Samsung-owned Harman Kardon announced the release of its new Invoke speaker powered by Microsoft's digital assistant Cortana and integrating Skype for making calls using the device.
Microsoft unveiled new tools intended to democratise artificial intelligence by enabling machine smarts to be built into software from smartphone games to factory floors.
Improving programs with artificial intelligence that could tap into services in the Internet "cloud" and even take advantage of computing power in nearby machines, was part of a vision unveiled as the US technology titan's annual Build Conference opened.
