The eyes of the tech world will be firmly fixed on Las Vegas when the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) kicks off next week. "One of the big themes is going to be connectivity," Jeff Joseph, senior vice president for communications and strategic relationships at the Consumer Technology Association, which hosts CES, told FoxNews.com. "For example, Internet of Things, vehicle-to-vehicle communication, voice-activated communication with things like Alexa and Google Home and higher-value content – 4K-produced content that you can move from device to device." Companies such as Samsung have been aggressively touting high-resolution 4K technologies such as TVs and smartphones, helping fuel consumer demand for 4K content. Samsung will launch three new Smart TV services at CES, it announced this week.

Samsung is in need of a show-stopper phone after the fiasco of its Galaxy Note 7's exploding. Now, new rumours suggest that its upcoming Galaxy S8 will use its built-in AI assistant in all of the phone's pre-installed apps. The voice-guided assistant, reportedly named'Bixby', could be used for a wide variety of functions in a similar way to Apple's Siri. The Samsung Galaxy S8 will use its built-in AI assistant in all of the phone's included Samsung-made apps, reports suggest. For instance, the assistant could be used in the Gallery app to show photos of the beach.

When police responded to a home in Bentonville, Ark., one Sunday morning last November, they discovered Victor Collins's dead body in the backyard, floating face up in a hot tub. Police records describe a grim scene: Collins's left eye and lips were dark and swollen, and blood and pink foam appeared to be coming out of his nose. The water inside the spa had turned a dark reddish hue, seemingly discolored by blood, feces and vomit. The resident who had called 911, James A. Bates, told police that he and a few work buddies, including Collins, had stayed up the night before watching football and drinking. Bates agreed to let two of them crash at his house, he told police, then went to bed.

US police investigating a murder have tussled with Amazon over access to data gathered by one of its Echo speakers. The voice-controlled device was found near to a hot tub where the victim was found dead amid signs of a struggle. According to court filings, Amazon was issued with two search warrants but refused to share information sent by the smart device to its servers. However, the police said a detective found a way to extract data from the device itself. The accused killer has yet to be put on trial and it is not clear whether the information ultimately proved useful to the investigation.

Do you start your day by saying, "Hey, Cortana"? Whether you are asking for help with tasks How to Make Cortana Organize Your Life How to Make Cortana Organize Your Life Your life is so complex, you deserve a personal assistant. Meet Cortana, your virtual assistant ready to serve at the tip of your tongue. We'll show you how to effectively delegate tasks to Cortana. Read More or gathering information, Cortana is a wonderful and useful tool.

People's homes could soon be listening in on them in case they commit a crime. Devices like the Amazon Echo are being used by police as a way to potentially gather information when investigating murders, according to new reports. Police have already requested the data from an Amazon Echo speaker that was in the house of a man being investigated for murder, according to a new report from The Information. Investigators believed that the speaker might have captured important data about what happened the night of the attack. In its facilities, JAXA develop satellites and analyse their observation data, train astronauts for utilization in the Japanese Experiment Module'Kibo' of the International Space Station (ISS) and develop launch vehicles 36/43 The robot developed by Seed Solutions sings and dances to the music during the Japan Robot Week 2016 at Tokyo Big Sight.

Amazon's Alexa voice assistant may have information useful to a murder investigation in Arkansas, where authorities issued a groundbreaking warrant in a case that evokes Apple's spat with the FBI earlier this year. Police want access to data from the Amazon Echo speaker belonging to James Bates of Bentonville, Ark., who was charged earlier this year with first-degree murder, The Information reported Tuesday. Since the Echo speaker is always listening for Alexa voice commands, the audio it recorded could provide clues about what happened inside Bates' home on Nov. 22, 2015, when a man was found dead in his hot tub. Amazon is fairly secretive about how it handles the audio recorded from Alexa-enabled devices. According to its privacy statement, the company collects "information about use of Alexa and its interaction with your Alexa Enabled Product (such as device type, voice information, content metadata, and location)."

Samsung has revealed Powerbot VR7000, a robotic vacuum you can control with your Amazon Echo. The company says that, in fact, all of its WiFi-enabled Powerbot vacuums will work with Alexa, including, presumably, current connected models like the Powerbot WiFi. It didn't say what you can command your bots to do, but the Neato Botvac (which beat Samsung to the punch by adding an Alexa "Skill" last month) basically just lets you start and stop cleaning. The 20 watt robo-vac is considerably smaller (28 percent) than past models, Samsung said, helping it more easily duck under couches or beds. It can also get as close as a half inch (15mm) to a wall and avoid objects as small as a quarter inch, thanks to the front placement of the wide 11-inch brush and "FullView Sensor 2.0."

At the Amazon re:Invent conference, Amazon announced Lex, a deep learning service that is based upon the technology used by Alexa in Amazon's portable Bluetooth and Wi-Fi enabled Echo speaker. Shortly after Amazon's announcement, Google introduced Actions on Google which allow developers to build Google Assistant-based conversational apps, including integration with the Google Home device. You as a developer to integrate your services with the Google Assistant. Conversation actions which enable you to fulfill a user request action through a two-way dialog. When users request an action, the Google Assistant processes this request, determines the best action to invoke, and invokes your Conversation Action if relevant.

Every year, we reach new heights in dating technology, as apps, platforms, and gadgets become more deeply entangled in our relationships. No doubt, dating in 2017 will not be materially different from what it was like in 2016--a year tends not to make a lot of difference--but we can certainly glean a picture of what sex and love will look like in the not-so-distant future and beyond. In a way, pop culture is already showing us. One of the most acclaimed TV dramas of the year, HBO's Westworld, is set in an enormous Dionysian amusement park in which humans indulge their sexual and emotional fantasies with lifelike robots. We're not there yet, but this past April, a Hong Kong designer unveiled his very own humanoid robot that looked remarkably similar to actress Scarlett Johansson.