San Francisco (AFP) - 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."

A version of this essay was originally published at Tech.pinions, a website dedicated to informed opinions, insight and perspective on the tech industry. It's been a long time coming, but it looks like the era of voice-driven computing has finally arrived. Powered by the latest advancements in artificial intelligence and deep learning, the new generation of smart digital assistants and chatbots are clearly some of the hottest developments in the tech industry. Not only are they driving big announcements from vendors such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and Apple, they're expected to enable even bigger changes, long-term. In fact, as the technology improves and people become more accustomed to speaking to their devices, digital assistants are poised to change not only how we interact with and think about technology, but even the types of devices, applications and services that we purchase and use.

Alexa is one of the most powerful virtual assistants available, with Amazon saying Friday that the Alexa platform has surpassed 1000 skills. With a variety of features ranging from hailing an Uber to ordering a pizza from Domino's, it seems like Amazon is preparing to defend its turf ahead of the pending release of Google Home and Apple's rumored Echo-like device. Amazon opened up its Alexa platform to third-party developers last June, and in a manner that was much more open than its competitors. While there are rumors that Apple will open up Siri to third-party developers ahead of a shipping an Echo-like product of its own, and Siri, Cortana, and Google Now all have at least limited third-party support, Amazon in unique in the way it has opened Alexa to rapid third-party development without subjecting those developers to heavy oversight. Banks like Capital One signed on to make banking available through Alexa, while fitness tracker Fitbit uses the Alexa platform to give you a little more motivation to meet fitness goals.

Smartwatches are no longer the most wanted new products on the market. People's enthusiasm begins to disappear, as they turn their attention to virtual reality headsets and smart home speakers. While VR headsets are paired with a smartphone and allow users to watch videos or play games, smart home speakers connect wirelessly and allow users to interact with them. In this article, we'll compare two voice-activate home products: Google Home and Amazon Echo. Their shape is cylindrical and while the Echo is taller and has a black color, and a blue ring at the top that glows when the user interacts with it, Google's Home is squatter and has an angled top with Google's iconic four colors.

For as long as computers have been part of our lives, we have interacted with them through touch. We're used to pecking keys, swiping trackpads, and tapping touchscreens to tell a computer we want to open a certain app or visit a specific website. But it is quickly becoming clear we are entering a new phase of digital interaction as technology giants Amazon, Apple, and Google bet on voice-based systems. Mary Meeker, a general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, dedicated an important portion of her annual presentation on the state of the Web to the rise of voice search. To be sure, the technology has existed for decades and been prevalent for several years.

Lenovo announced that Cortana would come to its devices way back in May last year, and now the ReachIt app is finally making its way out of beta and into your life. Except that this is an application that'll give Microsoft's virtual assistant deeper access to your files so you can ask for them in natural language -- not a pop song about someone's dream-lady getting in their car. The app is a free download on the Windows Store and it should definitely help you find Tear Down These Walls in your MP3 folder. All you'll have to do is ask, "Cortana, where's the Billy Ocean album I downloaded last week at Starbucks?"

Over the years, I've heard the same question again and again each time a new type of consumer technology starts trending and becoming part of popular culture: "So," someone asks, "how is this going to change how you do user research?" I heard this question when mobile got its first WAP browser, and I heard it again when mobile web and apps started to pervade society. More recently, I've heard this question asked about wearables, and occasionally, about IoT research. My answer is usually the same as I explain that, in fact, while some of our terminology may have changed over time, user research methods have remained relatively stable over the span of my two-decade research career. While we always need to make some adaptations to approaches based on whatever our object of study is, these tweaks don't reflect changes in methods.

As far back as I can remember, artificial intelligence (AI) was always going to be the next big thing to revolutionize the way we live and work. Funny thing is, that's still true. And yet, at this week's Code Conference, AI was the hot subject for CEOs of Amazon, Google and IBM. Which begs the question, is AI finally real, or is it destined to remain the perpetual technology of the future? I'll never forget how cool it was to watch the crew of Discovery One engage in witty dialog with the Hal 9000 computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The voice revolution is going to disrupt financial institutions and banking. This is simple, because with the rise of mobile banking, consumer voice interactions with chat-bots are going to be the most natural and most seamless communication method. How virtual personal assistants (VPAs) scale now, goes very quickly and how banking, and other huge institutions work, is about to change on a radical level. Interactive voice response (IVR) systems have been around for a while, but what if they were smarter, much smarter. As they can now learn in real-time about our needs, with a complete history of all of our interactions, the banking chat-bots will be able to personalize services to us at a level that will soon exceed the ability of a human customer service agent.

At Recode's Code conference this year, it was all about Artificial Intelligence (AI). Leading executives from major tech companies all predicted how disruptive self-aware computers would become in the short term future. Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and Tesla said humans need to put in neural laces, or USB cables into human brains to keep up with artificial intelligence. This seems to be more like the Pandoran neural network than any of the machines we know of that exist today. Musk also said that there was only one company that had truly disruptive artificial intelligence companies, but did not name the company directly.