This week brought a handful of good tech deals along with the announcement of Amazon Prime Day 2020. While Amazon's annual shopping event will take place on October 13 and 14, there are still some deals worth considering right now (not to mention, a couple of early Prime Day deals for members). Here are the best deals from this week that you can still get today. Prime members can get two 3rd-generation Echo Dots for $20 each when they use the code DOTPRIME2PK at checkout. This brings the price per Echo Dot down to its lowest ever, making this a great deal if you don't absolutely need the redesigned Echo Dot Amazon announced last week.

Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. Today is Day 1488 of our Trek, and our focus on Fridays is the future technological and societal advances, so we call it Futuristic Fridays. My personality is one that has always been very future-oriented.

The period of voice-enabled search and commerce has shown up, and organizations need to prepare themselves for this new paradigm. By implanting brands into conversations, organizations can give customized solutions for pretty much any issue. Voice frameworks have quickly advanced from the simple voice commands to entire ecosystems of applications and interactions. Intelligent speakers like Amazon Echo, Apple Home Pod, and Google Home give various entertainment choices inside your home. These voice AI-empowered systems have cleared another dimension to execute tasks that were initially limited to a screen.

Parents want the best for their children. While the goal is apparent, figuring out how to do it is challenging. Parents want their kids to be healthy, happy, secure, smart, sociable, smart, athletic, etc. That is a lot to do considering that they have to balance it out based on how quality time they can make for their child, how much resources they can put in to child development, meeting socio-economic needs, etc. With everyone turning to artificial intelligent assistants for help, could there be an AI digital assistant for parents doing one of the most human of things: raising their children?

Amazon wants to make it safer and easier to use your phone while you're in the car. The feature turns your phone into a "driver-friendly" display with large touch targets and easy-to-read visuals. Auto Mode keeps things simple with four screens: Home, Navigation, Communicate and Play. The home screen includes shortcuts to pause or play your media source, navigate to home or work and make a call. The Navigation screen lets you create shortcuts for favorite locations, or if you ask Alexa to find someplace new, Auto Mode will display a simplified results list with only the most relevant info.

All smart plugs have the same primary purpose: transforming plug-in electronics into remote-controlled devices. However, that doesn't mean all smart plugs are the same. How well they perform can make a big difference as to how useful they are in your daily life. We're comparing the wildly popular Amazon Smart Plug against our favorite smart plug on the market, the Currant WiFi Smart Outlet to see how they stack up in a number of categories. Read on to find out which smart plug is right for you.

Hold music could one day be a thing of the past, thanks to a service coming to Google's smartphones. "Hold For Me", which launches on Thursday in the US for owners of Google's Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a phones, involves Google's AI tools taking over as an automatic secretary when on hold to a call centre, leaving the user free to put the phone down and carry on with their life. The service will automatically listen out for when the call is picked up, and send a notification when it's time for the user to get back on the phone. In the meantime, Google's assistant will ask the call centre to hold, hopefully stopping them from hanging up because of dead air. "Every business's hold loop is different and simple algorithms can't accurately detect when a customer support representative comes on to the call," Google's Andrew Goodman and Joseph Cherukara said.

Mobile applications have laid the cornerstone in the industry, and the advancement of technology along with science has graveled the road for artificial intelligence apps. Thus, Application Development with game-changing Artificial Intelligence has produced significant growth in the market. Bridging the gap between humans and machines, the emergence of AI technology, and now the AI applications have expanded its horizons in every field. While AI is the point of discussion in the mobile industry, the terms "OK google or SIRI" are not new to the mobile phone users. From reading emails, online shopping, to making phone calls, these virtual assisting apps have been simplifying the lives of users for many years now. But, the implementation of AI is not limited to these voice command apps, it has crossed the clouds of imagination.

For the past several years, two of the hottest products during the holidays have been low-cost streaming devices from Amazon and Roku, often discounted down to around $25 for end of the year sales. And often left out of the party was Google, which first launched its own unit in 2013, Chromecast, initially selling for $35, a product aimed at early adopters and serious tech nerds. Which is why Google's announcement Wednesday of a new $49.99 Chromecast (available by Oct. 15) was hands down the most interesting of its presentation, and the one most likely to end up in more consumers homes. Also announced were two new smartphones ($499 and $699) and a redesigned Google Home smart speaker with better sound, selling for $99. Help:Blur your home on Maps and erase your data to remove your life from Google's grip With the new Chromecast, Google can now compete in streaming effectively on the same playing field as Amazon and Roku, which each tout having 40 million customers each for their streaming services.

Looking at your humble laptop, you may not think it has the power to change your life. But there are so many amazing things you can do on a portable computer, and many of them can help you do more than you could ever imagine. In this article we'll look at some of the ways your trusty laptop can open new avenues in your life, from getting you that dream job to keeping your prized keepsakes safe for good. If you live far away from friends and family, that does not mean you cannot stay in touch. Thanks to your laptop's built-in webcam and an app like Skype, you can have a video call with loved ones wherever they are.