Apple's personal assistant Siri is known for its Easter eggs and its oddball answers to questions like, "What is the meaning of life?" Now, its latest trick will help you get in touch with your inner Dark Knight. The Lego Batman Movie, released last Friday, features the voice of Siri as the Batcave's computer. So, naturally, Apple has teamed up with Warner Bros. to cross-promote the animated film. If you say, "Hey, computer!" or "Hey, 'puter!" into Siri, she responds to you as if you're the tiny, plastic Caped Crusader.

Last year, Huawei leapfrogged a couple of fellow Chinese hardware companies to secure its spot as the third largest smartphone maker worldwide. As the company takes aim at the number two spot, it's apparently working to differentiate itself even more from the competition by developing more proprietary tech, adding to a list of components that already includes its own in-house chips. According to a new report from Bloomberg, a smart assistant is the next step. The company is said to be hard at work on a Siri/Alexa/Google Assistant competitor, employing a team of more than 100 people tasked with its creation in Shenzhen. If true, the company would join Samsung in a growing list of Android handset makers opting not to go with Google's assistant – though the Galaxy maker sped up the process a bit with its recent acquisition of Viv Labs.

Right now, you can order a pizza, manage your to-do list and call an Uber on Amazon Echo and Google Home. The latest development from the smart speakers would give us yet another reason to leave our phones in our pocket. The Wall Street Journal reports that Amazon and Google are considering adding telephone functionality to their devices, but it won't be easy. Citing "people familiar with the matter," the Journal says Amazon and Google could introduce the ability to make and receive calls on their respective platforms later this year. The companies could make use of their existing communication platforms, since Amazon already has the business-focused videoconferencing tool Chime. Meanwhile, Google has Hangouts, Duo, and it recently recommitted to maintaining Google Voice.

Amazon's virtual assistant Alexa can now schedule your events on Microsoft's Outlook.com as well as Google Calendar. The update, available as of Wednesday, was made to Alexa's start screen and was first reported by tech news site The Verge. An Amazon (amzn) spokesperson confirmed that the update went live Wednesday. What this means is that users can set Outlook as the default calendar for Alexa and associated devices (such as the Amazon Echo or Echo Dot) using the Alexa app. Once that's done, users can check or add new events via voice commands, such as: "Alexa, what's on my calendar today?" or "Alexa, am I free tomorrow night?"

Many experts in the field firmly believe 2017 will be a breakout year for both artificial intelligence and robotics, since the two often go together. Spoiler alert: it's all good. They are also becoming better at picking up on facial expressions and gestures, so their interactions with humans become more natural, said Kevin Curran, IEEE senior member and professor of cyber security at Ulster University. "Basically, AI is crucial for all their learning and adaptive behavior so they can adapt existing capabilities to cope with environmental changes. AI is key to helping them learn new tasks on the fly by sequencing existing behaviors," he said.

Due to recent major technological developments, Artificial Intelligence is evolving at an exponential rate. It is even considered to be the technology of the future. But the truth is, it is already present in our everyday lives: fraud detection, purchase predictions on e-commerce sites, videos games and virtual personal assistants like our favorite one, Julie. In case you still don't fully understand what it entails or want to know more about AI, here is a list of 10 Artificial Intelligence experts and influencers who specialized in Artificial Intelligence and related fields and who share their knowledge on the subject area or just keep you up to date with the latest developments. CEO of Thilium, an Influencer Marketing Agency and International branding expert, Tamara McCleary also specializes in Business experiences in IoT, Machine Learning, Blockchain, Wearables, FinTech and Artificial Intelligence, to name a few.

It's clear artificial intelligence (AI) and automation will dramatically affect the job market, but there's conflicting ideas on just how soon this will happen. Some believe it's imminent -- possibly fueled by developments like the Japanese insurance company replacing over 30 employees with robots -- but it's not that cut and dried. Many of the jobs that will be automated are the same jobs companies have been outsourcing for years: customer support, data entry, accounting, etc. Others are jobs they simply cannot fill due to decreases in headcount. Either way, as transactions and expectations for real-time output increase, businesses are struggling to meet this demand and must digitize their operations to remain competitive.

It may soon be possible to make or answer phone calls through an Amazon Echo or Google Home, The Wall Street Journal reports. Both Amazon and Google are reportedly working on new features that would enable their Internet-connected speakers to work as telephones. The functionality could launch sometime this year. Still, there are a number of concerns to overcome before Google and Amazon can integrate phone calls into their devices, the Journal notes, mostly around privacy, telecom involvement, and emergency services. For one, people may be uncomfortable having phone conversations on a device that's capable of recording speech.

Amazon and Google are looking into bringing voice calls to their home devices, the Amazon Echo and Google Home, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal. The devices would be used to make or receive calls and could potentially replace the home phone. Google and Amazon might launch the feature this year, but could be delayed due to concerns about privacy, emergency services and telecom regulations. Making and receiving calls on the speakerphone instead of privately like on a smartphone, could also limit the use of the feature. Amazon is considering various options, syncing to the owner's current phone number, call forwarding, or a sole phone number for the Echo.

Amazon recently released two new software updates: one for its Amazon Alexa voice assistant and another for its Amazon Tap portable speakers. The updates come with Outlook.com According to The Verge, Amazon silently updated its intelligent virtual assistant, so Outlook.com Henceforth, Alexa clients can ask the voice assistant "What's on my calendar?" The Alexa update has been quietly seeded to the software of the AI assistant, so there's no need for users to manually update their Alexa-powered devices.