Analysis Huawei's upcoming launch of a smartphone incorporating Amazon's Alexa virtual assistant will mark a new phase in one of the most important battles for the modern internet experience. Voice-activated assistants - which use powerful AI engines to deliver detailed, context-aware and personalized answers to users' questions – are the way in which web giants hope to place themselves at the heart of a user's whole range of activities, whether they are in their smart home, connected car, at work or on the phone. Apple Siri kicked off the race, though the company seems to have lost its early momentum in voice interfaces – rapidly taking over from touch/text for many uses. Google Now and Microsoft Cortana added new levels of AI to the digital assistant category, but then Amazon launched its Fire Phone, whose defining technology was the retailer's own AI-driven assistant, Alexa. However, the Fire Phone flopped, and it seemed Alexa might have died with it, until the technology reappeared in Amazon's Echo home hub, which has unexpectedly seized the initiative back from its rivals, leaving Apple and Google to announce hasty moves into the home hub market last year.

As an amateur futurist I'm always watching the trends of innovation, here are some technology trends I'm keeping a close eye on as we approach 2017. Now we are entering a period where the convergence of multiple technologies and integrations results in an exponentially increasing potential for disruption in the future of work, commerce, manufacturing, Bigdata and AI. Distributed ledger technology that are decentralized databases that are hacker and fraud proof don't just have the potential to impact Banking and FinTech, but transform how our digital identity and customer reviews work. In an era where trust in at an all-time low between citizens and institutions, the blockchain can give the fallen credibility of various institutions a new measure of legitimacy. You would not have thought Amazon's 9-inch tall cylinder speaker controlled by a cloud-based voice assistant that goes by the name Alexa would change the world, but it's becoming increasingly apparent this product is a deal-breaker that not only tap into chatbots, product search and ecommerce but the future of how apps work together via a personal assistant.

Artificial Intelligence (AI): the term often brings to mind one of two distinct images of the future. The first: a world in which AI technologies have been implemented further into our daily lives -- improving our productivity by completing menial, time-consuming tasks automatically. The second, in the vein of Terminator or I, Robot, is a more bleak vision of self-driving cars and hyper-intelligent robots plotting against humanity. While a portion of the second scenario has already come to pass by way of automotive advances like Google's self-driving car, artificial intelligence experts and futurist thought leaders do not predict that a conflict between humans and AI is likely to come to pass (Sorry, James Cameron). For instance, Diamandis predicts that we will be able to produce an abundance of resources to meet future human needs through the use of AI technologies. AI technologies have already been integrated into almost every industry, from healthcare to financial trading to digital marketing.

Apple's iOS 10.3 software describes how Apple wants to gather iCloud data to improve services. Apple long has argued in favor of customer privacy, but the company wants to do more with your personal data so services like Siri voice recognition can get smarter. A new option in its iOS 10.3 software, released earlier this week for beta testing, asks iPhone and iPad users to share iCloud account data. Privacy is a thorny issue for tech companies. It sounds nice in principle, but it's technically complicated. And until an FBI investigator arrives, we're more likely to care about how well our phones steer us around traffic and flag important messages than we are about whether a tech company's data center is peering into our personal lives.

The latest version of Apple's mobile software, iOS 10.3, is out now in public beta form, and while some incoming features like a lost AirPods locator are easy to pick out, other additions may not be so obvious. A new feature in iOS 10.3 lets users send Apple data gathered from iCloud, giving the tech giant the resources to improve its products and services, according to TechCrunch. The feature's description also explicitly names Apple's digital assistant Siri as one of the services that would directly benefit from iCloud Analytics. This feature is coming to light right after it was revealed Apple is a founding member of the Partnership on AI, a consortium of businesses including Microsoft, Google, and Amazon that collaborate on advancing and advocating artificial intelligence technology. The partnership - combined with the data potentially available to Apple following the full release of iOS 10.3 - could greatly bolster the iPhone maker's AI development and help Siri stay competitive against the likes of Microsoft's Cortana or Amazon's Alexa.

A gadget enthusiast has created a unique but'terrifying' robotic face to accompany their Amazon Alexa voice controlled speaker. The new gadget can answer questions, report the news, traffic and weather and provide sports scores and schedules using the revolutionary Alexa Voice Service. But an inventor, known as Steve, has created a human-like face to go with his new piece of equipment. In a video, the robot, named'Elvia', can be seen'talking' as Steve speaks to her and the two play a game called Word Master The video, filmed in North America, shows the unusual robot - nicknamed Elvia - 'talk' with moving lips and eyes, reports The Mirror. Steve can be heard saying: 'Alexa, play Word Master'. She replied: 'Hello, and welcome to the amazing Word Master.

Apple has joined the Partnership on AI to Benefit People and Society, and will work alongside other tech giants on artificial intelligence initiatives, the partnership announced Friday. Apple previously worked with Partnership on AI, but Friday's announcement makes the company's membership official, as it joined as a founding member. Apple has not yet announced the partnership. Partnership on AI, a nonprofit, was launched by Amazon, Facebook, Google, IBM, and Microsoft in September 2016. The organization works to address "opportunities and challenges with AI technologies to benefit people and society."

It is supposed to be the futuristic household tool catering to the demands and whims of tech-savvy homeowners. But to those named Alexa, it appears the Amazon Echo makes life decidedly more frustrating. The gadget, which perform tasks including ordering shopping online through simple voice commands, has become the focus of annoyance to Alexas across the globe – because that is precisely the name to which the device answers. Amazon Echo is a voice-controlled smart speaker that works alongside a smartphone app. Using a virtual assistant called Alexa, the speaker can respond to voice commands from the user, such as setting an alarm or ordering a cab.

In less than a year, Amazon's combination of the Echo speaker system and the Alexa voice-controlled digital assistant has come close to delivering on the elusive promise of easy-to-use technology that can control gadgets in the home with a few spoken words. Yet Amazon's surprise success sets up a long-term battle with Apple and Alphabet Google for primacy in the connected household. And the contours of that competition are following a classic tech industry dynamic. Amazon's surprise success with its Echo speakers and Alexa smart assistant sets up a long-term battle with Apple and Alphabet Google for primacy in the connected household. Amazon is pursuing an open-systems approach that allows quick development of many features, while Apple is taking a slower route, asserting more control over the technology in order to assure security and ease-of-use.

Voice-controlled assistants are having a moment. But there may be an intriguing wrinkle that their makers have to smooth out: users don't seem to be using many apps. The number of Skills--the Amazon name for apps that operate on its Alexa smart assistant software--available for the company's Echo smart speaker have risen significantly in the past six months, from 950 last May to over 8,000 today. But an analysis of the way people use Alexa and and Google's Assistant platforms shows that third-party apps aren't too well used, nor particularly sticky. The analysis, which was carried out voice software startup Voice Labs, shows that most app don't get any user reviews, which suggests they're not very popular.