If you're the kind of person who likes to talk love on Valentine's Day, you can now stop annoying your Valentine's Day-hating peers (we know they're out there). Apple has equipped Siri with some custom answers to Valentine's Day queries, from booking a romantic restaurant or choosing an appropriately saccharine playlist. It can even give you some ideas for (intentionally cringeworthy) pick-up lines, like: "Is your name Bluetooth? Things take a turn for the awkward and strange when you ask Siri for its thoughts on love. When we asked, "Who is your valentine?" When we asked Siri whether it will be our valentine, it tried to dodge the question, answering "well this is awkward" and, "I'd love to, but I lack corporeal form." It's been reported that Siri can give you insights on your own love life, but it was quick to answer with "I'm not going there" when we tried to ask that ourselves. When asked "will you go on a date with me?" it responded with "Aw, that's sweet, but I, uh, already, um, have plans.

One of the greatest features of having a voice-powered speaker in our homes is the ability to play a song when the moment strikes. Google Home has always included support for Spotify, YouTube Music, Pandora, and TuneIn, letting you fill your house with music just by asking, but now it's making its own service a whole lot smarter. Subscribers to Google Play Music can now tap into a new personalized world of music with Google Home. Where you previously had to meticulously create your own playlists for workouts or dinner parties, Google will now let Assistant be your DJ, as the service combines "machine learning and information like weather, activity, and location" to deliver the perfect playlist for whatever you happen to be doing: "Say you're making pizza and your hands are covered in flour. Just say, 'Ok Google, play music for cooking' and we'll serve up the perfect tunes, like our R&B Kitchen Dance Party playlist. If you've had a long day at work and are too tired to move a muscle, say'Ok Google, play music for relaxing' and get a playlist like Mellow Pop without lifting a finger."

If you make a purchase by clicking one of our links, we may earn a small share of the revenue. Our picks and opinions are independent from any business incentives. I'm not ashamed to admit it--I love smart home tech. It has the potential to drastically improve our homes, and how we live in them. Just imagine what your home could do for you if your thermostat could talk to your phone, or your security camera could talk to your lights.

Data from the folks at Pornhub reveals that traffic on the 14th drops as much as 17 percent after 6 p.m. Funnily enough, dating apps like Tinder see an increase in activity on Valentine's Day. Seems like people are too busy trying to get it on IRL to bother looking for satisfaction online. As the clock creeps towards midnight, Pornhub searches pick back up a bit -- either because people's dates are over or they're looking to add a little additional spice to their adventures together. They found that there was a bigger decrease among women. Interestingly, their searches started to taper off around 2 p.m. and by 9 p.m. they'd dropped by about 22 percent.

With most dating services, live human interaction is usually the last thing that happens. It's what you get if that back-and-forth messaging actually leads somewhere. In Hotline's newly launched service, however, it's not just prominent... it's mandatory. The mobile app requires that you have a 5-minute voice call with your prospective partner (thankfully, without using your phone number) before you can message them. It's a scary concept if you're shy or hate calls, but the hope is that you'll quickly find out whether or not the real person is as interesting as their profile.

After numerous PR requests were thwarted I was forced to cave and buy an Echo Dot - the first time ever I have had to buy technology - bar Apple products - such was the draw. After two months my verdict is in; if you haven't bought one yet, wait to buy one...this puppy is cute not toilet trained (yet). Firstly, let me say Echo is a superbly made product that is changing a lot of lives, playing a lot of music and will influence how people buy stuff. However excited I am by the potential, I am equally, if not more, saddened by how far we are still yet to go and why some functionality was omitted. Echo is, for all intents and purpose a glorified speaker and lazy audio search.

The Galaxy Note 7 was not only a big disappointment to fans, it was also an expensive learning experience for Samsung. Nevertheless, the overall success of the Note series is far greater than the fiasco the problematic handset caused the South Korea tech giant. So, just like what many tech sites are saying, Samsung is not at all done with the Galaxy Note brand and it is far from abandoning its famous phablet line. Ever since Samsung mobile unit head D.J. Koh announced last month that the company is releasing a Galaxy Note 7 successor, many fans of the Note series were pleased and have since started to keep tabs on updates regarding the next phablet. If the latest report on the upcoming handset is to be believed, Samsung may have derived the device's codename or working title from the deepest lake in the world.

Last October, 11-year-old Evan Spisak wandered down to his father's basement workshop to help out on a weekend project, a time-honored tradition in homes across the country. But Evan's father, Mike, is an IBM master inventor. And what they came up with was no birdhouse or pinewood derby car. It was Havyn, a homegrown voice assistant that taps into IBM's enormous cybersecurity infrastructure, putting Watson's AI smarts at their literal beck and call. Think of Havyn, instead, as a highly specific analog to Amazon's Alexa voice assistant.

Five minutes prior to the start of a speed-dating program called "Drawn to You" at the El Segundo Museum of Art, organizer Chelsea Hogan confides that no men have RSVP'd. It is a January evening, Friday the 13th -- a nightmare dating scenario. Eight women mill about the museum lobby, carefully dressed and nervously snacking on a cheese and veggie platter laid out beside bottles of Champagne and wine. The clock ticks 10 minutes past 6:30 p.m. as the awkward truth of the situation dawns on the women. A few men walk past the picture window on Main Street, but none turns and enters.

A Japanese insurance firm Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance has introduced IBM's Watson Explorer AI to calculate pay-outs to policyholders. Alexa, from Amazon, which is currently in an Echo or Dot device, and in more than 5 million homes around the globe, is set to become our latest companion in the car too as Alexa Voice Services roll out across the UK this year. Personal assistants, such as x.ai and Microsoft's Cortana, are becoming increasingly popular and have the ability to organise and maintain information, manage emails, calendars, to do lists and some can perform concierge type tasks. Chatbots are being adopted by most industries. Even The White House, under Obama's administration, used them.