With help from Crestron’s AMS-AIP home automation equipment and an intermediary proxy server, Apple iPhone 4S Siri can take over the highly intelligent voice control of lighting, temperature, home theater equipment and more; commanding your home’s WiFi thermostat by voice.

It’s not the first time Siri is used beyond the borders of usual tasks of iPhone 4S, and you can be sure, it won’t be the last one. I can see many new WiFi controlled devices may get a sticker “Siri Compatible” very soon. Talking to your thermostat in the middle of the cold winter night wouldn’t sound weird any more. Especially when listening to these silky soft and tender Siri lady answers and reports.

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New Samsung HDTVs UNES8000 LED and PNE8000 Plasma are really stunning pieces of rapidly evolving technology.  This time, it’s not just 55 inches of Super OLED goodness, or beautiful plasma screen on a second model, it’s these features bundled with both TVs, as per Samsung press release:

Consumers can use Samsung’s new Smart Interaction technology to easily manage their TV experience. By using Voice Control, Motion Control and Face Recognition features to complement the remote control, users can turn the TV on or off, adjust the volume or activate selected apps through speech. They can also use voice to activate the search function in the web browser and “tell” the TV what they are searching for.

The Super OLED’s built-in HD camera recognises movement in the foreground to enable intuitive control, and two unidirectional array microphones recognise voice at an incredibly accurate rate. Noise cancellation technology helps to separate any background noise from the user’s commands.

In other words, these TVs supposed not just watching you Big Brother style, they also listen to you carefully (that may mean selecting your voice out of ambient noise) and checking whether it is really you by face recognition feature.

However, one feature from Orwell’s “1984″ design guidelines for TVs is missing here: Samsung HDTVs presented may still have “Power OFF” button. I would suggest Samsung, for better Orwellian compliance, lose this button, together with the prohibited voice commands “Power OFF!”, “Shut OFF”, and the like.

Jokes aside, these “smart” TV features are still stunning. Face recognition for your kid can easily implement parental controls on content a kid is allowed to watch, or not to watch.

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