Almost every smartphone user in the US -- 97 percent, to be exact -- sent a text at least once a day, according to a survey by Pew Research Center in late 2014. Humans strive for efficiency and economy, and text messaging fits right in: it's faster than a phone call, as well as more convenient, more reliable and less disruptive ... whether it's via messaging apps like Facebook's Messenger or WhatsApp, iMessage or good old SMS. But customer needs and desires do not always overlap with business objectives: for example, cutting costs as a corporate goal does not benefit the consumer directly. As for customer service in the past, cutting costs often meant the introduction of automation in the form of Interactive Voice Response (IVR). While these systems promised 24/7 access to information and no waiting on hold, many poorly designed systems did nothing to improve the better service hopes of consumers.

Believe it or not, there hasn't really been a comprehensive recipe skill for Amazon Echo speakers. Campbell's skill is focused on the soup brand, IFTTT integration is imperfect and Jamie Oliver's skill won't read cooking instructions aloud. Allrecipes might just save the day, though. It just launched an Alexa skill that guides you through cooking 60,000 meals -- and importantly, helps you find something to cook in the first place. You can ask what's possible with the ingredients you have on hand, find a quick-to-make dish or check on measurements.

The same algorithms that personalize movie recommendations and extract topics from oceans of text could bring doctors closer to diagnosing, treating and preventing disease on the basis of an individual's unique genetic profile. In a study to be published Monday, Nov. 7 in Nature Genetics, researchers at Columbia and Princeton universities describe a new machine-learning algorithm for scanning massive genetic data sets to infer an individual's ancestral makeup, which is key to identifying disease-carrying genetic mutations. On simulated data sets of 10,000 individuals, TeraStructure could estimate population structure more accurately and twice as fast as current state-of-the art algorithms, the study said. TeraStructure alone was capable of analyzing 1 million individuals, orders of magnitude beyond modern software capabilities, researchers said. The algorithm could potentially characterize the structure of world-scale human populations.

It seems like we've perennially been on the edge of major breakthroughs in AI (artificial intelligence), virtual reality, personal robots, and other such cool tech for the past two decades. The first set of science fiction imaginings came true rather rapidly -- think trans-continental air travel, space stations, even drone warfare -- but it appears that the emergence of next-gen tech wizardry has stalled. But while we still can't chat with the on-board computer on our personal spaceship, artificial intelligence is far more pervasive in our daily lives today than most of us realize. As anyone who has trained their mobile phone assistant can attest, years of painstaking research and investment in artificial intelligence technologies is starting to yield impressive results. Siri can predict our commute patterns, Microsoft Cortana warns us of bad weather, and the Google Assistant diligently sets calendar reminders with the impassive demeanor of an English butler of yore.

Andrew Heikkila is a tech enthusiast and writer from Boise, Idaho. "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears…in…rain. Time to die." -- Roy Batty, Blade Runner Artificial intelligence has fascinated mankind for more than half a century, with the first public mention of computer intelligence recorded during a London lecture by Alan Turing in 1947.

We live in a world where consumer attention span is getting shorter and shorter: 40 percent of people abandon a website that takes more than three seconds to load, and the average shopping cart is abandoned more than 68 percent of the time. Software platforms that drive ecommerce websites are creating visual search capabilities which allow consumers to upload an image and find similar/complementary products. The offline to online experience requires minimal steps to shop and purchase, providing a sense of autonomy to the consumer. Brands are creating more interactive shopping experiences to provide product recommendations based on natural conversation and cognitive data derived from AI.

Today, you're used to getting information in app form. In the near future, more of your interaction with computers might be managed by an A.I. interface that acts like a person. His California design agency is loaded up with work. They don't do U.I. design as you think of it today. Drawing on the arts, including acting, theater, and screenwriting, this agency designs personalities for artificial intelligence.

Now that we've welcomed Amazon Echo's Alexa and Google's Assistant into our homes, the next frontier for AI-powered personal assistants is the car. Next Thing Co. (NTC) has launched the world's first AI-powered hands-free car kit, the Dashbot. This $49 (£39) device can play music, get directions and send messages in a car, and it's all voice-powered. Demand for the device is taking off fast. NTC launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the Dashbot, which has raised $61,000 of its $100,000 goal in little over 24 hours.

Founded by two of the creators of Siri, Apple's signature digital assistant, Viv Labs said its technology represents a "new paradigm" for how people interact with computers. The Viv AI uses something called dynamic program generation that creates software on the fly based on the intent of the request given to it. In a briefing reported yesterday by Reuters, Samsung said the addition of Viv's technology to the Galaxy S8 will enable a wide variety of new services for its customers. The more services that developers integrate with Viv, the smarter the AI will become, according to Samsung Mobile Business CTO Injong Rhee. "Even if Samsung doesn't do anything on its own, the more services that get attached the smarter this agent will get, learn more new services and provide them to end-users with ease," Rhee told Reuters.

Machine-learning and artificial intelligence are considered by many to be radical tools that will revolutionize entire industries. Everything from self-driving cars, to our photo apps, Netflix recommendations, and digital assistants, is driven by this technology, and we'll become even more reliant upon it in the future. That's why Intel is looking to capitalize on this and has created its own AI-optimized chip. Most neural networks, machine-learning algorithms, and pretty much everything we'd describe as artificial intelligence currently relies on graphics cards. Both the learning, and a big part of the implementation is driven by GPUs which have proven remarkably adept at processing such data.