If you're like many people, you have thousands of photos on your phone, long forgotten after you've posted a few on Instagram or Facebook. They don't have to stay forgotten. Apple and Google are both applying a form of artificial intelligence called "machine learning" to organize your pictures and video -- and along the way, help you rediscover last year's vacation, dinner with close friends and a casual summer outing to the park. Apple's tools are part of last month's iOS 10 system update for iPhones and iPads. The Google Photos app for Apple and Android devices has a digital assistant to automatically organize these memories -- and Google signaled last week that it will only get smarter.

Google scientists have created a computer program that uses basic reasoning to learn to navigate the London Underground system by itself. The same Artificial Intelligence (AI) agent could also answer questions about the content of snippets of stories and work out family relationships by looking at a family tree. Scientists predict that in future a similar approach could pave the way for virtual assistants that would be able to instantaneously scour the internet to answer questions and carry out instructions with precision. Herbert Jaegar, a computer scientist at the University of Bremen, said: "I think this can be described as rational reasoning. They [the tasks] involve planning and structuring information into chunks and re-combining them."

Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae -- or dark patches -- on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts. Several hundred camped outside the London store in Covent Garden. The 6s will have new features like a vastly improved camera and a pressure-sensitive "3D Touch" display

Amazon is taking on Apple and Spotify in the streaming music market - and hopes undercutting them will give it the edge. Amazon Music Unlimited will cost 8 per month, or 80 a year, for members of Amazon's 99-a-year Prime loyalty program. Non-Prime members will pay 10 a month, the same monthly fee charged by Spotify and Apple Music, while owners of Amazon's Echo smart speaker will be able to get the unlimited music service on one device for 4 per month. This image provided by Amazon Music shows a display of Amazon Music Unlimited, a paid streaming music service Amazon is launching. The music service is being positioned to compete against existing services such as Spotify and Apple Music.

The robot assistants we were promised as children are finally ready for the home. Instead of walking, talking humanoid automatons like Rosie from The Jetsons and Robby the Robot from Lost in Space, our well-spoken helpers are housed in plastic and sit on tables. They answer our questions, control our homes and sometimes tell us a story. The most ubiquitous assistant so far has been Alexa, an Amazon-powered attendant that has made the jump from a 180 tower to the 50 Dot, which isn't much bigger than a hockey puck. That sort of drop in size usually results in a loss of features.

Nearly 140 private companies working to advance artificial intelligence technologies have been acquired since 2011, with over 40 acquisitions taking place in 2016 alone (as of 10/7/2016). Corporate giants like Google, IBM, Yahoo, Intel, Apple and Salesforce, are competing in the race to acquire private AI companies, with Samsung emerging as a new entrant this month with its acquisition of startup Viv Labs, which is developing a Siri-like AI assistant.

The Zen monks of Plum Village monastery had staked out a small space on the green lawn between the hulking bunkers of Moscone North and South, the expo halls at the epicenter of Dreamforce '16. They were steering cross-legged peace-seekers down the path to mindfulness. As I passed by, I liked to imagine that the meditating attendees were seeking solace after three days of trying to wrap their heads around Artificial Intelligence--overwhelmingly the topic of the week. And yet Salesforce had made it all look such fun. With a touch of movie magic, the brands two co-founders Marc Benioff and Parker Harris could be seen on the keynote stage chatting with a cartoon representation of the German genius.

Amazon on Wednesday launched Amazon Music Unlimited, a music streaming service meant to compete with apps like Spotify and Apple Music. Amazon Music Unlimited differs from Amazon's previous music service, called Amazon Prime Music, in that it has a much larger library and is open to users who don't subscribe to Amazon Prime. Whereas Prime Music offers 2 million songs, Amazon Music Unlimited offers "tens of millions," putting it on par with Spotify and Apple Music's selection. Amazon's Music Unlimited app will work on iPhone and Android devices, as well as Windows and Mac computers. Amazon Music Unlimited costs 9.99 a month for non-Prime members, and 7.99 for Prime members (Amazon Prime, which offers free two-day shipping and other benefits, costs 99 a year). A family plan will be made available later this year for 14.99/month, Amazon says.

Artificial intelligence continues to have its moment in the spotlight, with a surge of interest in startups and efforts from huge tech companies to push the boundaries of how we might best use machine learning, computer vision and other areas of AI in the future. The latest development on that front comes from China's Huawei, which today announced that it would form a research partnership with UC Berkeley focused on AI, and fund it to the initial tune of 1 million. The alliance, between Huawei's Noah's Ark Laboratory and Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research (BAIR), is being billed as a "strategic partnership into basic research", and it will cover areas like deep learning, reinforcement learning, machine learning, natural language processing and computer vision. "The two parties believe that this strategic partnership will fuel the advancement of AI technology and create completely new experiences for people, thus contributing greatly to society at large," Huawei notes. Some of these areas of AI you will have heard a lot about already.