While Google Home might be a great first-gen product, there's a lot about it that still frustrates us. We're still waiting for it to get support for reminders. We can't yet add events to our Google Calendars. And we'd like it to integrate with more of the smart devices in our home. But it looks like one of our biggest gripes is finally being addressed.

Google is set to give its artificial intelligence-based voice assistant, Google Assistant, a more robust personality. The company has hired Emma Coats, a storyboard artist who worked on Pixar's movie Brave, to help create a more "chatty" Assistant, BBC reported Friday. "The Assistant gives a conversational way to access everything Google can do for you, and on the Personality Team we add delight wherever we can. The rest of Google has all the useful parts of the Assistant covered, so the Google Assistant Personality Team really supports them by coming up with fun things the Assistant can say and do, whether that's games or things to discover," Coats told BBC in an interview. The Google Assistant is part of a tussle between Google and rival Apple, with both companies trying to outdo each other in terms of voice-based features every year.

ZTE is trying its hand at making smartwatches for a second time with the ZTE Quartz. Quartz is the company's first smartwatch to run on Android Wear and offer Google Assistant compatibility. The company's first smartwatch, Axon Watch, launched back in 2015 but only in Chinese markets. Quartz has a 1.4 inch AMOLED Gorilla Glass display and a built-in speaker and microphone. The watch also comes with WiFi and 3G, which, along with the mic and speakers, allow for users to answer and make calls without needing their phone. Two features that are missing: a heart rate sensor and Android Pay, so you'd better take your wallet with you.

One of the biggest problems with Google Home is the lack of mulit-user support. If you're the only person that uses the smart speaker, there's no problem, but for families and other house-sharing groups it's a real nuisance. Ask the Assistant to create a new calendar appointment, for instance, and it might go into someone else's diary. Thankfully, it sounds like Google has been working on the problem and will soon be rolling out an update. A message in the Google Home app says "multiple users are now supported," even though the functionality isn't live just yet.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is quickly becoming a hot topic, with development being made very quickly in the industry it's no wonder everyone is talking about it. We are always reading about the future of AI and whether robots will start to think and really become intelligent. While this does seem far off AI, with the help of machine learning, is starting to have an impact on our lives. All of our smartphones today have some form of'virtual personal assistant', for example Siri or Google Voice, allowing the user to ask questions to their phone and gain a response. While these apps are using machine learning to be able to answer and aid your question they are also learning about you.

Artificial intelligence has quickly become part of our daily routine -- it powers everything from simple features like automatic image tagging on Facebook and purchase prediction on Amazon to more complex systems like smart cars and connected homes. We can even thank AI for HBO's hit TV series, Westworld, a sci-fi thriller about an amusement park populated with AI-powered robots called "hosts," that dominated the cultural zeitgeist this past fall. While the AI technology we interact with today gives us a hint at what's to come, it's actually Westworld that spells out the future most clearly. Before I get ahead of myself let me clarify: I don't foresee an apocalyptic robot takeover happening any time soon (or ever for that matter). But Westworld's narrative begins in a way that is quite similar to the true beginning of AI -- it may not look the same (you don't see many human-like "hosts" wandering the streets), but the technology behaves the same.

Science fiction has long cautioned us that the rise of artificial intelligence will likely mean the end of humanity. The Matrix, Terminator, Blade Runner…the list goes on. But in the real world, while some are concerned about artificial intelligence in 2017, analysts see huge potential in the industry for some key AI companies. In fact, AI technology will be a key driver of some of the biggest tech companies as it continues to develop. And the AI wars have only just begun. And no, not against humans, but rather between tech giants jostling for dominance in what is one of most promising developments in the tech world.

The year 2016 was one dominated by disruption -- from society to politics, the economy to technology -- in India, and around the world. The year 2017 is shaping up to be one where some of the dust of disruption begins to settle, and we find a new way forward. As the consequences of a customer-led and digital-centric market start to take shape, businesses in particular have had to come to grips with the stark reality that slow, calculated change won't cut it in this new environment. In the race to disrupt or be disrupted, and as organisations face fierce competition both at home and abroad, emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) are seeping into the mainstream enterprise. While self-driving cars and virtual assistants continue to dominate headlines and capture the imagination of consumers, enterprises in India are quietly grappling with how they too can effectively leverage AI as they seek the holy grail of deeper contextual insights.

Over the past two decades or so eCommerce has undergone a major change. The speed of this change has been, and continues to be, amazing. The world wide web got invented in 1989, became available on the Internet in 1991; first web sites humbly started as additional marketing channels, with corporate web sites giving information on the company and a product catalogue; 1994 the Netscape browser arrived. In 1995 Amazon got founded – and the story started to take off. In 2000 we saw US online shopping eclipsing the 25 billion dollar mark.

The rise in artificial intelligence is here and has brought with it many advantages. However, there are also disadvantages that come with it. One of those is in people that are finding it difficult to hang on to their current roles and are being pushed out by more effective machines. The threat that automation will steal jobs is a worldwide issue that's affecting millions of people already, and it's not over yet. According to the results of a recent study carried out by Accenture, more than 1,000 large companies worldwide that are already using or in the process of testing AI and machine learning systems were, in fact, creating entirely new, unique categories of jobs for humans.