When I was a young boy I saw the classic movie "2001 A Space Odyssey" with HAL, the voice interactive computer system that bordered on AI, and that sparked in me, a lifelong interest and career in IT. Today we are seeing devices that are starting to provide the beginnings of that same functionality like the Amazon Echo, Dot or Google Home. It's one thing to sit in your living room and call out to the air "Alexa, how old is Matt Damon" or "Alexa, play the Logical Song by Supertramp", it's another when your 6 year old is having a conversation with Alexa and orders a bunch of things from Amazon and it is quite another when you are trying to find ways to use it in the office to make your company more productive. The difference between Alexa and HAL is pretty dramatic, but at the core of them both, and AI in general, is Machine Learning. As Guy Levy-Yurista, Sisense Head of Product, described in this recent blog post "Sisense employs machine learning as a core element of its In-Chip data processing algorithms….We call it query recycling – breaking queries into smaller blocks that are later reassembled to answer future queries: if user A asks a completely new question such as'what was our average deal size last year?' and user B later asks'what is our year-over-year growth in sales?', This isn't OLAP, it is a learning algorithm that grows smarter and more efficient over time and as more unique queries accumulate. It learns to identify the reusable chunks within each query, and to use these as a knowledge base for future reference".

Reports emerged Tuesday that Apple might be working on a Siri-based speaker called Siri Hub, which would compete with the Amazon Echo and Google Home. Now it seems the rumor was unfounded -- according to more recent reports, the company is in no hurry to launch a direct rival to Google and Amazon's offerings. Rather, the company is working on making the voice assistant "omnipresent AI assistant across devices," Tech Times reported Tuesday, citing unnamed Apple sources. Apple's approach seems pragmatic since the company faces a lot of competition when it comes to voice assistant functionality. While Apple had the first mover advantage with Siri, it was diluted when Google came out with its artificial intelligence (AI)-based Assistant.

One of the most exciting and publicized uses of the IoT in people's homes has been the use of it within technology like the Amazon Echo and Google Home. Here people no longer need to use switches and traditional physical methods of interaction in order to use utilities and basic services within a house. For instance, it allows people to change the heating settings without needing to programme a controller, which is incredibly difficult for people who have visual impairments to unless there are modifications to the systems. Using a voice recognition system, it can work more-or-less straight out the box, without any kind of special setup needed.

When I first met Sean Rad, back in 2013, Tinder was a blossoming dating app. It was known primarily for, how shall I put it, casual relationships. Back then he told me Tinder was "good for humanity", a line I instantly latched onto as being faintly ridiculous, and wonderful for a headline. But now when I think of how Tinder has impacted my life, and those of several people close to me, I start to see what he was getting at. Life-changing things have happened to millions of people thanks to that simple swipe-yes-swipe-no interface.

Only Homo sapiens, of all the descendants of Homo erectus, survived on earth whereas other species such as homo soloensis, homo denisova, Homo neanderthalensis, Homo floresiensis faded away more than 40,000 years ago. What advantages did Homo sapiens possess that helped them to flourish while other species are extinct? Apparently a cognitive revolution (according to Prof. Yuval Harari in his famous book Sapiens) triggered by some kind of genetic mutation provided Homo Species with more cerebral power and thus they acquired an ability not possessed by any other species – ability to imagine things that did not exist. This ability helped them to invent things including powerful communicative languages, religion, tools and more. Does current cognitive revolution ushered under various nomenclatures such as artificial intelligence, cognitive computing etc provide more powers, this time to machines and bring in unprecedented progress to human life?

After smartwatches and VR headsets, voice assistant-based speakers are a new category of smart devices that technology companies are investing in. The Google Assistant-based Home speaker and Amazon Alexa-based Echo speaker are already selling in the market and it seems Microsoft might be the newest player to join their ranks. Harman Kardon, a company specializing in speakers, has become the first to get Microsoft's Cortana voice assistant since the Cortana SDK was opened up to developers in December. Harman had released a 30-second teaser in December 2016 showcasing a smart speaker with an LED-based display at the top. On Tuesday, the speaker got certified by Wi-Fi Alliance, an organization that monitors Wi-Fi operability.

The official handle for the Cortana Intelligence. Follow for news and updates from the team and the community.

The machines haven't taken over. However, they are seeping their way into our lives, affecting how we live, work and entertain ourselves. From voice-powered personal assistants like Siri and Alexa, to more underlying and fundamental technologies such as behavioral algorithms, suggestive searches and autonomously-powered self-driving vehicles boasting powerful predictive capabilities, there are several examples and applications of artificial intellgience in use today. However, the technology is still in its infancy. What many companies are calling A.I. today, aren't necessarily so.

The age of artificial intelligence (AI) is upon us. As many in the field already know, AI in its various forms and expressions -- neural networks, machine learning, computer vision, and so on -- isn't a new media-fueled fad or trend, but rather the next era of our tech-centric civilization. Simultaneously, there's a revolution happening with the digital habits of consumers, who are increasingly glued to their phones and communicating more and more via visual means (instead of just text) through social media and messaging apps. As a result of these concurrent trends, business and marketing will undergo radical transformations, with AI enabling powerful and useful new methods of connecting consumers directly with companies. Here are just some of these new approaches.

Men and women may prefer female voices for their digital assistants, but it's about time we had more male options