Smart grid technological advances present a recent class of complex interdisciplinary modeling and increasingly difficult simulation problems to solve using traditional computational methods. To simulate a smart grid requires a systemic approach to integrated modeling of power systems, energy markets, demand-side management, and much other resources and assets that are becoming part of the current paradigm of the power grid. This paper presents a backbone model of a smart grid to test alternative scenarios for the grid. This tool simulates disparate systems to validate assumptions before the human scale model. Thanks to a distributed optimization of subsystems, the production and consumption scheduling is achieved while maintaining flexibility and scalability.

If 2019 is the year to sell your house or condo, let an Amazon Alexa help you out a bit. Just because your house was built back in the dark ages, before wireless internet, Bluetooth technology, and smartphones, you can still turn your house into a smart house, with a small monetary investment, and take some of the stress out of selling. Here's what I'd recommend to home sellers. If you're going with Alexa (like I did), then you should consider getting an Echo, Echo Plus, or Echo Dot from Amazon. If you go with Google, there's the Google Home and the Google Home Mini, while Apple offers the HomePod.

Plans for smart houses in the future are slowly becoming more and more plausible. A house that does all the manual labor for the occupants, where dinner is ready on the kitchen table and all the amenities in a house are included in these plans. Thanks to Baylor University's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and deep learning research, a future with smart houses is getting closer. Listed among the research opportunities in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering is deep learning. This research is helping Artificial Intelligence (AI) to develop into what is presented in science fiction novels and television shows.

Does It Hold Up is a chance to re-experience childhood favorites of books, movies, TV shows, video games, and other cultural phenomenon decades later. Have they gotten better like a fine wine, or are we drinking cork? A cornerstone of any pre-teen's life between 1998 to 2007 was the Disney Channel original movie. If you grew up during that time you do not need a refresher on why movies like Halloweentown or Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century were popular -- they were your main option for entertainment because you were constantly at home! (That is what it is like to not have a driver's license.) But you may need a refresher on their content, because I just revisited a bunch of them and they are not what I thought.

The dream of a smart home where everything can be controlled at the tap of a button is about to get a step closer. Apple's new iOS 10 software, expected to be released on Wednesday, will include a new Home app built by Apple to make home control easier - and to take on amazon and Google in the battle for the smart living room. It will allow users to control lights, blinds, doors and pretty much everything in their home from a single app - or by asking Siri. The final revamped feature shown for iOS was the Home app, which delivers a simple and secure way to setup, manage and control your home. Opening the Home app brings up a main screen that lists all favourite Scenes and favourite accessories for quick access.