You've probably been hearing a lot about Google Home lately. Yes, it's the all-knowing oracle that tells you what's coming up your day is and fill the room with the sounds of whales if you so desire. But there's another Google Home you need to know about. It's an app that bears the same name, although it does way more than just work with your living room answer box. The Google Home app is essential because it does so many things, such as connecting to your physical Google Home device, finding apps for Chromecast, and giving you customization for what you get from the Google Assistant.

The U.S. technology giant's move comes after Amazon continues to aggressively push Alexa onto new devices. At CES, Amazon announced Alexa would be integrated with LG refrigerators and even Ford cars. But it began to step on Google's feet when Amazon announced that Alexa would be on the Huawei Mate 9 smartphone in the U.S., which runs Android. "It is little surprise Google has come out with all guns blazing at MWC. It must be reeling from the decision to include Amazon's Alexa on the Mate 9 when it was announced," Ben Wood, chief of research at CCS Insight, told CNBC by email on Tuesday.

Amazon's Alexa may be up against big competition. South Korean internet giant Naver, which runs Line, Japan's biggest messaging app, unveiled on Wednesday its own AI virtual assistant. The new assistant is called Clova, and will be entirely voice-based. It'll be available as a smartphone app as well as a hardware speaker called Wave, similar to Amazon Echo and Google Home. Clova is scheduled to be available in Japan and South Korea between April and June this year.

For most of the people reading this post, artificial intelligence seemed like a far-off futuristic thing. Unless you're a computer scientist or engineer, the term AI likely conjures up images straight out of science fiction: robots roaming the earth and machines that cook breakfast like the Jetson's foodarackacycle. But AI isn't just a sci-fi dream of the future from our childhoods anymore -- it's here and already a core part of the apps, tools, gadgets, and services we use every day. Most of the time we don't even realize it's there, and yet, AI has made our lives much easier. In fact, check out these amazing stats that reminds us that AI technology is here to stay.

Wearables appeared to have so much potential, especially when smartwatches first hit the scene: I mean, who wouldn't want a tiny touchscreen right on your wrist for fitness, smartphone notifications, and even calling? Well, unfortunately, they never took off for several reasons. However, 2017 may see some interesting changes, according to the latest data: Counterpoint claims that wearables powered by AI will grow 376 percent this year, but the question is "Will this be enough to generate renewed interest in wearables?" Currently, wearables market is largely divided into two categories: fitness trackers and smartwatches. Not surprisingly, despite Apple Watch's "success," fitness trackers still lead the market by a big margin.

Artificial intelligence is transforming our lives at home and at work. At home, you may be one of the 1.8 million people who use Amazon's Alexa to control the lights, unlock your car, and receive the latest stock quotes for the companies in your portfolio. In total, Alexa is touted as having more than 3,000 skills and growing daily. In the workplace, artificial intelligence is evolving into an intelligent assistant to help us work smarter. Artificial intelligence is not the future of the workplace, it is the present and happening today.

Creative Strategies, a service that tracks trends and develops deeper insight into key industry topics, released their findings that looked at how consumers are using these virtual assistants and how they really feel about them. The firm ran two studies: Once looked at Alexa that covered 1,300 early adopters across the US and the UK. And the other focused on 500 mainstream consumers and their use of smartphones based digital assistants. Creative Strategies revealed that 21% of its panel never used Siri, 43% never touched OK Google and 72% have never asked Cortana anything. They also found that 2% of iPhone owners have never used Siri and only 4% of Android owners have never used OK Google, which suggests those who own the phone do indeed call on the powers of the digital personas.

Artificial intelligence may have no need for love, but it may soon be helping you find it. Tinder CEO Sean Rad said the company is exploring the possibility of integrating AI into the popular dating app as a means of helping people meet a match. Rad spoke at tech conference Start-Up Grind in Silicon Valley last week, where he spoke about what the future holds for his service. While Tinder has already been a leader in online dating, Rad sees the future of matchmaking as being even more driven by technology, including artificial intelligence. In five years' time, Tinder might be so good, you might be like "Hey Siri, what's happening tonight?'" Rad said.

A VENERABLE mobile phone saw its reputation for survival further enhanced this week. Nokia's reboot of its 3310 model, first released way back in 2000, was the star of annual tech event Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. The updated model has a colour screen and camera, but still offers classic game Snake. Whether it proves as indestructible as its predecessor remains to be seen. "The updated Nokia 3310 has a colour screen and camera, but still offers classic game Snake" The event also saw the latest smartphones unveiled, such as Sony's Xperia XZ Premium, the first handset to feature a high-resolution 4K HDR screen.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is making unending waves, both positive and negative. While some experts are going gaga over its productivity orientation and task precision, a few others are expressing concerns over the social impact due to the loss of jobs to robots. A single fact overrides these opinions--all sectors are without question exploring how they can leverage AI to better business, banking being no exception. For example, last year, RBS replaced some of its human employees with automated services. This is just the beginning, as machines slowly but steadily make their presence felt in the fintech sector.