One day in the not-so-distant future, an app might make a dinner reservation for you before you realize you even want to go out, or your smartphone might suggest tourist sights you'd enjoy when you land in a new city. It's possible - and it's really not so far away, say analysts, who were encouraged today by Google 's announcement that it's open sourcing an enhanced machine learning system. The system, dubbed TensorFlow, is smarter, faster and more flexible machine-learning software than Google has ever had before, according to Sundar Pichai, Google's CEO, in a blog post . "Just a couple of years ago, you couldn't talk to the Google app through the noise of a city sidewalk, or read a sign in Russian using Google Translate, or instantly find pictures of your Labradoodle in Google Photos," wrote Pichai. Many companies, like IBM with its Watson system, and universities including Carnegie Mellon University and Stanford University are working on machine learning and AI.