Valentine's Day is around the corner, and as people's thoughts turn to love, chocolate, and dating, a new app has been announced with a simple concept: it searches for matches based on photos that users upload of faces they find enticing. Developed by researchers at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), the app is called FaceDate. You teach the app what kind of face you like, and it goes from there. Cristian M. Borcea, the chair of the computer science department at NJIT, supervised the graduate students who developed the app. "Someone downloads the app and then has the ability to train the app with faces that that person might like to date," Borcea told Fox News.

In this week's This Feels A Little Like Skynet: IBM built a new voice assistant using artificial intelligence called Hayvn, focused on cybersecurity. Think of it as Amazon Alexa, but instead of ordering soap, it's helping you manage threats. Sure, this might sound like it's ripped straight out of the plot for Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, in which the military unleashes a new AI called Skynet to fight a virus that's been disrupting worldwide networks. And yes, that AI then becomes sentient, launches nukes and begins "Judgement Day." Here in the real world, IBM said Hayvn is being used to help cybersecurity pros comb through the hundreds of alerts they receive each day.

Hoping to go to Google's annual developer conference this spring? If you are, mark your calendar for Feb. 22. That's the day when you can first apply for tickets to Google I/O. Google announced on its events page that the window for submitting ticket applications is between Feb. 22 at 1 p.m. ET and Feb. 27 at 8 p.m. ET. The conference is being held May 17-19 at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, Calif. This is the second year that the event will be held in Mountain View.

How humanity will meet its end is a an endless source of fascination in science fiction. But scientists claim many of the scenarios depicted in films - such as an asteroid strike and killer robots - may not be as far fetched as you might think. Now researchers at Cambridge University's Study of Existential Risk (CESR) have come up with a list of 10 threats that may some day trigger an apocalypse. Humanity faces an uncertain future as technology learns to think for itself and adapt to its environment. Artificial Intelligence, disguised as helpful digital assistants and self-driving vehicles, is gaining a foothold and it could one day spell the end for mankind if allowed to develop without strict controls.

One of the greatest features of having a voice-powered speaker in our homes is the ability to play a song when the moment strikes. Google Home has always included support for Spotify, YouTube Music, Pandora, and TuneIn, letting you fill your house with music just by asking, but now it's making its own service a whole lot smarter. Subscribers to Google Play Music can now tap into a new personalized world of music with Google Home. Where you previously had to meticulously create your own playlists for workouts or dinner parties, Google will now let Assistant be your DJ, as the service combines "machine learning and information like weather, activity, and location" to deliver the perfect playlist for whatever you happen to be doing: "Say you're making pizza and your hands are covered in flour. Just say, 'Ok Google, play music for cooking' and we'll serve up the perfect tunes, like our R&B Kitchen Dance Party playlist. If you've had a long day at work and are too tired to move a muscle, say'Ok Google, play music for relaxing' and get a playlist like Mellow Pop without lifting a finger."

If you make a purchase by clicking one of our links, we may earn a small share of the revenue. Our picks and opinions are independent from any business incentives. I'm not ashamed to admit it--I love smart home tech. It has the potential to drastically improve our homes, and how we live in them. Just imagine what your home could do for you if your thermostat could talk to your phone, or your security camera could talk to your lights.

With most dating services, live human interaction is usually the last thing that happens. It's what you get if that back-and-forth messaging actually leads somewhere. In Hotline's newly launched service, however, it's not just prominent... it's mandatory. The mobile app requires that you have a 5-minute voice call with your prospective partner (thankfully, without using your phone number) before you can message them. It's a scary concept if you're shy or hate calls, but the hope is that you'll quickly find out whether or not the real person is as interesting as their profile.

After numerous PR requests were thwarted I was forced to cave and buy an Echo Dot - the first time ever I have had to buy technology - bar Apple products - such was the draw. After two months my verdict is in; if you haven't bought one yet, wait to buy one...this puppy is cute not toilet trained (yet). Firstly, let me say Echo is a superbly made product that is changing a lot of lives, playing a lot of music and will influence how people buy stuff. However excited I am by the potential, I am equally, if not more, saddened by how far we are still yet to go and why some functionality was omitted. Echo is, for all intents and purpose a glorified speaker and lazy audio search.

The Galaxy Note 7 was not only a big disappointment to fans, it was also an expensive learning experience for Samsung. Nevertheless, the overall success of the Note series is far greater than the fiasco the problematic handset caused the South Korea tech giant. So, just like what many tech sites are saying, Samsung is not at all done with the Galaxy Note brand and it is far from abandoning its famous phablet line. Ever since Samsung mobile unit head D.J. Koh announced last month that the company is releasing a Galaxy Note 7 successor, many fans of the Note series were pleased and have since started to keep tabs on updates regarding the next phablet. If the latest report on the upcoming handset is to be believed, Samsung may have derived the device's codename or working title from the deepest lake in the world.

Last October, 11-year-old Evan Spisak wandered down to his father's basement workshop to help out on a weekend project, a time-honored tradition in homes across the country. But Evan's father, Mike, is an IBM master inventor. And what they came up with was no birdhouse or pinewood derby car. It was Havyn, a homegrown voice assistant that taps into IBM's enormous cybersecurity infrastructure, putting Watson's AI smarts at their literal beck and call. Think of Havyn, instead, as a highly specific analog to Amazon's Alexa voice assistant.