"Hello Google, find me the nearest parking lot." "Play music from my favourite playlist." Today, as we command, converse, and engage with Google's voice assistant or Apple's Siri, we often communicate with them as we would with a real-life personal assistant. These Artificial Intelligence-powered applications are up to the task, too, providing results that are crisp, precise, and personalised. Several factors such as user preferences, geographical location, dialect, and previous digital footprint etc are automatically evaluated to identify results that are most relevant to the end-user. When AI pioneer and advocate Alan Turing said'a computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human', this was exactly what he meant. But global giants like Google and Apple are not the only brands leveraging AI to drive user engagement.

A four-year-old boy saved his mother's life by using her thumb to unlock her iPhone and then asking it to call 999. Roman, who lives in Kenley, Croydon, south London, used the phone's voice control - Siri - to call emergency services. Police and paramedics were sent to the home and were able to give live-saving first aid to his mother. During the 999 call Roman told the operator he thought his mum was dead because "she's closing her eyes and she's not breathing". Roman, his twin brother and a younger brother were all in the house at the time.

Baidu shares fell on Wednesday, after chief scientist Andrew Ng announced he is leaving the company less than three years after joining. Ng announced his departure in a post on Medium late Tuesday. Baidu shares were down more than 1½ percent in market hours, trading around 168.51. Ng had joined the company in 2014 to help help develop new businesses around artificial intelligence and machine learning, areas Baidu has previously identified as a major strategic focus. Baidu told the Financial Times it will not hire a direct replacement, but instead move Ng's teams into the AI Group, which will be headed by current vice president Haifeng Wang.

Nick Hunn is the founder and CTO of WiFore Consulting. Author of "The Essentials of Short Range Wireless", Nick has been closely involved with short range wireless and communications, designing technology that helps to bring mobility to products, particularly in the areas of telematics, M2M, smart energy, wearables and mobile health. Currently, he is working on appcessories and hearable devices and chairs the Bluetooth Hearing Aid Working Group. Forget the Internet of Things (IoT) – it's a bubble. The majority of products currently claiming to be IoT devices are just the same, vertical Machine to Machine (M2M) products we've always had, but taking the opportunity to benefit from a rebrand.

Every time you ask Siri for directions, a complex chain of cutting-edge code is activated. It allows "her" to understand your question, find the information you're looking for, and respond to you in a language that you understand. This has only become possible in the last few years. Until now, we have been interacting with computers in a way that they understand, rather than us. We have learned their language.

Samsung unveiled Bixby, its own virtual assistant, designed to make using your next phone easier. Starting with the Galaxy S8, which is slated to be unveiled March 29, Samsung is positioning Bixby different than Apple's Siri, Google Assistant or Amazon's Alexa in that it can learn and adapt to the needs of its users. "[I]nstead of humans learning how the machine interacts with the world (a reflection of the abilities of designers), it is the machine that needs to learn and adapt to us," Samsung's executive vice president and head of R&D for software and services InJong Rhee wrote on the company's blog. "With this new approach, Samsung has employed artificial intelligence, reinforcing deep learning concepts to the core of our user interface designs. Bixby is the ongoing result of this effort." Unlike Siri, Google Assistanr or Alexa, there is a dedicated physical button on the phone.

Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa are currently in a showdown over which will be the AI assistant of choice for travelers, according to a Bloomberg report. Marriott International Inc. is testing the voice assistants at its Aloft hotel in Boston's Seaport district and will choose which it will launch more broadly across its locations. The hotel group is testing the digital assistants to see which is better for guest services, such as turning on lights, closing drapes, controlling room temperature and changing TV channels through voice commands. Marriott's Toni Stoeckl told Bloomberg the company is "looking for the ideal solution to make this a global platform." He added that Aloft hotels act as a "tech incubator" for new concepts and a positive trial may determine whether digital assistants, and which one, will be integrated at other Marriott chains.

Light switches are so last century. Geoffrey A. Fowler explains the right--and wrong--ways to improve your home lighting with connected bulbs, plugs and switches.

T-Mobile is now offering the LG G6 for pre-order, ahead of its April 7 release date. The smartphone will sell for $650 or $26 down and $26 per month for 24 months as per the T-Mobile's equipment installment plan. The carrier is also offering a free Google Home AI assistant to those who purchase the LG G6 before April 30. Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint have already opened pre-order for the LG G6 and will release the device March 30. U.S. Cellular preorders begin March 24. All carriers have their own deals associated with the LG G6 release date.

If you make a purchase by clicking one of our links, we may earn a small share of the revenue. Our picks and opinions are independent from any business incentives. Alright, so you got yourself an Alexa-enabled device--an Echo, Echo Dot, or Amazon Tap. I'm sure you've already spent plenty of time fooling around and getting to know your new smart assistant, but there's a crazy amount of possibilities you might not have even known about. Keep reading to discover my list of the strangest, most useful, and all-around best things you can do with Alexa.