Recently, I finished binge-watching the first season of HBO's popular series, Westworld. The show sheds light on machines coming of age and the extent humans can go to exploit technology. From Matrix to Ex Machina, all these sci-fi movies reveal a darker side of not only humans but also the machines. I dread the idea of machines becoming smarter than us or a day when machines lead our lifestyles. But that might or might not happen in the next century, most probably I will not live to see that time.

The proliferation of portable, voice-enabled gadgets like Amazon's Tap speaker and Doppler Labs's smart, wireless earbuds enables us to play music, search the Web, and answer phone calls around the house and on the go using verbal commands. But because these devices are susceptible to damage from dirt and moisture and last only a few hours per battery charge, we don't use them as much as we might. Boston startup Vesper has devised a solution: miniature piezoelectric microphones that use a cantilever structure to harvest energy from sound and promise to be more durable and energy-efficient than conventional microphones. Vesper says that once its microphones are incorporated into gadgets, which will happen later this year, we should be able to use our voice-enabled devices outdoors and in inclement weather with less worry, for days on a single charge. To demonstrate its microphones' toughness, Vesper plunges them into beer and soda; envelops them in hot steam infused with cooking oil; subjects them to simulated dust storms; and drops them from heights onto hard surfaces (see videos above and below).

AI applications have been deployed and used for industrial, government, and consumer purposes for many years. The experiences have been documented in IAAI conference proceedings since 1989. Over the years, the breadth of applications has expanded many times over and AI systems have become more commonplace. Indeed, AI has recently become a focal point in the industrial and consumer consciousness. This article focuses on changes in the world of computing over the last three decades that made building AI applications more feasible. We then examine lessons learned during this time and distill these lessons into succinct advice for future application builders.

Slime mold, ants, and Amazon's product recommendation system may be making decisions the exact same way, according to a new study. To come to this conclusion, Bernd Meyer and his team studied the behavior of slime mold--which is not a plant, fungus, or animal, but a loosely organized network of individual cells--and stuck it in a maze. Both pathways led to oat flakes, which is apparently slime mold's favorite snack, but one of the paths was dark and the other was filled with a bright blinking light, which mold hates. The slime mold did the most sensible thing it could: have its cake and eat it, too. Or rather, have its oat flakes and recoil from the light. Paradoxically, the slime mold seemed to perform its tasks better with the interference.

The Samsung Galaxy S8 was announced Wednesday and brings to the market a host of new features to the Galaxy S line. From iris scanning and facial recognition to the Bixby AI assistant, the Galaxy S8 packs a host of functions in a frame than it smaller than Samsung's previous flagship models. Samsung Galaxy S8 and Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus Photo: Fionna Agomuoh The Samsung Galaxy S8 features a 5.8-inch Quad HD dual-edge display. The Galaxy S8 Plus features a 6.2-inch Quad HD display. While the screens are much larger than prior Galaxy S devices, their overall size is similar to the Galaxy S7 Edge and the Galaxy Note 7. Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus app tray Photo: Fionna Agomuoh Users can access the Samsung Galaxy S8 app tray by swiping up from the bottom of the display.

When the Samsung Galaxy S8 smartphone finally goes on sale in April, the new flagship smartphone will also be available at a place that might initially seem surprising: the Microsoft Store. Microsoft will begin selling a Microsoft Edition of the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus through its local Microsoft Stores. As with the primary Galaxy smartphones, it will also be available April 21. Externally and mostly internally, the Microsoft Edition of the Galaxy S8 features the same specifications and features as the main Samsung version of the smartphone. However, the Microsoft Edition of the phone will also automatically install a suite of Microsoft mobile apps during the initial setup process.

And there are some awesome features packed in.

Samsung has been bundling Microsoft apps like Skype, OneDrive, OneNote and more on its phones and tablets for a while now. However, when it comes to the Galaxy S8, the two companies are taking their partnership a step further. Microsoft is selling a Samsung Galaxy S8 Microsoft Edition and it's accepting pre-orders starting today at its retail stores in the US ahead of the April 21st launch. As you might expect, the customized S8 will come loaded with Microsoft's apps and services like Office, OneDrive, Outlook and Cortana. It's interesting that Microsoft's virtual assistant would be included given that these two new handsets are the big debut of Samsung's Bixby.

Could artificial intelligence make devices easier to use? According to Samsung, it sure can, and that's what it the company out to prove with its Bixby AI service. Bixby is being loaded on the Galaxy S8 and S8 smartphones, which were announced on Tuesday. Bixby is an agent that can help the smartphones talk, recommend, and remind, said Mok Oh, vice president of service strategy at Samsung. The AI service is being positioned as a more intuitive way to use and interact with smartphones.

People looking for an easier path to integrating with Amazon's Alexa virtual assistant have good news on the horizon. NoHold, a company that builds services for making bots, unveiled a project that seeks to turn a document into an Alexa skill. It's designed for situations like Airbnb hosts who want to give guests a virtual assistant that can answer questions about the home they're renting, or companies that want a talking employee handbook. Bot-builders upload a document to NoHold's Sicura QuickStart service, which then parses the text and turns it into a virtual conversation partner that can answer questions based on the file's contents. Right now, building Alexa skills is a fairly manual process that requires programming prowess and time to figure out Amazon's software development tools for its virtual assistant. People who want to change the way that a bot behaves have to go in and tweak code parameters.