Microsoft is determined to prove that Windows is about more than just desktops, laptops, and tablets. At least, that's been the theme of this year's Build conference, which has focused on topics like virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and improving Windows across platforms. Microsoft's next major Windows update will be coming later this year. Called the Creators Update, the refresh will bring a new design, features that make it easier to work across various devices, and other additions. The design change, known as the Microsoft Fluent Design System, will focus on emphasizing elements like light, motion, depth, and texture within Windows.

Since the days of punch cards, the human-computer interaction landscape has undergone great developments. Scientists are constantly trying to find new ways to bridge the gap between man and machine. The effort has led to the invention of keyboards, mice and touch screens, which made computational power more accessible. Computers themselves have undergone great changes. We gradually moved from mainframe computers to PCs, laptops, smartphones and beyond.

Here's something you haven't seen from Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant. One Halo fan has taken Microsoft's Cortana to the next level by constructing a concept appliance that turns the digital assistant into a hologram. Cortana borrows her name from the AI sidekick in the Microsoft-owned video game saga Halo. Using the 3D Unity app, a platform developing games and VR experiences, creator Jarem Archer of "untitled network" built the hologram from a series of animations recorded from dual Kinects of his wife. He then constructed a working concept appliance that serves as a personal assistant and is capable of responding to queries.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single chatbot, powered by artificial intelligence, will inevitably learn from human users to be a sexist pig. Microsoft learned this lesson the hard way in 2016 when it released the Twitter chatbot known as Tay. Within hours, Tay was tweeting sentences like "Zoe Quinn is a Stupid Whore" and "I fucking hate feminists and they should all die and burn in hell." A recent study published in the journal Science, conducted by researchers at Princeton University and the University of Bath, found machine learning inherently "absorbs stereotyped biases" from human internet users. That includes racial bias, as proved by Google search algorithms' propensity to prioritize images of white women and babies over people of color.

This morning Cisco announced that it is buying MindMeld for $125 million. Founded in 2011, MindMeld helps businesses to build conversational interfaces with cloud-based services. MindMeld, originally called Expect Labs, was launched on the stage of TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2012. At that time the startup wanted to build an iPad app that could listen in on your conversations and provide relevant contextual information. Since then the company has expanded its offerings to include a suite of APIs for parsing, reasoning about and generating language.

My dad got me my first computer for Christmas when I was 11 years old. It was a Texas Instruments 99-4a. He must have gotten it second hand because it had no box or any form of storage like a tape drive. I had been obsessed with the movie War Games, so my first program on the TI was designed to replicate the computer in the movie which uttered the famous line "shall we play a game." My program gave static responses to a huge variety of programmed questions, and mostly followed the script from the movie.

A complement to the OneDrive on Demand feature coming in the Fall Creators Update, Microsoft's also adding offline folder support to the OneDrive mobile apps. If you download a folder and make changes while you're offline, they'll be uploaded to the cloud the next time your device connects to the Internet. You don't need to wait to start using this, though. OneDrive offline folders are already available for Android to Office 365 Personal and Home subscribers and OneDrive business accounts, with iOS support slated to roll out in "the next few months." Just click the Parachute icon to save a folder offline.

MindMeld can create AI-powered conversational interfaces. MindMeld tech and its 10 patents surrounding AI and deep learning will be used to improve Cisco Spark and other Cisco collaboration products. The MindMeld platform for the creation of bots and voice-powered assistants launched last fall. The MindMeld API is currently being used by more than 1,200 companies around the world. Customers and investors include Google, Samsung, Intel, Telefonica, Liberty Global, IDG, USAA, Uniqlo, Spotify, and In-Q-Tel, a CIA investment fund.

Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella said tech developers have a responsibility to prevent a dystopian '1984' future as the US technology titan unveiled a fresh initiative to bring artificial intelligence into the mainstream. At the start of its annual Build Conference, Microsoft sought to showcase applications with artificial intelligence that could tap into services in the internet'cloud' and even take advantage of computing power in nearby machines. Nadella spent time on stage at the Seattle conference stressing a need to build trust in technology, saying new applications must avoid dystopian futures feared by some. Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella (pictured) opened the tech giant's Build conference by telling developers artificial intelligence does not need to lead to a dystopian future Microsoft rivals including Amazon, Apple, Google and IBM have all been aggressively pursing the promise and potential of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is getting a foothold in people's homes, with personal assistants answering questions and controlling connected devices such as appliances or light bulbs.

Microsoft's push into being the connective glue between all your devices is encompassed in Graph. That is what the company is calling a handful of features it says will "connect dots between people, conversations, projects and content." Announced during the second day of Build 2017, the aim is to make all things Microsoft work seamlessly, whether you're on an iPhone, an Android device or a Windows PC. (And without mentioning Continuum.) It goes beyond that, tapping into Microsoft's cloud storage services in a bid to make you more efficient switching across different hardware, and keeping track of (almost) everything you do on your PC. Timeline is possibly the most intriguing feature, offering a (literal) timeline of what you were working on / doing on your PC months or even years ago.