Developments in artificial intelligence, robotics and sensors (传感器) are making houses and apartments smarter than ever.

IT’S 6 A.M., and the alarm clock is ringing earlier than usual. It’s not a malfunction: the smart clock scanned your schedule and_______ because you’ve got that big presentation first thing in the morning. Your shower automatically turns on and warms to your preferred temperature. The electric car is_______ to go, charged by the solar panels. When you get home later, there’s a(n) _______package waiting, delivered by drone. You open it to find cold medicine. It turns out that health sensors in your bathroom detected _______of an approaching illness and placed an order automatically.

That at least is the ideal version of the smart home that exists 10 years out. Swedish research firm Berg Insight says 63 million American homes will_______as “smart” by 2022,with everything from Internet-connected light bulbs to cameras that let us spy on our pets from the office. But a decade from now, experts say, we’ll move from turning the lights on and off with our voices to total engagement in the Internet of Things (IoT)._______advancements in artificial intelligence, the smartest homes will be able to truly learn about their owners, eventually foretelling their_______. Developments in robotics will give us machines that offer a helping hand with cleaning, cooking and more. New sensors will be_______watching our well-being._______ to all of this will be the data that smart homes collect, analyze and act upon, helping to turn the houses of the future from a mere collection of devices and accessories into truly “smart” homes.

Of course, as our homes learn more about us, keeping them________will become all the more important. Every________ that’s connected to the Internet is a potential target for hackers. Therefore, cybersecurity will become all the more vital.

A range of technological developments will drive smart-home technology well beyond what’s available on store shelves today. Innovations in artificial intelligence, ________, stand to reverse almost everything in our lives, including our homes. You might already be using some kind of Al-powered voice-assistant device to get the latest news or weather forecast every morning. But in the smart home of the future, those AI platforms could serve as the brain for entire homes, learning about________and organizing and automating all of their various smart devices. IT company Crestron, for example, is working on software that________ a person’s habits, like which music they want to hear in the morning or which lights they want to be on at a certain time of the day. Then, once it knows a user’s________ automatically plays just the right playlists or dims the lights before bedtime.

After staying at home one afternoon for a delivery of discounted sink that never came, Valentin Romanov, a Stockholm IT manager, installed a special lock on his flat’s entrance. When no one is in, deliverymen unlock the door and slip packages inside. Four months on, Mr. Romanov has _________ his spending online and says he cannot imagine life without in-home deliveries. These are sweet words for delivery firms and online retailers (零售商), Amazon included, that are setting up _________ with lock manufacturers to overcome a big obstacle for e-commerce.

Traditional deliveries fail so _________ that a parcel is driven to a home an average of l.5 times in the Nordic region, says Kenneth Verlage, head of business development at PostNord, a logistics (物流) giant operating in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. It is an expensive _________ made worse, he says, by the fact that recipients have still often had to wait for a failed delivery. Some deliverers leave packages on doorsteps, but this _________ theft. Of 1,000 Americans surveyed this year by Shorr, a packaging firm, nearly a third had been victims of “porch piracy”, as this is known. Two-fifths _________ certain online purchases for fear of it.

A number of firms now sell wirelessly connected locks which a delivery person can open using a passcode or smartphone app after the _________ has issued a temporary authorization before leaving home or remotely. Deliveries are filmed with an indoor security camera paired with the lock. The short videos are sent to parcel addressees and typically _________, comically in Mr. Romanov’s view, with a jiggle (抖动) of the door handle from outside to show that the departing delivery person has locked up.

Amazon began offering in-home deliveries in 37 American cities in November. Shoppers who have had a special _________ and camera installed can select in-home delivery at checkout. Like most firms __________ the service, Amazon is tight-lipped about user numbers. The boss of August Home, a San Francisco maker of in-home delivery locks, says that already hundreds of thousands of delivery drivers, dog-walkers, cleaners and Airbnb guests use its app __________ to enter others’ homes.

Offerings are __________. In 2018 August Home will go to Australia and Britain, and PostNord will launch in-home delivery in four Nordic countries. Walmart and Sears have tried it: Sears even tested unattended appliance repairs. Five logistics firms and two Swedish supermarket chains are trying or using locks from Glue, a firm based in Stockholm, for in-home deliveries.

__________ suspect these efforts will not amount to much. Plenty of __________ will be fearful about theft.

Rhino Security Labs, a Seattle computer-security firm, claims it hacked into and shut off the video in one Amazon lock-and-camera system. In-home deliveries are incompatible (不兼容的) with theft alarms. And what if an improperly fenced-off dog or cat slips outside? Or a valuable item on display gets knocked over? These are __________ questions. But e-commerce firms have unlocked harder ones.

Throughout history, many lives have been lost at the hands of severe weather. Meteorologists (气象学家) and scientists alike are always investigating new ways to increase the warning time for storms, with the hope of reducing the ________ of lives. In the past few decades, local weather radar advancements have been made, which allow for better accuracy in ________ the paths of storms.

Meteorologists and scientists have been able to successfully track severe thunderstorms and possible tornadoes by using an advanced tracking system called NEXRAD (Next-Generation Radar). NEXRAD is a tracking network ________ 158 Doppler weather radars. And during a storm this high-resolution computerized ________ takes readings on the amount of precipitation (降水) in the air, the movements in the clouds, and the wind speeds.

These ________ are bounced back to a local weather computer, and a colorful image appears on the screen, giving meteorologists a clear picture of what kind of weather is on the horizon. This final image is what you see when the meteorologist breaks in with severe weather reports and warnings. Most ________, on your television screen you will see a computer animated image of the approaching storm.

If the storm is severe enough, then the National Weather Service (NWS) will ________ severe weather reports of severe thunderstorm warnings for your area. ________, the storm captured on the radar will have produced strong readable winds, detectable lightning, and some hail (冰雹). Paying attention to the weather map is ________ when severe weather is around.

On the television screen you will see several colors on the precipitation (降水量) map, ________ from blue (the lightest) to black (the heaviest). If the colors for your ________ area are yellow, take caution. If the colors range between orange and red, take cover immediately, as damaging winds and dangerous lightning have been reported.

When local weather radar in Atlanta, Georgia reported high winds, ________ wind patterns and large hail earlier this year, the National Weather Service issued a tornado ________. Meteorologists in the area used the collected data to predict what path the storm would take, ________ which areas needed to be warned.

Thanks to this technology, most residents received the severe weather reports early enough to seek ________ before the storm hit. Paying attention to your local weather source during severe weather plays a vital role in your safety.