The openness makes both houses feel like one giant master suite, with little privacy between the spaces and pocket doors that tend to remain open.

WSJ: The Twin Houses of an Odd Couple

The prototype uses an open-source speech-recognition program called Pocket Sphinx, developed at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh, but Dr Kristensson reckons it would be easy to apply the same approach to commercially available programs like Nuance's Dragon.

ECONOMIST: Monitor

Instead criminals "should be punished in the pocket", Conservative Mr Lloyd said in an open letter laying out policing proposals.

BBC: PCC David Lloyd: 'Make suspects pay for police cell stay'