I'll cut to the chase: TP-Link's Smart Wi-Fi Light Switch Dimmer (model HS220) is an in-wall switch that looks good and works well. Let's start with the good looks, as I must say I really like what TP-Link has done to the face of this devicer. A large rocker switch occupies the bulk of the real estate. A quick tap turns the light on or off, gradually brightening or dimming the connected bulbs. A tap-and-hold immediately takes the bulb to your preset maximum brightness or quickly shuts it off.

Apple's new AirPods give you hands-free access to Siri, and it sounds like Amazon is working on something similar for Alexa. Bloomberg reports the online retail giant is working on its own true wireless earbuds that will also be its first Alexa wearable. Details are scarce for now, but Bloomberg's sources say although the Amazon version will be similar to AirPods in terms of both general design and features, the company is aiming to offer better audio quality than Apple. Sound quality has been a key criticism of both models of AirPods. In addition to saying "Alexa" to activate the virtual assistant, the earbuds will reportedly offer gesture controls for things like taking calls and skipping tracks while listening to music.

Walmart customers in need of groceries have had two options in recent years: Go to the store and fill up a shopping cart by hand; or select food items online and have them delivered to their home or picked up in person. Now, the big box retailer has unveiled a third way to order groceries: via voice command. Beginning this month, customers who own a Google assistant can say, "Hey, Google, talk to Walmart" to add items to a virtual grocery cart, Tom Ward, senior vice president, Digital Operations, Walmart U.S., said in a statement Tuesday. The voice commands allow customers to add items to their cart one at a time over a few days -- not necessarily to complete their shopping for the week all at once. As the technology becomes more familiar with customers' shopping habits, Ward said, it will improve over time.

Developing intelligent virtual characters has attracted a lot of attention in the recent years. The process of creating such characters often involves a team of creative authors who describe different aspects of the characters in natural language, and planning experts that translate this description into a planning domain. This can be quite challenging as the team of creative authors should diligently define every aspect of the character especially if it contains complex human-like behavior. Also a team of engineers has to manually translate the natural language description of a character's personality into the planning domain knowledge. This can be extremely time and resource demanding and can be an obstacle to author's creativity. The goal of this paper is to introduce an authoring assistant tool to automate the process of domain generation from natural language description of virtual characters, thus bridging between the creative authoring team and the planning domain experts. Moreover, the proposed tool also identifies possible missing information in the domain description and iteratively makes suggestions to the author.

Apple's HomePod is officially getting a bit cheaper. On Thursday Apple quietly dropped the price of its Siri-powered smart speaker to $299, a $50 drop from its original price of $349. The speaker, which was praised by critics for its sound last year but dinged on its smart capabilities, is Apple's rival to Google's Home, Amazon's Echo and the increasingly crowded field of smart speakers powered by the Google Assistant and Alexa made by the likes of Sonos, Bose and others. All three smart devices can do tasks like play music, give you the weather or set timers, HomePod, however, still lacks the ability to do more advanced functions like call an Uber or play music directly from Spotify, Google Play Music or Pandora (you can play those services off your iPhone through AirPlay). 'What music should I play?':

Apple has cut the HomePod price by up to 18 percent in various regions as it seemingly tries to gain more of a foothold in a competitive market. As spotted by 9to5 Mac, the smart speaker is down from $349 to $299 in its US store, $449 to $399 in Canada and £319 to £279 in the UK. Third-party retailers have often offered discounts on HomePod, but it's the first official price drop from the mothership. The HomePod arrived only 14 months ago. The move could entice more people to buy a HomePod, though it's competing with many other recognizable brands at both its bracket and lower price points.

Alexa's involvement in healthcare is about to extend well beyond putting Echo speakers in hospital rooms. Amazon has unveiled the first-ever HIPAA-compliant Alexa skills, letting you use the voice assistant to take care of sensitive medical issues. Joseph Health's skill can book a same-day appointment, for example, while Cigna and Express Scripts have introduced skills that respectively track wellness incentives and manage prescriptions. Livongo, meanwhile, has a skill for diabetics that can provide blood glucose readings and health tips. Other skills are coming from Atrium Health, Boston Hospital's post-surgery program and Swedish Health Connect.

Tinder ditched its Moments feature in 2015, but that doesn't mean the popular dating app is done with giving users access to ephemeral (aka disappearing) content. Later this year, those of you on Tinder can start posting Snapchat Stories directly to your dating profile, Snap announced today at its Partner Summit in Los Angeles. Thanks to Snap Kit, which lets third-party apps use Snapchat's augmented reality camera, you'll be able to use send Snaps to a new "My Tinder Story" option right inside the app. That means you'll have to use Snapchat if you want to use this feature, as the Tinder app will only be used for viewing, rather than publishing, your Snaps. Aside from Tinder, Snap is also bringing its new App Stories to House Party and Adventure Aide, two social apps that hope to use Stories to help their users better connect with one another.

Amazon has brought Apple Music to Alexa smart speakers for the first time in the UK. The feature was already available in the US but is slowly rolling out across the world. It means that people are no longer limited to only Amazon Music and Spotify as ways for Alexa to play music. Apple Music will work like those same services, allowing people to ask for a song or radio station and have it play from Apple Music. We'll tell you what's true.

Amazon's Echo speakers have a broadcast feature that will help you send a message to family members that might be scattered around the house. It's time for homework or to summon the troops for dinner. Sure, you could holler upstairs, but that seems so last century. You save your voice and text them instead. It's not just the kids we are texting – we're also texting each other, at home. So is texting under one roof becoming the modern-day equivalent of the dinner bell or intercom?