Thanks to recent gains in machine learning, computers are getting skilled at picking out patterns and features in text and images. That's how e-commerce giants like Amazon and eBay build sophisticated recommendation systems and how social networks like Facebook and Twitter are tweaking feeds to keep users hooked. Pinterest is no exception, with 30% of engagement tied to personalized real-time suggestions. Here's how Pinterest engineers are leveraging artificial intelligence to keep the website's 150 million–plus users pinning and sharing. Machine learning can not only determine the subject of an image, it can also identify visual patterns and match them to other photos.

A new year usually comes with new years resolutions, like getting fitter, reading more, and for some people, falling in love. However some singles are now joking that they'll never find their soulmate after an apparent glitch with dating app Tinder left them with no matches. The issue first started being reported by Twitter users at around 9:30am AEDT, with many tweeting the company. 'I might cry': Many users took to Twitter to complain about the problem'Tinder, why are you doing this to me? I had almost 600 matches, where are they?' one user called Connor Jordan tweeted.

After Amazon and Google, it is now Lenovo's turn to launch its own smart speakers. The company is expected to showcase the Lenovo Smart Assistant at this year's Consumer Electronics Show that kicks off Tuesday. The speakers revealed at a pre-event conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday have the same tubular design as the Amazon Echo and have Amazon's virtual assistant Alexa built in. Lenovo says it worked directly with Amazon to develop the speaker. The Lenovo Smart Assistant is not just similar to the Amazon Echo in terms of looks; it also works the same way.

Chinese firm Lenovo has created its own version of Amazon's Echo home assistant. The company announced its new Smart Assistant today at the CES technology conference in Las Vegas. The gadget, which is a similar shape to the Amazon Echo but comes in a variety of colours, uses Amazon's Alexa Voice Services and works in the same way as Amazon's own smart assistant. Chinese tech firm Lenovo has created its own version of Amazon's Echo home assistant. Lenovo says 65 per cent of people around the world already use voice recognition technology on their phone, PC or tablet.

Voice-activated speakers like Amazon Echo and Google Home have become indispensable as smart assistants. Lenovo's first foray into the field aims to remedy that shortcoming. Its Smart Assistant houses Amazon's Alexa brains in hardware with Harman Kardon's audio-expert approval. These new devices manage to differentiate in both sound and style. What you gain over Amazon's hardware offering, though, is an upgraded design and presumably hardier soundscapes.

Lenovo is dipping its toe into the smart home market with two new product announcements at CES: a new smart speaker that will be powered by Amazon's Alexa Voice Service, and a wireless NAS box that that promises to help organize your digital photo library using onboard facial-recognition software. The Lenovo Smart Assistant ($130) looks like a mashup of an Amazon Echo and a Google Home, blending the former's cylindrical form factor with the latter's pastel-colored fabric speaker grill (buyers can choose light gray, green, or orange). The base model will come with a single tweeter powered by a 5-watt amplifier and a woofer driven by a 10-watt amp. Lenovo also plans to offer a Harman Kardon Edition that will come in black and be priced at $180, but the only other explanation it's provided for the $50 price bump is that the Harman model will have "an additional 2-inch sound cavity for a clearer tweeter and deeper bass." Like Amazon, Lenovo is using an array of six far-field microphones on top of the speaker to capture your voice queries and commands from any direction, but the computer manufacturer has added a second mic in the center, so there are eight in all.

By KM Madhusudhan, CTO, MindTree 2016 has seen technologies such as IoT, automation and cognitive computing moving beyond the concept stage. Experts opine that consumer-oriented technologies behind Pokémon Go (featuring world-class augmented reality) and the launch of smart home solutions like Google Home and Amazon Echo have greater use in enterprises. Some game-changing technologies of 2017 are: INTERNET OF THINGS (IOT) Despite advancements, enterprises haven't adopted IoT on a large scale. As IoT becomes more mainstream, solutions like smart cars and smart buildings that integrate IoT with cognitive computing will emerge. AUTOMATION Every aspect of the software lifecycle -coding, testing, deployment or operations -could be automated with DevOps playing an important role in the automation process.

Lenovo is best known for its popular ThinkPad laptops and Yoga convertibles, and you may even remember that it makes smartphones too. But the Chinese company is branching out from notebooks, handsets and wearables with a push into smart home gadgets, starting with an Amazon Echo clone. The creatively named Lenovo Smart Assistant offers Alexa in a taller, rounder and more colorful speaker than the Echo, and starts at a cheaper $130, to boot. The new device is available in basic and premium flavors, with the latter offering Harman Kardon audio enhancements for $50 extra. I checked out prototypes of both models here at CES, but despite being impressed by the volume of the music it pumped out, I'm otherwise struggling to see its appeal.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is touching every technology sector around the world, and it's having a significant impact on how enterprises and consumers interact with machines and devices. TechRepublic talked to IoT experts in a range of disciplines to find out what they think the biggest trends will be in 2017. Participants were Kevin Curran, IEEE senior member and senior lecturer in computer science at Ulster University; Francesco Cetraro, head of registrations, .cloud; Artificial intelligence, augmented reality, virtual reality, healthcare IoT, industrial IoT, and wearables are some of the topics of conversation about where the Internet of Things is headed in 2017. Diabetics have been waiting for years for better technology to manage their condition. Some got tired of waiting and hacked together an open source hardware and software solution.

It can read lips and create new food recipes. It can win at chess, Jeopardy and the game Go. Every major technology company appears to be integrating it into how they organize and operate their business. And it seems like just about every new app in existence claims its software uses some sort of machine learning to make life even better. Artificial intelligence is splashed across headlines like never before.