Simon Chandler is a writer and journalist, contributing articles on culture, politics and technology. It may slip our notice, but technological innovation is often reducible to an innovation in the marketing and conceptualization of technology. Take Viv, the new personal assistant from the makers of Siri. It promises to simplify the process of ordering pizza or buying cinema tickets, allowing its users to perform such actions via a single voice-operated interface. Like the earlier Siri, it's being described as a "virtual assistant," not least because it's speech-operated and assists you in your daily, web-based business.

One of the first things Genevieve Bell did after bringing home an Amazon Echo was ask the smart speaker to set a timer. After the Echo replied in its soft, reassuring female voice, Bell told the device "thank you." "When was the last time you said'thank you' to Google search?" asked Bell, Intel's longtime cultural anthropologist and corporate strategist. Bell's experience points to both the promise and the peril of Google's new effort to create its own digital butler, simply dubbed "Google assistant," which it hopes will become capable of natural, two-way conversation with people. Several experts in conversational software said Google could make itself an even more intimate part of users' lives by offering this kind of technology.

It may be brilliant, but it's not all that trustworthy. That appears to be the opinion Americans hold when it comes to Artificial Intelligence systems. And while we may be interacting with AI systems more frequently than we realize (hi, Siri), a new study from Time etc suggests that Americans don't believe the AI revolution is quite here yet, with 54 percent claiming to have never interacted with such a system. While this proportion seems to speak mostly to the seamless integration of many such systems into our daily lives, the more interesting finding reveals that 26 percent of respondents said they would not trust an AI with any personal or professional task. Sure, sending a text message or making a phone call is fine, but 51 percent said they'd be uncomfortable sharing personal data with an AI system.

Many people criticize Apple's voice-based assistant since Siri tends to run into problems on the iPhone and other devices. Some even worry that Apple might have a tough time combating Google's artificial intelligence, and even potentially face a fate similar to BlackBerry in the event that its AI can't compete. But it turns out that Apple is working on an advanced AI product of its own, which could be unveiled in the very near future. DON'T MISS: iPhone 6s and Galaxy S7 faced off in a drop test and it was brutal After a recent report said that Siri APIs will be open to third-party developers and a Siri-based competitor for Amazon Echo will be unveiled at WWDC 2016, a new story delves into Apple's highly secretive AI research and development plans. Writing on Medium, Brian Roemmele reminds us that Apple is very interested in voice-based computing – a Steve Jobs legacy – and in AI.

What would a'world beyond apps' be like? It's hard to imagine using a smartphone that doesn't have any apps, and yet there has been talk of the'post-app era' for some time. However, few think that apps are going to disappear completely, only that the way we interact with them will change. "In the near-term we will see a demise of individual apps at the front-end, with instant messaging and social media interfaces used as a gateway into technologies," says Claus Jepsen, Chief Architect at business software company Unit4. So will we still be physically opening apps in a few years?

Apple now has the tech in place to give its digital assistant a big boost thanks to a UK-based company called VocalIQ it bought last year. "Wipes the floor" remains to be proven and we'll likely see something announced at WWDC in a couple of weeks but this article points out that Apple develops "in private" for the most part. Those who doubt Apple's AI efforts seem to forget that fact.

We don't just test products in our labs--we use them in our daily lives. Stuff We Love chronicles our favorites. Opinions are the writer's own, and are not necessarily shared by Reviewed.com. We may receive a small share of the revenue from your purchase. I know my constant babbling drove some to buying one, and others to madness.

Google, with its goofy logo and name, has never really been a flashy tech company. On the product level it's always lacked the showmanship or salesmanship of Facebook or Apple, especially recently, as a surging Facebook has made a series of splashy announcements about its investments in hip new technology -- VR! Bots! Anyone looking for something similar from Google's I/O developer conference this afternoon would have come away disappointed. It's not that the announcements were a bust. The company unveiled a lot of neat stuff. But "neat" is the right word: nothing surprising, nothing game-changing, nothing mind-boggling, nothing bad. Just, you know, neat: Pleasant new apps for chatting over text and video, an Amazon Echo–like speaker called Home, a new-virtual reality headset, and a bunch of new tech specs for developers to pore over regarding Android.

My kids love Siri, Apple's virtual assistant. They ask her about homework, sports scores and science experiments. They ask her questions that range from the mundane (What is your favorite kind of dog?) to the profound (What is free will?). And, within reason, she answers. I ask her to look up recipes, type texts, check my calendar and find directions all while I'm busy with other activities, like driving or cooking or chasing my kids.

Apple now has the tech in place to give its digital assistant a big boost thanks to a UK-based company called VocalIQ it bought last year. In fact, it was so impressive that Apple bought VocalIQ before the company could finish and release its smartphone app. After the acquisition, Apple kept most of the VocalIQ team and let them work out of their Cambridge office and integrate the product into Siri. Before Apple bought the company, VocalIQ tested its product against Siri, Google Now, and Cortana, and the results were impressive. Users asked each AI questions using normal language, not the robotic commands you're used to using with digital assistants.