Amazon Echo is a hands-free speaker controlled with your voice. It features a personal assistant called Alexa, who will perform various tasks for you and control various systems. There are seven microphones within Echo, all of which feature enhanced noise cancellation and far-field voice recognition, meaning you can ask Alexa a question from any direction, even when playing music, and she should still hear you. Amazon Echo's personal assistant will respond to the wake word "Alexa". If you have more than one Echo, or Echo Dot in your home, Alexa will respond from the device closest to you.

Microsoft Corp. is setting up a new research lab focused on artificial intelligence with the goal of creating more general-purpose learning systems. The new lab, called Microsoft Research AI, will be based at the company's headquarters in Redmond, Washington, and involve more than 100 scientists from across various sub-fields of artificial intelligence research, including perception, learning, reasoning and natural language processing. The goal, said Eric Horvitz, the director of Microsoft Research Labs, is to combine these disciplines to work toward more general artificial intelligence, meaning a single system that can tackle a wide-range of tasks and problems. Such a system, for instance, might be able to both plan the best route to drive through a city and also figure out how to minimize your income tax bill, while also understanding difficult human concepts like sarcasm or gestures. This differs from so-called narrow AIs, which are just designed to perform a single task well -- for instance, recognize faces in digital photographs.

REM-Fit has unveiled a $299 smart pillow that can track your sleep habits, stop you from snoring, and even stream music to lull you into sleep. The ZEEQ pillow, which was on display at CE Week in Manhattan, can connect to your smartphone, apps, and smart home assistants such as Amazon's Alexa. It's equipped with wireless speakers, a microphone, vibration motors, and a gyroscope to track your activity – and despite the technology-packed design, it's also incredibly comfortable. REM-Fit has unveiled a $299 smart pillow that can track your sleep habits, stop you from snoring, and even stream music to lull you into a slumber. The pillow also contains a built-in alarm that uses gentle vibrations to wake you up – and this way, it won't disturb your partner While sleep-tracking apps and devices have become increasingly common in recent years, some people still prefer to keep their smartphones far from the bedside to ensure a restful sleep, the ZEEQ team explained to DailyMail.com.

Last summer, Apple was busy advertising its latest move to beef up Siri, the personal digital assistant for the iPhone, iPad and Mac computers. For the first time, Apple said, developers would be able to use Siri with our favorite apps, thus promising a brighter future for the heavily used, but often maligned, voice computing tool. "Siri," Apple said in September, when the latest IOS mobile operating system was released, "works with your favorite apps from the App Store." Apple in 2016 opened up Siri to bring the personal assistant to apps, but few developers have signed on. Jefferson Graham explains why, on #TalkingTech.

A new tweak for Google Home makes it easier to access music you've uploaded, even if you're not a Google Play Music subscriber. While Google Play Music customers could already listen to uploaded or purchased music by either selecting it on another device and using the Cast feature or putting it in a playlist, a new update rolling out means you can ask for your tracks directly by voice. It's not active on my account yet even after a device reboot (although I do see the speaker as an available Bluetooth device), but a post in the Home support forum and updated notes on the support page explain how it all works. The "Play genre/mood/activity " basic voice command isn't supported for uploaded/purchased music. If Google Play Music isn't your default music player, you need to say "Ok Google, play X on Google Play Music " to hear subscription/free radio/uploaded/purchased music. Only personal playlists will be prioritized above your default music player.

Apple in 2016 opened up Siri to bring the personal assistant to apps, but few developers have signed on. Jefferson Graham explains why, on #TalkingTech. A link has been sent to your friend's email address. A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. Apple in 2016 opened up Siri to bring the personal assistant to apps, but few developers have signed on.

The Amazon Echo is an attempt to usher in a new product category. A box that listens to you and obeys your wishes. Kickstarter creator [Joshua Montgomery] likes the idea, but he wants to do it all Open Source with a Raspberry Pi and an Arduino. The Kickstarter (which reached its funding goal earlier this month) claims the device will use natural language to access media, control IoT devices, and will be open both for hardware and software hacking. The Kickstarter page says that Mycroft has partnerships with Lucid and Canonical (the people behind Ubuntu).

It's been more than two years since the Amazon Echo smart speaker was released in the United States, and Amazon is believed to be debuting a successor later this year. A new report claims that the Amazon Echo 2 will look similar to Apple's HomePod. The Amazon Echo 2 is said to be shorter and slimmer than the original unit, while its edges will be be more rounded, an anonymous source told Engadget. The Echo successor is also said to come with a "softer" design with the addition of a cloth-like covering, instead of the original device's all-plastic shell. The new Amazon Echo speaker has also been described as if it were three or four Echo Dots stacked on top of each other.

Killing Cortana isn't as easy as it used to be. When Windows 10 first released, turning off Cortana was as simple as flipping a switch in the digital assistant's settings, but Microsoft removed the option in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update. Now there's no obvious way to disable Cortana--but it is possible using not-so-obvious methods. Completely eradicating Cortana requires a quick and easy registry edit, which we'll detail here. If you don't want Cortana spying on you but also detest the idea of mucking with your PC's deepest software innards, PCWorld's guide to privacy-boosting Cortana tweaks can show you how to limit the personal information it sends Microsoft.

It's been over two years since Amazon debuted the Echo, which kickstarted the current wave of voice-controlled, virtual assistant-powered speakers. And while the company has added more devices to the Echo family, with the tiny Dot, portable Tap and screen-toting Show, it hasn't touched the original model (aside from a white coat of paint for the UK). That's going to change later this year. Amazon is working on a new Echo that will improve on the first speaker in practically every way, a source tells Engadget. And, not surprisingly, it's aiming to take some of the hype away from Apple's HomePod.