The deal, announced Tuesday, will bring the Genee team into the Microsoft fold and put them to work on bringing intelligence into Office 365. Acquiring Genee is part of Microsoft's ongoing crusade to build intelligent productivity software and services using AI. It's unclear whether the functionality from the assistant will be making its way directly into Office 365, or if the team behind Genee will just be put to work improving a variety of Microsoft's products. This all plays into Satya Nadella's ongoing strategy of aggressively acquiring companies to shore up Microsoft's capabilities and growth areas.

Microsoft announced on Monday it acquired Genee, an artificial intelligence startup focused on scheduling. 'Building AI is like launching a rocket': Meet the man fighting to stop artificial intelligence destroying humanity Skype's co-founder wants to keep humankind safe from the existential threats of artificial intelligence. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. Microsoft plans to shutter Genee on September 1, 2016 and fold the team into Office 365. Genee, launched by Ben Cheung and Charles Lee in 2014, integrates into cloud calendar services and allows users to automate the process of scheduling meetings, acting like your personal assistant to check schedules and select best times.

Apple's Siri, Microsoft Cortana, Amazon's Echo, Google's speech recognition tech is high on trends these days. Ever wondered how these software get to know what we are saying? Well Thanks to technology of Natural Language Processing due to which language miscommunication gap has been decayed. Humans are being at the topmost position on the food-chain because of their intelligence. Everything humanity has developed in the past 10,000 years is the result of a discovery.

Hate the song and dance involved in finding just the right time to hold a meeting? It's acquiring Genee, whose centerpiece is an AI-powered virtual assistant that helps you schedule events in sync with your itinerary. Email both a client and Genee while you're arranging a lunch meeting, for instance, and it'll let your contact know when you can make it. Just what Genee will do isn't clear, but it'll "accelerate intelligent experiences" in Office 365 -- as elsewhere, Microsoft wants to make AI a key part of your workday.

Amazon's Echo made controlling music with your voice easy-peasy, but its sound quality could be a lot better. Enter Whyd, an Apple-esque voice-controlled speaker that claims to offer better sound than the Echo, though it lacks all of the smart home functionality of Amazon's product. Its speaker promises louder, clearer omnidirectional sound through its four 40mm full-range drivers, 100mm subwoofer and ported high-pass enclosure for deep bass. Two Whyd speakers can be paired for stereo sound, and multiple speakers can be synced for multi-room audio. It supports Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and AirPlay.

Microsoft announced today that it acquired Genee, an AI-powered scheduling assistant bot that specializes in planning meetings for large groups or when organizers don't have direct access to the calendars of everyone involved. Genee's app is a chatbot accessible via an iPhone app, email, SMS, FB, Twitter or Skype, and it understands natural language input, so you can just text it the kind of event you want to schedule, when you want to happen and who you want to include, and it should theoretically output a proper meeting invite. The standalone service is going to be shut down on September 1, 2016, as a result of the acquisition. It originally debuted in August last year. Genee co-founders Ben Cheung and Charles Lee explained in a blog post announcing the news that easing calendar entries created by the service will still function, but it won't create any new ones or send reminders or agendas related to upcoming events. The team also says they "consider Microsoft to be the leader in personal and enterprise productivity, AI, and virtual assistant technologies," hence their excitement about teaming up with Redmond.

Microsoft has picked up another productivity app -- announcing the acquisition of AI-powered scheduling tool Genee. In a blog post today the software giant said it will be plugging Genee into its cloud productivity suite, Office 365. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. "As we continue to build new Office 365 productivity capabilities and services our customers value, I'm confident the Genee team will help us further our ambition to bring intelligence into every digital experience," writes Rajesh Jha, CVP of Outlook and Office 365. Genee launched in public beta a year ago, offering an end-to-end scheduling tool that integrates with calendar apps and email providers to take the strain out of arranging meetings.

It's been two and a half years since we let Genee out of the bottle. In our drive to deliver large productivity gains through intelligent scheduling coordination and optimization, we often found ourselves on the forefront of technology involving natural language processing, artificial intelligence (AI), and chat bots. We were extremely fortunate to find many who believed in the vision and supported us with their resources, talent, time, and advice along the way, which made Genee possible. Today, we are pleased to announce that Genee has signed an agreement to be acquired by Microsoft. A new beginning means the end of another.

A tweak to Siri's pronunciation of Barbra Streisand's name will be heading to Apple products soon. The US singer complained the virtual assistant was pronouncing her surname wrong. "I called the head of Apple, Tim Cook, and he delightfully agreed to have Siri change the pronunciation of my name, finally," she said on Weekend Edition. Streisand said the second syllable of her name should be pronounced with "a soft S, like sand on the beach". "So let's see if that happens, because I will be thrilled," Streisand told the US show on Saturday.

When we reviewed the Amazon Echo last year, we hailed it as the best home-based voice-controlled product at the consumer level. It's become even more versatile and powerful since then. It can control your home's smart lighting, lock your smart lock, play music, provide weather forecasts, order a pizza, and more. This affordable, always-on personal assistant can manage not only your home, but much of your digital life. It's so useful, we predicted many folks would want more than one Echo in their home.