Shopping links may be manually or programmatically inserted into this content, and our site may receive payment for activity generated through them. They should not be interpreted as editorial endorsements. Google Home is set to battle Amazon's Echo for voice control of the smart home Samsung SmartThings Water Leak Sensor review: A cheap detector that leans on... Amazon Echo Dot (2nd generation) review: This is the Echo most people should... Petcube is a cloud cam that's custom-made to confuse cats Google Home is set to battle Amazon's Echo for voice control of the smart home Samsung SmartThings Water Leak Sensor review: A cheap detector that leans on... Amazon Echo Dot (2nd generation) review: This is the Echo most people should... Petcube is a cloud cam that's custom-made to confuse cats Designed to be the heart of your smart home, the Samsung SmartThings Hub connects wirelessly to hundreds of compatible smart devices, so you can monitor, manage, and secure your home from anywhere. Simply pair other Samsung SmartThings devices with the Hub and enjoy full control and customization of all your devices via the free Samsung SmartThings app, or even with your voice via Amazon's Alexa service. The hub currently lists for $100, but Amazon has it for 25% off, so you can grab it for just $75. Check it out on Amazon.

Police in Bentonville, Ark. recently issued a warrant for Amazon to provide them with voice recordings, transcripts and other information captured by one of the company's Echo speakers, The Information reported Tuesday. Investigators wanted to use that information to make their case against a murder suspect who allegedly strangled a companion a year ago. Most Echo owners will hopefully never find themselves in a similar situation -- but the case still shines a light on the capabilities of voice-controlled speakers and their privacy implications. First things first: No, the Echo isn't recording every word you say, and it also isn't sending a constant audio stream of everything that's going on in your home to Amazon's servers. Not only would this be a privacy nightmare, it would also result in way too much data for Amazon to handle or make sense of.

Do you have an iPhone? Tell Siri that you want to buy Apple. Trying that in a suburban Long Island, N.Y., town recently resulted in Siri asking if the user wanted to go to the Apple Store at a nearby mall. Then, Siri suggested, the closest branch of Apple Bank for Savings? Then the virtual assistant suggests a nearby floor covering company named for the fruit.

It's Wednesday and we're talking about an Amazon Echo speaker that's involved in a murder case, artificial intelligence making smarter game opponents (and Samsung phones, oh, and a giant robot that you can get inside and pilot. My christmas presents suddenly don't look so hot. In the first such case we've heard of, police requested audio data from Amazon. The recordings they sought could have been captured by an Echo speaker, for use in a first-degree murder. While Amazon apparently declined the request, it raises more questions about the presence and potential complications of always-listening virtual assistants.

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.

Over the course of 2016, artificial intelligence made the leap from "science fiction concept" to "almost meaningless buzzword" with alarmingspeed. Period-tracking app Flo "uses a neural network approach" to deliver "high period forecast accuracy"; food delivery app Just Eat launched a chatbot that "sees AI integrated into the ordering experience to ensure that customers receive the best, round the clock support and service"; restaurant guide Borsch "uses artificial intelligence to help people discover the yummiest dishes around". But unlike many buzzwords before it, from "big data" to "blockchain", artificial intelligence's transformation into venture capitalist-catnip doesn't signify the end of anyone serious using the term themselves. In fact, 2017 looks like it could be the most important year yet for the technology: AI will butt up against not only what is possible, but also what is desirable for the first time. Like many futures, the AI revolution feels interminably slow to live through, and will feel like it happened in an instant in hindsight.

If you want to make predictions for the future, you need to find the trajectory of events in the past. So to work out what shape digital technology will likely take next year, we should look back to the major developments of 2016. And the past year's developments point to a 2017 shaped by the next phase of virtual and augmented reality, the emergence of an internet for artificial intelligence and the creation of personalised digital assistants that follow us across devices. One technology in particular has dominated the news throughout the year and made the birthday wish-lists of children and adults alike: virtual reality. VR began to bloom commercially in 2016 – with HTC, Oculus (owned by Facebook) and PlayStation all releasing their latest headsets.

Apple has published its first academic research paper, and it's going to help A.I. get smart by exploring virtual lands. The breakthrough is all about making it easier to train computers to recognize the contents of a photo. Publishing research is a new approach for Apple, and it could help improve A.I. services like Siri that really struggle compared to its competitors. Starting with iOS 10, Apple scans your iPhone's images to make them easier to find, without using tags. Searching "dog," for example, will bring up all your pictures of dogs.

If you prefer reading, here's the quick recap on what changes AI will bring to marketers according to these four industry influencers, plus some of my personal suggestions of what you should do in face of these changes: According to Sam Mallikarjunan, Head of Growth of HubSpot Labs, visual content will have an increasing influence on SEO, as he says, "search engines are getting good at knowing what a video, audio clip, or image is actually about." Not only does Google favor YouTube videos in search results, they're also getting better at analyzing what visual content is about. Just like how content writers had to learn to optimize headings and keywords, visual artists will have to start thinking about SEO when creating visual content like images and videos. SEO for videos, for example, means optimizing keyword targeting, descriptions, tags, video length, and more. Here's a great guide on optimizing videos for SEO from Brian Dean, if you want to learn more.

If you've set up smart light bulbs like Philips' Hue, you've probably had to link your bulbs to a central hub -- and if you didn't, you may be making-do with only basic control. Sylvania is trying to do better. It's introducing a Smart Multicolor A19 bulb that doesn't require the hassles of setting up a hub, but can still give you advanced control through Apple's HomeKit -- and by extension, Siri voice commands. You only have to sync the Bluetooth lighting through iOS' Home app to illuminate a room. As you might guess, Bluetooth imposes some limitations.