SAN FRANCISCO - In the consumer universe, artificial intelligence is best known as a nice-to-have if stealthy feature that can suggest movies or book rides. But AI's greater worth could well be in the money-making enterprise arena, where sales, service and marketing initiatives stand to be streamlined by the data-crunching deductive power of machine learning. That's certainly the bet customer relationship management giant Salesforce is making by unveiling Einstein, the no-brainer name given to a suite of advanced AI capabilities. With Einstein, salespeople can focus on leads that statistically show the most promise of becoming clients, and customer service reps may be better prepared to answer a rainbow of consumer queries. "The strongest aspect of Einstein is that it is deeply embedded in the platform, it's just working automatically," says Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, whose company officially rolled out the base product Sunday.

Virtual reality may be generating most of the buzz today, but another major tech shift looms much closer on the horizon: machine learning. The technology has already made inroads with the public through platforms such as Amazon's Echo and Google's Deep Dream Generator. But its influence will extend beyond voice-controlled speakers and AI-enhanced art, effecting a sea of change for businesses of all sizes. It will be a few years before we witness machine learning's breakthrough moment, but it's coming -- and it will change everything. Humans could be incredibly effective given endless timelines, budget, and energy.

When it was first announced to a sceptical tech press months after a flop phone, the Echo was dismissed separately as a joke and a privacy nightmare. Now the latter may still prove to be the case (the Echo is always listening, and logs every sentence spoken to it), but a joke it is clearly not. In fact many analysts now believe that Amazon has one hand on the future that comes after the smartphone. Alexa is not the only, or even the first, voice-activated virtual assistant – Apple, Google and Microsoft have had their own for years – but it is the first that consumers have truly embraced. While taking out a smartphone in public and speaking to it – as one must with Apple's Siri or Google's Assistant – is awkward, and often slower than simply using a touchscreen, talking to a device in the comfort of one's own home is decidedly less uncomfortable.

This technology will affect the quality, pace and structure of daily living for everyone. Believe it or not, robotic personal assistants at home -- particularly for older people -- will be common by 2025. With startling effect, machines increasingly will do the thinking for us. Big data, a computer's ability to gather vast amounts of information in complex databases, will be stored in the limitless spheres of Cloud technology. And the deep learning capability of artificial intelligence software, able to learn from its own mistakes and experiences to improve functionality, will progressively eliminate the need for thousands of tasks now performed by humans.

Earlier this week, Amazon unveiled its 50 internet-connected personal assistant "so you can add Alexa to any room in your home." Alexa is the online giant's artificial-intelligence powered bot that listens to what you say and answers your commands and questions: What's the weather? Can you order me a large pepperoni pizza? And the low priced Echo Dot, about the size of a hockey puck, means many more homes will soon have on-command digital listening devices that eavesdrop on – and store – family conversations, holiday celebrations, and even off-color comments (and also bickering siblings or quarreling spouses). Sure, it has its conveniences and Star Trek-like appeal and maybe you're OK with potential privacy implications.

If you've watched movies like Iron Man, featuring virtual assistants, like JARVIS, which you can just have a conversation with and control your home, you probably think that such virtual assistants belong in the realm of science fiction. Earlier this year, Mark Zuckerberg, who runs Facebook set a personal challenge to create a JARVIS style assistant for his own home. "My personal challenge for 2016 is to build a simple AI to run my home and help me with my work. You can think of it kind of like Jarvis in Iron Man." He may be closer to his goal, as he may be giving a demo something this month. For those that don't have an army of engineers to help them, what can be done today?

Here's our guide on how to use the new Siri and Maps app for the iPhone and iPad in iOS 10. Apple opened Siri up to third party developers for this update, which allows you to control a bunch of apps using just your voice. You can send messages on LinkedIn, WhatsApp, and Skype just by asking Siri to do so. But first, you need to update your apps to do this. Go to your "App Store" app and tap "Updates" on the bottom, and scroll through the list of available updates.

This post is authored by Jaya Mathew & Hong Lu, Data Scientists at Microsoft, in collaboration with the team at ServusNet. Governments worldwide are actively promoting the use of renewable energy because of the growing concern over climate change and carbon emissions. Among the available renewable energy sources, harnessing energy through wind turbines offers a compelling alternative. There are a growing number of wind farms throughout the world now, and, as the industry matures at a rapid pace, it is increasing its focus on operational efficiency and cost-competitiveness. Given the inherent variability in wind energy production, the ability to analyze the data generated by wind turbines to characterize historical behavior and create a framework to predict future performance can be a critical asset and business differentiator.

We need the following manual steps to complete the data factory.

The Amazon Echo, a voice-controlled virtual assistant, is seen at it's product launch for Britain and Germany in London, Britain, September 14, 2016. What's all the fuss about the voice-activated home speaker that Amazon is due to release in the UK and Germany in late September? This gadget has been available in the US for over a year and has proven a minor hit, with sales estimates between 1.6m and 3m. But these figures belie the potential impact this kind of artificial intelligence device could have on our lives in the near future. Echo doesn't just let you switch on your music by voice command. It's the first of what will be several types of smart home appliances that work beyond simple tasks like playing music or turning on a light.