Large platform companies like Amazon, Apple, Google, Samsung, and Microsoft want to provide the operating system for our lives, and they will fight hard in 2017 to establish their foothold in the emerging technologies we will likely come to rely on in the future. Those with the most complete product offerings have an advantage. Since people like to buy products that play well with the other products they already own, a platform company risks losing customers by not having a product in a hot category. These large companies already have an advantage over smaller companies due to their massive R&D budgets and their ability to hire the best people to build the stuff we want now and to anticipate the technology we'll want in the future. And if a hot product is developed by some ambitious startup, these giants can easily swoop in and acquire both the product and the people who created it.

One of the undisputable realities of moving into a digital work era is the continuous improvement in technologies which mimic and replicate what human employees are doing. The introduction of'bots' into the workplace to perform logic-based and repetitive tasks is becoming a common occurrence. These task robots are able to perform activities faster, with greater accuracy and more efficiently that their human colleagues. In fact their capacity is close to 700 per cent greater than the human employee, who generally works at a 60 per cent utilisation rate for 7-8 hours a day, can be absent for a variety of reasons, doesn't work 7 days a week, and who's productivity is influenced by a plethora of human frailties. It's no wonder'bots' are attractive to organisations for this type of work.

With the 2016 coming close, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has completed his personal challenge to built "Jarvis," his AI-powered personal assistant. In his lengthy blog post, Zuck describes the types of tasks his Jarvis bot can accomplish. The personal assistant or what few call a butler, is customized to perform multiple actions at Mark's residence. Mark's simple AI to run his home -- like Jarvis in Iron Man, uses several AI techniques including speech and face recognition, reinforcement learning, natural language processing. It is written in PHP, Objective C and Python. In coming years, Zuckerberg has expansion plans for his AI Bot, he cited building an Android app and setting up the Jarvis voice terminals in the entire house.

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer. I've previously written about the Golden Age of Gadgets and how China has propelled it. At this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the annual international show for consumer electronics held in Las Vegas, this only affirmed my position on China.

Is Nokia the latest tech company to join the growing niche of companies investing in AI voice assistants? By the looks of things, it could be so. The Finnish company has even filed for a trademark that would name its own virtual assistant as "Viki." Just this Sunday, GSMinfo revealed that Nokia has applied for a trademark in the European Union for its very own AI assistant. The EU reportedly received the application a few days ago and per the document, Nokia described its new technology as a "software for the creation and monitoring of mobile and web assistants working with digital knowledge and combining all data sources into a single chat and voice-based interface."

Alexa, the voice assistant built into the Amazon Echo, is one of many artificially intelligent (AI) personal assistants being deployed by technology companies to help consumers manage their homes and schedules. Amazon's gadget, which is quickly emerging as a strong rival to Apple's Siri and Google's Assistant, was a big hit at this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Yet as a recent murder case illustrates, AI assistants are creating thorny legal and privacy questions that legal and cybersecurity experts are scrambling to understand. Because virtual assistants rely on microphones that, in some cases, may be continuously recording and sending information, that trove of information creates a delicate balance between law enforcement requests, corporate strategy and individual privacy rights. In 2015, an Arkansas man was found dead in a hot tub, and investigators issued a warrant to Amazon, requesting the company turn over audio recordings and information captured by an Echo smart speaker owned by the suspect.

The Cognitoys Dino is essentially an Amazon Echo for kids. If you make a purchase by clicking one of our links, we may earn a small share of the revenue. Our picks and opinions are independent from any business incentives. Toddlers love chatting it up with Alexa, Amazon's digital assistant, but sometimes they tap into things they shouldn't. Every now and then, Alexa mishears toddler speak.

Streaming songs, ordering pizza, and booking cabs are no-brainers for Alexa, the voice-activated assistant installed on Amazon Echo devices. But Alexa also unfortunately appears to enjoy engaging in a little unintentional retail therapy. Recently, a six-year-old girl in Texas was able to order a $170 dollhouse and four-pounds worth of sugar cookies through Amazon's Echo Dot. But at least in that case, the kindergartner was actually talking directly to Alexa. On the morning of Jan. 5, California television channel CW-6 was reporting on the little girl's purchases when it accidentally caused a slew of other Alexas to also attempt shopping sprees.

It's nothing new for voice-activated devices to behave badly when they misinterpret dialogue -- just ask anyone watching a Microsoft gaming event with a Kinect-equipped Xbox One nearby. However, Amazon's Echo devices is causing more of that chaos than usual. It started when a 6-year-old Dallas girl inadvertently ordered cookies and a dollhouse from Amazon by saying what she wanted. It was a costly goof ($170), but nothing too special by itself. However, the response to that story sent things over the top. When San Diego's CW6 discussed the snafu on a morning TV show, one of the hosts made the mistake of saying that he liked when the girl said "Alexa ordered me a dollhouse."

There's nothing like a new holiday gift to start the "What if" train, and the arrival of an Amazon Alexa Echo on December 25 was clearly an eye-opener. The Amazon Echo is a sweet piece of hardware and the only place it can go is up. For those who haven't seen the Echo (or got a Google Home instead), it is a round tall black cylinder about a foot plus high, containing seven or so microphones plus a beautiful set of speakers. Echo is always-on, always listening for voice commands triggered by the keyword "Alexa" to invoke recording and processing. It is fair to say everyone has only begun to scratch the surface of a virtual assistant through a dedicated appliance (i.e. Amazon provides API hooks so third-party services from pizza delivery to Lyft and Uber ride shares can be ordered via voice, but it is going to take time and education – (Thank you Amazon, for the daily TV reminders!)