Google has an edge in building voice technology, thanks to its unmatched repository of search data. But the company must prove it can distribute its assistant widely. The same month Google debuted its Pixel phone, Samsung, the largest Android phone manufacturer, acquired Viv Labs, a startup building a voice-powered assistant. Samsung plans to roll out an AI platform for its devices this year, the company said in a statement. Apple Inc., which tightly controls about 40 percent of U.S. smartphones, is investing in a similar push with its Siri voice assistant.

The 5 minute read by Conor McMahon, Reporter at FORA - Automated financial advice is expected to shake up the wealth management sector. "SO-CALLED'ROBO-ADVISORS' already manage billions of dollars in the US, but they have yet to make their way to these shores. Traditional wealth management has been largely untouched by the march of digital on this side of the Atlantic, and the sector is still overwhelmingly burdened by paper and admin work. Automated financial advice is already making waves in the UK, and Ireland could see a surge of robo-advice firms setting up shop in a bid to access investors in Europe. Fora spoke to fintech expert Peter Oakes, founder of Fintech Ireland and a former director at the Central Bank, to get the lowdown on what exactly robo-advisors do and how they might shake things up in 2017"

For the 2017 edition of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, smart home innovator Vivint decided to announce not one but three major partnerships and a brand new artificially intelligent home assistant. After revealing collaborations with the accommodations giant Airbnb, solar leader Vivint Solar, and Citizens Bank, Vivint also lifted the veil on its new smart device secretary, Sky. Perhaps equally as impressive as the announcements was Vivint's own CES booth, which showed off its array of smart-home gear and highlighted the new additions. Concerning its link with Airbnb, Vivint aims to give users of the housing service keyless access to rented properties, the capability to greet and verify customers via its doorbell camera, and 24/7 home security and monitoring. To help Airbnb hosts with the transition, Vivint says it will provide its professional team of smart-home pro installers to take the lead on setting up an entire home or apartment.

A San Diego TV station sparked complaints this week – after an on-air report about a girl who ordered a dollhouse via her parents' Amazon Echo caused Echoes in viewers' homes to also attempt to order dollhouses. Telly station CW-6 said the blunder happened during a Thursday morning news package about a Texan six-year-old who racked up big charges while talking to an Echo gadget in her home. According to her parents' Amazon account, their daughter said: "Can you play dollhouse with me and get me a dollhouse?" Next thing they knew, a $160 KidKraft Sparkle Mansion dollhouse and four pounds of sugar cookies arrived on their doorstep. During that story's segment, a CW-6 news presenter remarked: "I love the little girl, saying'Alexa ordered me a dollhouse'."

Summary: IBM's Watson as it exists today is as close as we've come to a single integrated platform for AI. It contains all the capabilities for image and video, natural language speech and text input and output, and the most comprehensive knowledge recovery module yet combined together. If you want to exploit the advances we've made in AI you need to understand where Watson is today and where it's heading. Recently we wrote about how the'popular' Watson of Jeopardy fame still lingers in the memories of our non-data scientist colleagues and perhaps misleads them about the capabilities of AI. It's time we got in tune with the modern Watson, or more correctly IBM's Watson Group and its Watson platform and took a look at all there is to offer. There are three broad capabilities in today's AI and they are: Image and video processing: Largely driven by Convolutional Neural Nets (CNNs) this field has been getting most of the press with capabilities like facial and object recognition.

The new SHIELD TV, introduced during the opening keynote at CES in Las Vegas, puts your world at your command. SHIELD is the first streamer to offer hands-free voice control, bringing AI to the living room and beyond. NVIDIA SHIELD is the center of NVIDIA's home AI strategy. It relies on the hands-free Google Assistant, smart home hub integration and an AI mic accessory, the NVIDIA SPOT, to extend intelligent voice control throughout your home. SHIELD is the first third-party Android TV device to announce support for using the Google Assistant, hands-free, bringing the power of Google to your living room.

With time, smartphones and the technology used in them are constantly evolving. Most features that we often use on our phones right now such as playing augmented reality games or streaming live videos were difficult or nearly impossible a few years back. With the advancement in technology came the smartphones and the sliding keyboard phones or flip phones are a thing of the past right now. The smartphones that exist now feature fingerprint authentication, powerful processors, sharp cameras, and bright displays making many things possible. Still, the technology is subject to constant advancement and we can see many more improvements coming to our phones in future.

Columnist Jennifer Jolly tries out Alexa on the Ford, peers at TVs held to walls by magnets, and tests a'smart bike'. There's the equivalent of some 43-football fields worth of space filled with gadgets at CES 2017. With that many tech toys to explore, they all start to blur together pretty quickly. Here's what I've seen so far that's made an impression. Amazon's Alexa virtual assistant is already trying to get into every room of your house, so it was only a matter of time before she made it into your car, too.

In the 2013 movie "Her," Theodore Twombly, a lonely writer, falls in love with a digital assistant designed to meet his every need. She sorts emails, helps get a book published, provides personal advice and ultimately becomes his girlfriend. The assistant, Samantha, is AI software capable of learning at an astonishing pace. Samantha will remain in the realm of science fiction for at least another decade, but less-functional digital assistants, called bots, are already here. These will be the most amazing technology advances we see in our homes in 2017.

CES is filled with Dolby Atmos-spitting audio equipment, but Sony's HT-ST5000 stands out. Sony has improved this model with the ability to scale audio properly no matter what your room size is. Just adjust for the height of the ceiling and where you're sitting (using its onscreen GUI), and it can provide impressive positional audio. The soundbar and wirelessly-connected subwoofer combo pack enough ins and outs (3x HDMI in, 1 HDMI-ARC out, USB-in on the side, plus optical digital and analog audio output) to make it a reasonable receiver surrogate, but support for multi-room with Google Home helps take it to the next level. With control via the "Ok Google" voice command, it can sync up with other speakers in the house, or just control playback in one room. It's always hard to judge audio quality on the CES floor, but the HT-ST5000 filled the demo room and made each effect sound like it was coming from a specific place, including overhead or from behind.