At Nissan's CES keynote, a brand new offering within the connected car landscape was put forth. Your next drive in a Nissan could be a whole lot smarter. And after having a full-on conversation with your own in-car Cortana setup, you might just be left feeling like Halo's Master Chief. The automaker was the second at CES to announce the addition of Microsoft's personal assistant AI to its future vehicles. Volvo also touted upcoming Cortana-connected cars earlier this week.

One clear trend that's emerged from CES this year is that many, many smart home products are using Amazon's Alexa voice-assistance platform. Most of these devices are just spins on Amazon's Echo, a static speaker that sits on a shelf. But a few of the products packing Amazon's AI are really unique. It takes Alexa's smarts, adds a screen and a dash of personality. LG's bot can dance along with music and display its own facial expressions as you interact with it.

Without a doubt, 2016 was an amazing year for Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). During the year, we saw nearly every high tech CEO claim the mantel of becoming an "AI Company". However, only a few companies were actually able to monetize their significant investments in AI, notably,,,,,, and . But 2016 was nonetheless a year of many firsts. As a posterchild for the potential for ML, Google Deep Mind mastered the subtle and infinitely complex game of GO, soundly beating the reigning world champion. And more than a few cool products were introduced that incorporated Machine Learning, from the first autonomous vehicles to new "intelligent" household assistants such as Google Home and Amazon Echo.

Nvidia Founder, President and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang introduces the Nvidia Spot, a USD 49.95 microphone and speaker that will let owners use Google Assistant anywhere in a home, as he delivers a keynote address at CES 2017 (Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty Images) LAS VEGAS--Nvidia is best known for the high-end computer graphics cards prized by hardcore gamers. If co-founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang delivers on his bold vision, more people are likely to recognize Nvidia as the powerhouse behind artificial intelligence in your home and in your vehicle. Clad in his trademark black leather jacket, Huang delivered a high energy opening night keynote address Wednesday night at CES, assuming a prestigious speaking slot that for years was reserved for Microsoft's Bill Gates and later his successor Steve Ballmer. Nvidia (NVDA) is already a star on Wall Street. It is coming off a two-year hot streak, with a particularly sizzling 224% gain in 2016 that made it the top performing stock in the S&P 500.

The Huawei Mate 9 is the first smartphone with Amazon Alexa built-in. 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. Amazon Alexa has finally found a cozy, pre-installed home on a mass market smartphone. At CES 2017, Huawei announced the Mate 9, a flagship-level device with dual, Leica-branded lenses, a souped-up battery, and an Alexa app pre-loaded and ready to go.

Q: I got Amazon Echo for Christmas. It tells me the weather and plays music. What else can it do? It seems like a waste of money to me. A: At its core, Amazon's Echo is a Bluetooth speaker that responds to voice commands.

TVs will never have another'a-ha' moment, and that's OK Lego's new kit teaches your kids how to build robots This VR-ready computer looks like a jetpack, and it's awesome Samsung's new QLED TV could be the company's best yet At CES 2017, here are the'Innovation Award' winners This electric scooter's batteries can run your laptop Could the same tech behind Pokémon Go soon come to your Sephora? LG's new wallpaper TV hangs on your wall like a picture Mattel's Aristotle is like an Amazon Echo for kids One of the best laptops we've tested is turning into a tablet This device makes your trash can smart, because why not it's 2017 Samsung faces quandary after recalls: apologize or ignore at CES? GE's new oven can prevent fires--and annoying smoke alarms Samsung's latest innovation does four laundry loads at once There's a new Amazon Echo competitor, and it uses Alexa Samsung's tablet fridge is back, can now make grocery lists CES 2017 - Whatever happened to the hits of CES 2016?

Do you understand your fiduciary duties? In his prescient 1942 short story, "Runaround," Isaac Azimov proposed a simple set of laws for robots: Yale Law School Professor Jack Balkin has come up with a few more laws for the age of Big Data, when gadgets like Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa pose as kindly robot helpers but also collect terabytes of data about your Internet browsing habits, driving patterns and even conversations inside your home. "Think about the basic structure of the problem: We're going to bring into our houses, and use as agents, lots and lots of algorithmic programs," said Balkin, a First Amendment scholar and director of the Information Society Project at Yale Law. "The assumption most people make is they have a relationship with this thing, but what they have is a relationship with the company that makes and sells this thing." And that company may not always have the consumer's best interest in mind.

It's pretty impossible for humanoid robots to not look creepy, even if it's a familiar face, like Albert Einstein. Hanson Robots unleashed its miniature robot dubbed Professor Einstein at CES this week. It's a 14.5" Wi-Fi-connected robot geared toward educating and entertaining its users with the likeness of the late genius Albert Einstein. The robot pairs and interacts with an accompanying iOS and Android app called the Stein-O-Matic, used to teach science and play games, but can also act sort of like a Amazon Alexa or Google Home by reciting facts, solving problems and giving current weather updates. SEE ALSO: Vinci smart headphones have a friggin' screen on them Hanson Robots teamed up with toy inventor Andy Rifkin as its CTO to create the gaming app that has an IQ level which increases the more you interact with Professor Einstein. While ditching the screen has been a tech trend widely recognized at the largest consumer electronics show in the world this year, Hanson Robots is putting a familiar face to its technology, though we have to admit it's still a little creepy, and that's OK. The robots produced by Hanson Robots are eerily lifelike, and produce a wide range of facial expressions and gestures -- Professor Einstein has over 50. "Our end goal is to make AI very smart and to relate with people well, so by giving it a humanlike form it means that we can teach it more what it means to be human," CEO and founder David Hanson tells Mashable. "It can physically explore the world the way that a baby would, and it can socially explore; learn from people." Hanson Robots breaks down its strategy into three areas: extremely humanlike robots, consumer robots (like Professor Einstein) and its cloud AI, called Mind Cloud, intended to learn from the interactions it has with humans. For people who are a little creeped out by an AI that's learning in their home, Hanson ensured us that its AI is programmed to not learn about your personal life. It's not learning about all the people around the world, but what it is doing is learning from those interaction to generalize, said Hanson. "Your individual robot becomes your personal companion, but the Mind Cloud just sort of generally gets smarter from all those interactions.

You can't walk the sprawling floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center without tripping over a speaker, an appliance, or even a robot or two that supports Alexa. Amazon's voice assistant is clearly the darling of CES 2017. This may well be the year you switch from tapping and typing on touchscreens to simply shouting commands. Many platforms, from Apple's Siri and Micosoft's Cortana to Google's Assistant and Samsung's Viv, want to be your conversational partner, but Alexa easily leads the race. The winner will claim a sweet prize.