You no longer have to pull out your phone (or look at your watch) to track your dietary habits. Lifesum has introduced what it says is the first food tracking app for Google Assistant, making it easier to keep tabs on your eating patterns. If you ate a large meal or grabbed a glass of water, you just have to use your voice to add that to your log. You can also update your body weight, tackle challenges (such as hiding sugary food in your kitchen) and ask for updates on your progress. Lifesum personalizes meal sizes based on your goals, but it's not very specific beyond that.

The Consumer Electronics Show kicks off every year in Las Vegas, and sets the tone for innovation for the year ahead. The conference earlier this month was no exception, with artificial intelligence (AI) starring the headlines as the technology to transform 2017. With the AI market expected to grow to $5.05 billion by 2020, there is a massive opportunity for the food and beverage industries to harness its capabilities, improve offerings, optimise operations and deliver a better customer experience. One promising product to debut at CES 2017 is Hello Egg, the AI-powered'home-cooking sidekick' on a mission to empower millennials to eat more healthily. Developed by US-based RnD64, this voice-controlled, egg-shaped home assistant rivals competitors Google Home and Amazon Echo, integrating AI to address any and all kitchen needs.

What do you get if you combine the broad trends of smartphones, wearables, Internet of Things, an individual desire for control and healthcare costs for society? You get VCs investing in health-tech startups, that's what. And the latest evidence of this is Stockholm-based Lifesum raising a 10m funding round led by Nokia Growth Partners (NGP), with Draper Esprit, Bauer Media Group and SparkLabs Global Ventures. Lifesum, which tracks what you eat and your exercise, says it now has 15 million users. That's less than the 80 million users which MyFitnessPal had when it was acquired by athletic apparel maker Under Armour in February 2015.