We all know how frustrating the experience of calling into a customer service department can be. Long hold times, the endless repetition of birth dates, previous addresses, maiden names... It's enough to make you want to avoid the whole process altogether. But the cloud--paired with technologies like speech recognition, biometrics, natural language, artificial intelligence and machine learning--is giving rise to intelligent virtual agents that are providing faster, more personalized service. Automated customer service solutions have been around for a while, but the cloud is drastically improving the model. Intelligent virtual agents can now crunch data about who you are and what you need, providing the kind of efficient feedback loop required to autonomously keep getting smarter.

Nao, from young French firm Aldebaran Robotics, is one of the better known small humanoid education and research robots--but he's about to be replaced: By Nao Next Gen. The new robot is an evolution of the existing design, but it may also be a revolution because the number of tweaks is significant. As well as boosting the in-robot cameras to a twin HD-video solution, the team has given the bot an upgraded Atom 1.6GHz CPU, a better walking algorithm, better control of its servo's torque so the robots movements are more fluid and powerful, and a few other tweaks. But most significantly they've added in voice recognition from Nuance--the same innovative firm whose technology is behind the amazing powers of Apple's Siri digital personal assistant in the iPhone 4S. Of course Nao will react differently to voice commands than Siri, and it's unlikely to call your wife or set up a calendar entry on voice command.

You've probably noticed something about smartphones. They haven't been exciting lately. Chances are, your current smartphone looks and works a lot like your last one. Your next will probably seem pretty familiar, too. But there are signs that smartphones, and the ways we use them, could be about to significantly change -- even if no one can quite agree on exactly how.

We Google things we're too lazy to remember or ask another human. We've become accustomed to asking Siri and Cortana about the weather. The current generation of artificial intelligence can pull facts from the web, keep track of your appointments and even crack jokes. What if there were a virtual assistant to help you make real-life decisions, like whether you should start a brewery or go to business school? Project Sapphire, a collaboration between IBM and the University of Michigan, is aimed at building an artificially intelligent academic advisor that guides undergraduate students through their course options, helps pick extracurricular activities and eventually dishes out advice on their careers.

IN THE early days of computing, information was put into computers by flipping switches. After this came the relative sophistication of loading programs and data by means of punched cards or punched paper-tape. These were followed in their turn by such devices as the keyboard, the mouse, the trackball, the joystick, the touchpad and the touch-sensitive screen. Throughout all this, speech--the most natural, and perhaps the most effective, interface between people and computers--has remained largely neglected. Apart from some modest developments in software for desktop dictation in the 1990s, the only time most people have talked to their computers has been when cursing them.

Personalized recommendation of products, documents, and collaborators has become an important way of meeting user needs in commerce, information provision, and community services, whether on the web, through mobile interfaces, or through traditional desktop interfaces. This tutorial first reviews the types of personalized recommendation that are being used commercially and in research systems. It then systematically presents and compares the underlying AI techniques, including recent variants and extensions of collaborative filtering, demographic and case-based approaches, and decision-theoretic methods. The properties of the various techniques will be compared within a general framework, so that participants learn how to match recommendation techniques to applications and how to combine complementary techniques.

Thirty-five years ago the TV series Knight Rider envisioned an artificially intelligent car that could develop a friendly rapport with its driver. That 1982 Pontiac Trans Am--also known as the Knight Industries Two Thousand (KITT)--dutifully served as Michael Knight's crime-fighting partner, monitored his health through sensors in the seat and even used voice analysis to respond to the sarcasm in Knight's cornball quips. Your next car won't reach KITT's level of awareness, wit or empathy--but Honda, Toyota and several other companies really are planning to make AI standard in all the vehicles they produce. Honda unveiled one of the more ambitious--and fanciful--visions for AI in the cockpit at last week's U.S. Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Its New Electric Urban Vehicle (NeuV) is a self-driving concept car that uses Honda's talking Automated Network Assistant, or HANA, to analyze and respond to data the vehicle collects about driver and passenger preferences and behavior.

Smart homes may soon be equipped with an AI concierge to help you manage all of your connected devices. San Francisco firm Thington has revealed a free iPhone app that pairs with smart lights, cameras, and other devices in the growing Internet of Things to provide centralized control, which can be securely shared with select people. The Thington Concierge chatbot will ask about your preferences and even help you set up your smart appliances so they work with each other, making for a safer and more efficient network. The app can communicate with users through text messages, allowing it to find out specific preferences on the setup of each device by simply asking you a question. To adjust the brightness of your smart lights, for example, you could command it to'Change the settings,' 'stop doing this,' or'leave it as it is.'

Amazon wants Alexa to boldly go where no AI has gone before. The e-commerce giant envisions its voice assistant functioning like the'Star Trek computer', in that it will answer users no matter where they are in their home with instant feedback. And, more than 10,000 developers have registered to add the virtual assistant to products, bringing this dream closer to a reality. Amazon wants Alexa to boldly go where no AI has gone before. David Limp, Amazon's senior vice president for devices, envisions the voice assistant functioning like the'Star Trek computer', in that it will answer users no matter where they are in their home and right away David Limp, Amazon's senior vice president for devices, envisions the voice assistant functioning like the'Star Trek computer', in that it will answer users no matter where they are in their home and right away.

Earlier this year, Mark Zuckerberg reveal he is dedicating his year to making a home AI butler. Now, he has revealed the project is already coming to fruition - and promised to reveal it soon. He told The Verge it can already control his home, and even makes his breakfast. Earlier this year, Mark Zuckerberg reveal he is dedicating his year to making a home AI butler. Now, he has revealed the project is already coming to fruition - and promised to reveal it soon. 'It's going well, and I'm planning on doing a demo soon,' he said.