We've had talking dolls since Edison's time. Now, not only do the toys talk back, but using AI and cloud-based systems, they remember, record, transcribe and even email parents. Hello Barbie is just one example of animated and "cognitized" children's toys and objects that are increasingly entering our homes. When combined with personal assistants such as Amazon's Echo and Apple's Siri, childhood interactions, general inquisitiveness and simple play are being transformed. Is this a good thing?

Echo Dot is a hands-free, voice-controlled device that uses Alexa to play & control music (either on its own, or through a connected speaker/receiver), control smart home devices, provide information, read the news, set alarms, and more.

Our days on Earth are numbered, according to Professor Stephen Hawking. The world-famous physicist has previously issued warnings to the world that robots could wipe out humanity and that leaving Earth is our only hope. Now, in a new book, 'How to Make a Spaceship', the physicist has warned our planet is becoming a dangerous place because of the threat of war or disease. It is a'near certainty' that a major technological disaster will threaten humanity in the next 1,000 to 10,000 years. This is according to physicist Stephen Hawking who claims science will likely bring about'new ways things can go wrong' for human survival The book, written by journalist Julian Guthrie, contains an afterword by the physicist.

Our previous discussion on augmented reality revealed a new trend in supply chain management, the use of computer-simulated imagery to enhance production and efficiency. However, the supply chain tends to forget how augmented reality will naturally transform the entire supply chain, and supply chain artificial intelligence is one of the key driving forces behind supply chain augmented reality. However, artificial intelligence is poised to radically change the supply chain in profound ways. Let's take a closer look at what artificial intelligence is and what it can offer the exciting world of supply chain management. "Alexa....please tell Baxter the Robot to machine this part."

It's no secret that business travel can be stressful and travelers are always keen to remove friction during a trip. Artificial intelligence (AI), already familiar to most travelers in the form of digital assistants like Ok Google, Siri and Cortana, may provide an answer. At its core, AI automates computer processes to understand and mimic the human brain. While there are many fields that comprise AI, two that are commonly used for everyday applications are Natural language processing (NLP), and Machine learning. NLP helps computers understand human speech or typing.

If you're making plans with friends over Allo (after you've convinced them to start using it), Assistant can help you add events to your calendar without leaving the app. Just tell Assistant to add an item to your calendar, and it'll ask you for the time, title, and if you want to save it. If you say yes, it's saved. If you say no, Assistant asks if you'd like to make changes or just cancel. If that's too formal, Assistant can also create reminders.

Microsoft has revealed that Altera FPGAs have been installed across every Azure cloud server, creating what the company is calling "the world's first AI supercomputer." The deployment spans 15 countries and represents an aggregate performance of more than one exa-op. The announcement was made by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and engineer Doug Burger during the opening keynote at the Ignite Conference in Atlanta. The FPGA build-out was the culmination of more than five years of work at Microsoft to find a way to accelerate machine learning and other throughput-demanding applications and services in its Azure cloud. The effort began in earnest in 2011, when the company launched Project Catapult, the R&D initiative to design an acceleration fabric for AI services and applications. The rationale was that CPU evolution, a la Moore's Law, was woefully inadequate in keeping up with the demands of these new hyperscale applications.

Google Assistant, the company's voice-controlled AI tool, got its first public release to the English-speaking world last week inside the new messaging app Allo. Today Google is announcing the second language it'll work with: Hindi, the fourth most-spoken first language in the world and one of India's official languages. Google's other new communications effort, the video-calling app Duo, has seen "amazing uptake" in India, according to VP for the next billion users Caesar Sengupta, who tells The Verge that it's well-optimized for the country's 2G and 3G networks. Google is bullish on the prospects of Allo in India, then, with countless users who'd be more comfortable speaking to Assistant in Hindi than English. The addition of Hindi support, or any extra languages at all, is significant because of Assistant's heavy focus on artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Microsoft wants the world to know it's not falling behind in the race for artificial intelligence. The technology giant--like Google goog, Facebook fb, and IBM ibm --has been pushing into the trendy field of artificial intelligence, catch-all for various technologies that help computers recognize patterns from massive amounts of data. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella emphasized A.I. on Monday at the company's annual IT conference in Atlanta by describing how his company is using the technology and how it plans to do so a lot more in future. "We are not pursuing A.I. to beat humans at games," said Nadella, taking a subtle hit at competitors like Google and IBM, whose A.I. technologies got some attention for beating humans at the ancient Chinese board game Go and on the game show Jeopardy. Microsoft's overarching goal is to "democratize A.I.," which Nadella explained has something to do with analyzing the mountains of data produced by consumers and businesses and then presenting the findings to people who have far less free time than they used to have.

The retail industry is inundated with buzzwords that describe the best way to engage with consumers -- such as omnichannel marketing, customer journey, and a 360-degree view -- to provide a more personalized and optimized experience. All of these buzzwords point to a common problem most retail marketers are aching to solve: How can they use customer data to create timely insight into what customers are doing in-store and/or online and convert that into strategies and actions that increase sales? It's an age old question with new age solutions, and the retail industry is now leveraging artificial intelligence (A.I.) to usher in a unique way of thinking about this problem. In fact, a new chart shows there are 45 A.I. companies focused on retail across a range of verticals, including recommendations, merchandising, search, conversational commerce, and especially multichannel marketing. Using omnichannel retailing, the ability to connect with a customer both online and offline, is ideal because omnichannel customers have a 30 percent higher lifetime value than single channel customers.