Picture yourself entering a department store and, instead of wandering around searching for the correct department or product, you are guided by an expert personal concierge. The concierge is not a person, but rather a humanlike smartphone assistant. Whether you want to know "where are women's shoes located?" or "is this dress available in size six?" this concierge is always at hand to assist you. This is what retail shopping may be fast becoming, thanks to the mass proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI)-based technologies.

A hack at Sony Pictures that exposed more than 170,000 emails in 2014 derailed a much-hyped film's release and prompted a months-long industry freakout. A hacking incident at Yahoo now threatens to derail a sale to Verizon. WikiLeaks' releases of Democratic officials' hacked private emails are providing near-endless fodder for Donald Trump's presidential campaign. And yet, while large numbers of Americans appreciate the threat of getting hacked, they don't seem to be changing their behaviors in any appreciable way.

Digital mapping company Esri has announced a partnership with crowdsourcing traffic app maker Waze to help city governments and drivers communicate more efficiently about traffic conditions, including construction delays and accidents. By using Esri ArcGIS (geographic information system) software to connect to a new Waze connected citizens program, cities can share data about the conditions of their roads with drivers, while drivers can anonymously report accidents, potholes and other road condition information.

The vision of the so-called internet of things - giving all sorts of physical things a digital makeover - has been years ahead of reality. But that gap is closing fast, according to Gartner, a research firm. Today, the range of things being computerized and connected to networks is stunning, from watches, appliances and clothing to cars, jet engines and factory equipment. Even roadways and farm fields are being upgraded with digital sensors. In the last two years, the number of internet-of-things devices in the world has surged nearly 70 percent to 6.4 billion, Gartner says. By 2020, the firm forecasts, the internet-of-things population will reach 20.8 billion.

The Internet of Things (IoT) has been widely celebrated as a game-changing technology for field service and maintenance applications because it allows one device to "talk" to another, communicating when a machine or system could potentially degrade or fail. But what if the "breakdown" is occurring not within a facility or a production process, but within the human body?

The future of the U.S. healthcare system could be influenced to a large extent by a company that makes weapons of war.

Many retailers struggle with balancing their brick-and-mortar business with e-commerce, but warehouse automation and Big Data are there to help.