AI and connected devices have coalesced as a central component of Microsoft's Azure cloud strategy, as the company seeks to marry the disparate technologies to complement and amplify each other. Microsoft plans to spend $5 billion over the next four years on IoT, and AI will play a big part in that push, judging by the myriad overlaps in new functionalities rolled out here at Microsoft's Build developer conference. The updates push more of Azure's capabilities to edge devices, as Microsoft attempts to weave a unified fabric of services that extend out from its public cloud. The open-sourced Azure IoT Edge runtime improves users' ability to modify and debug IoT applications. Microsoft's edge computing model is similar to that of AWS Greengrass, which Amazon has promoted as a way to add compute capabilities outside AWS facilities.

With much of what Google announced during the first day of its I/O developer conference focused on helping users answer questions before they even think of them, artificial intelligence is proving critical for the company's strategy. "Google is betting the farm on artificial intelligence (A.I.) and they need to because Microsoft and Facebook aren't too far behind," said Patrick Moorhead, an analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy. "A.I. will determine the next-generation experience with all electronics. It essentially predicts what users want before they know they do. A.I. is the next big frontier, and Google has always been a pioneer in A.I." During the keynote speech on Wednesday, the company unveiled several upcoming products, including its Google Assistant, Google Home device, the Allo chat app and the Duo video chat app.

With much of what Google announced during the first day of its I/O developer conference focused on helping users answer questions before they even think of them, artificial intelligence is proving critical for the company's strategy. "Google is betting the farm on artificial intelligence (A.I.) and they need to because Microsoft and Facebook aren't too far behind," said Patrick Moorhead, an analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy. "A.I. will determine the next-generation experience with all electronics. It essentially predicts what users want before they know they do. A.I. is the next big frontier, and Google has always been a pioneer in A.I." During the keynote speech on Wednesday, the company unveiled several upcoming products, including its Google Assistant, Google Home device, the Allo chat app and the Duo video chat app.

Apple yesterday said it sold 4 million Macs in the March quarter, a 12 percent decline from the same period the year before, and a larger contraction than for the personal computer business as a whole. The year-over-year downturn in Mac sales was the second straight down quarter, and excepting a brutal 22 percent drop at the end of 2012, the largest since Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007. Analysts at IDC and Gartner earlier this month pegged the continued contraction of the PC industry at 11.5 percent and 9.6 percent, respectively. Both also missed the actual Mac number for the quarter in their forecasts for Apple, overestimating by 11 percent to 13 percent: IDC had tapped shipments at 4.5 million, while Gartner said 4.6 million. Apple had been on an extended streak of besting the PC average, with sometimes impressive gains during the four-years-and-counting slump of the overall market.