Search engines are the core of the Internet. We've only interacted with computers since the 1970s; speech and language have been our primary learning mechanisms for up to 100,000 years. That's why the ascendance of smart chatbots and voice assistants (powered by AI) is so exciting. Now, we have a natural, user-friendly and almost'human' way to instantly interact with the Internet. All you need to do is ask your device a question, and it will read the best answer back to you.

Technology has become an integral part of any workplace, but, as it continues to evolve, how will it impact the offices of the future? Technologies have been shaping the workplace for decades, but how much further can they evolve? Previous generations could never have imagined the impact the digital revolution would have or that the internet would become such an integral part of most industries. So what does the future have in store? And will technology continue to support professionals in the workplace or will it just hamper productivity?

A day where shoppers don't even have to think about what they need to purchase -- let alone push a button -- is quickly approaching, Chieh Huang, Boxed co-founder and CEO, said Tuesday on CNBC's "Squawk Box." "The machine learning algorithm is getting better and better" in being used in e-commerce, he said. Boxed, started in 2013, is a bulk-items e-retailer currently working on rolling out new features that are primarily being tested in a business-to-business capacity, for now. The website has more than 1,400 SKUs, ranging from Pepsi products to paper towels to General Mills' Cheerios. And everything is sold in bulk, at a discount. Similar to Amazon's Dash Button, Boxed is working on its own, easy reorder system. The company has been playing with artificial intelligence to take the idea to the next level -- where no "push of a button" is required, Huang said.

Imagine you're about to leave the house to pick up your kids. As you grab your keys, you hear a voice from the device on your coffee table: "It looks like you'll use the last of your milk tomorrow, and yogurt is on sale for $1.19. Would you like to pick up an order from Trader Joe's, for a total of $5.35?" You say yes, and Alexa confirms. The order will be ready for curbside pickup, on the way home from your kids' school, in 15 minutes.

In San Francisco, a young engineer hopes to "optimise" his life through sensors that track his heart rate, respiration and sleep cycle. In Copenhagen, a bus running two minutes behind schedule transmits its location and passenger count to the municipal traffic signal network, which extends the time of the green light at each of the next three intersections long enough for its driver to make up some time. In Davao City in the Philippines, an unsecured webcam overlooks the storeroom of a fast food stand, allowing anyone to peer in on all its comings and goings. What links these wildly different circumstances is a vision of connected devices now being sold to us as the "internet of things". The technologist Mike Kuniavsky, a pioneer of this idea, characterises it as a state of being in which "computation and data communication [are] embedded in, and distributed through, our entire environment".

Now through April 7th, to celebrate the Amazon Dash Button's 2nd birthday, you can buy a Dash Button for $0.99 and receive a $4.99 credit after your first button push to place an order.

Does It Hold Up is a chance to re-experience childhood favorites of books, movies, TV shows, video games, and other cultural phenomenon decades later. Have they gotten better like a fine wine, or are we drinking cork? A cornerstone of any pre-teen's life between 1998 to 2007 was the Disney Channel original movie. If you grew up during that time you do not need a refresher on why movies like Halloweentown or Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century were popular -- they were your main option for entertainment because you were constantly at home! (That is what it is like to not have a driver's license.) But you may need a refresher on their content, because I just revisited a bunch of them and they are not what I thought.

Amazon is virtualising its Dash buttons, allowing shoppers to order items with the click of a mouse rather than the push of a button. Though it's a logical decision, it still seems an unusual one, as much of the intrigue around physical Dash buttons has been generated by the product's sheer weirdness. Physical Dash buttons are arguably more useful too, as they allow you to shop without having to fire up Amazon on your computer or smartphone first. For the uninitiated, the Dash button is a small, Wi-Fi-connected piece of hardware you can stick anywhere in your house, and use to order a specific product from a specific brand with a single push of a button. The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session A man looks at an exhibit entitled'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar.

Amazon's voice assistant Alexa has become a hugely popular and growing business. In fact, David Limp, an Amazon senior vice president who oversees Alexa and all of its Amazon devices, says that Alexa is rapidly adding "skills," with more than 1,000 people working on it. On Tuesday, at Fortune's Brainstorm Tech conference, Limp spoke to Fortune's Adam Lashinsky about the inspiration for Alexa (hint: Think Star Trek) and the origin of the name to where the business is heading. Here is the lightly-edited transcript. Dave Limp: The device business is less about building hardware for customers and more about building services behind that hardware. So the original vision of Kindle was to deliver any book ever written in less than 60 seconds, and that was all about creating a cloud-based service that had a great catalogue of books, great selection, and great prices. And as we've rolled out devices since then, everything from Fire TV to, as you mentioned, Echo and Alexa and everything in between, it's about creating that backend service that constantly improves and adds value for customers, and isn't just a gadget but instead a full end to end service that can benefit what customers want.

For those of us who haven't been hermits stuck in a remote section of Middle Earth, The Lord of the Rings book and movie series brought to our awareness the mythical powers of The One Ring: An object with a sinister inscription that reads "One Ring to Rule Them All." The ring bearers' powers will allow s/he to rule all lands and all people -- yet this piece of jewelry will enslave the poor ring bearer (life's full of trade-offs, right?). It's too good to be true -- "slip the ring on your finger and you'll rule the world!" Now that's convenience (for those whose ego is beyond measure). Products or devices bringing convenience and ease to us offer huge value.