Google is planning to release its own smartwatch to take on the Apple Watch soon, according to leaks. The company will make two of its own watches, according to new leaks. They're expected to be released at the beginning of 2017. The leak follows Google's launch of the Pixel and Pixel XL phones. Those are the first that Google made itself – and as such bake in an artificially intelligent assistant that isn't available to any other Android users.

Three key guiding philosophies were presented across the reports: AI needs to augment humanity instead of replacing it, AI needs to be ethical, and there must be an equal opportunity for everyone to develop these systems. Human-machine collaboration in its many forms is major theme in the reports, titled "Preparing for the Future of Artificial Intelligence" and "National Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Strategic Plan." "The walls between humans and AI systems are slowly beginning to erode, with AI systems augmenting and enhancing human capabilities," the Strategic Plan report says. The White House imagines virtual personal assistants housed in smart glasses, automated factories that assist humans in complex building tasks, and systems that provide better data for farmers, all in the context that these could be job creators and not job stealers.

Mark Zuckerberg says he's ready to voice the Jarvis artificial intelligence system (AI) he built to run his home. One apparently willing candidate stands out -- Iron Man himself. Jarvis, of course, is the AI character that assists Tony Stark's Iron Man in the mega-successful "Iron Man" film franchise based on the Marvel Comics character. Jarvis, which in Marvel's universe is an acronym for "just a rather very intelligent system," is a bit more human as the butler in "Marvel's The Avengers." In response to Zuckerberg's Facebook ask, Robert Downey, Jr., who plays Stark/Iron Man, says he'd do it, with a few altruistic conditions. English actor Paul Bettany voiced Jarvis.

If you're building Iron Man's virtual assistant, who better to help than Iron Man himself? Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who's been working on the virtual assistant as part of his New Year's resolution from earlier this year, posted on his social network Thursday that he was looking for someone to voice his latest creation. Robert Downey Jr., who famously plays Iron Man in the Marvel Studios franchise, jumped at the chance to contribute. In a response to the Facebook founder, Downey Jr. said he'd "do it in a heartbeat" if the fees go to Paul Bettany, the voice of Iron Man's virtual assistant Jarvis in the hit movies. Not forgoing a chance to further publicize the Marvel universe, Downey Jr. continued saying that Bettany would then have to donate the funds to a charity "of Cumberbatch's choosing." Benedict Cumberbatch plays Doctor Stephen Strange, the latest Marvel superhero set to hit theaters in his own blockbuster film next month, Doctor Strange.

Google wants its Assistant to be more than just an order-taking robot -- so it hired some clever writers from outside the company to help make it happen. A new story from the Wall Street Journal's Christopher Mims details the advancements of different artificial intelligence devices like Amazon Echo and Google's rival product Home, and how they're comforting for those who live alone thanks to how personable the AI's have become. For Google, that friendly personality is thanks to a team of writers from Pixar and The Onion who helped make the Assistant -- which powers Google's Home device -- sound more like a human and less like a robot, according to the Journal. Google's eventual goal is to help users build an emotional connection with the Assistant, the Journal reports. Google unveiled its Assistant-enabled Home device last week, a direct competitor to other AI-powered hardware devices like Amazon's Echo.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is now a reality, and want it or not, it soon will be part of our daily lives. In a recent study, Bank of America Merrill Lynch predicted that the artificial intelligence market will blossom to 153 billion over the next five years: 83 billion for robots and 70 billion for artificial intelligence-based systems. Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes that virtual robots powered by artificial intelligence are bound to transform the way companies interact with their customers. In a world where disruption has become the norm, super-intelligent machines have the potential to revolutionize businesses while benefiting users and society in general. But as these smart personal assistants blend into our environment, many questions arise.

Popular dating app Tinder announced Thursday that it is implementing a new Smart Photos algorithm, which alternates the first photos seen by others, notes each response as others swipe on your profile and changes the order of your photos to show the best ones first. "Smart Photos takes into account each individual's swiping pattern when selecting which of your photos they'll see first. It's a system that gets smarter with more input: the more you swipe and the more you're swiped on, the better the algorithm serves you. Yes, there's science behind the swipe," Tinder said on its official blog post. Smart Photos will continuously test users' profile photos for their success so that photos that are most likely to be swiped right will go to the front of your profile.

Linux-based smart home hubs continue to rule the home automation world, with the latest products integrating voice assistants and AI analytics. Industrial, rather than home, applications will likely dominate the Internet of Things (IoT) market in the years to come. Yet, in the early going, the home automation market has had the greatest visibility. And it hasn't always been pretty. Despite steady growth, retail sales have yet to achieve inflated expectations.

Finding the perfect apartment is hard work, and most real estate websites don't make it any easier. Most sites give you a few search filters you can use, but those filters don't narrow down the search enough to be useful. You can look for apartments that have a certain number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and you can even look for apartments that have specific amenities, but you care about more than bedrooms, bathrooms, and amenities. When those are the only filters available, you still have to look through hundreds of properties to find the right one. Then, when you finally do find that property, you have to contact the landlord to schedule a tour.

Amazon's aim is to have Alexa indistinguishable from a human voice. Dave Limp, Amazon's SVP of device and services business is standing in front of an image of the bridge of the starship Enterprise, explaining the inspiration for Amazon's surprise hit Echo device. "A lot of people wondered what was the inspiration for this vision, it really was this, this cultural icon it started here with the tap on the lapel to talk to the computer. And later in the Star Trek series you could be anywhere on the starship Enterprise and you could talk to the computer and she would respond quickly with an answer," he says. With a 100M investment fund and the opening up of cloud service APIs and an SDK, Alexa and the Echo could become the brains of your home automation and IoT network.