Amazon's plan to put Alexa everywhere is extending from homes to hotels and, soon, the Mediterranean. It will bring Alexa and the various Echo devices to Spain and Italy later this year. Sonos and Bose will also start selling their Alexa-enabled devices in those countries before the year's out. In the meantime, Amazon is encouraging developers to start creating skills in Italian and Spanish. There's no use having a smart voice assistant on hand if it can't do a whole lot, after all.

Podcasts may have started on Apple devices, but millions of Android users listen to them on their phones every day. And now Google is finally getting in on the act with its own standalone podcast player, aptly called Google Podcasts. While podcasts have always been available for listening inside the Google Play Music app or via searching inside the Google app, Google Podcasts represents the first real default presence for podcasts on the platform. But if Google wants Podcasts to become as synonymous with podcasts as YouTube is to video, it has a long way to go. The impact on you at home: Google Podcasts would have been a better app in 2016 than 2018, but it's not a terrible first start.

It may sound like a stalkers dream come true, but dating app Happn is adding a new'creepy' feature that will let potential love matches revisit your past movements. Starting next month, if you remember crossing paths with someone that took your fancy, you will be able to retrace your steps to try and find them again. If they are also a user of the popular dating app, which matches people through their device's geolocation, their profile will appear on the new map tool at that spot. Budding romantics may find the feature appealing, giving them the chance to tap locations they've visited over the past week to track down lost connections. However, some may find the idea of strangers tracing their movements more than a little creepy.

Alexa has a new job: hotel concierge. Amazon has launched a version of Alexa for hotels that lets guests order room service through the voice assistant, ask for more towels or get restaurant recommendations without having to pick up the phone and call the front desk. Marriott has signed up for the service, and will place Amazon Echo smart speakers in 10 hotels this summer, including its Westin and St. Regis brands. It is another way for Amazon to sell its voice assistant and devices to businesses and get Alexa in front of more customers. Several media reports had said that Marriott had tested both Apple Inc's Siri and Amazon's Alexa to select what was best suited for its hotels.

Building the perfect home involves a lot of time, effort, and Amazon Echo Dots. One family decided to create the smartest house in the world, and by all accounts they've succeeded. Blockchain-backed automated chore tracking and rewards system? You've probably never heard of Farley Coin, one of the world's most exclusive cryptocurrencies. If he was, you'd be able to earn points for brushing your teeth, finishing your chores, and doing your schoolwork.

Before Siri and Cortana, pop culture offered up several versions of feminised artificial intelligence – but none of the artists perhaps envisioned how the reality could take us backwards rather than propel us into a new, more equal world. Charli XCX's latest album, Pop 2, has been dubbed as the "sequel" to pop music. The 10-track mixtape is riddled with a slew of pop sirens, underground up-and-comers and club-ready anthems: "Go fuck your prototype I'm an upgrade of your stereotype," Charli sings in Femmebot. In 2010, Robyn's Fembot interrogated the intersection of womanhood and androidism, while Christina Aguilera's sixth album that same year, Bionic, toyed between electro-pop beats (the machine) and stripped-back ballads (the woman). The phenomenon has long been computed into film and pop culture (Her (2013), Ex Machina (2014), Stepford Wives (1975), Metropolis (1927)), but only recently have physical manifestations entered our reality. Just as we acknowledge the wiring of femmebots and female pop stars, we should also consider the broader parallel between women and technology, and the increased feminisation of artificial intelligence.

A bug in Google's Home and Chromecast gadgets could show cyber criminals where you live. The glitch allows hackers to access the exact location of your Wi-Fi router via a malicious link that could be sent to you via email or social media. It was found by security researcher Craig Young, who said the issue allows cyber criminals to find your address or make scam messages more convincing. These include fake calls from the IRS or demands for cash from hackers making phony claims that they have webcam footage of the victim watching pornography. Google said it plans to fix the security flaw, which leaks your location with an accuracy of up to a few feet, in an update next month.

Visitors to Marriott hotels will soon be able to use Amazon Alexa to make their stays more enjoyable. "Alexa for Hospitality" lets guests ask Alexa -- via an in-room Amazon Echo -- for help with hotel information, booking guest services, playing music and managing room controls, such as lighting and temperature. We've seen hotels leverage Alexa before -- in 2016 Wynn's Las Vegas hotel installed an Echo in all 4,748 of its rooms, letting guests control environmental conditions with vocal commands. The Marriot partnership takes things further, giving the hotels the option to configure and customize voice-first features based on their specific property and guest offering. You'll be able to use Alexa to book a massage if the hotel has a spa, for example, or ask Alexa where the gym is located, if it has a fitness center.

The company's move to tie-up with hotels is another strategy to woo more users for its Echo devices.Amazon Echo owners spend an average of $1,700 a year on Amazon, more than the $1,300 Amazon Prime members are estimated to be spending a year on the e-commerce site, CNBC reported earlier this year, citing a report by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners.

Amazon has launched a version of Alexa for hotels that lets guests order room service, ask for more towels or get restaurant recommendations without having to pick up the phone and call the front desk. Marriott has signed up for the service, and will place Amazon Echo smart speakers in 10 hotels this summer.