Amazon's Alexa assistant can already communicate with some cars, but the conversations are a little one-sided. You can tell your home-bound Echo to start warming up your Hyundai on a frosty day, for example, or send directions to your BMW ahead of setting off; but when you're on the road, you're on your own. Later this year, though, car makers will be able to put Alexa in the passenger seat, giving drivers a virtual assistant that'll put on some tunes, load up an audiobook and carry out many other tasks while their hands are stuck to the wheel. This won't be a result of individual car brand partnerships, however. Instead, Inrix is working to integrate Alexa into its OpenCar platform, which vehicle manufacturers can take and shape into their own, branded infotainment systems -- similar to BlackBerry's QNX platform, which could be powering your ride's dash even if you don't know it.

And the TVs will come with a voice-control remote that features Alexa – Amazon's artificial intelligence personal assistant, similar to Apple's Siri or Google Assistant. Users, for example, will be able to ask Alexa via the TV set to control lights in their home. For consumers, the Fire TV software will allow them to access all of their streaming services and many apps, including Amazon's own, from their TVs in their living room and bedrooms. Also, Amazon hosts 4K content, which will allow consumers to consume this high-resolution programming on their new TVs. And for Amazon, this is a further push into consumers' lives and homes.

I've been living in a smart home for nearly 10 years. It's filled with sensors, smart lighting, voice recognition, security cameras, a smart thermostat, and more. In spite of all its capabilities, my home would be completely dumb if I hadn't dedicated hours upon hours telling it exactly how all of those components should work together, and then constantly tweaking those instructions when I add or subtract components and as my life patterns change. All that silicon made my home smart, but not intelligent. Vivint says its new Sky system can change that.

There are many reasons why people might want to buy one of Amazon's Echo devices for their home -- for example, to stream music from the Internet, hear weather reports, control Web-connected appliances and order paper towels. They probably don't buy an Echo to supply evidence about themselves to the police. That may become part of the package, however, because of the way Amazon enables people to control an Echo with their voice. The device has a microphone that's always on, waiting for a "wake word" that causes it to record and send the user's request to Amazon's servers online. There, the speech is analyzed and converted into a command (e.g., "Alexa, set a timer for 15 minutes").

In the previous blog on machine learning, we learnt about applying machine learning techniques to recommendation engines and an overview of collaborative filtering (CF) algorithms implemented in Apache Mahout. In this post, we'll discuss how to build a recommendation engine using Mahout. Let us take an example of a movie rating application that allows users to rate movies and suggests other movies that they might like. Following could be a data set where some users have rated some movies on a scale of 1 to 5 (highest). The empty cells denote that the user has not rated the movie.

But if you really want to light up your front porch (or prison yard), the Maximus Smart Motion Security Light should do the trick. Controllable via Amazon's Alexa digital assistant or via the Kuna app available for Android and iOS devices, Maximus' Smart Motion Security Light builds on the success of the company's Smart Security Light line. The somewhat insectile outdoor fixture is equipped with an integrated 1080p video camera that can broadcast live footage directly to your smartphone. And its powerful 2400-lumen floodlight is unlikely to leave any shadows for miscreants to hide in (that's more than twice as bright as the Netatmo Presence security camera/floodlight we reviewed in November 2016). Through the use of the Kuna app, which you can read about in one of our earlier reviews, you'll not only be able to view the Smart Motion Security Light's video feed, but also hear and speak with individuals standing close to the fixture.

After cars that drive themselves, phones you can talk to and shopping delivered by drone, it's hard to guess where technology is headed next. Step forward these shorts, which reveal more than a pair of legs – they also tell the wearer where to go. The Daisy Duke-style shorts send a vibration to different sides of the body, indicating when and where to turn. Step in the right direction: The Spinali Design shorts, left, and jeans, right, send a vibration to different sides of the body, indicating when and where to turn. They are connected to a smartphone by Bluetooth, and so when a route is set on the phone it sends the directions through to the shorts. The shorts also buzz to let the wearer know if they have an incoming text or call, taking away the need to keep checking the phone.

Everyone's making a smart personal assistant these days -- thanks, Alexa -- but not all of them are as adorable as the Olly. It's basically a donut-shaped speaker that lies flat when dormant, but stands and spins around with lights flashing when active. But what sets the Olly apart from the Echo clone pack is by incorporating a bit of personality into the mix. The unique bit with the Olly is that its personality adapts to yours over time. According to London-based Emotech, its parent company, Olly's behavior will evolve depending on how you interact with it.

For many, the first real interaction they will have with AI is through the personal assistants on their phones. Apple's Siri and Microsoft's Cortana have already proved themselves in the market place, but while such virtual assistants have a clear advantage in that they come built in to people's phones, they have competition from independents. Ozlo, for one, launched on iOS last October. Its focus thus far has been on finding people restaurants, bars, and recipes by analyzing data from sources like TripAdvisor, FourSquare, and Yelp, among others, and it is looking to expand. In 2017, Ozlo is being made available to third-party developers so that they can build their own versions of Ozlo.

A UK start-up has unveiled a desktop robot that develops a different personality for each user in a household. The device can play music and control other internet-connected devices as well as offer advice. Chris Foxx was given a first look at at the product at the CES tech show in Las Vegas.