NEW YORK, NY - OCTOBER 20: People visit the new Google pop-up shop in the SoHo neighborhood on October 20, 2016 in New York City. The shop lets people try out new Google products such as the Pixel phone, Google Home, and Daydream VR. The products will be available for purchase offsite at Verizon and Best Buy retail stores. Imagine the scene, you're relaxing at home about to head out for the day so you ask Google "what's the weather like" or "what meetings do I have" and what you get back is a spoken-word advert hastily stuck in the middle of your itinerary. New Beauty & the Beast promo is one way Google could monetize Home.

It's a tale as old as time: You ask your $129 voice-controlled, in-home digital assistant about your day and it answers with an ad for Disney's Beauty and the Beast remake. Well, maybe if you're the manufacturer of Google Home and your happily-ever-after consists of anthropomorphized dollar signs. "By the way, Disney's live-action Beauty and the Beast opens today," Google Home helpfully told a number of customers today. "In this version of the story, Belle is the inventor, instead of Maurice. That rings truer if you ask me. For some more movie fun, ask me to tell you something about Belle."

With the rise of automated personal assistants -- Alexa, Cortana, and countless others -- developers are faced with a big question: just how'human' should these robotic people be? The more human we make them, the more important it seems to give them names, personality and -- more worryingly -- gender. But robotic assistants don't have gender. Strip them of the names and voices added by their human creators, there's nothing there that requires a chat bot to be'he' or'she', other than our own assumptions. Yet still many chat bots have names, and a disproportionate number of them are sold to us as'female.'

What we can learn from WeChat's domination in China as we push out more virtual assistants and transition into an AI-first society. In the past, we've featured several a16z summit series presentations in Last Week in the Future (see 16 Questions About Self-Driving Cars by Frank Chen or Mobile is Eating the World by Benedict Evans). This week we analyze connie chan's presentation, "Trends in China", which explores parallels in the US and what WeChat's success can teach us in virtual assistant design. Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon have all played huge roles in pushing the mobile S-curve from creation to deployment stage. Some may argue that in China, the mobile S-curve is already passing the scaling stage into the maturity phase.

The Amazon app with Alexa enabled is shown on an iPhone. Hey Siri, can you make room for Alexa on the iPhone? Amazon revealed Thursday it will bring Alexa to the iPhone through its official app, allowing users to not only ask the company's voice assistant for help with shopping, but request information such as news, weather or sports scores. Tapping the microphone within the Amazon app will summon Alexa, then you can start asking questions just as you would through devices such as the popular Amazon Echo. Currently in the Amazon app, the microphone option only allows users to perform a shopping-related voice search for products.

Several U.S. carriers have now confirmed that the LG G6 release date will be April 7. T-Mobile and AT&T have also revealed their prices for the 2017 flagship. T-Mobile will sell the LG G6 for $650 or $26 down and $26 per month for 24 months as per the network's payment plan. T-Mobile is also offering customers who purchase the LG G6 before April 30 a free Google Home AI assistant. AT&T will sell the LG G6 for $720 or $30 per month for 24 months as per the network's payment plan. In addition to a free Google Home, AT&T is also offering a second LG G6 for free when starting a new service line.

Google Home, the search engine's rival to Amazon's Echo smart speaker, could finally be arriving in the UK. The technology giant launched the voice-activated device in the US last October but is yet to extend its release outside of the country. But a cryptic invitation sent out to members of the UK press suggests a product launch taking place at the end of March could be for the much anticipated device. Google Home (pictured) could finally be coming to the UK, if hints within a cryptic product launch announced by the search engine are to be believed. The invite, for an event dated March 28, asks journalists to'Please join us for some exciting announcements.'

Now you can talk to Amazon's intelligent assistant whenever you use the Amazon app on your iPhone. Alexa will be able to do much more than just deal with your Amazon account, like play songs from Amazon Music, give you news updates, or even tell a (bad) joke or two. You'll also be able to use any of your previously enabled skills that are available within the Alexa ecosystem. According to Amazon, the one thing you won't be able to do just yet is to ask Alexa to open your door locks with your voice.

"By the way, Disney's live action Beauty and The Beast opens today," it says, amid your daily info dump. "In this version of the story, Belle is the inventor instead of Maurice. That rings truer if you ask me. For some more movie fun, ask me something about Belle." It isn't too unique -- Rokus, Xboxes and even some Panasonic TVs have displayed ads for awhile -- but given that advertising is one of Google's biggest moneymakers, this could become more widespread.

Amazon's digital assistant just landed on iOS, and it's giving Siri a run for its money. You can now talk to Alexa via Amazon's official shopping app. The update dropped Thursday for many users, and it provides answers to serious questions ("what is a black hole?"), along with terrible jokes ("Why did the chicken cross the playground? To get to the other slide") and, of course, shopping suggestions. Amazon says it'll be rolling out to everyone over the next week.