If Amazon's upgraded Fire tablet range has left your slate looking a little dated, we have some good news: Alexa is coming. The online retail giant confirmed today that when its new Alexa-equipped Fire 7 and Fire HD 8 tablets arrive early next month, it will push an update to older devices, allowing you to get to grips with the fully-integrated AI assistant. The launch has been a long time coming, especially as US customers have been able to launch apps, play media and listen to news via Alexa since September last year. Amazon says the rollout will begin "in the coming weeks" and that it will continue to update the assistant, meaning it will get smarter over time. Once the update is installed, all you need to do is long-press the home button to activate Alexa.

Major technology companies and new startups are at war over having the most valuable artificial intelligence and at the core of this war is having unique high quality visual data. This battle will be won by owning the connected camera. The majority of the data our brains analyze is visual, and therefore the majority of the data needed for artificial intelligence to have human (or better than human) skills, will rely on the ability for computers to translate high quality visual data. One of the business sectors that will be revolutionized by artificial intelligence is e-commerce. The Amazon's Echo Look is a smart stake in the ground for Amazon.

For most people, artificial intelligence is Siri, the lovable but modest digital assistant on iPhones. She can't really do much beyond answering simple questions. Advanced artificial intelligence is far from that. Algorithms are constantly learning, often in unusual ways, and at an exponential rate. Co-founder of Google DeepMind Mustafa Suleyman attends a Q&A with Special Projects Editor forTechCrunch, Jordan Crook during day 1 of TechCrunch Disrupt London at the Copper Box on December 5, 2016 in London, England.

Running a business today means contending with technologies that sound like plot devices from a comic book. Gene editing, artificial intelligence, voice-powered digital assistants--these are the unlikely realities facing leaders today, and we're going to take them on at WIRED Business Conference 2017 with the help of a few folks largely responsible for unleashing these forces in the first place. Andy Rubin, smartphone inventor and creator of the Android mobile operating system, who is working to bring AI to everyone. David Limp, senior vice president of devices at Amazon, oversaw the development of the Amazon Echo and its artificially intelligent digital assistant, Alexa. Jennifer Doudna, the UC Berkeley biochemist who developed the groundbreaking gene-editing tool CRISPR in 2012, will come clean about her fears and hopes for the powers of genetic modification.

Amazon has launched two new budget Fire tablets, with one costing just £50, and has brought its Alexa voice assistant to tablets in the UK. The new thinner and lighter £50 Fire 7, which has an improved screen, longer battery life and more storage, hopes to continue the success of the previous Fire 7 tablet, which won plaudits for balancing low cost with features. At the same time, Amazon has launched a new version of its Fire HD 8 tablet, with similar improvements and a lower starting price of £80. Kevin Keith, Amazon's general manager for Fire tablets, said: "The Fire 7 for under £50 shocked a lot of folks, and became the bestselling tablet we ever built. We found most of the folks who buy our devices do so for entertainment, or what I like to call digital snacking: social media, light email, apps, games and music. So we've really focused on those areas."

Google's Assistant just learned some new kitchen tricks. Ahead of Google's I/O developer conference, GE has announced its full suite of Wi-Fi-connected smart appliances can now be controlled with Google Assistant, the voice-enabled digital assistant that lives in Google Home. The announcement comes a year after GE integrated Amazon Alexa voice commands with its smart appliances using the Geneva Alexa skill. Google Assistant integration works the same as it does with Alexa, and you can ask it to do things like preheat the oven, or check if the dishes are clean, or make hot water. "OK Google, ask Geneva Home to preheat the oven to 350 degrees."

You may want to practice saying "Ok Google" if you have GE WiFi-connected appliances in your home. Just as Bloomberg reported a few days ago, GE worked with the tech titan to integrate Google Assistant into its system. Now, you can use the voice-activated helper through Google Home, a Pixel or other select Android phones to operate various smart appliances. Take note that the big G's Assistant can't exactly control the devices directly. Your commands work by going through Geneva, the skill GE developed when it launched Amazon Alexa integration for its appliances in September last year.

Apple might be ahead of most of its rivals in terms of sales and branding, but for the past few years, it has been lagging behind in terms of features. An important feature of Apple's iPhone is Siri -- the company's voice assistant. Siri was the first conversational voice assistant on the scene in 2011. However, in the past year it has been left behind by artificial intelligence (AI) based voice assistants such as the Google Assistant and Samsung Bixby. While Siri has remained limited by its pre-recorded responses to queries, other AI-based voice assistants have developed the ability to evolve with usage.

USA TODAY's Jefferson Graham says Google Home is improved but is still a work in progress with some gaping holes. For the second straight year, Google is expected to use its annual conference for software developers to push its latest hardware. Wednesday kicks off Google I/O, the company's developers conference. It starts with a keynote address at 1 p.m. eastern, during which Google is likely to reveal lots of news about both its latest wave of gadgets and its software. Here's what to expect on Wednesday: Amazon's Echo fueled a surge in interest for both voice-enabled speakers and the digital assistants that power them.

Competition – it motivates all of us to become better at what we do. Marketers are no different, especially when they have to stay on top of the SEO game. They research the latest SEO trends; they use the best SEO tools out there. The problem is, unlike a sports competition, the goal posts for SEO are always changing. This, of course, makes the game more interesting, but also pretty frustrating for those trying to "keep up."