Stand aside, Minority Report, the movie Her will define the next decade While it was once unusual to see people talking to themselves in the street 20 years ago, the ubiquity of mobile phones means it is now unusual not to see people talking to themselves in the street. So it will be with people talking to their internet TV and their cars... and that TV or vehicle being able to store, remember and even suggest the viewer's preferences before the viewer has even thought about it. This is the end of the remote control as we know it; it will be a revolution. But such revolutions do not come easy and there will be many barriers erected before there is a seamless transition to this way of living. The cacophony of voices talking to their devices will be a fragmented mess and it will be the cloud and profile of a person what will define how quickly that disconnect is fixed. Nuance is a US company that has an "evolving prototype" called Project Wintermute that is clever and the type of product that should be in the movie Her. The company has no connection with the movie, although its marketing team must be utterly delighted that such a film is about to be released. What is smart about Wintermute is that instructions can be given to a mobile, a computer or a TV (and eventually a car) and because each device sends to the cloud, these devices are effectively one and the same in the way content is experienced. Start watching a movie on one device and then carry on watching the movie on another device from the point it was paused. Moreover, as the profile of the user is continually refined and the communication of human voice and computer voice evolves to a tacit (and increasingly shorter) conversation where both sides understand each other, the notion of a love affair with a digital personal assistant suddenly seems more plausible. We want to reinvent the relationship between people and technology by creating a more intuitive and adaptive interface that allows you to connect with devices on human terms. Layer in voice biometrics and the assistant will recognise and know who you are. "The beautiful, dark and intriguing world of Her is a signal that the exploration of artificial intelligence, voice and natural language technologies - creating avatars which understand and decipher what we say - is something that is being talked about in a very real way," says John West, Senior Solution Architect, Nuance. Next month's CES electronics trade show in Las Vegas will undoubtedly showcase similar products seeking to emulate Nuance's lead technology. Whether they will be able to improve or disrupt Wintermute is moot, but one thing is certain and that is we are going to be talking to our machines a lot in the future. Whether we fall in love with the voices that talk back to us is something that may only reside in the imaginations of screenwriters, but if she sounds like Scarlett Johansson, then it's not beyond the bounds of earthly possibility.