Apple is set to unveil a new and improved Siri, the personal digital assistant, and widen its reach, to Mac computers and third-party apps. A link has been sent to your friend's email address. Apple is set to unveil a new and improved Siri, the personal digital assistant, and widen its reach, to Mac computers and third-party apps.

About halfway through a 90-minute exploration of Viv, the recently debuted and much heralded next-generation smart assistant platform, I started to experience a bit of deja vu. Here were two highly intelligent and credentialed founders, animated by a sense of purpose and a shared conviction that there Had To Be A Better Way, extolling the virtues of a new platform that, if only it were to be adopted at critical mass, would Change The World For the Better. It reminded me of my early days covering Apple in the 1980s, or Google in the early aughts. And I found myself believing that, in fact, the world would be a better place if Viv's vision prevailed. What Viv is trying to create is a platform shift on the scale of Google search or Apple's app store -- a new way to interact with the Internet itself. Yes, the interface is an intelligent agent that you talk to -- much like Apple's Siri or Amazon's Alexa.

A woman from Cairns, Australia, used Siri to call an ambulance for her one-year-old daughter, Giana, when she stopped breathing. After dropping her iPhone, Stacey Gleeson shouted at the handset to activate Siri and told it to contact the emergency services as she began CPR.

Siri, which has been a part of Apple's iPhone for several years, has a voice activation function that helped a mom call for an ambulance when her daughter stopped breathing. When a mother from Cairns, Australia needed to call an ambulance for her one-year-old daughter who stopped breathing, Apple's Siri came to the rescue. Stacey Gleeson noticed her daughter Giana was turning blue, according to BBC. While running to her daughter's aid, she dropped her phone. But, the mother shouted to activate Siri and got emergency services on speakerphone.

We all need a little help sometimes. After all, what are cloud-based, artificially intelligent software agents for? By now we're all familiar with the usual suspects: Siri, Google Now, Cortana, and Alexa. They introduced most of us to the idea of talking to, rather than via, a phone, computer, or home appliance. But let's face it: These virtual assistants have become boring, banal commodities.

From machine learning to artificial intelligence to conversational interfaces – these are the buzzwords currently transforming brand tech and in turn shaping society. But what do they actually mean and how are they changing things? Together, these constitute computers that can beat you at Go, know what kind of music you like better than you do, and can put us all out of our jobs. In other words, they are the next'apps' or'QR codes' with the difference being, they are actually important. When I say'mundane' I do not mean unimportant -- the examples of these technologies I give above are not comic.

About halfway through a 90-minute exploration of Viv, the recently debuted and much heralded next-generation smart assistant platform, I started to experience a bit of deja vu. Here were two highly intelligent and credentialed founders, animated by a sense of purpose and a shared conviction that there Had To Be A Better Way, extolling the virtues of a new platform that, if only it were to be adopted at critical mass, would Change The World For the Better. It reminded me of my early days covering Apple in the 1980s, or Google in the early aughts. And I found myself believing that, in fact, the world would be a better place if Viv's vision prevailed. What Viv is trying to create is a platform shift on the scale of Google search or Apple's app store -- a new way to interact with the Internet itself.

Does the following sound familiar? You immediately go to your weather app: rain today, better bring an umbrella. Next, Google Maps gives you a detour from a traffic-filled highway as you commute to work. Around noon, your smartwatch reminds you that you haven't walked more than 20 steps in the past two hours so you take a break and walk around the block. That evening you ask Siri to read the next day's agenda as you get ready for bed. The Internet of Things (IoT), deep learning and augmented reality will accelerate to transcend medicine, and even law enforcement and the punishment of crimes.

Cortana app for Android recently got updated in Play Store with few new improvements. Microsoft is bringing back'Hey Cortana' and you now have easier access to the voice button. Microsoft has released an update for Outlook Groups on Windows Phone. Unlike the last update, which was a major one, this one only adds bug fixes and performance improvements. Microsoft has just made it slightly easier for users to buy a new Surface device.

Everyone's obsessed with "conversation as a platform," or the idea that you should be able to interact with a service with natural language, spoken or written, instead of in the traditional click-an-icon way you'd interact with a computer. Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, and a slew of startups all rushing to find new ways to make it easier for users to connect to all the services they need through a single interface. Just this week, The Information reported that Apple plans to open up its virtual assistant, Siri, to third-party developers who want to integrate their services. We've entered the age of bots. Evernote founder and partner at VC firm General Catalyst, Phil Libin, believes that bots are the most exciting tech he's seen since the iPhone and that they'll rewrite the tech space like apps did in 2008.