I'm a big Star Wars fan, so when "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" descended on theaters late last year, I braved the crowds to see it -- twice in the first 18 hours. And just like all the other Star Wars movies, "Rogue One" stoked our geeky imaginations with all the technological possibilities of a galaxy far, far away, like holographic displays and all sorts of strange devices. And did you notice the Imperial server farm? Of course, advanced artificial intelligence (AI) was well-represented too: Like C-3P0, R2-D2 and BB-8 in earlier movies, Rogue One's K-2SO displayed uncanny humanness. The futuristic Star Wars-esque world is still mostly the stuff of Hollywood movies, but technology visionaries are hard at work bringing us ever closer.

Virtual Assistants are the base of new world that is being build with advancement in Artificial Intelligence. A virtual Assistant helps a user with so many things like reading mails, setting remainders, gathering news and performing other tasks. There are so many Virtual Assistants available for PC on internet and some of them are very good. Today we will discuss about. We have Cortana on the top of the list because it comes pre-installed with windows 10.

If Google has its way, it might be bringing its virtual assistant to other smartphone platforms. In an interview at Mobile World Congress, Gummi Hafsteinsson -- product management director at Google -- said it wants to port Google's virtual assistant to competing smartphones according to a report from Geekster. "I do not think we have anything to announce at this point," Hafsteinsson said. "But I think the general philosophy is that we would like to have the Assistant available to as many people as possible." Hafsteinsson's statement followed Google confirming that Google Assistant would be available on Android TV and Android Auto platforms.

As you might have heard, Google Assistant is now being rolled out to Android devices after enjoying a few months of exclusivity (as far as mobile devices are concerned) on the Google Pixel phones. So the question is, will Google consider bringing Google Assistant over onto non-Android devices, such as iOS? In that regard we have some good news and bad news. The bad news is that Google has nothing to announce yet, but the good news is that Google isn't closed to the idea and might have hinted at its arrival on iOS, or at least that's according to a report from Geekster (via AppleInsider). The report quotes Google product management director Gummi Hafsteinsson who spoke at MWC 2017 this week where he said, "I do not think we have anything to announce at this point. But I think the general philosophy is that we would like to have the Assistant available to as many people as possible."

The Google Assistant feature was finally rolled out to Android Nougat and Android Marshmallow devices on Thursday. But to get the feature on your device, you will need the updated version of Google Play Services, which wasn't available on the Google Play app store at the time of writing. If you haven't received the update on your device, or for some reason, can't seem to get the feature on your device, there is another way out. Users who haven't received the feature but still want to access it will need to download the APK version of the update and install. Note: International Business Times cannot be held responsible if anything goes wrong.

"We see AI making smart devices even smarter with improved user experiences," says Ian Fogg (pictured right), director of mobile and telecom analysis at IHS Markit. "Existing AI agents like Apple's Siri and Google Assistant will expand across the industry, complemented by embedded AI in all parts of mobile devices from cameras, to audio, to machine." "Smartphones will both be the interface for AI and deliver the vast amount of data technology companies need to train AI systems," Fogg says. Software investments and partnerships are critical for hardware companies to create smarter AI-enabled experiences, says the IHS Markit white paper. Vendors such as Google, Apple, Sony, Microsoft and Samsung have heavily invested in the development of their own AI and voice-assistant capabilities.

If you have an Android phone running Android 6.0 Marshmallow OS and above, check it, you might have a new feature available -- the Google Assistant is now rolling out to all such devices. It is different from Google's previous voice offerings such as Google Now since it not only lets user conduct conversations with it, but also evolves according to usage. The rollout, which will occur in the form of a Google Play Services update, was announced last week. Gummi Hafsteinsson, Google Assistant product lead, said in the company's official press release issued on Sunday: "Our goal is to make the Assistant available anywhere you need it. It came to Android Wear 2.0--via new smartwatches--just a few weeks ago and, as we previewed in January, the Assistant is also coming to TVs and cars. With this update, hundreds of millions of Android users will now be able to try out the Google Assistant."

For some people, the idea of seeing a robot doctor might be discomfiting, but artificial intelligence (AI) is already making its way into the healthcare industry. Researchers aren't so much interested in replacing doctors (the human touch is still a big part of healthcare), but in finding ways to enhance and expedite healthcare. We're a long way from automation and AI occupying every clinic and hospital, but changes are coming. Here are 6 uses of artificial intelligence that are helping to transform the healthcare industry. You're sitting in the doctor's office at 10:55, and your appointment is at 11. 11:30 passes by, and you're still waiting.

Aldous Huxley claimed that "most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted." While Huxley wasn't writing about voice-assisted devices, his understanding of our propensity to cheerlead new technology without fully acknowledging what we sacrifice perfectly captures the new world of voice interfaces ushered in by Amazon's Echo and Google Home. Scientific advancement is valued in a world fueled by willful ignorance and collective complacency about what's being left behind. Although published in the early 1930s, his book raises questions that are still important. Considering the evolution of voice-based smart home devices, it's worth asking: What exactly are we getting into here?

Japanese-based messaging app Line is wildly popular in other parts of the world and the company has even expanded from a simple chat app to a full-service mobile carrier. According to a new report from the Financial Times, Line is branching out again and developing its own digital assistant called Clova to compete with the likes of Alexa and Google Assistant, complete with its own line of smart speakers. Clova isn't scheduled for release until sometime in "early summer" of this year, but Line views the platform, which is being developed with help from Sony and LG, as the next logical step for its messaging service. The platform will include the sort of features you might expect from a digital assistance in 2017 -- like easy access to news, weather, calendars and online purchases -- but Line is also promising Clova will be able to handle "complicated questions" and include a facial recognition aspect similar to Apple's rumored iPhone features. Outside of phones, Clova is designed to work in third-party apps and hardware, but the first devices to support it will be a standalone Clova app, a smart speaker called Wave and a "smart display" called Face.