I've written before about the growth of artificial intelligence technology and how it is poised to transform not only retail but our lives in general. Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder and CEO, stated in a USA Today article (6/1/2016) that "The emergence of artificial intelligence and machine learning in household gadgets is gigantic". He goes on to say that "its hard to overstate how big of an impact this will have on society over the next 20 years". Bezos is speaking from firsthand experience as Amazon's Echo and Alexa, the company's digital assistant, have become a surprise hit since being released a year or so ago. Alexa lives in the cloud and is powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning.

I've written before about the growth of artificial intelligence technology and how it is poised to transform not only retail but our lives in general. Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder and CEO, stated in a USA Today article (6/1/2016) that "The emergence of artificial intelligence and machine learning in household gadgets is gigantic". He goes on to say that "its hard to overstate how big of an impact this will have on society over the next 20 years". Bezos is speaking from firsthand experience as Amazon's Echo and Alexa, the company's digital assistant, have become a surprise hit since being released a year or so ago. Alexa lives in the cloud and is powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning. 'She' learns from every interaction with you, understanding over time that your favorite brand of cookies are Oreos so when you say'Alexa, please put cookies on the shopping list' she knows you mean Oreos.

Over the last 10 years, Artificial Intelligence has ascended from a catch phrase to technology, converted to platforms and now used in business services and robotics. You may have heard of Watson Dominated Jeopardy, Siri, Cortana, or even Jarvis from The Iron Man. These are all real applications you can expect to have major impact on our lives in the very near future, if not already. So, what is Artificial Intelligence and how does it work? In short, it's the design and development of computer system that inherits human's decision making abilities and able to perform tasks through visual, speech and cognitive decision making.

After updating your Health app, you'll be able bark voice commands on the Band's mic without having to touch your phone and get instant notifications. According to The Digital Lifestyle, though, you have to be in the US (due to the app's limited availability) and have Cortana for Android installed on your phone to be able to use the feature. You can read the application's change log on Google Play, which also lists the ability to create challenges for everyone in your friends' circle who has the wearable.

At any given moment, pharmaceutical firms have a massive library of compounds and no clue what to do with them. Tucked away in extensive collections of synthetic and theoretical drug banks lie hidden gems - drugs to treat perhaps even the most devastating diseases - but identifying them is a pain: testing can take years, even decades, and often researchers aren't even sure what they're looking for. Dan provides interesting guest commentary with Geekwire: In short, the biggest threat posed by AI is not the advent of autonomous machines, but of human beings losing their autonomy by being driven from the production process. We must confront the potential for serious social unrest, perhaps even revolt or revolution. More than a location tracker for dogs, Tracy alerts owners when it is time to run, play and go to the bathroom and is smart enough to learn on its own Stockholm, Sweden (PRWEB) May 24, 2016 Tracy is a dog tracker that can do more than simply locate a dog's position.

Last week the smart watch company Pebble announced a Kickstarter campaign for a new device that has no watch face and lives on your key ring. While optimized for exercise (it streams Spotify and quantifies your run) the Pebble Core also can be retooled easily to perform a variety of different functions, limited only by the apps that developers might imagine. Buried in the company's Kickstarter pitch was one of those ideas: "Add a Bluetooth or wired headset to create an always-on walkie-talkie or personal voice assistant." The italics are mine, but today Pebble itself is boldfacing those last few words, by announcing that the Core will integrate the capabilities of Amazon's Alexa super-bot. Pebble has been upfront about its broad vision for the Core, and while its pocket gadget has no microphone, a simple mobile-phone earbud or Bluetooth headset enables two way voice interaction.

Last month, the Washington Post reported on a surprising new job in Silicon Valley: bot-writer. "Increasingly, there are poets, comedians, fiction writers, and other artistic types charged with engineering the personalities for a fast-growing crop of artificial intelligence tools," the Post's Elizabeth Dwoskin wrote. These personalities, Dwoskin reported, will soon be joined by more specialized bots developed by other companies, among them Sophie and Molly, "nurse avatars" that talk to patients about their medical conditions. There's even a "guru avatar" in development, designed to teach meditation. These products are exciting and futuristic--just a decade ago, the possibility of conversing with a computer program seemed like science fiction.

The mother of a slain Arizona woman says her daughter had recently revived an online dating profile in search of fairy tale romance, but was instead lured to an apartment by a man now accused of killing her and leaving the body in a shallow desert grave.

Amazon on Friday boasted that its virtual assistant Alexa is capable of 1,000 "skills," as the online retail giant bolsters defenses against rivals such as Google and Apple. The Seattle-based company said in a blog post that the programs were developed specifically for the voice-commanded Alexa software used in Amazon devices such as Echo and Fire TV. Amazon released voice-enabled wireless speaker Echo in late 2014, infusing it with virtual assistant smarts that enable it to answer questions or control linked devices upon command. A kit lets outside software developers create "experiences," similar in concept to apps, for Alexa. Alexa director Rob Pulciani said tens of thousands of developers are learning about and crafting programs that introduce users "to the magic and simplicity of hands-free, voice-driven interactions."

Almost two decades ago, Google was just a search engine with a textbox and a promising algorithm that curated the ever growing internet into a list of blue links. As technology paced further, the Mountain View based company invested in a bunch of rising platforms and ideas that revolved around the future of the World Wide Web. Spreading across soon enough, their growth skyrocketed eliminating major tech leaders from the market. Moreover, industry's dependencies grew more on Google when they inhibited the responsibility of improving 80% of the smartphones around the globe. However, in the past year or so, smartphone manufacturers have been unable to maintain the wow factor in their products.