Smart locks from Schlage and other manufacturers can now be controlled with your voice via Amazon's Alexa. If you make a purchase by clicking one of our links, we may earn a small share of the revenue. Our picks and opinions are independent from any business incentives. With new smart lock compatibility, Amazon's Alexa voice assistant is slowly taking over your home. What started with lights and thermostats evolved into today's announcement that Alexa will soon be able to unlock your front door with a simple voice command.

For Apple TV users who are not really pleased with how the device's Siri remote works, Apple is working on a fix that would improve its scrolling behavior. This is what is being teased in the beta versions of the upcoming tvOS 10.2 software update that Apple is still working on. This Tuesday, Apple rolled out the fourth pre-release version of tvOS 10.2 to developers who will be testing out the beta to see if their apps would still function well when the official update is released. As of late, the current tvOS version for the fourth-generation Apple TV is tvOS 10.1.1. Apple intends to improve the user experience its digital media player/microconsole provides with tvOS 10.2.

The word'Artificial Intelligence' evokes excitement and paints a picture of super-intelligent robots and self-driving cars. Even the statistics are bullish about the impact of AI – By 2020, 85% of customer interactions will be managed without a human. AI has widespread uses in the field of artificial agents, internet of things, marketing, financial trading, healthcare. But, are businesses able to capitalize the growing power of AI? Why adopting AI is a distant dream for small and medium businesses.

Entry lock manufacturers Kwikset, Schlage, and Yale have announced new Alexa skills that enable you to control some models of their entry locks via voice commands directed at Alexa-enabled products such as the Amazon Echo series. But you'll also need to own a smart home hub--either a Samsung SmartThings or a Wink Labs' Wink--in order to use them, since the locks themselves don't have mics and don't connect directly to the internet. Schlage is enabling this skill for its Connect series of touchscreen entry locks and Kwikset is adding this capability to its Kwikset SmartCode 910-, 914-, and 916-series locks. We're waiting to hear which Yale models will be affected, but we presume it will be the Real Living or Assure series, since onboard Z-Wave radios seems to be the other feature in common. According to Schlage's VP of strategy and partnerships Rob Martens, "the integration of the Alexa Skill for locks is achieved through a cloud-to-cloud integration, and the Alexa team has previously made those cloud-to-cloud integrations with Z-Wave smart home systems such as SmartThings and Wink and to operate other devices such as lighting and thermostats. It is faster to roll out additional Alexa skills using existing integrations."

Google has revealed its Amazon Echo-rivalling smart speaker, Google Home, will come to the UK later this year. The technology giant launched the voice-activated device in the US last October but is yet to extend its release outside of the country. However, the company has now confirmed Home will go on sale in the UK during the'second quarter' of this year, meaning it will be released before the end of June. Google Home (pictured) will go on sale in the UK by the end of June of this year. 'We're in the Home stretch; Google Home is coming to the UK soon, stay tuned for more,' the tech firm said in a tweet.

In George Orwell's classic dystopian novel, "1984," every house is equipped with a Telescreen, a monitoring device enabling government surveillance. Amazon is trying to prevent its Echo/Alexa from turning into just that. Amazon is hoping to keep its Alexa devices from being a tool of government listening, which could inhibit people from buying them. Accordingly, the Seattle-based company has filed a motion to prevent recorded audio from an Echo being used as evidence in a criminal trial. Last year, police in Arkansas sought to obtain recordings captured by Echo as evidence in a 2015 murder case.

If voice assistants really are the next big user interface, then Amazon is off to fantastic start -- by the numbers, at least. As this chart from Statista shows, Amazon's Alexa assistant now has more than 10,000 "skills" (i.e., third-party voice-enabled applications). That's double the amount that was available just last quarter. To be clear: That developers are interested in Alexa is good news for Amazon, and Alexa itself seems to be well ahead in the home compared to rivals like Google Assistant, the AI found in the Google Home speaker that competes directly with the Alexa-centric Amazon Echo. Calling up an Uber or ordering a pizza just by yelling across the room is convenient enough, but for every useful skill, there are 500 CorkOrnaments.com

Motorola might have lured people to its MWC press conference with the promise of new phones, but the real talking point came toward the end of the event. After hyping a pair of mid-range devices and some fun Moto Mod concepts, the company confirmed that it's working with Amazon to bring Alexa to Moto phones. While the first steps of Motorola's Alexa partnership are now well known, it's the stuff that Motorola later told Engadget about its plans that seems most exciting. Let's start from the beginning. Our first taste of this Amazon/Motorola mash-up will come in the form of an Alexa-powered Moto Mod.

Picture a future where a robot suggests where to go for dinner, which meetings to take or which hotel you should stay at during an important client event. That's just an example of the impact artificial intelligence (AI) can have on the ways we work and interact with one another. When Apple first introduced Siri in 2011, it had just scratched the surface in terms of what was possible with AI, voice recognition and digital assistance. But as technology leaps forward, experts predict AI is now poised to transform business and our personal lives in more ways than we can imagine. Why this sudden barrage of predictions about AI and its potential to change the world? Taken together, these three developments created the ideal conditions for AI to evolve.

This is my first guide posted on GitHub, bear with me. You can submit a pull request with anything else you think should be added here. It will come as no surprise to those of you reading this (thanks!), that the interest and applications of'Voice-Assistants' is growing rapidly. Amazon Alexa recently hit 10,000 skills and there is talk around what will drive adoption for the next 10,000. I wont be diving into specifics and discussing issues like retention.