Samuel Gibbs' piece about the internet of things (How I turned my home into a sci-fi dream, theguardian.com, The Bluetooth/Wi-Fi version of scratching each other's eyes out is not pretty, but only Siri has that blood-curdling scream. It is 2016 and I think your readers can deal with an accurate description rather than this 1950s euphemism for sexual activity. Homeless people do it for nothing. The Monster Raving Loony Party, many years ago, posed the question: "How come there's only one Monopolies Commission?"

The world is on the cusp of an AI revolution. Companies around the world are already using the technology to help do everything from parse medical records to teach cars to drive themselves. At home, digital assistants like Amazon's Alexa, Apple's Siri and Google Now, have put a conversational gloss on the burgeoning tech. In 2017, AI is likely to not only get smarter (natch) but also more humanlike. The company's Alexa software enables users to chat with its Internet-connected speaker, asking it to read news and weather reports, and even order a taxi.

As the AI era continues to unfold, the idea of a future driven by artificial intelligence can evoke mixed emotions.Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) co-founder and Chairman Bill Gates referred to AI as the "holy grail" in computer science. On the other hand, and taking a far more apocalyptic perspective, Tesla CEO Elon Musk likened the development of artificial intelligence technologies to "summoning the demon." Regardless of our feelings on the matter, artificial intelligence is set to play an increasingly prominent role in our day-to-day lives. Let's examine 9 statistics that speak to how artificial intelligence is set to become one of the most important technology trends of our lifetimes. In a survey of corporate executives, 32% of respondents said voice recognition software like Apple'sSiri, Alphabet's (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google Assistant, and Amazon.com's

Apple was the first to introduce a digital assistant when it acquired Siri and baked it into the OS. The makers of Siri went on to create Viv, a realisation of their original vision for Siri. Viv was acquired by Samsung this year. Despite the initial head start with Siri, Apple lost ground over the subsequent years by being very secretive about its research. As Apple employees were not allowed to publish research, the best talent was not attracted to the company.

Authorities investigating the death of an Arkansas man whose body was found in a hot tub want to expand the probe to include a new kind of evidence: any comments overheard by the suspect's Amazon Echo smart speaker. Amazon said it objects to "overbroad" requests as a matter of practice, but prosecutors insist their idea is rooted in a legal precedent that's "as old as Methuselah." The issue emerged in the slaying of Victor Collins, who was found floating face-up last year in the hot tub at a friend's home in Bentonville, about 150 miles northwest of Little Rock. The friend, James Andrew Bates, was later charged with murder. Prosecutors have asked the court to force Amazon to provide data from the Echo that could reveal more clues about the night of Nov. 22, 2015, when Collins was apparently strangled and drowned. Benton County Prosecuting Attorney Nathan Smith said yesterday that he has no idea if the device recorded anything related to the death.

Machine learning and other variations of artificial intelligence (AI) are expected to proliferate in the enterprise in 2017. The majority of IT players, including today's leading technology companies, have invested in the space and plan to increase efforts for the foreseeable future, according to analysts who cover the market. However, while machine learning has generated tremendous interest throughout the enterprise, a wide gap still exists between research and beneficial use cases in the real world. And only a small number of companies have the resources to actually drive AI innovation and deliver it to the masses, sources say. During last month's Code Enterprise conference, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner said AI was one of leading factors in the company's decision to be acquired by Microsoft.

Apple has been doomed for decades, if the steady stream of headlines about the company, its stock price, and its product lineup are to be believed. If The Macalope has taught us anything, it's that the Apple deathwatch business is a brisk (and bizarre) one. The truth is much more complex. But by any measure, 2016 was a particularly tough year for Apple. The company endured a bitter legal fight with the FBI, saw its first revenue decline in more than a decade, and faced backlash over hardware tweaks in its upgraded flagship products: the iPhone 7's lack of a 3.5mm audio jack and the overhauled MacBook Pro's less-than-pro specs for a decidedly pro price.

We ask Siri for recommendations on where to eat, ask Google for directions to the restaurant, ask our car to play music or make a phone call, ask our house to turn on the lights and the heat before we get home. Deep Knowledge Ventures, a Hong Kong-based life science venture capital company, has already appointed an AI robot to its board of directors. The robot, called Vital (Validating Investment Tool for Advancing Life Sciences) was designed to analyze trends in the data of certain companies in an effort to predict successful investments. Vital is an equal member of the board and is expected to eventually be given an equal vote in all financial decisions made by the company. "The variables involved in the long-term success of a biotechnology company are many and complex," Deep Knowledge Ventures said in a statement.

The business world is in the midst of a digital transformation that is quickly separating the wheat from the chaff. The following article unveils the technology trends that will allow you to successfully and confidently navigate the digital era in the coming year, and considers how conversational systems, humanised big data, and augmented information will benefit everyday business. Recommender systems or so-called chatbots that carry on a dialogue with the user in order to guide him through a business process are no longer a rarity. However, the recommendations are usually so vague and the intelligence of the chatbots so limited that the effectiveness of the process suffers. This is about to change.

You may not know it yet, but our music is already highly reliant on artificial intelligence. AI is already being deployed to develop music scores for advertisements and movies. Artificial Intelligence is also finding itself developing mood based music for games and smartphone apps. While they don't produce music themselves, Siri and Cortana are at our disposal if we need music suggestions. The same goes for streaming services such as Spotify, which rely on AI to deliver new music to our tastes.