When Apple launched Siri more than four years ago, it felt revolutionary. If you didn't see it then, go back and watch the video. Listen to the cheering, almost disbelieving reaction from the audience, and notice then-Apple exec Scott Forstall's giggling amazement that this voice control thing actually works. Apple's virtual assistant was the first of its kind. But have you used Siri recently?

Alexa will put up with just about anything. She has a remarkable tolerance for annoying behavior, and she certainly doesn't care if you forget your please and thank yous. But while artificial intelligence technology can blow past such indignities, parents are still irked by their kids' poor manners when interacting with Alexa, the assistant that lives inside the Amazon Echo. "I've found my kids pushing the virtual assistant further than they would push a human," says Avi Greengart, a tech analyst and father of five who lives in Teaneck, New Jersey. "[Alexa] never says'That was rude' or'I'm tired of you asking me the same question over and over again.'"

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.

The idea of talking conversationally to computers has been a long time in the works. Science fiction is so often a self-fulfilling prophecy as it provides a vision for humans to chase after with technological innovation. For those of us who have watched voice-based computer interactions evolve, we have seen it go through many manifestations as it grew up. We now find ourselves in a world where using voice to interface with a computer is commonplace on a regular basis for the masses. While I'm not quite confident we have reached an inflection point, I am confident we are at least on the cusp of one with voice-based user interfaces and the vision of the Hal 9000 (The AI assistant of Arthur C. Clarke's Space Odyssey series) and Jarvis (the voice based AI assistant of Iron Man).

Quoting unnamed sources, the news agency says Amazon's music service will be priced like competitors, at 9.99 monthly, and looks to launch in late summer. Amazon currently has Prime Music, a unit of the 99 yearly Prime entertainment offering, but its music selections are way slimmer than rivals. What Amazon has that competitors don't is a hugely popular home speaker, Echo, which is used to control the smart home, answer queries, order products and play online music from Amazon's small selection, and via Spotify. Google is launching a similar speaker product later in the year, Google Home. Spotify is the market leader in subscription music, with 30 million subscribers, to 13 million for Apple Music, which launched in June, 2015.

Ari Roisman, CEO and cofounder of Glide, a video-messaging app that hopes to capitalize on the coming transition away from texting and towards a voice-and-video interaction future. SAN FRANCISCO - Typing is so ... 20th century. And soon texting is likely to join it in that same communication dustbin. That's a view Ari Roisman, CEO and cofounder of video messaging app Glide, shares with some of the titans of tech ranging from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. "We're at the beginning of a new era of human computer interaction," says Roisman during a podcast Friday with USA TODAY.

Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference is coming to San Francisco next week, giving CEO Tim Cook a chance to get developers fired up over the latest that Apple has to offer. Don't expect a new iPhone. WWDC is all about software and services, but we'll also get a general update on the state of Apple. Here are some questions Apple needs to answer at the event. When Siri launched in 2011, it was one of the first virtual assistants of its kind, but it now has competitors from Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Google.

App developers rely on user demographics to effectively target their audiences – but just how much information do your apps really reveal about you? According to a new study, it might be more than you think. Researchers analysed the app choices of thousands of Android users to determine the predictability of certain attributes, and found that apps can provide insight on your gender, age, and even income. Researchers analysed the app choices of thousands of Android users to determine the predictability of certain attributes, and found that apps can provide insight on your gender, age, and even income. In the paper, published to the journal arXiv, researchers with Verto Analytics in Finland and the Qatar Computing Research Institute created a model based on the demographic attributes and apps of 3,760 Android users.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is on quite a run, from Google's AlphaGo, which earlier this year defeated Go world champion Lee Sedol four games to one, to Amazon's Echo, the voice-activated digital assistant. The trend is heating up the sales field as well, enabling entirely new ways of selling. Purchasing, for example, is moving to automated bots, with 15%–20% of total spend already sourced through e-platforms. By 2020 customers will manage 85% of their relationship with an enterprise without interacting with a human. Leading companies are experimenting with what these technologies can do for them, typically around transactional processes at early stages of the customer journey.

Tech giant Google held its annual I/O developers conference I/O 2016 from May 18 to May 20. The well-known 3-day-event for developers all over the world kicked off with a 2 hour keynote by Google CEO Sundar Pichai who showcased previews of Google's latest products such as Google Assistant, Google Home, two messaging technologies Allo and Duo, and many more. Google's focus of this year's conference was on how to make people's life easier by offering them the right tools that can assist them at the right time and help them with small household tasks such as order movie tickets, make dinner reservations, check their flight tickets, etc. "Google Home is the stake in the ground in Google bringing a smart assistant into the home -- and in the bigger picture, a connected life within the future smart home that is built around their interfaces," Paul Erickson, senior analyst at IHS Technology said for TechNewsWorld. "A connected speaker is only one manifestation of that -- a Google voice interface could just as easily be part of mic-equipped smart appliances, smoke detectors, thermostats, and AV devices from different brands," he added. Trying to launch new products as a firm response to its competitors such as Amazon and Facebook, which are using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to their best interest, Google is making its best to help users with household tasks so that they can in turn focus on more important things going on in their lives.