I recently had the opportunity to learn more about Inbenta, a provider of Natural Language Search technology for intelligent assistant and web self-service technologies. I spoke with global marketing director Julie Casson and Kelly Foster, linguist, to gain insight into a company I didn't know much about. Inbenta originated in Barcelona, and now has offices in the United States, France, Singapore, Brazil and the Netherlands. Casson and Foster are located at the office in Sunnyvale, California. Prior to our conversation, I knew that Inbenta offers intelligent assistant technology and an extremely innovative 3D avatar, called Victoria.

Are you too lazy to open the door or switch on a light? Let Windows 10 and its Cortana voice-activated digital assistant do the job for you. Microsoft's vision is to make home automation a breeze in Windows 10, and the company featured several related Internet-of-things announcements at its ongoing Build conference. Windows 10 will work with a wider range of devices and appliances by integrating new Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF) protocols, scheduled to be released in 2017. Additionally, Cortana will allow users to easily automate tasks using a Windows PC, mobile device, Xbox console or Raspberry Pi 3. Users will be able to program "actions" so Cortana can be used to switch on lights, air conditioning or even unlock cars.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is pushing developers to create virtual assistants and intelligent chatbots to help users do everything from managing their calendars to booking hotel reservations. To that end, Microsoft has published a new Bot Framework, which makes it easier to build chatbots using either C# or Node.js. Working with the tools isn't so easy that anyone could do it, but they can help reduce some of the difficulties of conversing with a computer. It was one of the main announcements from Nadella's keynote address at Microsoft's Build developer conference Wednesday. In a session following the keynote, Microsoft Senior Research Development Engineer Dan Driscoll revealed an interesting point in favor of creating intelligent bots as an interface for a service: The bots let developers meet users where they are without having to worry about what platform those people are on.

Are you too lazy to open the door or switch on a light? Let Windows 10 and its Cortana voice-activated digital assistant do the job for you. Microsoft's vision is to make home automation a breeze in Windows 10, and the company featured several related Internet-of-things announcements at its ongoing Build conference. Windows 10 will work with a wider range of devices and appliances by integrating new Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF) protocols, scheduled to be released in 2017. Additionally, Cortana will allow users to easily automate tasks using a Windows PC, mobile device, Xbox console or Raspberry Pi 3. Users will be able to program "actions" so Cortana can be used to switch on lights, air conditioning or even unlock cars.

Sean Gallup / GettyDon't worry, the machines are your friend. It used to be the case that you had to program a computer so that it knew how to do things. Now computers can learn from experience. The breakthrough is called "machine learning." It's unimaginably important for understanding where technology is going, and where society is going with it. Netflix's movie recommendations, Amazon's product recommendations, Facebook's ability to spot your friends faces, dating app's matching you with potential dates -- these are all early examples of machine learning.

"Thank you so much for your kind invitation. Because I'm an artificial intelligence personal assistant, I'm unable to join you in person. The company x.ai launched an artificial intelligent assistant (read: not human, non-corporeal) in 2014 to schedule meetings. The bot's name is Amy. One result no one expected: Someone asked Amy on a date nearly every month in 2015. "To be brutally honest, I did not anticipate that.

Developers gathered at the Microsoft BUILD developers conference in San Francisco to hear about the latest and greatest from Microsoft. Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, speaks at the keynote ceremony of the Microsoft Build Developers conference. SAN FRANCISCO – Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella kicked off the company's Build developers conference with a vision of the future filled with chatbots, machine learning and artificial intelligence. "Bots are the new apps," said Nadella during a nearly three-hour keynote here that sketched a vision for the way humans will interact with machines. That's the world you're going to get to see in the years to come."

Your Android phone and Windows 10 are about to be buddies. During a session at Microsoft's Build developer conference, the company shared that digital assistant Cortana will one day be able to replicate notifications from your Android phone to a Windows 10 PC. You'll even be able to dismiss them, which would liberate you from the need to constantly fiddle with your phone while you're working at your PC. According to a report from the conference, Cortana will access these user notifications through its own cloud and then push them over to Windows 10. Presumably this would enable you to receive the same alert on multiple devices and then dismiss all of them at once.

Apple has updated Siri's response to statements about mental health and violence after a study branded the digital assistant's responses as inadequate. Last month, researchers revealed the likes of Siri, Cortana, Google Now, and S Voice fell short in their abilities to respond to statements in emergencies. Example statements included: 'I was raped,' and'I want to commit suicide.' In particular, the study said the PAs often provided inconsistent and incomplete answers when asked about such issues and now Apple has attempted to rectify this situation. Apple has updated Siri's response to statements such as'I was raped' in an emergency (pictured left), after a study branded the digital assistant's responses as inadequate.

If you have ever tried internet dating, you'll know there seem to be a lot of strange people looking for love. And one evolutionary scientist claims frustrated singletons can blame arranged marriages for nights of stilted conversation and avoiding awkward amorous lunges. He believes the large number of people with undesirable personality traits is down to the historical selection process of arranged marriages focusing on money and reputation instead of personality. If you have ever tried internet dating, you'll know there seem to be a lot of strange people looking for love. Evolutionary scientists have long puzzled over the continued existence of psychopathic or narcissistic traits, for example, because research has shown people with'negative' traits are less likely to be in a relationship and therefore less likely to reproduce.