LaurenMcCarthy
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Four people are allowing strangers to control their smart homes
For the next seven weeks, anyone who's inclined can go to 205 Hudson Street in New York City and take over someone else's apartment. Smart devices like the kettles, lighting and speakers of four homes connect directly to laptops in the corner of an art gallery. Cameras are trained on bathrooms, kitchens and living areas. Visitors can sit down and become a human Alexa, playing music, eavesdropping on conversations through microphones and communicating with the inhabitants via text-to-speech.
Peoplekeeper judges your friends so you don't have to
One episode of beloved sitcom Community features a pair of developers who build an app that enables people to give their human interactions a score out of five. In the show, the idea quickly turns dystopian, but is there something in the idea that an app can teach you which of your friends you shouldn't be hanging out with? That's the concept behind pplkpr -- peoplekeeper -- software that behaves like a food diary, but for your social life.
