Will Amazon's Alexa make your home as responsive as a 'Star Trek' starship?

Forget HAL, the computer in "2001: A Space Odyssey," or JARVIS, the robotic butler of fictional billionaire Tony Stark. With a voice command like this, a homeowner can activate a Bluetooth-controlled lock through Alexa, Amazon's voice assistant, August Home, the smart-lock maker, announced Thursday. The team up between August and Amazon is another step in expanding how "smart" a home can become at a reasonable price. Though gadgets to control, for instance, a house's lights, thermostat, and audio system, have been around for decades, they could only be operated at first through personal computers and control pads, and eventually tablets and smartphones. Amazon popularized the voice control of smart homes when it released Alexa in 2014.