That restriction has been removed -- Microsoft says that you can ask Cortana questions, set reminders and basically do anything else you might usually ask the app direct from the lock screen. Microsoft has also made some updates to the default Cortana home screen, showing glanceable info like weather, upcoming calendar items, commute times and so forth. It sounds handy, but given that Android basically does this in the Google Search search app, it's also a bit redundant. For those that use Cortana a lot on their Windows computers and want easy access to that info on their phone, though, this updated app should do the trick. The latest version of Cortana for Android is available now in the Google Play Store.

Intelligent personal assistants are being tested at Marriott hotels, pointing to a future of automated hotel rooms. Marriott International, one of the world's largest hotel chains, is testing iPads running Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa-powered Echo at its Aloft hotel in Boston's Seaport district, according to a report in Bloomberg. Both of those technologies are based on artificial intelligence (AI) that responds to voice commands. The devices would be used to operate lights in the room, control room temperature, and interface with the TV via voice commands. "This is about what next-generation travelers might want and how they would use their own devices at home and how that would translate to their travel experience," Toni Stoeckl, Global Brand Leader, Lifestyle Brands at Marriott International, told Fox News in a phone interview.

Fandango uses them to communicate with movie fans. Dominos offers them to help customers order pizza. And Nordstrom utilizes them to help shoppers customize gift ideas. They're called "chatbots," and they've now infiltrated the real estate space, making it easier to hunt for a home or rental unit or list your property for sale. Chatbots are artificial intelligence-powered virtual assistants (VAs), found within messaging apps or websites, that automatically respond to consumers' requests and provide information via chat or text.

The idea of a tax on robots was raised last May in a draft report to the European parliament prepared by MEP Mady Delvaux from the committee on legal affairs. Emphasising how robots could boost inequality, the report proposed that there might be a "need to introduce corporate reporting requirements on the extent and proportion of the contribution of robotics and AI to the economic results of a company for the purpose of taxation and social security contributions". The public reaction to Delvaux's proposal has been overwhelmingly negative, with the notable exception of Bill Gates, who endorsed it. But we should not dismiss the idea out of hand. In just the past year, we have seen the proliferation of devices such as Google Home and Amazon Echo Dot (Alexa), which replace some aspects of household help. Likewise, the Delphi and nuTonomy driverless taxi services in Singapore have started to replace taxi drivers.

It was just a friendly little argument about the fate of humanity. Demis Hassabis, a leading creator of advanced artificial intelligence, was chatting with Elon Musk, a leading doomsayer, about the perils of artificial intelligence. They are two of the most consequential and intriguing men in Silicon Valley who don't live there. Hassabis, a co-founder of the mysterious London laboratory DeepMind, had come to Musk's SpaceX rocket factory, outside Los Angeles, a few years ago. They were in the canteen, talking, as a massive rocket part traversed overhead. Musk explained that his ultimate goal at SpaceX was the most important project in the world: interplanetary colonization. Hassabis replied that, in fact, he was working on the most important project in the world: developing artificial super-intelligence. Musk countered that this was one reason we needed to colonize Mars--so that we'll have a bolt-hole if A.I. goes rogue and turns on humanity. Amused, Hassabis said that A.I. would simply follow humans to Mars. This did nothing to soothe Musk's anxieties (even though he says there are scenarios where A.I. wouldn't follow). An unassuming but competitive 40-year-old, Hassabis is regarded as the Merlin who will likely help conjure our A.I. children. The field of A.I. is rapidly developing but still far from the powerful, self-evolving software that haunts Musk. Facebook uses A.I. for targeted advertising, photo tagging, and curated news feeds. Microsoft and Apple use A.I. to power their digital assistants, Cortana and Siri. Google's search engine from the beginning has been dependent on A.I. All of these small advances are part of the chase to eventually create flexible, self-teaching A.I. that will mirror human learning. Some in Silicon Valley were intrigued to learn that Hassabis, a skilled chess player and former video-game designer, once came up with a game called Evil Genius, featuring a malevolent scientist who creates a doomsday device to achieve world domination.

The buzz surrounding machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) in the consumer world has rapidly bled over into the enterprise. Much of this hype stems from the new consumer trends that hint at the possibilities of AI, such as self-driving cars and intelligent voice-first products like Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri. At the same time, mainstream cloud adoption and ever-increasing computing power in the form of new solutions like Google Spanner are accelerating the development, accuracy and speed of AI's underlying foundations, from data availability and spam detection, to machine learning, predictive analytics and natural language processing. So it should come as no surprise that sales and marketing leaders are questioning what all this means for their departments and companies. At a basic level, AI is about replacing human function with computers.

Talk is cheap, but security is king in the AI future of conversational commerce. Researchers at TSSG in Waterford are on the case for making AI voice-based commerce tangible and safe. The speed of the introduction of services like Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana and Amazon Echo's Alexa makes it easy to forget that the artificially intelligent (AI) future we all dreamed of is actually here. Yesterday, Gartner Fellow and vice-president Tom Austin pointed this paradox out when he said that most of the AI on our smartphones – many of which have been with us for years – are taken for granted. 'We are seeing cool apps coming out but we have to make sure that we underpin the technology by addressing core security and privacy concerns as well' – ERIC ROBSON And yet, the hottest areas of tech today, AI and machine-learning, hold the keys to a whole generation of services that will transform our lives forever.

Writer and filmmaker, 33-year old Eva Konstantopoulos wanted to explore our collective digital dystopia and look at what would happen if memory became a commodity through her new short film Re/collection. What if technology would let you trade your memories for something you wanted to change? The short sci-fi film had its world debut at the Sun Valley Film Festival in Sun Valley, Idaho in March, 2017. It took more than a year to make the $40,000, 18-minute film about the commercialization of the human experience. Konstantopolous said she wanted to tell a story about the consequences on human lives if you could buy and sell memories and how technology would play a role in the commoditization of memories.

Looking forward to 2017, we asked 21 bot experts, entrepreneurs, and executives to share their predictions for how bots will continue to evolve in the coming year. "In 2017 brands will realize that conversational marketing is a better way to learn about and build relationships with their customer than today's digital marketing, which monitors their customers with cookies, pixels, search and social data. We'll also see powerful case study data showing that opt-in and conversion rates and the quality of profile information that can be obtained conversationally far outweighs the benefits of email marketing, marketing automation and apps." "Bots will be even more helpful, more intuitive, and most of all, more human. In Flowdock, we aim to have our users interact with bots like we do the people around us to get the information and updates we need. Best of all, bots will continue to keep work fun and to make us laugh."

Samsung Electronics is taking on Google and Apple to grab the lion's share in the highly potential artificial intelligence (AI) industry. The Seoul-based tech behemoth confirmed this week that its upcoming flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S8, would be equipped with its new AI assistant, Bixby. Samsung is a latecomer in the AI industry, compared with its handset rivals such as Apple and Google. Google, for its part, is also seeking to expand its AI presence, backed by its dominant Android mobile operating system (OS), allowing Nougat 7.0 users to access its AI service, Google Assistant. Samsung, though, remains confident about its success in AI, largely due to its global influence as the world's largest consumer electronics manufacturer.