Did the kids eat lunch? Do their homework? This home monitor can tell

The Lighthouse interactive assistant monitors the comings and goings at a home remotely, but with an AI touch. SAN FRANCISCO -- Lighthouse, an artificial intelligence services start-up with roots in the self-driving car world, wants to do for the home what the DARPA Grand Challenge did for autonomous cars. The 2-year-old start-up has developed an interactive assistant for the home that, essentially, does the opposite of Alexa, Amazon's voice-activated personal assistant. While Alexa keeps consumers connected to the outside world while they're at home, Lighthouse keeps consumers connected to their homes while they're far away. The interactive assistant, in the form of a mini-lighthouse, leverages deep learning and 3-D sensing technology developed as part of the DARPA Grand Challenge, the world-renowned competition in which autonomous vehicles navigate an off-road course.