LOS ANGELES--Will.i.am sounds congested and subdued, his batteries running low after a high-octane appearance on The Ellen Show earlier that day. He's longing for 2025, when an artificial intelligence will be able to tell him to take it easy. "Will, you sound like you are stuffy," he says in the voice of this fictional AI. "What did you eat recently? Stay away from sweets because they are causing you more mucus. You should get some rest tonight. I'm going to cancel your appointments from 7 pm. I've already bought you some epsom salts from CVS. Go and pick them up."

LOS ANGELES--Will.i.am sounds congested and subdued, his batteries running low after a high-octane appearance on The Ellen Show earlier that day. He's longing for 2025, when an artificial intelligence will be able to tell him to take it easy. "Will, you sound like you are stuffy," he says in the voice of this fictional AI. "What did you eat recently? Stay away from sweets because they are causing you more mucus. You should get some rest tonight. I'm going to cancel your appointments from 7 pm. I've already bought you some epsom salts from CVS. Go and pick them up."

The Dial is being touted as a "voice-first" device with its own virtual assistant, called AneedA. Like Siri, Cortana and Alexa, the idea is that you can ask for information and execute tasks while your hands are full. How AneedA compares to those alternatives is, for now, a mystery. Three says it has the ability "to learn and tailor responses to each consumer" and "make traditional mobile search irrelevant." Big claims, which we're skeptical of given the performance of its previous wearable, the Puls.

Smartwatches like the Apple Watch may have failed to generate the seismic shift seen with the arrival of the iPhone, but musician and entrepreneur will.i.am The self-confessed geek has launched his own watch-based gadget that can make calls and send texts without needing to be connected to a phone. The device, dubbed'dial', is now available to pre-order in the UK via Three, with prices starting at 22 a month. Will.i.am has launched a watch dubbed dial (shown above) that can make calls and send texts without a connected phone being nearby The Black Eyed Peas frontman first revealed his watch, at a London launch in February, having talked about an earlier version that failed to come to fruition. It is 3G, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS enabled.