Posted on 06/26/2015 8:53:38 PM PDT by Mad Dawgg
The battle to win over the consumer living room is getting intense. From Apple to Google to Microsoft to Sony and Samsung, everyone is eyeing for a place in our living rooms. Taking the fight to the next level, Amazon just turned its voice-activated personal assistant, Amazon Echo into a platform. It achieved this milestone before Apple and Microsoft could effectively exploit their smart assistant technologies based on Siri and Cortana. This move strengthens Amazons position in the consumer IoT market.
Amazon Echo was announced in November last year with the initial release limited to a select few individuals and Amazon Prime members. Much like Apple Siri and Microsoft Cortana, Amazon Echo is a voice-activated personal assistant ready to talk to you. It can answer questions, play music from your Amazon music library, read audio books from audible.com, act as a Bluetooth speaker for your phone and can even control connected bulbs and smart switches. Of course, Echo lets you place orders from Amazon.com. Those are certainly an impressive set of features for a V1 product. The device comes with a companion mobile app that can hook up Echo to your home WiFi access point and other connected devices like Philips Hue bulbs and Belkin WeMo switches. The Echo comes with an optional remote control for directly controlling the device instead of using voice commands. The Bluetooth-based remote comes handy in noisy environments.
The deceptively simple Amazon Echo has the potential to become the cornerstone of Amazons IoT strategy. Behind the scenes, the product exploits the massively powerful Amazon Web Services combined with sophisticated machine learning algorithms. The device heavily relies on Alexa, a search and analytics service that is extensively used across various services including A9 and Amazon.com.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
I don't usually get all that excited about gadgets but this seems like it has all sorts of potential.
Every home needs a big brother.
My home IoT consists of my desktop computer. Period. No reason to hook anything else to the Internet.
I’ve had mine for about 6 months now.
It’s pretty cool. It’s useful. But, it isn’t really life changing.
You gotta admit that is awesome hahahaha
I’m beginning to wonder if this alien umbilical ought to be cut off from home and family for the good of mankind.
"Once you connect to the Alien Umbilical you never go back!"
“Help, Amazon! I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up!”
I got one during the initial launch last November for $99. You really need to have Amazon Prime to get the most usefulness out of it but once you do I found it to be a very handy gadget. Some limitations I hope will be addressed in 2.0 down the road. After a couple weeks of it I sold it on eBay for $320 and really haven’t missed it.
It’s an open mic that sends the audio it hears to Amazon’s computers to be recognized. I don’t think Amazon is necessarily doing anything nefarious with it, but it seems like a fat target for anyone else to try to subvert.
My brother in law has this in the bedroom..thing just looks weird, I said “Alexa, how hot is it today” and most of the time she gets the correct info, but other times she will say “Sorry, I cant access this information right now, try again later” and also what stinks is that the news reports come from NPR if I wanted to fall asleep I would just turn on MSNBC
...and IoT you too!
I have a Commodore and The Clapper.....
I checked it out on Amazon. It’s nothing I need or want. I only play music in my car, and that’s when I’m not listening to Rush. I have a Kindle which I read in bed, and also read regular books. I hate audio books. If I want my lights turned on and off, I’ll get up off my fat ass and do it myself. If I have any questions to ask, I’ll do a search on my computer to find the answer. And if I want to order anything from Amazon, I’ll do that from my computer too. I don’t have a smart phone or iPhone, just a regular cell phone and a landline. About the only fancy electronic gadget I have is a Roku which works just fine for my needs. I’m a simple person with simple tastes.
Both are great inventions that became silly items with age.
Lived this long without this crap, and did quite well. Certainly do not see the need to jump on the airhead bandwagon now.............
Good thing it cannot hear him in his bathroom after a bad burrito night............
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