Google is expected to report a second straight drop in advertising revenue, extending a rare decline as the company battles economic uncertainty and tries to capitalize on recent advances in artificial intelligence. Alphabet Inc., Google's parent company, is expected to report $53.7 billion in ad revenue for the first quarter, a drop of 1.8% from the same period last year, according to the consensus estimate from analysts surveyed by FactSet. That would be the third drop in ad sales since Google became a public company in 2004, and the second consecutive quarterly decline following a 3.6% drop in the fourth quarter.

One Drop, a leader in the development of digital therapeutics solutions for people with diabetes, today announced the launch of Blood Glucose Prediction and Automated Decision Support. Through these new features, the One Drop Mobile app will provide users: (1) blood glucose "forecasts" up to 12 hours into the future; and (2) behavioral recommendations based on those forecasts, thereby empowering users to manage diabetes proactively and reduce the risk complications. Through One Drop's predictive analytic capabilities, people with diabetes will now be able to receive actionable insights into how their behavior (diet, physical activity, etc.) affects their blood glucose levels, without any intervention from a health care provider. The app will simply display insights for the user as they become relevant. Blood glucose predictions come from One Drop's machine learning models, which are powered by over 1.1 billion data points collected by more than 860,000 One Drop Mobile app users worldwide.

People used to dream about robot secretaries. Futurists imagined a world where computers obeyed our every command. When the Amazon Echo hit the market, that dream became a reality: Alexa was obedient, personable and all-knowing. She could carry out a myriad of basic tasks, with a personality as professional and unflappable as a human assistant. This year, Echo is more popular than ever, and despite competition from Google, Amazon still dominates 75 percent of the virtual assistant market.

One of the most notable new features introduced alongside Amazon's new Echo Show is the ability to make calls with Alexa, something that's been rumored for a while now. And the good news is that this feature isn't limited to just the Echo Show. When it rolls out later today (via an update to the Alexa iOS and Android apps), you'll be able to use all existing Echo hardware to place voice calls, video calls and send messages. You'll obviously need an Echo Show for video calling, but the support for voice calling and messaging is pretty robust. If you have an Echo, Echo Dot or Echo Show, you can initiate calls (including video calls with the Show) and send messages to anyone else in your address book who has turned on Alexa calling.

Amazon wants Alexa to be able to show as well as tell. On Tuesday, the Internet's powerhouse retailer announced the aptly named Echo Show, a new speaker where Amazon's increasingly popular digital assistant can lend a voice--and helping hand. As with the original Echo speaker where Alexa got its start, Echo Show contains an array of microphones that are always listening for the "Alexa" wake word. What sets Echo Show apart is the addition of a 7-inch color touch screen, coupled with a front facing (5-megapixel) camera. The product, which comes in black or white, resembles an old kitchen counter-top TV set.