THE ORIGINAL MACHINERY question, which had seemed so vital and urgent, eventually resolved itself. Despite the fears expressed by David Ricardo, among others, that "substitution of machinery for human labour…may render the population redundant", the overall effect of mechanisation turned out to be job creation on an unprecedented scale. Machines allowed individual workers to produce more, reducing the price of many goods, increasing demand and generating a need for more workers. Entirely new jobs were created to oversee the machines. As companies got bigger, they required managers, accountants and other support staff.

A few days ago I attended Google I/O 2017 in Mountain View and I would like to share what I learned. As always there were so many parties the night before I/O. I went to two parties: Women Techmaker's dinner with over 1000 other women at GARField park near Googleplex, and the Android Study Group (ASG) mixer at LinkedIn. The best part of Google I/O, besides the incredible learning, was hanging out with friends. On the first day of I/O, Sundai Pichai opened the Google Keynote which can be summed up with this message: mobile first to AI first.

Apple seems to have big plans for its voice assistant Siri, as was evident from its launch of the Apple HomePod, Siri-based smart speaker at the World Wide Developers Conference last month. A new patent has revealed that the company has more plans for Siri, including integrating it in a smart home setup. Patently Apple on Saturday discovered an Apple Patent titled "Intelligent automated assistant in a home environment" which was filed in Australia on June 22. The patent seems to be in line with the company's 2015 report titled "Apple Invents Siri for Home Automation ." Both the patent and the report are focusing on Siri and home automation, but the patent also contains information about Siri's home automation usage filed between 2014 and 2016.

On February 9, 2017, two technology market leaders made announcements: SAP unveiled its next-generation intelligent ERP system, and Nvidia announced that demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications was driving demand for its graphics platform. Simply speaking, cognitive computing refers to self-learning systems that mimic the way the human brain works. In the SAP announcement, the "intelligent" piece of "intelligent ERP" comes from a digital assistant (SAP CoPilot) of which users can ask questions and to which they can give commands via voice, text, or gestures, just as they would to a human assistant. We might do the same on our path to build artificial intelligence brains."

Google, when does the local Target store open? They're so helpful -- always ready with an answer or to help with my daily life. The fact that AI assistants, and our phones, computers, and intelligent devices in general, are potentially always listening to every word that we say. And the amazing thing is, we not only invited them, but we welcome them to snoop on us! Imagine if, even just a few years ago, major companies had said, "Hey we'd like to put microphones in your home and on your person so we can listen to every word you say, and provide better products and services to you (and more effectively target ads at you, but let's just skip over that)."

Have online match sites and dating apps left you perpetually unlucky in love? There may be a scientific explanation. New research from the University of Kansas has found that it's hard to gauge if you find someone attractive from a photograph alone. Instead, you must actually meet them in person, as personality plays a very important role in our overall physical attraction to someone. For this reason, the team proposes that online dating and dating apps such as Tinder are not very effective in providing real matches, as they are based solely on a person's photographs.

You can also use Alexa Skills, to enable Alexa skills directly from our app to your Alexa device. Not sure what cool things you can do with your Alexa powered device? Use our Alexa Skills app, to see our recommended Alexa skill of the day, collect your favourite Alexa skills, look at previously recommended Alexa Skills, and checkout the charts for the top must have Alexa skills. Our Alexa Skills app is an excellent accompaniment to you Alexa device.

Worried that the rise of artificial intelligence technologies will make the role of the salesperson obsolete? Maybe you should be, but not if you focus on what really matters where sales, and customer relationships, are concerned. Embrace A.I. and you might find yourself becoming an even better salesperson. The following is from Justin Shriber, vice president of marketing, LinkedIn Sales Solutions. Over the past year, A.I. has taken the world by storm.

Amazon released new features today to give the developers of Alexa skills the choice to add more excitement to Alexa's voice, and the ability to speed or slow her pace -- or even whisper. The new feature is available to Alexa skills makers in the U.S., U.K., and Germany and is delivered via Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) tags. Like Alexa skills, Google Assistant actions can also be created using SSML . Other SSML tags introduced for Alexa developers today include an expletive beep and a general interest tag. Tags introduced today are the latest initiative by Amazon to make Alexa more expressive.

At Google I/O 2017 the company announced Bluetooth streaming will be available on Google Home, so that you can stream audio from any device, not just those running a compatible app. Over the last day or so, Android Police reports that some users have received a software update to version 90387 that added an option for "Paired Bluetooth devices" in settings. Using Home for Cast-enabled apps is great, but Bluetooth support will make things more universal. So far the update does not appear to be widely available, and Google has not officially announced it but if you have a Home at home, take a look at the settings and see if you're among the early testers.