If the global professional services company has its way, digital workers may be just around the corner. Accenture has partnered with IT and business process automation company IPsoft to create artificially intelligent technology to perform a variety of tasks at enterprises worldwide. This new AI arm of Accenture is based on IPsoft's cognitive agent, Amelia, which IPsoft bills as "your first digital employee." Amelia, which uses natural language to communicate with customers "just like a human," can perform a host of service desk duties. This can include helping customers open new bank accounts, processing insurance claims and checking in patients at hospitals.

Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae -- or dark patches -- on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts. Several hundred camped outside the London store in Covent Garden. The 6s will have new features like a vastly improved camera and a pressure-sensitive "3D Touch" display

For the last century, we've imagined a future where we're surrounded by robotic butlers that are classy, smart, and discreet. We wouldn't think twice of asking an embarrassing question of a robo-assistant, or entrusting him/her/it with sensitive information, because the robot's directive would be to serve only its owner. Already, there are millions of proto-Jarvises running around in pockets, in the form of digital assistants like Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana, Amazon's Alexa, and (soon) Google's search assistant. These virtual helpers use artificial intelligence to parse what users say or type, and return useful information. More recent updates to Siri and Google have taught the assistants to guess at what users want to know before they're asked, chiming in with notifications about a traffic jam at the appropriate time.

Apple is planning to launch a rival to Amazon's popular Echo connected speaker that will be powered by its voice-activated digital assistant Siri -- a feature the company is also planning to finally open up to developers, sources told the Information. The report, quoting sources with knowledge of Apple's plans, said the Echo rival was in development long before Amazon launched its product in 2014. However, it is still not clear when Apple plans to launch the device. There is also no indication in the report what the device would look like or how much it would cost. Last week, Google launched its own version of Amazon's Echo called Home, which will go on sale in the coming months.

The recent announcement of Chatbot API from Facebook sets another milestone in one of the hottest trends in mobile as a growing number of leading social messaging platforms introduced bot development capabilities. In a nutshell, Messaging Bots allow people to connect and interact with businesses through chat. The bots assist the user to complete different actions, such as checking your bank account balance, purchasing items, and book a table at a restaurant. The idea of automatic chat is not new. Various types of websites offer the help of a virtual conversational agent.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is reportedly working on an Amazon Echo like device. The space for these kinds of devices is about to heat up as companies such as Google also announced intentions to enter it. A report from The Information revealed that the iPhone maker will open up Siri by releasing a Software Development Kit (SDK) at the Worldwide Developers Conference 2016. This will allow developers to develop and integrate apps with Siri, which should help in increasing the personal digital assistant's skills. While Siri is connected to some apps, the interactions involved are highly limited.

Siri, Cortana, and Google Now have all ceded some of the spotlight to new technologies (such as the Ambient User Experience we discussed yesterday), but at the end of the day, Virtual Personal Assistants (VPAs) such as the three listed above, will lead the way to Artificial Intelligence. AI may seem like a pipe dream but here's the shocker: we're already living in a world of AI. A Virtual Personal Assistant like Siri is an AI – just a very limited one. We tend to think of AI as C-3PO, or Sonny from I, Robot, but those are just advanced (fictionalized) versions of AI. This is an AI like Siri or Chess Wiz cum Cognitive Chef IBM's Watson.

Turns out a "useless" humanities degree can get you a job in Silicon Valley, thanks to the rise of artificial intelligence. The brains behind Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa, and Microsoft's Cortana realized that to make their A.I.s sound more like people, they needed to hire workers whose creativity was less digital and more personal. According to the Washington Post, the teams behind many everyday A.I.s are made up of poets, writers, and comedians, who help give the robots more personality. Now, we're not saying that Silicon Valley's tech community is full of sociopaths or psychos, but software companies seem to have realized that hiring engineers from fields outside their own can help make their A.I.s more personable, and it's a much easier way to teach computers to think than turning them loose on the internet, which inevitably turns them into racists. Some companies are taking artificial assistants one step further.

I asked Siri whether she believes in God. "I believe in the separation of spirit and silicon," she demurred. I asked the chatbot ELIZA the same question -- her thing is she's a therapist, so she'd rather focus on what I believe. I asked her if she was religious; she asked if I'd prefer if she weren't. "We aren't really talking about me, are we," she replied.

I just got out of a meeting at SRI International, where representatives from both SRI and international banking group BBVA showed off something they've been working on for the past couple of years. Currently, SRI is best known as the research institute where Siri was developed before spinning out into a separate company and eventually being acquired by Apple, where it powers the Siri feature on the iPhone. SRI and BBVA have been collaborating on a new project, Lola, which they're pitching as a successor of sorts to Siri. Bill Mark, SRI's VP of Information and Computer Sciences, calls it "the next generation personal assistant". In this case, that personal assistant technology is being applied to a specific industry -- banking.