There is such a dating site for you. The dating app Loveflutter recently rolled out a premium version of its service called Blue, aimed at Twitter users who carry the coveted blue checkmark next to their name. The checkmark means Twitter has verified the person owning the account.

Does Siri have trouble with your accent? A project is turning to crowdsourced voice donations to overcome this problem, and iron out some of the other inherent problems with voice recognition. Voice assistants like Siri and Alexa are trained on huge databases of recorded speech. But if those don't contain enough samples of a particular accent or dialect, the voice assistants will struggle to understand people who speak that way. So Mozilla – the foundation behind the Firefox web browser – is turning to crowdsourcing to create voice recognition systems that avoid these problems.

Your message has been sent. There was an error emailing this page. It's lowest price to date on Amazon, the Roomba 690 is currently discounted $50. It's WiFi compatible and works with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. See this deal on Amazon. This story, "$50 off iRobot Roomba 690 Wi-Fi Alexa Compatible Robotic Vacuum - Deal Alert" was originally published by TechConnect.

But a traditional Tinder account is just too basic for the rich and famous (especially if they want to hookup with mutually wealthy people). Enter Loveflutter "Blue," the latest premium app aimed at celebs -- only this new dating service comes with a twist. The app exclusively caters to verified Twitter users. Hence its name, which refers to the platform's blue tick community. Its creators claim it's all about authenticity.

Xiaomi's Mi division, which sells some accessories in the US but still no phones, is getting into smart speakers. It just unveiled the Mi AI Speaker, its equivalent to Amazon's Alexa, Google Home and other personal assistant-type models. However, it play music and take voice commands for a lot less, costing just 299 RMB or around $45 when it hits shelves in China starting next month. It features "high-quality" sound and a six microphone array to detect voice commands from any direction and distance like its rivals. More importantly, it has artificial intelligence built-in, so you can order it to play streaming music and act as a personal assistant, giving you weather, calendar reminders, news and so on.