Do you have an Amazon Echo or Echo Dot? Good news: you can now use it to cook the perfect steak! When I tried out the ChefSteps Joule immersion circulator earlier this year, I found the gadget to be a sleek, precise way to cook the perfect meat or veggies. However, my fellow testers and I had a complaint: The Joule is controlled via smartphone app, which is a great learning tool for sous vide newbies, but also requires you to touch your phone with messy, food-covered fingers. The solution to that is surprisingly elegant: ChefSteps has announced that you can now control your Joule with Alexa. Now, if your hands are dirty from prepping dinner, you can ask Alexa to set the temperature on your Joule, update you on its current temperature, or turn off.

Earlier this year, Mark Zuckerberg revealed he is dedicating his year to making a home AI butler. Now, he is ready to give a voice to the AI, which he modelled on the J.A.R.V.I.S. stands for (Just A Rather Very Intelligent System) system used by Tony Stark in the Iron Man films. Zuckerberg to his personal Facebook page to ask to help on what it should sound like - and admitted'this just got real' when Robert Downey Jr offered to voice it. The project is modelled on the J.A.R.V.I.S. stands for (Just A Rather Very Intelligent System) system used by Tony Stark in the Iron Man films. 'I'll do in a heartbeat if Bettany gets paid and donates it to a cause of Cumberbatch's choosing...that's the right kind of STRANGE!' the Iron Man actor responded. In the films, Jarvis was voiced by actor Paul Bettany.

The distraught mom of the tourist allegedly killed by her Tinder date left an Australian courthouse in distress Thursday when she accidentally heard her daughter's last words played on an audio recording, according to reports. Marzabeth Tagpuno Wright was distraught outside the Brisbane Supreme Court after a reporter played the tape of Warriena Wright yelling, "No, no no" -- just before she plunged 14 stories to her death from Gable Tostee's 14th-floor balcony at his posh Gold Coast apartment in Australia, the Courier Mail said. The chilling audio had been played for the jury earlier in the week, but the mom was not in the courtroom at the time.

Earlier this year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that as his "personal challenge" side project for 2016, he was programming an artificial intelligence to run his home -- a basic AI that could control the lights and temperature, play music on command, unlock the door for recognized friends, and so on. He compared it to J.A.R.V.I.S., Tony Stark's constant computerized companion in Marvel's Iron Man films. Today, Zuckerberg posted on Facebook, "It's time to give my AI Jarvis a voice. Who should I ask to do it?" The crowdsourced responses started immediately, with users recommending Paul Bettany (the actor who voiced J.A.R.V.I.S. in the MCU films), The Dalai Lama, the late Robin Williams, Donald Trump, and a lot more.

On the heels of Samsung's acquisition of Viv just a week ago, a new AI assistant has risen into the spotlight and is jockeying to fill the shoes of its now well-known rival. Ozlo, the Greylock- and Jerry Yang-backed independent entrant to the personal assistant race, is launching today on iOS and the web in an effort to give stalwarts like Siri, Alexa and Cortana a run for their money. The new personal assistant promises early adopters a good memory, a brain full of knowledge, and an independent soul -- everything you could hope for in your new binary friend. When I sat down with Charles Jolley, CEO of Ozlo and previous head of platform for Facebook on Android, the two of us immediately had a nice laugh about the repetitive female names for assistants in the marketplace right now -- Ozlo, by name alone, is already something different. That said, a name is one thing; the more important question is whether Ozlo is useful and doesn't make its users want to throw their phone against a wall after use.

So why does Siri seem so dumb? Why are its talents so limited? Why does it stumble so often? When was the last time Siri delighted you with a satisfying and surprising answer or action? I have an answer for this: when I discovered during the NBA playoffs that Siri can tell you the Vegas betting odds for sporting events. In recent weeks, on multiple Apple devices, Siri has been unable to tell me the names of the major-party candidates for president and vice president of the United States.

Looking to drum up consumer excitement, the tech company hosted an event in San Francisco on Tuesday to unveil a series of products, including two new phones, a virtual reality headset and the Chromecast Ultra. The flagship announcement was the introduction of Pixel, the first Google phone to carry exclusively Google branding. The company called it the "first phone made by Google inside and out." The device is poised to take on the iPhone with a built-in artificially intelligent assistant, 4K video and other bells and whistles. Here's a closer look at everything you need to know: Google (GOOG) announced a new Pixel line of phones -- the 5-inch Pixel ( 649) and 5.5-inch Pixel XL ( 769).

The oncoming storm of Artificial Intelligence as popularized by sci-fi films and to some extent over-inflated expectations of machines that can learn to mimic humans has created an early worry of its impact on jobs, society and us in general. The announcement of a UK commission to look at ethical, legal and societal impact needs to be unpacked in terms of what the state of current A.I. is today and what is causing this early alarm bell to be taken seriously. Why are we raging against the machine? This is perhaps in two areas, the level of sensors and data collection is now rapidly increasing from mobile phones, security cameras to devices in the home like Amazon Echo and Google Home starting to record huge amounts of data about our behavior and choices. On one level this is a concern for privacy and identity that machine algorithms are in use already that analyze this sea of data and can start to manipulate and influence our outcomes and expectations. This is part of the source of the commission focus.

When you're swiping through Tinder it's pretty easy to dismiss someone based on their first photo. Maybe it's poorly compressed, from the delivery room or the church steps on a person's wedding day. Those might be red flags that push people to instantaneously dismiss a potential match before looking deeper at a person's profile. To help your right-swiping sojourn, though, Tinder is using data to make sure someone's best picture is the first you'll see. The new feature is called "Smart Photos."

With more than 50 million profiles worldwide, it can be hard for Tinder users to make themselves stand out. Now the dating app is lending a helping hand by automatically reordering users' photos to display their best profile pictures first. The new'Smart Photos' feature uses an algorithm based on each response as other people swipe on the profile. This alternates the first photo seen by other users. Now the dating app is lending a helping hand by automatically reordering users' photos to display their best profile pictures first In testing, users saw a 12 per cent boost in matches, claims Tinder.