Quaker has a new robot chef and her name is Alexa. The 135-year-old maker of oats is harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to help consumers make an oatmeal method as old as Quaker itself: overnight oats. Working with agency partner Organic, Quaker has built its first ever app for Amazon's virtual assistant, which is available through products like the Echo speaker. The app, which debuted on Sunday at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, helps users find and make recipes for overnight oats, a trend that came as a bit of a surprise to the household brand that arguably knows oatmeal better than anyone. The idea for the app began a few months ago, after Quaker's social media team noticed there was a resurgence of an age-old tradition of cooking oats the night before and then letting them cool in the refrigerator overnight to be eaten cold the next morning.

Nearly a decade after the iPhone broke the mold for mobile phones, the question being asked is whether the evolution of the smartphone has finally come to an end, as even Apple now treats older, smaller 4-inch screens as something new. Industry experts believe innovation in smartphones is giving way to phone functions popping up as software or services in all manner of new devices, from cars to fridges to watches and jewelry rather than remaining with handheld devices. And analysts and product designers said fresh breakthroughs are running up against the practical limits of what's possible in current smartphone hardware in terms of screen size, battery life and network capacity. "Everything in the phone industry now is incremental: slightly faster, slightly bigger, slightly more storage or better resolution," said Christian Lindholm, inventor of the easy text messaging keyboards in old Nokia phones that made them the best-selling mobile devices of all time. The financial stakes are high, as the futures of Apple, Google and Microsoft, the world's three biggest listed companies at the end of last year, may now turn on who gets the jump on making handsets redundant.

Jarno M. Koponen is a designer, humanist and co-founder of media discovery startup Random. As humanity debates the threats and opportunities of advanced artificial intelligence, we are simultaneously enabling that technology through the increasing use of personalization that is understanding and anticipating our needs through sophisticated machine learning solutions. In effect, while using personalization technologies in our everyday lives, we are contributing in a real way to the development of the intelligent systems we purport to fear. Perhaps uncovering the currently inaccessible personalization systems is crucial for creating a sustainable relationship between humans and super–intelligent machines? Industry giants are currently racing to develop more intelligent and lucrative AI solutions.

Long before we kneel to our robot overlords, AI tools will help schedule meetings and perform research for busy business professionals. Sustaining a positive work-life balance has become increasingly more challenging in today's technology-driven business environment. Automation technology thrives in environments traditionally considered laborious and time consuming – time better spent on tasks that make money, instead of wasting it. Time spent manually entering tasks, calendar items, and typing up emails on smartphones, in particular for those of you, like myself, blessed with sausage fingers, quickly became more hassle than it was worth. This process became especially irritating for business pros that are constantly on the move and rely, almost exclusively, on the features and functionality of their smart devices.

Microsoft is clearly in the midst of a renaissance, and nothing more clearly indicates this than its aggressive use of open source. Initially a "cancer," and then an afterthought, open source has become Microsoft's single greatest weapon in recovering its industry stature. For evidence, look no further than its opening up of CNTK, Microsoft's artificial intelligence framework that powers everything from its digital assistant Cortana to the Skype Translator. Microsoft has always been a technology pioneer. The problem is that the company too often bottled up such innovations, as Bloomberg captures.

To paraphrase William Gibson, "The future is already here and, thanks to intelligent assistants (IA), it is more evenly distributed than ever before." Based on our spoken input, mobile personal assistants (like Siri and Google Now) answer questions, navigate routes, and organize meetings. Close cousin Alexa, running on the Echo, understands our utterances when we order pizza, hail an Uber, or complete an order from Amazon. Meanwhile, a large set of distant cousins – call them text'bots – understand "plain English" requests and can recommend restaurants, movies, or even bridal fashions. We humans are learning to take over our digital lives using our own words and our choice of digital device.

Amazon announced that Nest thermostats would support Alexa voice controls when it launched the Amazon Dot and Tap earlier his month. Like the Echo, the new devices will also control the Nest. Amazon has been working with multiple companies to make its Alexa platform a central part of the home. Nest has also been reaching out to other companies with Works with Nest system. So hopefully most of your connected home will work together in the near future.

Search on mobile can be a major pain. To start, the keyboard is small. Then there are the load times. Have you ever stared at your 4G smartphone screen and wondered in disbelief how only one bar of 3G was possible in San Francisco – in the country that put the first man on the Moon? How often have you longed for your laptop to be able to "search properly"?

The Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cloud computing are three technologies that are converging to disrupt nearly every industry. IoT refers to a connected network of objects embedded with technology that enables the collection and exchange of data. Cloud computing is the storing and retrieval of data, and accessing application programs via the Internet. Artificial Intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence by machines. We are currently in the midst of the rise of the first wave of this technological convergence.

Google is reportedly working on a competitor to the Amazon Echo, Amazon's voice-controlled personal assistant. According to The Information, Google is working on a'secret project' which would create a rival to the Echo, currently the leading device of its kind on the market. The Amazon Echo is the home of the digital assistant Alexa, who responds to a'wake word' and can help out around the house by creating to-do lists, playing music, setting alarms, providing weather information and doing internet searches. The Echo hasn't been released in the UK yet, but it's generated a lot of buzz in the US, and has proved successful enough that Amazon is releasing a new version, the Echo Dot, which connects to users' existing speakers. Google-owned company Nest, the creators of smart home devices like the Nest Thermostat, reportedly wanted to be part of the project, but were apparently pushed away by Google itself.