The good: Customizable design, Google Assistant helpful for answering questions and translations, Offers concise and clear answers The bad: Limited smart home compatibility, Doesn't support many apps yet Who should buy: Those who really care about having Google's search engine at the tip of their tongue and want little else. For about as long as I remember using the Internet, Google has been my encyclopedia, study aide, tour guide, news curator, and more. Given that Google processes more than two trillion searches per year, it's likely safe to say many Internet users around the world have a similar relationship with the search engine. Google is now looking to deepen our collective reliance on its search prowess by taking up residence in our living rooms, nightstands, and kitchens. Google Home, an Internet-connected speaker that can answer questions, play games and music, and control your other smart devices begins shipping Nov. 4.

After years of steady growth, innovation and sometimes disappointment, the robotics market is heating up on several fronts amid some new breakthroughs in the arena. Both the industrial and service robotics markets are hot. In addition, the consumer market is seeing a new level of interest, as the industry is invaded by the next wave of so-called personal assistant robots or social robots for the home. Asus, Blue Frog Robotics, InGen, Jibo, NEC, Samsung and others are developing various personal assistant robots for consumers. In addition, a number of companies from China are also developing them. Personal assistant robots might be the next big thing. "If successful, Jibo (and its competitors) could usher in a new consumer electronics market--social robots for the home," said Dan Kara, an analyst at ABI Research. "Personal robots, often called social robots, are technically advanced robots that interact directly with people and are designed to assist in the home, or to act as a companion," Kara said.

While online dating was once seen as a last resort for meeting a partner, one in five relationships now starts online. And it appears that the future may extend the ways to use technology to find love even further. A new study suggests that by 2026, smart home devices, including your toaster and wardrobe, could help you find love. As for smart wardrobes, eHarmony's research indicates clothing style is actually an extremely precise and detailed reflection of a person's personality. Smart appliances such as fridges, toasters, coffee makers and cooking devices could reveal a large amount of information about our diet, meal times and even spontaneity when choosing or preparing food.

There are few things hotter in tech right now than artificial intelligence. You'll hear people with titles like "chief experience officer" and "thinkfluence concierge" talk about "neural networks" and "machine learning" and "natural language processing." The idea is, you can talk to your computer as if it were a person. Eventually, the idea goes, you can hold full conversations with an AI chat bot, asking it to answer complex questions and undertake complicated tasks. But nearly two decades ago, our current era of AI overload started with two simple sentences.

At present, predictive analytics is the most used form of AI in enterprise and companies are focusing on innovation, patenting their AI developments at a faster rate than ever before. Join us as we explore the rise of artificial intelligence in six charts including the top investors in AI and the most used AI enterprise solutions. As of June 2016, artificial intelligence received $974m of funding. This year's funding is set to surpass 2015's total and CB Insights suggests that 200 AI-focused companies have raised nearly $1.5 billion in equity funding. AI isn't limited to the business sphere, in fact the personal robot market, including'care-bots', could reach $17.4bn by 2020.

At Quora, our mission is to "share and grow the world's knowledge". We do this by getting the right questions to the right people, and the existing answers to people who are interested in reading them. We need to build a complex ecosystem of algorithms where we value issues such as content quality, engagement, demand, interests, or reputation. Fortunately, we have lots of very good quality data on which to build machine learning solutions that can help address the previous requirements. In this talk, VP of Engineering Xavier Amatriain will describe some interesting uses of machine learning at Quora that range from different recommendation systems such as personalized ranking of the home feed, to classifiers built to detect duplicate questions or spam.

With Alexa and Google Assistant are gunning for control over the general voice-driven experience with technology, that might open doors for some more targeted verticals that are centered around voice. It's not an unheard of strategy -- building services and tools around specific experiences rather than trying to do it all at once has been an effective approach for many startups in Silicon Valley. Those services can even try to slot into larger platforms like an Alexa or a Google Assistant. And in the case of Hello, the makers of a sleep-tracking orb called Sense, that's what they're hoping to do with by launching new version of the device that enables voice control. "As a company we're trying to get rid of intrusive tech from your life -- how do you have more tech like Sense that blends in and disappears," Proud said.

The concept of artificial intelligence has been around for a long time. In written fiction, AI characters show up in stories from writers like Philip K. Dick, William Gibson and Isaac Asimov. Sometimes it seems like it's touched on by every writer who has written sci-fi. While many predictions and ideas put forward in sci-fi have come to life, artificial intelligence is probably the furthest behind. We are nowhere near true artificial intelligence as exemplified by the characters mentioned above. Sometimes it seems like we've been waiting forever.

The Bragi Dash wireless headphones are already incredibly smart and sophisticated, but this month's software update 2.2 makes them practically magical. Bragi OS 2.2 enables the MyTap beta, which will at first allow users to tap a cheek to activate Siri or Google Now. The update also introduces Windshield, an audio transparency trick that allows wearers to listen to music and hear their surroundings at the same time, plus improved heart rate measurements and upgraded Bluetooth capabilities "for many" users. Bragi OS 2.2 is due to roll out on November 21st. The MyTap beta marks the introduction of Bragi's Kinectic User Interface, which is designed to allow users to control the Dash without touching it.

And as if all of this were not enough, we find ourselves at the dawn of a host of new technologies and applications. Many of us have become accustomed to the artificial intelligence (AI) within our devices. This can take the form of our increasingly accurate GPS systems, the voice recognition ability and immediate response of personal assistants such as Apple's Siri or Amazon's Echo. Now children's toys are being shipped in time for the holiday season with AI built in. From Hello Barbie to Dino the dinosaur, who happens to be connected to IBM's Watson, the world of kid's playthings is being radically reshaped.